The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-12-16

spirit IN which its opportunities are improved,
If the new Legislature shall prove as corrupt
and as facile as its predecessors to the be-
hests of the great railroad corporations which
have hitherto ruled and shamed the State,
then the story of Republican ascendenoy will
soon be told If the people shall discover
that their interest is held paramount to the
banquets and bribes of the chartered mono
polists they will take care that the authors
of this salutary change shall not soon give
place to the tools of the great companies.
Nearly half the area of New jersey is to-
day unimproved. Millions of acres of warm,
facile, level land, which ought to be growing
vegetables and fruits for the great cities on
either side, are surrendered to scrub oaks aud
stunted pines, and scarcely more useful to
mankind than when this whole country was
peopled by naught but red savages three cen
turies ago. The soil of South Jersey is, for
the most part light and thin, and needs
heavy applications of fertilizers to fit it for
profitable culture. The mari which will rem
der ii productive underlies in abundance a
considerable portion of that region; but its
great bulk renders the use of railroads indis-
pensable to its adequate distribution The
farmer who must wagon his narl over deep,
cloggiDg, sandy tracks through the wilder
nese for ten to twenty miles, rarely or never
does or will apply enough of it to fit his land
for growing the crops which his markets re.
quiTe. Quite often, he scratches bare sub
sIstence from hundred acres, when tenth
of it, adequately fortified, would insure him
a generous income. Thousands after thou
sands have given up in despair and migrated
to the West, abandoning lands on which
crops might be grown as amply and cheaply
as in the great valley and cold for twice as
much, if they had enjoyed facilities for
cheaply fertilizing their lands from the marl-
beds not twenty miles distant.
The needed railroads would be rapidly con-
structed if the legislation of the State favored
them. What is needed is general law author
izipg, under proper safeguards, such roads to
be built wherever capital can be found to
construct them. If this consummation can
be hastened and assured by a prospect of
sharing in the carrying trade between this
city and Philadelphia, the interests of New
Jersey imperatively demand that this pros
pect be held out Had there never been
monopoly of this trade accorded to the Cam
den and Amboy combination, there would
have been not less than four through lines in
operation this day, as there are four distinct
lines (by Hartford, by Norwich, by Provi-
dence, and by Fall River) between this CITY
and Boston. Under this policy the popula-
ton of New Jersey by the census would have
been at least quarter of million more than
1T IS, her annual production one hundred
millions greater and her wealth immensely
more. The past cannot be recalled but the
monopoly has expired by limitation; and it
should now be established, as cornerstone
of New Jersey policy, that wherever capital
can be found to construct railroad, there it
may be constructed, and may carry all that
offers on such terms as the parties may agree
upon.
The great companies are powerful and
wealthy. They can afford to spend half a
million per annum at Trenton to maintain
for a season their gainful monopoly. They
need no re-enactment of that monopoly in
terms; it will serve them to have each sue
cessiye Legislature bribed not to charter any
road that can compete with them for the
through traffic. The people will comprehend
this, and will scrutinize the non action as
we'll as the votes of the two houses and their
| Railroad Committees.
| As to the election of United States Sena-
| tor, let the first man who offers, no matter
how obliquely, to pay money for votes, be
| exposed and rendered Infamous. The State
needs her strongest man in the Senate-one
who will be heard and felt in opposition to
| the pending attack upon the policy of pro-
lection to home industry. Through all her
mutations of politics, New Jersey has stood
firmly by the policy of protection, and her
recent rapid growth in population and wealth
is largely due to the triumph of that policy.
Other States have some leading interest
| iron, cotton, woollens, or some other--New
Jersey has hundred diverse branches SPOT
terry, glass, rubber, cotton, silk, saddlery,
etc, etc.-which separately may be weak, but
collectively are potent; and their prosperity
! depends upon the maintenance of protection.
| That her voice in the next Congress should
be heard and needed by the whole country
| is the dictate at once of her ell-being and of
her just renewn.