Richmond Enquirer

RICHMOND, (VA.) DECEMBER 30.

VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE.

HOUSE OF DELEGATES,

We postpone the diary of their proceedings (though nothing very important has occurred—principally reading petitions and receiving reports)—to make room for the following able and useful Report, presented on Thursday last, by Mr. Lewis, Chairman of the Committee of Roads and Internal Navigation.—We beg the reader to put it by and con it over and over again.

The Committee of Roads and Internal Navigation, to whom was referred so much of the Governor's Message as relates to Roads and Canals, have, according to order, had that subject under consideration, and prepared the following Report thereon, which they beg leave to submit to the House of Delegates:

Whatever difference of opinion may have, at any time, subsisted, as to the expediency of controuling the voluntary direction of the wealth and labor of individuals by the application of legal constraint, there never has existed a doubt, but that it is the duty, as well as the interest of every good government to facilitate the necessary communication between its citizens.

Next to the enjoyment of civil liberty itself, it may be questioned whether the best organized government can assure to those, for whose happiness all governments are instituted, a greater blessing than an open, free and easy intercourse with one another, by good roads, navigable rivers, and canals. Their tendency, by extending the commerce, to promote the agriculture and manufactures of a nation, and thereby to augment its wealth and population, is too obvious to require much illustration.

The planter and farmer realize their share of this benefit, in the augmented value of their lands: the manufacturer and the merchant, in the increased and diversified demand for their industry and capital.

Nor, are the higher interests of society less indebted for their advancement to the multiplication and improvement of these channels of useful intercourse. They afford the means of exploring the natural resources of a country, and invite the genius of speculation to fit them for the uses of man. Lands too remote from market to tempt cultivation: forests, hitherto regarded as inaccessible: beds of minerals and fossils unknown or neglected, are brought within the reach of ordinary enterprize, and rendered subservient to the convenience and comfort of the citizen, or to the defence and safety of the state.

They confer on an extended empire the promptitude and energy of action which are considered peculiarly characteristic of one of narrow dimensions: since, without contracting the limits of its territory, they reduce the distance, and expedite the communication between the seat of its government and its remotest extremities.

Whether the public force is to be spread out for defence, or combined for attack, they alike contribute to the rapidity and to the vigor of its operations.

In a republic, especially, where public opinion exerts a controuling influence, and public virtue should be the spring of all public action, they may be considered an important auxiliary, if not a necessary ingredient of political liberty. They tend to diffuse more equally the knowledge which experience acquires, and the leisure which wealth alone can purchase; they strengthen the cords of social union, and quicken that generous feeling of patriotism, which is ever ready to exclaim at the contemplation of an extended scene of public improvement "I love my country, because she is worthy of my affection."

The duty, which is obligatory upon all governments, is peculiarly incumbent on one, whose territory, like that of Virginia, nature has done so much both to unite and to separate—to whom she has presented so many advantages to improve, and so many obstacles to overcome. No State in the Union is intersected by so many navigable rivers, nor divided by so many chains of lofty mountains: none, perhaps, abounds with such happy varieties of climate and soil, and so many resources for internal commerce. In her coal, iron, lead and salt, she is unrivalled. Her tobacco and grain command the highest prices abroad. The fertile banks of her rivers, and the moist valleys of her mountains yield abundant crops of flax and hemp. Her low-lands would supply her with cotton for her own consumption, and the fleeces of her flocks, which pasture on her hills, are not surpassed in quality. Notwithstanding these advantages, the principal part of her commerce, and almost the whole of her navigation, pass out of her hands to enrich the coffers of her neighbors. There is scarcely a village to the West of the Blue-Ridge, and very few above tide water, from the Roanoke to the Potomac, which derive any part of their supplies of manufactured commodities, either foreign or domestic, from the sea ports of Virginia.

While many other States have been advancing in wealth and numbers, with a rapidity which has astonished themselves, the ancient dominion and elder sister of the Union has remained stationary.

A very large proportion of her western territory is yet unimproved, while a considerable part of her eastern has receded from its former opulence. How many sad spectacles do her low-lands present, of wasted and deserted fields! of dwellings abandoned by their proprietors! of Churches in ruins! The genius of her ancient hospitality seems to have taken its flight, and left her halls desolate.