The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-26 00:00:00

MARCH 26, 1869.

?BE GREAT RAILROAD TVAR.

(Front the Anglo-American Times.)

It is difficult to over-estimate the magnitude of
the object for which the American railway mono-
polies are contending, and not easy to understand
the strength of the three corporations engaged in
the strife. A member of Congress not long ago
declared that the United States would fall under
the power of a few American railway monopolists ;
indeed that the time would come when the world
would be at their feet. Europe has been so long
accustomed to regard America as a new country in
a direction out of the ordinary line, travel there
being a branching from the main highways, where
men are lost in a huge waste, reclaimed here and
there at wide intervals, that it cannot realize the
fact that right across the continent penetrating the
heart of the United States is the future highway of
the world. It is then for the control of the world's
grand road that the Pennsylvania, the Erie, and
the. New York Central Railroads are struggling.
This is what the Congressman saw in his mind's
eye when he predicted that an Ametican.. Railway
Company would yet rule the globe. Making every
allowance forexaggeratioi there is an extraordinary
future before any road which could establish such
a monopoly. Indeed there is no necessity for a
monopoly, for there would be traffic enough and to
spare for all when the highway is in working order.
The fact, however, is beyond question, that such a
struggle is being carried on now mainly between
the Pennsylvania and the Erie. General opinion
seems to favour the Pennsylvania, and for obvious
reasons. That railroad is among the oldest of the
world, and has been conducted with a view not
only to monopolize the traffic of its State, one of
the richest and greatest of the Union, but of Ohio, as
well as to bear off the lion's share of the Middle West,
reaching its fork-prong on one side to Chicago, and
on the other to St. Louis. Considering that such
a line grasps the very vitals of the Union, it might
be supposed that it would satisfy the most ambi-
tious of corporations. But no. From the banks of
the Mississippi to the waters of the Pacific another
road is almost complete, and the effort is not merely
to take the lion's share of Western traffic, but that
of the through route across the Continent. Essen-
tially, the Pennsylvania is American ; it has not been
financed in Europe, but the funds by which it was
made were raised from the districts through which
it passed, and the proprietors saw that there was
money's worth given for the money expended. In
England there is this simple rule to guide the ius
vestor--buy the stock of such railways as Americans
themselves invest in, for the temptation to speculate
with the property of the absent, and to make it a
tool to carry out designs outside the interests
of shareholders, cannot be easily resisted. The curse
of the Erie is that a large portion of its capital having
been subscribed abroad, the stock was.used by the
directors as a mere handle for speculation,
while ruining the name of that company, damaged
materially the prestige of railway property in the
United States. That little game is impossible with
the Pennsylvania, for the stock is so held that it
would be almost impossible for any organiiatien to
purchase such a command that the power would
fall into their hands. in the same way as in the two
rival lines. Credit is a railroad power as well as a
national power ; and while Erie credit has been
greatly damaged, the credit of the Pennsylvania
stands as high as that of any railroad. The mono-
poly contemplated by the three lines can only be
even partially secured by extensive purchases in-
volving a large outlay, and our readers will readily
see how preponderating will be the force to the com-
pany possessing it. Independent, then, of the road
itself and its wide ramifications, there are strong
reasons why the Pennsylvania should wholly suc-
ceed, while there is a positive assurance that par •
tially it must succeed. In an able article on the
great railroad war the New York Tribune thus writes
of this line :—" In Pennsylvania people were ac-
customed to look with wonder, not unmixed with
fear, at the slow but certain combinations of the
Pennsylvania Central Railroad Corporation, and it
was a common remark that its officers had more
actual power, when they chose to exercise it, than
the Executive of the Commonwealth. It cared
