RECEPTION OF MR W. H. WEBB IN SAN FRANCISCO.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 20, 10 June 1871, Page 5

RECEPTION OF MR W. H. WEBB IN SAN FRANCISCO.

Agreeably to notice, a meeting of the members of the Mechanics’ Institute was held in the lecture room of the Institute, for the purpose of extending a welcome to the distinguished mechanic and shipbuilder, W. H. Webb, when the Mayor of the city made a speech, from which we make the following excerpta: — Ladies and Gentlemen, —It is certainly very unexpected to me to be called upon to make any remarks at this time. I came here to unite with you in extending to Mr Webb a most cordial welcome. And as chief magistrate of the city I am very happy to appear here and to assure Mr Webb thai we all know him by reputation', and are rejoiced to have the opportunity of seeing him in our midst, "We know that he is, and for many years has been famed for being one of the live men of New York. "We know that his “ works” will live after him. He is just the man we want on this coast —a man full of energy and enterprise, and not afraid of lions in his path. The thing we have to look out for is the commerce of the Pacific coast. If we can have half a dozen steamship lines or more running from this to foreign ports, established by such men as Mr Webb, we may control in a vast degree all inter-contiuental traffic on the Pacific Ocean. This proposed Australian line will bring, I think, a business far exceeding the average expectation. I have paid some attention to the subject since it was first prominently agitated, and I am satisfied that there is an immense travel between Australia and Europe and the trafic of travel between those countries amounts to many to millions of dollars. It is fair presume that a large proportion of these travellers will prefer to make at least one trip this way. I belieye they can go through in less time by tflts route. Certainly by this route they will go through a healthy country —all the way. They will by this route escape the hot, sultry clirnate they have to experience by the other passage.

The “ San Francisco News Letter” says :— ‘ The presence of so rich a man as Wm. H. Webb means that we are to have some new mercantile blood here, and it is much needed. In fact, we frequently feel as though all writing is vain, so long as such ajarge proportion of our moneyed men are Kip Van Winkles, who live in aud look back only to the past. A few Webbs and Holladays will either wake these sleepers up, or what is more probable, bury them. We hazard the prophecy that in ten years hence many of those who now stand at the top of our mercantile and monetary heap will have been completely supplanted, and will find themselves filling secondary positions in the employ of new men like Webb. We could, in half an hour, eelect a hundred of our so-called prominent men, wbo might for a year look through the largest magnifying glass; and then fail to see a cent in the establishment of a line of steamers to Australia; but Webb can see money in the project, and he will yet make thousands from it where our note-in hand dealers will clear tens out of their schemes. The time is past when the eyes of a mole will serve a merchant’s business in California. We need, and we are beginning to get from abroad, men who have eyes for the

future; who can see money even when their hands are not shut upon it, and profits outside of two per cent per month.