CALIFORNIA.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 709, 4 August 1870, Page 2

CALIFORNIA.

[CORRESPONDENT OF SOUTHBBK <3ROSas}, -./, ,' San Francisco, June 10. The golden city " oped its gates" one | bright April morning to a . party of adventurers, of. whom your, correspondent was •• • one, who ; had crossed the waters of the mighty Pacific,, jn search of famg and 'fortune amongst the citigens qf . the gJ»e4$ J( ...:■: " Republic of the West." Our passengers were as a rule diggers, about one-half from New Zealand, some prepared, io. go, jt »■ and set to work on the placers of Cali- f forma, the majority attracted by the glowing accounts Of the Alta of this city as to the demand and remuneration for j labor which was to be met.Jwith.as. soon- ,•/. as they set foot on tfcg wharves .of , San Francisco. But the Slopes of nearly {pf _ were doomed to be rudely checked. The first batch of papers we received on t»oard - 5 • were filled with details of mass meetings of unemployed laborers, and of the efforts . made by the Legislature, &<x, to alleviate their distresses. We were hardly inside the " golden gates " when the* ship was r surrounded by half-a-dozen boats with * \.j runners from as many various hotels, each lqud in daunting th§ Braises o| ihg' - ; partioular establishment to \yhigh he" wag attached. These would take you on shore free ; if you had much luggage, you had to wait for a large luggage boat, when you paid a dollar, half for self, half for jyoar r ' worldly goods and chattels. The ship would not move up to the wharf for three >; : or four days, perhaps for a week, so that you had to vegetate on a while longer itt iV ' ' your ship, or "cash up." I may conclude this paragraph by paying "that, in the course of .two months, not more than onethird of our passengers have got employ- • ment; that of the remainder those who can- , % ■ are returning; 1 and the lot of those "who } have not enough, money to doso is pitiable, indeed. Compared with Auckland, San Francisco is a great city jit has upwards ( : ; j of 170,000 inhabitants, and is the principal, almost thp only, port on the western; side of this continent, from the Arctic Ocean to Callao in Eerii, a distance 6f 6000 miles. Yet it is in America; oniy/a j i r fourth or fifth rate city, although destined in the future to be one of the firat, if not the very first, of the cities of this Great Republic. It will command the trade of . , the Eastj'Of India, China, the Malayan Archipelago, Australia, and Oceanica, with both Europe and America; It will be the Tyre, the Venice of the New World, and its merchants will rank with m the princes and the honorable ones of the earth. The building of, the Pacific Rail- - ; ..; way was the foundation of that prosperity

which it is destined to achieve. At the present time it ia true that there is a great depression in business matters, but this is only temporary, and due to accidental causes. The completion.of the above road has thrown on the labor market several; thousand working-men, who have failed of finding immediate employment, and are consequently in a state of great distress. While these were at work, the large amount which they received in wages : was again distributed through hundreds of subsidiary channels ; it passed from their hands into those of the grocer, the baker, butcher, draper, boarding-house keeper, &c, and from these into those of the merchant, farmer,. grazier, and of the owner of real estate in houses and land. When this supply failed, people'in all these several interests .found their . incomes coming down considerably, stocks of goods remained on their hands, and the diminished business necessitated the discharge of employe's, thus adding to the general depression. Money, noc being so plentiful, became dearer, and thus the business man was still further hampered in his operations. The real estate mania of a couple of years past, too, has contributed its share to bring about the general depression. Then nothing was talked of but houses and lots. Every one who had a cent was in a fever to invest in real estate ; thousands sank their all in purchasing desirable locations, which are at present unsaleable. Hence another reasou of the scarcity of specie, and the rise of the rate of interest. But the effects of the above causes are slowly passing away, the unemployed laborers are being gradually absorbed into the general mass of workmen, and unsaleable lots are becoming again of value, concurrently with the increase of population, and the consequent demand for houses. The Southern Pacific Railroad, too, will absorb a certain amount of labor, and place this city in direct communication with all the rich cotton and sugar States of the South. The country along both it and the Central Pacific will, ere long, be occupied by tens of thousands of settlers, and to a great proportion of them San Francisco will be the .source from which supplies will have to be drawn. If railways were made north and south along the line of the Pacific seaboard, it would be the depot for Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Northern and Western Mexico. So that the advent in this city of a prosperity the like of which the world has not yet seen, is only a question of time. The city, as designed, covers a vast amount of ground, only a portion of which is as yet occupied by buildings. It is laid out on a uniform plan, and has no suburb. It is surrounded landward by a range of hills, on some of which part of the. city is built. Nearly one half of the inhabited portion has beeii. reclaimed from the water of the bay. The latter is a noblo salt-water lake, stretching its' various arms some sixty miles into the land, and is comparable to no inlet of the sea in the Southern hemisphere, save the magnificent harbor _of Sydney. In certain plages the sandy ibottom.; is, left dry, sometimes to nearly a mile from the shore, at, the ebb tide. It is on sands like these that the made portion of this city is located. Even now, when you pass up Market and Mission streets, two-thirds of a mile from the water, you see high sandy bluffs, to whose bases, the waves, rolled a score of years since • and all around, where the ground is not occupied by buildings, you find nothing but sands. The city is paved with wood instead of stone, and most of the houses are constructed with the same material. This is partly attributable to the dread of earthquake shocks, and for this reason most of the substantial houses now putting up consist of a wooden framework case in brick or stone. Such is the Grand Hotel, now about being, completed. Not content with the ample dimensions of their city, the San Franciscans are particularly economical of space, and we have an underground city, almost rivalling in population that which rears its front to the fair light of heaven. To speak more plainly, nearly every house has a basement, what you would call a cellar, and these cellars are used as saloons, puWiehouses, tenetaKnt holdings, &n. The Vress is well represented, there being no less than threescore publications of -various characters, all included under the above heading. Of the morning dailies, the most important are the Alia, Call, and Chronick; of the evening papers, the Bulletin and Examiner. The former, whether considered on its literary merits, or as an organ of opinion, or collator of news, is the most respectable and high toned paper of the Press of this city. You are not used to evening papers of this character at the Antipodes, but in America they compete successfully with the morning papers, in every department. Then, we have a host of weeklies ; the Irish are represented by the Monitor and Irish News; the Germans, French, and Spaniards; have two or three weeklies a piece ; the two former have also dailies, and the Chinese their Flyiny Dmr/on. Besides these, nearly every class of sect has its peculiar organ issued weekly. The Hebrews, who are much more numerous in California than in the Australias, have two; the Odd Fellows have their organ ; so have the Firemen, &c, &c. There are three exclusively commercial papers. The steamboat and railroad accomodation is something undreamed of in New Zealand or Australia. If you were passing along the crowded streets of this city, and were anything of a biblical student, you might imagine, yourself amongst the crowd who congregated to build the tower of Babel : on each side of you, you hear German, French, Spanish, and Chinese spoken fully as much as you do English. The Mongolian element ia a large and constantly increasing one. You know little about it in New Zealand"; you have to visit the Chinese quarter of Melbourne to form a notion as to the appearance and habits of the son& of the Celestial Kingdom. Here we have whole blocks occupied by the business stores of rich Chinamen, you can see them pursuing trades of all sorts, carpenters, butchers, barbers, cobblers, &c. They have a theatre, and, in fact, in certain parts of the city, but for the. aspect of the houses, yon might iihagino yourself in Shanghai or Canton. Chinese dames of good and bad repnte strut in all the glory of paint and Chinese, finery. Chinese boys and girls play about with as much vif and enjoyment as Caucasian onesj and Chinese youths may be detected sparring and larking with as much, liveliness as any gamins of Auckland or Sydney. They are in general quiet and industrious, but are in very bad odour with the white laboring population, as they till every department of industry, wprk^ng .for less wages, and being more servile than the

