lines.

The evidence is now before me, that of the correspondence, for instance, between the United States and Switzerland, out of 5,000 letters, 4,800 were transmitted by British vessels, owing, it is believed, mainly to the circumstance of the known regularity of these vessels in sailing on a given day. Why may not the same regularity be established and maintained by American ships? Let this be done, and no good reason is perceived why they may not carry an equal proportion of the mails, the postage on which would afford a fair compensation for the service.

SOUTHERN OCEAN MAILS.-As calculated to furnish the requisite facilities of communication between Europe and the Southern and Southwestern States, the projected lines between Norfolk and Eng. land and between New-Orleans and Bordeaux, in France, are among the most important to be established. It is unnecessary to point out the advantages these lines would be certain to have in developing the resources of those States. They could not fail to be otherwise than highly satisfactory. The lines to Bremen and Havre, touching at Southampton, should be continued, and, if practicable, increased to semi-monthly service. A Bremen company is now running fine steamers semi-monthly between New-York and Bremerhaven, carrying the mails for the postages. If this can be done by parties in Bremen, why not, also, by enterprising citizens of the United States, and thus secure a regular and permanent weekly communication? Such an arrangement would not only afford the best and cheapest means for the transmission of the mails between the United States and continental Europe, and it may be to and from the East Indies by the way of Trieste, but it would also be highly advantageous in a commercial point of view. With reference to an American overland communication to India, via Trieste, the Postmaster-General is credibly informed that negotiations are pending to this end between the Lloyds steamship companies of Bremen and Trieste, and the intermediate railroad companies; and that it is intended to take effect so soon as a weekly line is established between the United States and Bremen. It is believed that this route will furnish cheaper and better facilities of communication than any existing route.

As regards a line from some suitable port in the United States to Brazil, and the extension of the California line from Panama to the South Pacific coast, which, for commercial as well as for mail purposes, it is so desirable should be established, and the line from NewOrleans to Vera Cruz, it is apparent that the postages to be derived therefrom would defray but a trifling portion of the expense of the service. The Postmaster-General regards it as highly important that the line to Vera Cruz should be continued. From the first of July to the first of November of this year, there was no mail upon this line, and temporary service is now performed for the postages only, in the hope that Congress will immediately authorize the making of a contract at a reasonable compensation. The Postmaster-General respectfully recommends this, and that the same authority be granted respecting lines to Brazil and the South Pacific. The contract on the Charleston and Havana line will expire on the

30th of June next, and this, also, it is apparent, will require other aid than what could be derived from the postages to sustain it. The Vera Cruz and Havana lines, as well as the lines to California, should be classed as coastwise, and, whether susceptible of being sustained from the postages or not, should not be subject to that restriction.

In his last annual report the Postmaster-General recommended an appropriation for one year's extension of the mail steamship contract on the Pacific, between Panama, San Francisco, and Astoria, in order that the service by the connecting lines on the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the Isthmus of Panama might terminate simultaneously, as originally intended by Congress. A specific appropriation for this purpose was made in the act of June 14, 1858; but as the fourth section of said act contains the provision, also, above mentioned, that the compensation under any new ocean mail steamship contract shall be limited to the postages on the mails so transported, the question was raised as to whether this provision was intended by Congress to apply to the proposed extension of the Pacific mail steamship contract. This question was submitted to the AttorneyGeneral, who decided that it could not have been so intended; and, accordingly, the contract with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, which expired on the 1st of October, 1858, was extended at the same rate of compensation to the 1st of October, 1859, the date of expiration of the contract on this side of the Isthmus, the company agreeing also to transport from the Pacific terminus of the Tehuantepec transit, to and from San Francisco, all mails regularly conveyed between New-Orleans and such Pacific terminus of the Tehuantepec route, without additional compensation.

The New-York and New-Orleans Steamship Company, running a line of steamers between those cities via Havana, heretofore carrying only a ship-letter mail, have entered into contract with the Department for semi-monthly trips, except in July, commencing 1st of August last, and to continue till 30th June, 1860, at a compensation limited to the sea and inland postages on the mails transported. Up to 12th November, six round trips have been performed, the average pay per trip amounting to $903.

TEHUANTEPEC ROUTE AND EAST INDIAN COMMERCE.-By the time the contracts for the California lines, via Panama and Tehuantepec, expire, on the 1st October, 1859, it is probable that the route by Lake Nicaragua will have been re-opened, and in successful operation. This presents the question, whether one, two, or all three of these routes shall thereafter be employed for mail purposes. The Tehuantepec route is the shortest and most readily protected against interruptions; but it will be comparatively too new, and the line of staging too long, to furnish with certainty adequate and satisfactory communication between our Atlantic and Pacific possessions. While it is destined, no doubt, to become a transit of the first importance, it will deserve the highest patronage and encouragement, still it cannot supersede the necessity of one or more routes through Central America. Indeed, every year is demonstrating that the United States may need, not only for postal, but for commercial purposes of vast magnitude, additional transit routes.

The Panama Isthmus route is now used only under a contract with the railroad company, who, in turn, hold it by a charter granted by the local government. This company might, at any time, refuse to contract with the United States, or its demands for transportation might be so exorbitant as to amount to a prohibition. After much controversy, the department has not been able to reduce the price of transportation of the mails upon it below one hundred thousand dollars per annum-a price believed to be entirely too high for only 48 miles of railroad; and there will be the same exposure to exorbitant demands upon the Nicaragua route under the direction of a private company. To relieve the department from a condition so dependent, as well as to create a competition which might prevent extortion, it is of the highest importance that the route by Nicaragua should be re-opened, and its undisturbed use for the transportation of the mails, passengers, troops, and munitions of war, secured by the solemn guarantees of a public treaty. Without this, in view of the unstable condition of the local governments of Central America, the safety and security of transportation can hardly be relied on. Contracts given by these governments to individuals or companies, in the absence of a regular treaty, under which, if necessary, the power of the United States might be invoked to enforce fulfilment, may be irregularly, if not unjustly revoked, and the department be embarrassed by the rival claims of contending parties, unable to determine satisfactorily with whom it should contract.

