Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1868-01-03
From the Hillsborough Recorder.
NORTH CAROLINA RAILROAD.
H1nLsBoRoUGH, Dec. LIST, 1867

dILLSBOROUGH, Lee. Isl, 1901.
Mr.. EDITOR As you were not among the
editors who lately waged such fierce war
upon the President and Superintendent OF
the North Carolina Railroad, nor even in
the language of the iron-clad, gave, "aid,
countenance or encouragement, by copy
ing in your paper the assaults of others, !
desire the use of your columns, not to de-
fend from old nor to provoke to renewed
assaults but to call the attention Of the
public to the new tariff and new policy
lately iraugurated. It will answer no good
purpose at this late date to pick up one oz
any of the gloves thrown By your brethren
with such defiance at my feet, 1t is good
generalship to avoid fight with women OF
editors, for they are sure to have the last
word. When [ came to my present business
and place was ready to sign treaty OF
amity and friendship with most of the edi-
tors and treaty of silence with all. My
first purpose was to make a speedy and
essential change in the designs and opera
tions of the Road, and if [ could work out
dividend for stockholders, and at the
same time some good to the mining, mine
raj, manufacturing and agricultural interest
of the State, a great purpose would be &C
complished.
Our road has more than once been run in
debt in order to catch the through travel,
which we never did and / fear never will
command. The little we do command pays
us two cents and mill mile. When we
were running for it the monthly recei pts
from through travel was a little less than
$500 per month. The expense of running
the train for it was 81, 800 month.
The Superintendent thought it best to
quit the chase for through travel, diminish
the speed, and attach freight cars to our
! through travel train.
This experiment of freight cars attached
| to the through travel train brought into
the treasury SIS, 900 per month for freight
may, in fact we did, lose portion of our
| through travel, but we could afford to do it
on such terms.
Last year we ran at lightning speed for
through travel, and we ran $92, 900 more
out Of the treasury than we were able to
run into it.
The effort and policy of the road has
ever been to make the travel and not the
freight pay. The policy has been against
the labor and industry of the State.
might add that such has been the policy of
most Southern roads A few illustrations
will better explain what mean than pages
of reason or argument.
A barrel of -four could be sent from Bos-
lotte, cheaper than you could send the
same barrel from Charlotte to Goldsboro';
and SO with almost any article you could
name. Every facility was given to our peo-
to buy cheap from others, but no encour-
agement given them to sell. In fact, diff
culties, i'll the way of high tariffs, forbid
their selling in foreign markets at all.
A gentleman in Raleigh bought barrel
of potatoes in Mofganton. He afterwards
learned that he could buy potatoes in Bal
eigh from New York or Boston, at what the
freight from Morganton had cost him. AS
Mr.. Rufus Tucker is q director on the road
/ know he will pardon me if I tell of
practical joke played on him last summer.
He bought wheat bran in Charlotte at sixty
cents bushel, and paid thirty cents
bushel to get it to Raleigh-ninety cents
for wheat bran-which he coald buy for
forty at home. Lest this statement should
injure my friend Tucker as business man
and fnancler, l must state he did not know
the price Of the bran or the freight until it
Was delivered.
People do not grow rich by what they
buy, but 10y what they sell. You may buy
as cheap from the north as you please, but
you will soon buy yourselves poor if you
do not sell them something in return.
Under our new tariff we take butter and
lard from Charlotte to GOldsbOro', at one
cent q pound-distance 223 miles. Chick
ems and ducks half cent each; six cents
each for turkeys; bacon, beef and pork
four-ffths of Il cent DER pound; apples and
potatoes fifteen cents q buSncl; hay thirty
cents per hundred
While l write some enterprising man is
pas ing with LOCO chickens for the Balti-
more market They cackle and crow as if
they were glad to die for forty and fifty
cents apiece, instead of ten and tWelve-and-
a-half each.
I have written to Charleston. Whining
ton and Newbern, to learn what amount of
hay is brought into each of these ports an
nually from New England it is immense
With three cents tax on cotton, forty cents
on tobacco, and two dollars on whiskey,
our people should turn their attention to
clover and hay. There is now more mon ey
IN it than in the great Southern staples
cotton and tobacco.
The seashore counties of North and
South Carolina furnish Il market for New
England hay at dollar and fifty cents per
hundred. say, quit your cotton and to-
bacco, and cultivate grass for hay. The
wet seasons for three years past have been
most propitiOus to the growth of this great
untaxed New England staple.
One advantage, too, it has over all other
products. It can't be taxed. Hay being
the spontaneous production of the earth,
and little or no ploughing or hoeing being
necessary to produce it, could bear tax
better than cotton or tobacco. If I could
do so without being called disloyal, would
suggest to Congress q modification of the
tax on cotton and Tobacco, and a partial
tax on hay in place of partial confscation.
Congress has not set its face more strong
~ against southern agriculture than has
the southern ailroads-Congress by tax
alton, and southern railroads by their false
policy OF high tariffs on the outgoing
products of the soil. 1 hope both will
learn, before it is too late, that there is
much truth in the saying of the great
English farmer, statesman and philoso-
pher, "That for government to expert
ment on the farmer is a most perilous
thing" for his is very poor trade, sub
ject to great risks and losses it is the
most precarious in its advantages, the
most liable to losses, and the least profit
able Of any that is carried on. It requires
ten times more of labor, of vigilance, of
attention, of skill, and let me add, of
good fortune also, to carry on the bust
ness of a farmer with success, than what