Caucasian. A great number of them are little less than slaves to their rich countrymen. Such is the dislike to them, that the proposal to g^ant from the funds of the city a subsidy', of a million dollars to t"he South 'Pacific ""Railroad was defeated because it was suspected that the company intended to employ Chinamen. This is a bad.time for emigration from New Zealand4or>those who' have, to depend on their 'labor alone. To other emigrants whom the spirit of restlessness will not allow to settle down quietly in New Zealand, California affords fair attraction. There is abundance of excellent land to be obtained, at prices varying from two and a half dollars or ten shillings to five, dollars or One pound per acre. -■ And: the agriculturist'has a- country to select from ranging over 700 miles of latitude, producing in abundance the fruits and cereals of* both the tropical and temperate zones, and with a climate almost unequalled, and very much resembling that of the northern parts of New Zealand. The soil is better in general than that of Australia, not so good as that of New Zealand, but then there are no Maoris to drive . back. I would advise ' any New Zealand farmer to remain at home, but, if he will emigrate, California is the best place for him. Some have a horror of California, because they hear of the frequent use of the knife and six-shooter, but keep away from the drinking saloons and you are as safe as in your own parlor in. Auckland. Steam communication between this city and New Zealand is imperatively demanded for the welfare of the latter. Possessed ai boundless natural resources, of a climate suited to the life and habits of the European immigrant, and of gold mines not to be surpassed by those of : Victoria or California, the British isles of the Southern Pacific make comparatively little progress. This is chiefly owing to the hostility of the native race, and that hostility can in no 'other way be rendered harmless but through the medium of aiV extensive- European immigration, which shall fill the land and render the' Maori race a minority eveiii in the most secluded part of the country. Time was when fair and Chris tianlike dealing would have for ever secured the goodwill of the natives, but that time has gone by, and nothing remains but to drive them — so to say — in the midst of a white population. And the route which the stream of immigration would find the most convenient to follow is undoubtedly that from Liverpool via New York and the Central Pacific Railway to San Francisco, thence to Auckland. The Australian immigration, too, would follow in the same track. With afleet of first-class powerful steamers the route might be travelled within 40 days, namely,— lo from Liverpool to New York, 7 from New York to San Francisco, .25 thence to Auckland. They could touch at Honolulu and the Fijis, and thus gather to themselves the whole of commerce of the Pacific. After some little time, the fare for the lower class of passengers might be reduced to a sum not-, exceeding L2O from Liverpool say to Sydney: L 4 to New York, "L 8 to, San Francisco, and- L8 to Sydney ; and these rates would pay. But to .do this requires the aid of American csipital and American enterprise. Neither New Zealand nor Australia is able to compass the work alone. The matter has attracted some attention recently at Washington, but the Americans can afford to wait, whereas the people of New Zealand cannot." The matter should be taken up by the General Assembly, and negotiations entered into with prominent politicians at Washington, and there is then no doubt of success. I have not spoken of the line of steamers which; Australian enterprise has caused to be laid on between Sydney and Honolulu, but — not to say that they do not immediately concern you — they are only a temporary expedient, they are inefficient/and will be kept on only as long as working people continue to pour in from Australia in search of an imagined elysium of labor in California.