San Andreas independent., 1857-01-31
Steamboat Monopoly.

One OF the greatest lmposllons tnat mining
and miners have to contend against, is the mon
ster steamboat monopoly. For three years past
this Python serpent has been contracting its
coils, gradually crushing and destroying our
prosperous resources, and poisoning and blight
ing the efforts of all fair competition in trade.
The conductors of this monopoly have almost
ruined Stockton and the Southern Mines, by
their narrow-minded and misguided conduct.
The city of Stockton is the greatest sufferer by
this sordid monopoly. Long were we resi-
dent of that city, and witnessed its struggles
to compete with other places possessing less
natural advantages than it had The cause OF
her failure was a secret; to us it seemed that
the citizens were lacking personal energy, or
individual and collective capacity, to compete
with Sacramento It's not so. 1t is this mon
ster monopoly that keeps Stockton down so
low, that planked streets barely keeps her above
the mud IN the winter season. Stockton has
made several efforts to throw off their task
masters, and build steamboats, for their own
trade, but in each case failed, because their
willy enemy, /" the monopoly" over reached their
resources, or compromised (for the time) by
throwing a sprat to catch mackerel." As
soon as excitement for the time is allayed, they
play the same old tune" Pop goes the weasel
and that's the way the money goes"-freight
goes up to five dollars per ton, and passage
eight dollars per head. These prices are kept
up and rigidly adhered to on the San Joaquin,
duces passage and freight down to nominal
sum-
Since our sojoun in the mountains, we have
more particularly noticed the effects of this
stages pass to and fro through this place, filled
with San Francisco passengers, who lose one
days time making a circuit of seventy-fve
miles around Stockton to Sacramento and
thence to San Francisco, to save the difference
in passage and incidentals imposed ON them by
the steamboat monopoly.
Mr.. Norman, our Senator, must have noticed
this. He would certainly be the last man to
bear us out in the assertion, for the purpose of
making tia hobby" The Sacramento Amer
acan makes wrong issue in attributing to Mr..
Norman desire to retaliate on /" the monopo-
ly" for imaginary political opposition. Had
the company attempted to defeat his election,
their efforts would have been without avail
No such IAN issue was made here at the last
general election; and had any friend of the obi
Gus monopoly made such an ISSUE his political
prospects, from that moment, would have been
forever blighted in this county. Our merchants,
miners and traders are too heavily taxed to
feel otherwise. But it is the miner that suffers
the most; it is the consumer of the goods who
pay all this freight and passage money to the
steamboat monopoly, and thereby experience
the loss and evil in all its details. Senator
Norman but faithfully represents his constitu-
ents, and their interests when he does his ut
most to exterminate the charter, which is the
sinews and tendons, while the hard-earned
money of our citizens is the blood of the steam
boat monopoly
Just read the following from the Sacramento
american, does it not smack of the soft palm
that is plant to the touch of gold? We say to
our Senator, heed it not. Rouse the sleeping
effluvium, chartered to stagnate travel and trade
and the pure atmosphere of mountain sympa-
thies, voices and votes, in sustaining the effort
will scatter the elements of imposition that now
bind us down, even as rays of sunshine Danish
the miasma from the morning dew:
"Senator Norman, who is fully impressed with
the idea that he was so obnoxious to the mana
gers of the California Steam Navigation Com
pany that they sent agents away up to Gala
veras, to defeat his election, has made the sub
ject his hobby for two years past and is so in
tent upon the passage of a bill that he intro
duced last year, and re-introduced this session,
that it is said he thinks, speaks and dreams of
nothing else, and has declared that he never
will rest until it becomes a law, which, if true,
we greatly fear that his days of quietude are
over Seriously, we would like to know what
can be accomplished by enacting law declar-
ing that the Steam Navigation Company shall
not charge over five dollars for passage to or
from San Francisco. If the Legislature pos
sesses such power, it also has the right to de-
clare that saloon, shall only charge twelve
and a-haH cents for drinks and fifty cents for
beds, or 1t may enact that -four dealers shall NOT
charge over five dollars a barrel for Honr or
druggists over ten cents an ounce for blue mass.
but we deny that the Legislature has any sucb
power, and we are confident such bill would
be unconstitutional, and if so, never would re-
ceiye the sanction of the Executive"
The above is very virtuous reasoning. but
would it apply to case where " an act of the
Legislature" had chartered, to company, the
exclusive privilege and use of the elements.
earth, air. fire and water, giving the ''monopoist'
a right to charge so much for breath of air,
drink of water, light for cigar, or for the
privilege to use the earth to bury friend
The Steamboat monopoly certainly operates on
similar principle.
A AMIsTAKE.-The report that has gained
some credence, that the two Expresses
had united. They only adopted auniform