be compelled to drop down to the Indian Ocean, accepting cheaper ocean transport as the compensation for greater distance and slower time.

But that portion of the line traversing our own continent is capable of very great abbreviation. The line of the Union and Central Pacific roads, already finished, it should be remembered, is a compromise line, in which important advantages inure to local interests. The Northern Pacific, crossing our interior mountain chains at much lower altitudes, with a more direct alignment, and passing over an immense zone of the public domain, claims to offer a land transit across the continent at least three hundred miles shorter than other routes, besides an ocean navigation from Seattle, its western terminus, to China and Japan, some five hundred miles shorter than from San Francisco to the same countries. This office is not prepared to verify the exact figures of these estimates, but it satisfactorily appears that they embody an important truth. Other abbreviations of this land route may be effected by other railway enterprises as the necessities of trade and travel may demand. We have, then, partially developed the elements of a main line of traffic and travel girdling the earth near the fortieth parallel. Along this the mass of the trade of the northern hemisphere will ere long be made to pass. The commercial ascendency of northern Europe is a thing of the past. It was suited to the imperfectly developed commercial and industrial aptitudes of the passing age; but world-wide civilization is now beginning to assume its rounded development. The barbarism of the Western Continent is now completely overshadowed, and the semi-barbarism of the Eastern Continent undermined, by progressive influences and ideas. The Yang-tse-Kiang is already vexed with the paddle of the steamer; foreign commerce is pushing its cargoes up that river eight hundred miles from Shanghai into the very heart of China. That great monarchy, hoary, superannuated, decrepit, must rely for the prolongation of its existence upon once despised "outside barbarians"-another "sick man" in the Old World. A Mohammedan insurrection has for years been disintegrating the four western provinces of China Proper, while the wandering Tartars in the dependencies of the empire are learning the weakness of the power which has for centuries enslaved them. The Semitic governments of Asia are breaking down through the infirmities of age and natural decay, and sinking before the onslaught of occidental commerce and conquest. We see, as the Commissioner has had occasion in another paper to remark, the fulfillment of that ancient prophecy, "God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem."

The social and political status of Asia has within the last century been subjected to influences which promise to result in a complete revolution. The first European adventurers that came in contact with the Chinese were not of a character to inspire very lofty ideas of western culture and civilization, nor to humble the lofty pride nurtured by four thousand years of imperial sway.

The yielding deportment of the English East India Company, submitting to every indignity for the sake of trade, confirmed the Celestials in their contempt of foreigners. This led to hostilities with England and France, whose naval and military operations, in the different wars from 1839 to 1860, demonstrated the superiority of western civilization. The ascendency of Europeans in China is now an accomplished and irre vocable fact, accepted by public opinion. This popular impression is less the fruit of military success than of the quiet operation of commercial intercourse. The introduction of the improvements in navigation and internal communications by foreigners, and the increased value of

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business naturally resulting therefrom, have awakened new ideas and wants which can be met by no agency in the old system of society.

But the other nations of Asia are passing through the same series of organic changes. Semitic conservatism and exclusiveness are yielding to the molding influences of a universal civilization. Diversities of race and religion will soon cease to interpose barriers to the free intercourse of nations, and will soon fade away before the increasing power of commerce, the spread of intelligence, and the unification of faith. In the midst of these social changes, the activity of political movements is no less marked and effective. Europe has settled down upon a policy of systematic conquest in Asia, the operations of which are by no means suspended in the so-called intervals of peace; while the gates of Janus are shut the wiles of diplomacy and the ceaseless movements of trade are undermining the native potentates, and preparing the aggressive forces which, upon the first specious pretext, are to be hurled against them, resulting in the entire or partial conquest of their dominions.

On the

On the north the semi-Asiatic empire of Russia has been for ages pushing its conquests eastward and southward, absorbing great continental areas, and welding the most diverse popular elements into a single political system. Her left flank, as remarked in a previous report, has been pushed across the Amoor, and now rests half-way down the sea of Japan, within eight hundred miles of Pekin, while her right has swept across nearly the whole of Turkistan, threatening the Anglo-Indian frontier. The drift of the controlling forces of Russian civilization is eastward to the Pacific. The exiles of Siberia, embracing the ardent, energetic, and irrepressible elements of the population, whose presence in the European provinces was deemed inconsistent with the peace of the Russian system, have, amid the bleak desolation of the northern slope of the contisocial system, nent, where serfdom has never planted its foot, built up vigorous, compact, and energetic, ready to respond to the call of the free civilization which we are now planting across the Pacific. south, England has built up a splendid commercial and military empire, radiating her civilization downward from the seat of authority by means of internal improvements projected on a most comprehensive plan. While missionaries of a hundred Christian churches are engaged in remodeling the social and moral elements of the population, the industrial system of India has been remodeled and reduced to an entire dependence upon that of England. Very little effort is made to conceal the fact, as heretofore suggested, that a grand objective point of British policy is to transform Hindostan into a market for English manufactures, and a field for the production of raw material. An army of 150,000 men, 70,000 of whom are Europeans, are maintained out of the revenues of the Indian empire, which afford also large surplus for the home treasury. Over 5,000 miles of railway have been completed, giving to this imposing military force facilities for concentration upon given points that will triple or quadruple their efficiency. France has reopened a career of conquest and colonization in Farther India, and evidently looks to a large interest in the expected dismemberment of Central Asiatic empire.

