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CHAPTER XV

California's debt to the Northwest. The relations between the Northwest and California were in some respects very close. Those Oregon men who went to the gold mines were seasoned pioneers, who had already partly conquered and civilized one great section of the Pacific coast. They were a valuable element in the new and mixed population that now poured into the southern territory, helping to bring order out of disorder, and to establish an effective government for the new state as they had already done for their own colony. It is of course impossible, as well as unnecessary, to measure California's debt to the Northwest during the early years of the gold rush; but it was undoubtedly very great.

New California helps to create a new Northwest. On the other hand, there is much truth in the claim that the rapid development of California gave an entirely new aspect to life in the Northwest, The first effect of the gold discovery was to draw away one-half or perhaps two-thirds of the able-bodied men of Oregon, and to leave the country with insufficient labour to cultivate the fields already opened. But this was only a temporary drawback. The mines afforded a