THE PRESENT JUNCTURE.— CALIFORNIA.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 387, 4 August 1849, Page 92

THE PRESENT JUNCTURE.— CALIFORNIA.

[From the Sydney Morning Herald.']

Without pretending to anything more than the use of our common faculties of observation, we may safely pronounce of the present time that it is a great era. In this respect it is similar to the sixteenth century. The same revulsion against spiritual and political tyranny, the same craving for novelties of thought, of word, and of deed, of action, declaration, and speculation ; the same spirit of awakened enterprise, warlike and commercial, the same outcry and necessity for organic and social change in old and settled countries, the same attractions to colonists from new, if not newlydiscovered, at least unpopulated countries, the same aspiring, but more widley felt and better directed, for contributing personal efforts and private means to the improvement of the human race — distinguish the nineteenth as they did the sixteenth century. In one particular the resemblance is very perfect — the discovery of mineral wealth. In all probability the same effect in stimulating avarice, and the arts, commercial adventure and civilization, will arise in our generation as did in that other period according to the testimony of the most approved historians. Betwixt this age and that, there are however very great differences from which somewhat happier results may be looked for in the end and sum, as well aB in the stages and terms of the progression. Some of these existing and prospective differences we propose to notice. The most important existing difference is, that the predominant empires of the former age, Spain and France, and the Ecclesiastical Power of General Christendom, were opposed to the principles of true freedom, true civilization, and general happiness; whilst those States in whose constitutions salutary principles were interwoven, or whose governments were accustomed to righteous practices, were either of minor importance, struggling or disunited, and were obliged to content themselves with the defensive. It is very different now. Spain, France, Italy, and Austria, are trembling,

not simply for the despotic exercise of their power, but for their very existence ; and England, free in her institutions, free in the habits and spirit of her individual citizens, and basing her claims for confidence on her generally just, liberal, and sometimes over lenient conduct towards the rest of the world, has acquired an influence more extended than any of the former states in their palmiest days. Next to her is her then unborn offspring the Republic of America, whose influence is becoming daily more diffused both by tbe laudable and the questionable endeavours of her people, by her armies, her merchant ships, and her missions. Minerals, both of the precious and the useful kinds, are beginning to be turned up in almost every soil of Britain's extensive colonies, and we need not advert to the effects. They are obviously of tbe most beneficial description. Our late accounts from California are of the most wonderful character, and if the expectations entertained be not grossly exaggerated, the consequence to the human race — to those nations especially whose manners, powers, means, and curiosity, have been hitherto stereotyped and thrice baked in the mould of unchangeable fashion, and are now likely to be broken in upon by the penetrating and irresistible force of Anglo-American and English intercourse— must be incalculably important. • If the Californian business goes oa as it now promises, no doubt it will in the first instance draw together discontented, indebted, and avaricious multitudes, and demoralization, disease, and deplorable suffering, and perhaps serious outrages will ensue, and much Buffering will be undergone by the earliest settlers. The immediate consequence will be that the government of the Uuited States will interpose with 6trong military and civil establishments, and so will bring the regions lately acquired by the Republic into a settled condition. The whole of the west coast of America will then become fit for decent industrious people, be speedily colonized, become the resort of the East Asian traders, and, in one and a true sense become (what China thus become its neighbour boasted to be), the centre of the world. The old and new worlds will be united at all their sides. The great wall of China, not the stone wall on the north, but her wall of exclusion all round, will fall prostrate. Central Asia, the Indian Archipelago, and Polynesia, will become mere thoroughfares and stationplaces betwixt the various settlements of the Anglo-Terraquean race. British manufactures will pour in everywhere — Backwoodsmen will reclaim the arable lands— even "the hunters wild on Ponotaxi " (or whatever else be the \ name of the settlements of the North West Company), will feel tbe impulse, and the seas will be cleared of pirates. The great accession of strength with which the discovery of a gold region will be attended in favour of the United States of America, can only be appreciated after a consideration of the pecuniary difficulties to which the several members of the Union have been subjected, of the narrow fiscal resources which the Union possesses compared with the increased expenses which her new acquisitions must entail to govern and defend them, of the internal scarcity of metallic money, and of the very large quantity which she must always for many years hence send away in payment of foreign commodities. By means of this great discovery she may become a very formidable state, and if the worst comes to the worst, a powerful auxiliary to Britain, with whom her relations nave lately assumed a very agreeable aspect. Perhaps ere long they may each equally require the other's assistance. For if the Californian business go on, the Empeor of Russia will perhaps find that, even with serf labour, he is unable to work his gold mines in the Ural mountains to so much advantage as he anticipated. It is understood that this potentate has been limiting the quantity of that product, judiciously reflecting that by so doing he would sell his gold at a better price, and preserve a permament resource. But no such limitation can be imposed upon the working of the Californian mines. The Autocrat will consequently be driven out of the market, or else submit to an abatement, and possibly he may not be able to work his metal at all. Hence will come comparative impoverishment, positive discontent, and possibly a disposition to pick . a quarrel with America, or with anybody, for no dependence can be placed upon tbe pacific policy ot-skt*-surance of a semi-barbarous power. Its safety may depend upon keeping its subjects at war, and in paying them with the plunder of other countries, and if by the settlement of California the overland trade of Russia with Asia [is deflected to the isles, and destroyed by rival England and America, there is no saying what she may do to spite them, nor what may take place thereafter. But certainly, land, houses, and all useful and productive commodities will rise in value — wool, we hope, with the rest — not merely from the relative fall in that of gold, but from the stimulation administered to their interchange in traffic.