During the past year no rupture of the public peace has been chronicled, but the forces of conflict are being silently mustered. In the mean time, however, this "eastern question" has broadened its issues to embrace interests unthought of in its earlier stages. A new empire of democracy has established itself on what was lately the abode of barbarism, the western coast of the North American continent. This republic has a commanding position in the disposal of Asiatic nationalities which

it is amply able to vindicate, by force if necessary, but which it proposes to secure by the peaceful influences of a higher civilization. We have no territorial ambition beyond our own continent to bring us in collision with the reigning powers of Asia; we recognize the full and perfect equality of nations, and the right of each to regulate its foreign policy and its domestic institutions. This character of our foreign policy has been uniformly maintained in our intercourse with the powers of the Old World.

As American resources upon the Pacific slope are developed, our moral and physical influence in the Asiatic problem increases, while the rupture of the peace of the world for purposes of conquest and aggrandizement by the European powers involves wider interests and graver consequences. This significant fact has been already noticed by the governments of Eastern Asia, which are now learning to lean upon the moral support of this republic in the long contest for existence which they have maintained against European powers. China, disenchanted of her illusions with regard to her superiority over other countries, has sought to secure her admission into the family of civilized nations, and thus escape absorption by European conquest, which has been the fate of so many Oriental states. Under American influences she consents that her hoary civilization should be reconstructed, and that those improvements in science and art which have enabled western nations to prevail against her, should be incorporated into her social system. Our aim will be to give her such moral and diplomatic support as will enable her to avoid the entangling complications which European diplomacy is weaving, and enable her to reach a higher social organization and a nobler individual manhood. The reward of our labors, in addition to the glory of justice and fair dealing, will be the opening of a more intimate and lucrative commercial intercourse than ever was awarded to any nation, while the industries of the republic and its domestic trade will receive accelerated development.

The agencies of American landed policy in securing these results have already been referred to, and are presented in detail in papers accompa nying this report. We will never be able, perhaps, fully to appreciate our indebtedness in this respect to the illustrious statesmen in our national councils who originally devised this system, and those who at different times have enlarged its scope of beneficent influence. The public domain has reached in its enlargement an area equal to 2,867,185 square miles, or 1,834,998,400 acres. From this landed interest Congress has made princely endowments for educational purposes; common schools; agricultural and mechanic colleges and universities; for military bounties in the war of the Revolution, in the war of 1812 with Great Britain, of 1847 with Mexico, and Indian wars; in furtherance of internal improvements on a large scale, general and special; in aid of the reclamation of swamp and overflowed lands; for the construction of canals; for wagon roads; for seats of government and public buildings; for deaf and dumb asylums; for individual Indian reservatrons; for the confirmation of millions of acres in satisfaction of foreign titles; for the construction of railways from 1850 to 1867, including the transcontinental lines, this item alone reaching 182,108,581.40 acres.* Then the government has watched over the advancing settlers, securing them in their homes, first upon lands surveyed, offered and unoffered, then giving legal inception to settlements before surveys, and expanding the principle along railway concessions.

Exclusive of wagon roads, which, if added, will make a grand aggregate of 185,890,794.67 acres.

The area of the United States, within the limits recognized and defined by the treaty of peace in 1783, embraces 824,248 square miles, or 327,518,720 acres. Of this surface there was claimed by different States, under colonial charters, yet which was ceded by them for the common benefit, a surface, designated as public lands, equal to 354,000 square miles, or 226,560,000 acres, which constituted the nucleus of the national proprietorship.