The late treaties with China and Japan, and the rapid growth and vast mineral resources of Australia, have made all the transit routes of Central America of increased importance to the United States. By them the Atlantic section of our country would be enabled equally with that of the Pacific to participate in that Asiatic commerce which made Tyre, Alexandria, Venice, and Genoa, the markethouses of the world. It is the almost exclusive enjoyment of this trade which makes Great Britain the first commercial power of modern times.

The United States, from her mediate position between Europe and Asia, and from her agricultural productions, particularly those of cotton and tobacco, ought now to participate largely in the advantages of this trade. This she would be enabled to do by the free use of these transits, and by other communications already opened and in successful operation between the Atlantic and Pacific States, especially when these communications are taken in connection with the establishment of a steam mail line from San Francisco to Japan and China. Such a line, it is confidently believed, would draw to it not only the correspondence and travel of our own country, but of Great Britain and most of the continent of Europe. These, with its commercial profits, would probably sustain it without any other subsidy than the postages on the mails conveyed. After the first three years, the Department feels confident that no subsidy whatever would be required to sustain it. Before even three years will expire, there is every probability that a line of telegraphs will be completed from San Francisco to New-York, and, indeed, to every important

city on the Atlantic. Such a line is already made, as we understand, nearly to the summit of the great Nevada. Letters written in England, and many parts of the continent, are transmitted by steamers to Boston, New-York, &c., in from nine to eleven days. They can be transmitted by telegraph to San Francisco in one or two days at most, and thence shipped by the mail line to Japan, and China, Australia, &c.-No other mode of communication can be as expeditious as this; and such correspondence would, therefore, constitute, with the regular full letter correspondence passing through this country, no inconsiderable element for the support of such a line. It is a very singular fact, that the minister from Japan to the United States, instead of coming eastward direct to San Francisco, and thence to Washington, is expected to go to England by the Isthmus of Suez, and thence take passage to the city of New-York. So our ministers to China must go and return by the same circuitous route. The probability that by suitable exertions much of this trade, travel, and correspondence, can be made to pass over this continent, is to be found in the strenuous exertions now making by Great Britain to secure the same through her own Canadian possessions. This rivalry of effort is for the greatest commerce of the world, and should call forth, as doubtless it will, the energies of both nations to secure such portions of it as each shall think itself fairly entitled to receive.

ART. IX.-THE SOUTH AND PROGRESS.

SENATOR HAMMOND'S BARNEWELL SPEECH.

THIS able and patriotic speech, with its clear and statesmanlike views, has attracted public attention; but as a Texan we are disposed to discuss and controvert some of its positions.

Gov. Hammond intimates that no new slave territories are to be had, and that the South must remain quiescent with its present area of slave territory. To this political doctrine we are not inclined to submit. Since the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the area of slave territory in the United States has been extended by the purchase of Louisiana and the Floridas, and by the annexation of Texas. The democratic party, since the days of President Jefferson, has been the uniform advocate of expansion and progress, and to urge that the democracy of the South should now come to a "dead halt," and ground arms to the Black Republicans, is a sentiment which many here in Texas, on the outer verge of the Southern frontier, are disinclined to adopt. We believe there is more slave territory to be acquired-there are countries we may obtain legitimately, where Southern men may go with their property, and continue their domestic institutions. The right

bank of the Rio Grande, from Arizona to the mouth of that noble river, stretches out before us, inviting occupation, and almost begging a protectorate. There Southern men may gothere they may establish their institutions, and cause their property to be protected, by establishing a new State on the most legitimate basis, the consent of the governed. With Texas as the boundary on the left bank of the Rio Grande, and a territory reaching to the Sierra del Madre on the right, a new State can be added to the South, by the assent of the rancheros and voting population, and slavery, which was planted there by the Spaniards, under the benevolent scheme of the pious Las Casas, and flourished for so many years, may be again successfully revived. The addition of one or several Southern States to the Union will not, we are aware, restore that equilibrium, the loss of which was so much deplored by Mr. Calhoun; but the acquisition of another Southern State, on the southern side of the Rio Grande, will give strength to the South, in the Union or out of it.

Senator Hammond intimates that the South may be compelled to go out of the Union, but he suggests NOT YET. He cannot, however, deny the possibility, if not probability, of disunion, and it is for that contingency, serious as it may be, that the South ought to be prepared. The Senator well remarks, that before "these Southern States will be placed in the condition of St. Domingo or Jamaica, or one at all approximating to it, they will rend this Union into fragments, and plunge the world in ruin." We trust that by a close union of the South, and the adoption of the expansive principle, we may anticipate a more happy catastrophe. The South vindicating her rights in defence of her institutions, may bring the world to her own terms-obtain an acknowledgment of a distinct nationality, and, by treaty stipulations, secure adequate protection for her rights and property.

Thousands of rifles are sleeping in Texas and the Southern States, ready to awake at the call of a leader, and become an "Army of Occupation" in that broad territory between Monterey and the Rio Grande. They will be ready to establish a protectorate over that portion of Northern Mexico, or annex it to the Union, under a democratic form of government-at all events, in the Union or out of it, to hold the territory ready for united action with the South, if, in the course of human events, the Federal Constitution should be abrogated by the aggressions of abolitionists.

We cannot subscribe to the sentiment of the distinguished Senator, that no new slave territory is to be had by the South. It appears to be a novel application of the "masterly inac