little, and still cares little, for Philadelphia in itself,
and only regards that city as an outlet to the East,
as Pittsburgh is to the West. Placed between its
two great rivals, the Erie on the north, and the
Baltimore and Ohio on the south, it first set itself
to work to make the State a network of its combi-
nations and consolidations, and to hold the Camden
and Amboy as its ally and accomplice. How suc-
cessfully it accomplished this is shown in its bisect-
ing the New York and Erie Road at Eric by means
of its north-western route, and its defiance to ,the
Baltimore and Ohio at Baltimore, through its con-
trol of the Northern Central. So far-reaching and
far-seeing were its plans that the natural outlet of
the Baltimore and Ohio to New York by way of
the Cumberland, Lebanon, and Lehigh Valleys was
closed long ago by the purchase of a controlling in-
terest i❑ the stock of the Cumberland Valley Road,
which is soon to extend from Harrisburg to the
Potomac. A company so powerful in its own State,
and whose combinations at home had been made
with a view to enjoying the traffic in transitu from
the great West, was not likely to yield that traffic
without a great struggle. When the struggle came,
if the Pennsylvania Central did not prove com-
pletely successful, it at least avoided defeat, and
forever prevented the foreclosure, in the interest of
other parties, of the mortgage it holds upon the gar-
dens of the Plains." This is the language of a New
York paper, which hassteadily decried the line, whose
main terminus is in Philadelphia. Another, city, how-
ever, aspires to the honour and profit of becoming
an ocean terminus for the West. The Baitlmore
and Ohio also penetrates the Alleghany Mountains,
stretching into Ohio, but the real strugle is between
the Pennsylvania and the New York Roads. The
Tribune considers that " there is no reason why the
three great trunk lines—the Erie, the Pennsyl-
vania, and the Baltimore and Ohio should not all
centre at Cincinnati, with a fair chance for compe-
tition. Nor is there any reason why all these, as
well as the New York Central, should not compete
for the traffic of the Pacific Railroads. The neces-
sities of the case require this, and though all are
selfish, and each would strangle the others, the
country is too great, its area too enormous, and its
resources too stupendous, ever to allow us to be
bound hand and foot by a single giant." Alluding
to the Erie the writer says :—" Before us lies the
map of 'the great broad-gauge double-track route'
—' 1,250 miles under one management'--' 860
miles without change of coaches.' To look at it
the whole Western country seems cut up with the
connnections of the Erie, and from a single stem it
spreads out like a leaf in shape and proportions.
But this map is made for the eye, and not for the
head ; for the vision, and not for the judgment.
When you come to scrutinize it you find that it
conveys too much, and is a map of the West rather
as the Erie wishes it to be than as it is. On the
map of Ben. Smith's roads the Pittsburgh, Fort
Wayne, and Chicago route has scarcely any exist-
ence, and on those of the latter the Ben. Smith
combinations are dwarfed out of their importance ;
but every road in the West, however insignificant
ten or even five years ago, is now of consequence as
part of, or a feeder to, one of the great, trunk lines.
The trunk lines with their connections now stand
as follows:—The New York Central gets to Cleve-
land by the Lake Shore Road, and to Chicago by
the Cleveland and Toledo, and the Michigan South-.
ern and Northern Indiana. The line to Chicago is
unbroken, and unless the movement of Gould upon
the Michigan Southern should weaken it, it is
secure to Vanderbilt. To St. Louis it has an un-
broken line from Toledo, via Springfield. This
line appears on the maps as the Toledo, Wabash,
and Western, the Great Western, and the Chicago,
Alton, and St. Louis. Before Ben. Smith snapped
it, it had another route from Cleveland to St. Louis,
but new its line via Belefontaine is broken at India-
napolis. It consists of a part of the Cleveland, Co-
lumbus, and Cincinnati, and the Bellefontaine

Roads. The Erie has a lease of the Ohio and Mis-
sissippi by which it reaches St. Louis from Cincin-
nati, and it gets to Cincinnati by the Atlantic and
Great Western and the roads leased by the latter
road. The Atlantic and Great Western carries the
line from Salamanca to Dayton, and the recently
consummated lease of the Cincinnati, Hamilton)