The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-01-14

II se>Gs that there are more schemes and
plots in quiet Columbia-the honored capt.
tai of the State-than were dreamed of in
our philosophy. The debt of the State is
but FIVE Millions s'hea- bite" as Chancel-
lor of the E1chequer Disraeli said of the
English national debt.-and the expendi-
lures for the current year will be no more
than about three-fourths of q million. No
wonder, then, that the lobbyists and wire
pullers are excited to distraction, and that
it is gravely proposed to subsidize rail-
rond from Augusta to Port Royal.
The railroad undertakings of this State
the devious Greenville Railroad, staggering
and faint; the cautious Northeastern, weary
and worn, but making gallant fight with
small means: the mammoth South Carolina,
much abused and more worthy, creeping
steadily to the top of dividend hill; the in
choate Savannah and Charleston, which has
swallowed many millions and will not swal-
low more the litigant Augusta, whose uotto
is never despair; the small fry of Laurens,
and Kings Mountaio, and Coalfelds, and
Anderson, and the like, of whom least said
is best;-all these undertakings, by their
wealth, their success, and their mighty fu-
ture-always to be the future tempt the
ring in Columbia to new adventures, and
encourage them to spend more money-not
their own.
A railroad creates traffic. As soon as
the iron rails are spiked in place, and the
steam giant snorts through swamp and bar
rem, men spring from the virgin soil, pines
become fields of tasselled corn, and feecy
cotton mantles the ground r acre the oaks
were wont to grow. And this not in o CEN
tury or decade, but in year or month.
AT least, so seem to think these wiseacres
who preach this new route to the SEQ.
Perhaps it is that what is not enough for
one must be enough for two. AS the trains
roll from Augusta to Port Royal and from
Augusta to Charleston, carrying the freights
of the South and West, the new com.r may
find all the business she needs, and the old
conner be none the worse; for by the reas-
oning of the ring, the part is greater than
the whole.
And admitting that this Port Royal line
will have naught of business save neigh
borhood trade, and not a scrap Of foreign
trade but what it can wrest from the sober
South Carolina, it is at least worth while
to build it so that the horn Of Port Royal
may be exalted.
There is grand harbor and great depth
of water, and there are fine building sites
and thousands of acres of lsnd-owned by
patriots, and to be sold when folks are fools
enough to buy-and surely there should be
built up city which shall rival Charleston
and relieve her of the trade which she has
not means to conduct. This Charleston has
twenty millions of dollars worth of real es-
tate, and twenty millions Of cotton and mer-
ohandise trade-all according to the tax
books-and population of forty thousand
eating and drinking men, women and child
rem. And if Port Royal can be created and
Charleston be destroyed, will not the land
speculator be benefited, and will not the
new city, in the cou.se of ages, be stately.
and rich, aud dull 2
For all these things,--to add one more to
these railroads which will Go so much for
those who own them, 10 pull down this
forty. thousand city, to put rolls of verdant
lucre ;nto the hands of our brethren of TIE
North,-it is plainly the du' of the Statcto
subscribe ten thousand dollars o mile TO the
road from Port Royal to Augusta The
money will be as productive as though it
were flung into The sea; The road will be
job aud u snare throughoui; the effect may
be ruinous ani cannot be advantageous; hut
MIR. Thisman enl Mr. Thatmau will be freed
from the cares of life, and the debt of South
Carolina will be made in bulk mort worthy
of her fame !
But what comes after? There's the rub,
We legislators at Columbia!