The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1859-12-21

Our readers will find, in our commercial column |
some extracts from the report of W PREscoTT SMITH
Esq, the Master of Transportation Of the Balt- |
more and Ohio Railroad. Il IS document of
over one hundred pages, carefully prepared, with
elaborate tabular statements, illustrating the |
amount and character of travel and transporta-
ton over the whole line, including the Washing
ton Branch and the Northwestern Virginia Road.
during the year ending on the 3Oth of September
last. The great work, the operations of which
are detailed in the Report is of course. too vitality
connected with the prosperity of Baltimore, for
anything which concerns it nearly, to be other
wise than deeply interesting to our citizens. The
numerous and comprehensive data which Mr.
SMITH has given, in so concentrated and intelligi-
BILE shape, WILL therefore, necessarily attract the
public attention. and whatever Judgment NAV
be passed upon them, in their relation to
the policy by which the Road is directed,
they cannot but be regarded as evidence of
an administrative ability as conspicuous in
details, as in It's larger and more visible sphere.
We took occasion, some time SINCE in allu-
ding to Mr.. GARRETT's own report, to speak of
railroad arithmetic and mathematics in general
as not altogether within the limits of the positive
sciences. We, therefore, take the more pleasure
in saying, that the statements of the Master of
Transportation furnish to those who adopt the
Presidents views abundant reason for the
faith that is in them. Mr. SMITH, who is well
known to our citizens, as a man of integrity and
practical capacity and of untiring and intelligent
industry and energy, has occupied a portion of
his report in explaining the various methods by
which the economies of the Road have been so ex-
tensively and proftably wdened, without narrow
ing its usefulness to its patrons or permitting its
intrinsic deterioration. 1t would be unfair to at
tribute altogether to the subordinate officer, no
matter how able and deserving, the merits of
system, of which his superior is bound to bear the
responsibility, and must be presumed to have
taken the general direction. We therefore COM
mend the report before us to the consideration of
our readers-and especially the concluding para
graphs, which are inserted, at length, upon our
first page-in substantiation of the claim set
up for Mr.. GARRETT by his friends, to the
appreciation of his constituents and the public.
| Doubtless there are criticisms which will be
directed against the Master of TRANSPORTATION
as they have been against the President. and
! iAASAS VI
must be borne in mind that Railroad literature is
not confined, in its Imaginative departments, to
the lucubrations of those who are in. Those who
are out, and desire to get in are quite as apt ey
perience demonstrates to invade the domain If
fancy as their luckier brethren in possession and
fact, or table of facts may be manipulated by
unofficial hands quite as well as by those which
| hold the seals. The balance of motive and infer
est being about even, it is, in general, but fair
play to hold the balance of confidence even. like
wise. For our own part, belonging to neither the
ms nor the outs, and having only that stake in
our great work of internal Improvement which is
held by the mass of the community we can afford
to render impartial justice as il discloses itself 70
our judgment. We feel well assured that the line
adopted by Mr.. GARRETT is not one likely to be
deliberately chosen by a man who valpes
present and immediate popularity beyond
the better reputation built upon condpct
which can only be indicated by time
1t requires no ordinary amount of will and
nerve, and sagacty combined, to descend into the
arena where whole army of little abuses. almost
sanctifed into vested rights by long toleration,
must be met and overcome by the array of a stern
and unsparing economy. The man who assumes
such part must be prepared 10 bear, fora season
the name of niggard and tyrant, and. perhaps
worse. Yet this is the course which Mr.. GARRETT
has deemed proper to adopt as he himself has
avowed, and with results such as have been set
forth by himself in his own report, and more in
detail, in some particulars, by the one now under
consideration. The problem, however, which he
announces, Of attaining the greatest possible eff
cheney in working the immense and majestic
machine under his control, with the least possible
expense, is one which it is impossible to demon
Strate in the space of a single year, and he must
pardon us if we again purposely defer the express
sion of appreciation which we shall be the first to
offer when such result is conclusivey established
and substitute for the present, the praise which is
always due to effort in the right direction. Our
commentator is to be understood as APPLYING
only to the policy of economy and the ricor
which he has manifested in carrying it out.