At the opening of the American Revolution we had within our limits, according to Seybert's Statistics, only two million three hundred and eighty-nine thousand three hundred persons of every description. Now we have a population of forty millions of inhabitants, with nearly two thousand millions of acres as national territory, with a geographical surface of the whole Union equal to nearly four millions of square miles, with the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as frontiers, the former the highway to European commerce, the latter giving us a dominating position for the control of Asiatic trade, while we have as the boundary, in part, the great northern lakes of the continent, and on the south the Gulf of Mexico. Gibbon, in surveying the extent of the Roman Empire at a period when it had reached the summit of its grandeur, after a career of conquest and civilization for a thousand years, estimated its surface at sixteen hundred thousand square miles, and as embracing a popula tion of one hundred and twenty millions. The United States already occupy an area equal to nearly four million square miles, two and a half times greater than that ancient empire of civilization; and in thirty years, according to existing ratios, will have one hundred and seven millions of inhabitants, high authority having estimated that there will be one hundred and fifteen millions at the close of the present century. The growth of our resources during the past year has been steady and cheering, as elsewhere shown in this report; the value of the freight transported on our railroads during the year 1868 was estimated at twelve billions of dollars. The aggregate earnings of our people, it is now ascertained, amount to ten billions of dollars, about ten per cent. of which, or one billion, are a surplus added to our capital. Last year the estimates were twenty-five per cent. lower, but a careful study of facts and statistics has convinced the Commissioner that those figures were inadequate to express the reality; adding twenty-five per cent. to the value of our railway traffic previously mentioned, and we will obtain an aggregate approximating our internal trade.* It is also ascertained that the true gold value of the personal and real estate of this country is not less than thirty billions of dollars. These aggregates are destined to rapid expansion. The depression of general business, the natural reaction from the heavy strain of civil war, is now broken up, and the spirit of enterprise has been reawakened in all departments of industry and commerce. Manufacturing is now prosecuted on the field of original raw production, thus embodying in action the true social principle, and saving that immense loss which has been experienced in the past in supporting an intermediate unproductive class. The great principles on which our government rests are now firmly es tablished and generally acknowledged, assimilating to the theory in the natural world of the planetary, system, recognizing the general government as the sun of that system, and the States as political planets revolving around the common center, held in their orbits by primordial laws.

The statistics on which these estimates are based are treated of in the article on railroads and other papers in this report.

Under genial impulses our industrial and commercial machinery is again in operation, accumulating wealth and giving peace and plenty throughout the land, while our educational and moral influences are no less active in refining and elevating our progress, and in enabling us to realize the nobler ends of civilization.

Respectfully submitted.

JOS. S. WILSON,
Commissioner.

ARGUMENT ON THE WANT OF JURISDICTION AND POWER IN THE UNITED STATES COURTS TO INTERFERE WITH MATTERS PENDING BEFORE THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR RECEIVING ITS OFFICIAL ACTION, WITH ACCOMPANYING CORRESPONDENCE.

LAND OFFICE, FORT DODGE, November 4, 1868.

SIR: The injunction restraining this office from allowing declaratory statements, and homesteads on the odd-numbered sections along the Des Moines River, has by the court been dismissed, and, in accordance with your instructions in your letter of August 28, 1868, we shall allow homesteads and pre-emptions on that class of lands where the cases come within the instructions contained in said letter.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Hon. Jos. S. WILSON,

Commissioner General Land Office.

C. B. RICHARDS, Register.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

General Land Office, August 22, 1868.

SIR: On the 9th of May last the department, in the exercise of its appellate power, decided in favor of the claim of Herbert Battin to enter as a pre-emptor the southwest quarter of section 3, township 83, range 27, in the Des Moines land district, in the State of Iowa, and on the 19th of the same month rendered similar decisions in favor of the claims of Mayfield and Mahaffy to other tracts of land in said district.

These lands fall within the lines formed by the crossing of the Des Moines River Improvement grant, ten miles wide, and the Dubuque and Pacific railroad grant, twelve miles in width, and are claimed by Edwin C. Litchfield, as trustee of the Des Moines River Improvement Fund, under a conveyance said to have been made by the State of Iowa in May, 1858, in pursuance of the grant to that State by act of Congress approved August 8, 1846.

These decisions were accordingly communicated by the Commissioner of the General Land Office on the 20th and 25th of May last, to the register and receiver at Des Moines, Iowa, with instructions to permit said pre-emption settlers to enter the tracts respectively claimed by them as directed by the head of this department.

On the 4th of June the said register and receiver were notified of the intention to apply for an injunction, and on the following day, to wit, June 5, 1868, were served with a writ of injunction issued from the United States district court for the district of Iowa, (authorized by law to exercise the jurisdiction and powers of a circuit court of the United States in said district,) at the suit of Edwin C. Litchfield, restraining and prohibiting them from carrying out the directions of the honorable Secretary, as embodied in the instructions from this office to permit said entries to be made.

This proceeding on the part of the district court of Iowa appears to me to be wholly unauthorized, an unwarranted interference with the officers of the land department in the exercise of their official duties, an encroachment by the federal judiciary upon the executive powers of the government that ought not to be permitted to ripen into a precedent; and as the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers of the government in the same department, according to an eminent authority, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist the encroachment of the others, I propose, if it meet the approval of the Secretary, to instruct the register aud receiver at Des Moines to proceed in the discharge of their duties in the same manner as if no injunction had been served upon them, at the same time, as a matter of respect to a co-ordinate branch of the government, filing their answer to the writ denying the jurisdiction and power of the court to control their official action; a position which it has been the purpose to establish in the accompanying paper presenting the Commissioner's views in reference to executive powers and rights, and the want of legal ability on the part of the