Progress of the Americans. The Polynesian (Honolulu)
February 21, 1852
An English journalist, speaking of the United States, in all the elements of national prosperity, sums up:
“In an interval of little more than half a century it appears that this extraordinary people have increased above 500 per cent, in numbers; their national revenue has augmented nearly 700 per cent, while their public expenditure has increased a little more than 400 per cent. The prodigious extension of their commerce is indicated by an increased of nearly 500 per cent, in their imports and exports, and 600 percent in their shipping. The increased activity of their internal communications is expounded by their number of post offices, which has been increased more than a hundred fold, the extent of their post roads, which has been increased thirty-six fold, and the cost of their post offices, which has been augmented in a seventy-two fold ratio.
“The augmentation of their machinery of public instruction is indicated by the extent of their public libraries, which have increased in a thirty-two fold ratio, and by the creation of school libraries, amounting to 2,000,000 volumes.
“They have completed a system of canal navigation, which, placed in a continuous line, would extend from London to Calcutta, and a system of railways which, continuously extended, would stretch from London to Van Diemen’s Land, and have provided locomotive machinery by which that distance would be traveled over in three weeks, at a cost of 1 1-2d per mile. They have created a system of inland navigation, the aggregate tonnage of which is probably not inferior in amount to the collective inland tonnage of all the other countries of the world, and they possess many hundreds of river steamers, which impart to the roads of water the marvelous celerity of roads of iron.
“They have, in fine, constructed lines of electric telegraph which, laid continuously, would extend over a space longer by 3000 miles than the distance from the north to the south pole, and have provided apparatus of transmission by which a message of 300 words dispatched under such circumstances from the north pole might be delivered in writing at the south pole in one minute, and by which, consequently, an answer of equal length might be sent back to the north pole in an equal interval.
“These are social and commercial phenomena for which it would be vain to seek a parallel in the past history of the human race.”
The London Shipping Gazette has this paragraph, in the course of an article upon the future of America:
“We have no desire, at present, to enter upon any question of disputed policy; but we wish to record an opinion, that the empire of the seas must, before long, be ceded to America; its persevering enterprise, its great commerce, and its accruing wealth, are certain to secure this prize; nor will England be in a situation to dispute it with her. With this crowning capital to its power, the onward march of the United States to what we believe will be overwhelming greatness, might not be so speedily accomplished; but America, as mistress of the ocean, must over stride the civilized world.”
