The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1868-05-22
Portland and the West.

A writer in the Argus names Mr.. John A.
Foor as authority for the statement that the
Ogdensburg road if built will never be great
freight road The reasons assigned for this
opinion are two. 1. That Ocdensburg has
never furnished large amount of freight to
Boston. 2. That Montreal is the real termin-
us of lake navigation. To the first of these
statements it must be replied that the Mag
ara ship canal, which the West will have, will
at once give Ogdensburg the commercial po-
sition which Buffalo now enjoys. 1t will be
the natural depot OF the grain crop, and Bos-
ton cannot handle grain until she builds a
marginal railway and thus abolishes her
truckage duty of 8 cents bushel AS to the
secord point, the rapids below Ogdensburg
constitute an obstruction to navigation which
will effectually prevent Montreal from COM
peting with her New York rival. Boston has
no doubt on this point. Her business men are
now laboring to perfect and consolidate her
communications with Ogdensburg and at the
same time talking of marginal railroad ON
their own wharveS The following article on
"the Commerce of the Lakes" appeared in the
last number of the Commercial Bulletin, and
is not without interest to Portland readers:
If our Boston Merchants do not want their
| Portland neghbors to get the start of them, in
competing for that portion of western COM
merco which seeks an outlet to the seaboard by
| way of the Great Lakes, they must be up and
| doing. The Portlanders appear to fully under
| stand, what 1t has taken so many years OF dis
| cussion and experiment to hammer into the
| brain OF our Massachusetts, economists; viz,
that the shortest quickest and cheapest routes
| open between given points of commercial ex-
| change, must invariably draw into them
the bulk of traffic, though the difference may
| be but very slight.
line of transportation between their fine harbor
| and inland navigation at the aestern end of
Lake Ontario. They will certainly have it at
no distant day; for they mean business, and
have lately held several enthusiastic public
meetings upon the subject, at which capital
has been freely pledged, and the influence OF
practical men enlisted, who never took hold
of an enterprise of that kind unlesslit had in
trinsic merit, nor without putting it through
The success of the Grand Trunk in bringing
| Western tr lde to Portland, has inspired ouI
neighbors with confidence, and they now as
pire to something greater and higher on the
score of commercial position. They are
about near Lake navigation as Boston, by
| an air line route and considerably nearer than
| New York by existing communications
| Public sentiment in favor of making the
| connection, across the State of New Hamp-
SHIRE, (via Wells River Junction, the Vermont
| TdllEOduS) Is up W te-
| Yer heat; and We should not be surprised,
Notwithstanding the multiplicity of railroad
projects now on the hands of our Maine
friends, to see the stock CT this new line speed
| lily taken up.
| The Portlanders, moreover, have regular
| European steamship lines, and can accommo-
| date any amount of export trade which may
be brought to them either from Can ada or
from the West They can bring freight trains
| down to deep water in their harbor without
| any circumlocution or interference with local
| travel. Their pleasant city has already arisen
like the Phoenix from its ashes, and is destin.
ed to grow rapidly in wealth and population.
We have no local jealousies on this score
Our commercial rivalry we trust, will always
be of friendly character, and we mean to
| hold up the example of Portland as a stimu-
| lus to Boston enterprise. We only wish that
| the commercial zeal of our own fellow citizens
| was in the same ratio to their means as that of
| their down-east neighbors.
| 1t only remains for our Boston sold folks"
| to consider whether they are willing to be out
| stripped in the race tor commercial supremacy
| by the youthful beginners of the Forest City,
and thus have their Western trade diverted
| from them on both sides. In the contest with
New York, it would be no disgrace to them if
| they were occasionally put a. a little disad
vantage; but when they look Eastward, and
| find the scale turning against them there, they
| really have no occasion to feel proud. There
is but one thing they can do to preserve their
| self-respect-and that is to do just what the
| themselves short route to the eastern ter
| tai, energy and engineering skill can complete
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