Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-03-16
Tho Lo9I,loture apd no CnuoI.,

A canal policy is probably the most diff.
cult question before the Legislature, and the
time is rapidly passing when It can have that
debberation which its Importance demands.
In the New York Legislature, they have an
institution called a Grinding Committee,
toward the close of the session, to grind out
those measures which must be acted upon,
and give the mass of unimportant bills the
go-hy. Such a thing seems to be a necessity
in our Legislature, to prevent measures of
Importance from being swamped in the mass
Of bills which can not be acted upon.
If the present proposition to lease the
canals fails to pass the Legislature, it will then
have to decide upon some policy which will
require time for deliberation the difficulties
of which will be to some extent apparent
when the present condition Of the canals is
stated. The deficit in the canal revenues
has become a burden which the Legislature
is so reluctant to meet, that last year it re-
sorted TO the plan Of appropriating but
$25,O 600, and the canal revenues. The neces-
stiles Of the case compelled the Board to an
~ticipate the revenues to make the Spring
repairs; and the extraordinary casualties
which regularly occur on our canals, kept
the necessary expenditures in advance of
the receipts, until the year closed with a
deficiency TO contractors and laborers of
about $l50,O0O; a bill to pay which is now
before the Legislature, with a prospect of
being defeated, and this debt to laboring men
repudiated.
The regular canal appropriations have al
ways included the three quarters of the cur
rent year and the first quarter of the new
year, so that the Board would have money
for Winter and Spring repairs, without wait
ing the passage of the regular appropriations.
At present, only the revenue having been
appropriated, and the revenues being nothing
in the Winter, except water rents, the Board
has no money to prepare the canals for
Spring navigation.
With the present prospect for the repudia-
ton of their indebtedness, it is not probable
that they will be inclined to try their credit
in making the Spring repairs, nor is it likely
that it would go far if they did. Nor is it
probable that this Legislature can be in
duced to make the appropriations that are
required for the current year; so that it
would seem that If the canals remain under
State management they remain in a condi-
ton of abandonment.
Ignorant journalists who know nothing of
the subject, and who even regard that as a
qualification for writing on it, attempt to
confuse the question by charging it to past
management and corrupt motives, and pre-
tend that the present control will restore the
canal revenues, and relieve the STATE from
this burden. And this they pretend in the
face of the fact that the deficiency has never
been so great, and the canals have never
been so greatly discredited in public estima-
ton, as during this very management, which,
or something like it, is to continue so long
as the Republicans retain their ~sscendancy
in the State.
1t requires some attention and capacity to
understand the question. Journalists do not
often like to submit to these conditions for
writing on it. But the political patronage
which the canals furnish is the principal
cause of the cutlery which is raised at any
proposition to save the canals from ruin, and
the State from this burden. If this is not
the motive, what can be the motive for the
malignant vituperation which is visited on
men whose competency and responsibility is
unquestioned, for no other offense than for
thinking that they, by the economy aud
skill of their management, can make a profit
out of. canals which it costs the State a de-
felt of $l5O,OO a year to maintain in a state
of decline.
Such an undertaking is a legitimate OBJ
ject, and it must be a strong personal interest
which instigates attacks upon men for a
proposal to save $4,000 to the State by
carrying on a business operation for which
the State is incompetent; but if the people
have sufficient intelligence for self-govern-
ment, a Representative had much better
meet them after having relieved them from q
burden of $4,000 a year, than after having
continued it for the sake of the petty party
patronage which it affords.