The Portland daily press., 1868-11-05

This is the construction which must be placed
upon the events of Tuesday. Gen. Butler has
never given any explanation OF his theory of
the right of the United States to Jay its bonds
in greenbacks which can comment it to the
judgment of his party, but the people of Mass
achusetts have concluded to waive that when
the question is between Butler and a Conserv-
ative. Looking at the question in this light,
their decision was wise.
An sppeai 20 ihe Citizens of Portland i'm
Behalf of the POI tInnd a. OxdensburE
Railroad.
Concluded from the Press of Yesterday
Boston is by nature wonderfully located for
freight handling more advantageonsly. per-
h0ps than any other city on the continent.
The city proper lies upon peninsula sur
rounded by deep water, and opposite that pc
ninsula are other peninsulas, each Offering its
great additions of deep water front, and all
within small compass and accessible each
from the others by rail. Every wharf might
communicate with every railroad, and cars
| laden at Ogdensburg might stop under the
| yards or over the bold of the ship freighting
fer Liverpool. 1t is well nigh Uncomfortable
, that such advantages should have been so long
and so entirely neglected.
New York is and will ALWAYS remain the
great mart of the country; the place where
best buy and sell it by no means follows that
there they can most conveniently export or
import, as through place of transit. On the
contrary, the very confusion OF the great Ba-
bel would indicate the reverse. Boston might,
then find her account ia showing herself to be
a convenient point of transit, place noted
for the quick, cheap and honest handling of
goods. Such a character Boston has not yet
carried. The absence eff all means of handling
goods, the cost of truckage, the insufficient
railroad facilities and general absence of sys-
tenn have hitherto thrown this business into
the hands of Portland. Boston has hardly inn
ported and forwarded to the West to the ex-
tent of a million dollars year. Portland,
however, having the Grand Trunk to aid her,
out of an aggregate of imports about one-third
| that OF Boston, receives million year of d.
| rect importatons by steamer for Detroit, Chi
| cago and Milwaukee. The delays incident to
| landing goods in New York will be touched
upon presently; in Portland these goods are
landed, appraised, the duties estimated, the
bords given and the articles fifty miles on the
| way to their destination within q few hours
| after the steamer has made fast to the pier. A
business so managed cannot but increase
| This system, however, is yet IN its infancy;
but the West loudly demands it, and what the
West demands she usually gets"
| The foregoing extracts form but a small part
! of the very able and comprehensive disserta-
ton of Mr.. Adams, the whole of which we
wish could be read by every business man and
| land holder in Portland. Reviewing the sub
| ject from his standpoint in Boston, with his
| eyes fixed upon her great rival on the West
New York-his vision is clear, his argument
| without flaw, his words the words of proph-
ct; yet he has left exposed without armor or
shield, his most vulnerable point. He has ig-
| nored the fact that the same Portland which
| already receives the imports of million dol
= Il, e., o,t; So,
seventy miles nearer to Ogdensburg than Bos-
| ton is by her existing lines of road and thirty
miles nearer than she can be even if she cuts
| her road through the Adirondac wilderness
| and through the mountain, at an expense of
| twenty million of dolars-that Portland has
| already marginal railroad by which the cars
| from Ogdensburg can be laid alongside of the
| ship freighting for Liverpool; with the best
harbor, the lowest port charges, the cheapest
dockage and pilotage, lower prices for labor;
an elevator already built and others promised
that as Boston, with reference to the coast
| line and the inland waters holds the point of
advantage in comparison with New York, for
| controlling the trade of the lake zone, SO
| Portland from the same causes and in equal
| degree, is master of the position when brought
| INTO cOmpetlClon Win boston.
If the Northern Transportation Company
| with its contemplated fleet of sixty steamers,
| plying between Chicago and Ogdensburg
| "can yet prove the nucleus Of Boston Ocean
navigation" how much more certain is it, that
| Portland with her ocean steamboat line al
| ready established, and all the other facilities
| she poss esses as above enumerated, with the
advantage of her twelve hours start to Liver
pool and European market,i but true to her.
self and her manifest destiny, can seize upon
this royal prize and take her position as the
second commercial city on the Atlantic sea-
| board. AS portland is now the winter sea-
port of Canada" so may she become the win
ter and summer seaport OF Chicago, Detroit.
| Milwaukee and the other cities yearly spring
ing up in every part of that great. North West
ern region of 5000 900 square miles that pours
its wealth-giving products over the inland seas
down to Ogdensburg, thence to pass on the
cheapest and shortest route to tide water; re-
ceiving in return the various commodities,
| products of manufactures and commerce,
| that freighted on our ocean steamers, will pro-
| vide the European customer the means of pay
ment for the corn and wheat he has received.
| That "concentration and system necessary to
| the accomplishment of this great design which
| Boston can never organize out Of her existing
| line composed of "taoelue squabbiaq corpora
| TONS" Portland will have effected, upon the
completion Of these two hundred and ten
miles of road, connecting with the Ogdensburg
and Lake Champlain road, which by vote of
its directors, has already guaranteed equal and
just rates for all through freights; besides
10 tho md lode chrlrr
road one half of the net earnings of all such
| business derived from that road going East
or West for period of fivs years.
And in this connection Portland may conf
IDENTITY look forward to the time, when Oh the
completion of the Northern Pacific railroad,
she will be the gateway through which, by the
inevitable laws of commerce, will pass the
| trade and the travel between Europe on the
| one side, aud the vast British and American
possessions on the other. While upon the lay
ing down of about 800 miles of railroad track
at Inherent points, between the western end of
| superior and the Pacific we shall have o COM
| piete steam route, by water and rail- from Cas-
| CO Bay to Puget sound; on the Pacific coast a
| route five hundred miles shorter than the I'm
| ion Pacific, "traversing the head waters of the
| great rivers of the country, the Mississipni
| Missouri and Columbia" passing through a
better agricultural region and crossing the
Rocky mountains at an elevation 5000 feet low
er than the Union; and the Cascade Range
more than 1000 feet lower than the Central
Pacific crosses the Sierra Nevadas; being
thus relieved of the necessity and the conse-
quent peril OF the forty miles of sheds requr-
ed by the Central roads as protection from
the thirty feet depth of snow that will in plac.
es accumulate upon that line-and having its
Pacific terminus 700 miles nearer to the yari-
GUS ports of India, China Australia and jap.
an than San Francisco, the terminus of the
Central roads; thus insuring for all time the
route through Portland, Ogdensburg, the
Lakes and the Northern Pacific as the grand
highway between Europe on the one side and
those States on the other.
Men of Portland! The future prosperity