New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-05-19
RAILROAD ENCOURAGEMENT.


advance Of her contemporaries in the en-
couragement she is giving to every i'm.
provement calculated to develop her re.
sources. Just previous to the adjourn.
ment of the Legislature on the thirteenth
instant they passed a general railroad
bill, which gives four thousand dollars
per mile to all railroads which may here
after be constructed, and also an act Civ
ing all the State lands to the Mobile and
Northwestern railroad. This is certainly
very encouraging to railroad corporations,
and reflects great credit on the public
spirit and enterprising liberality Of the
representatives of that State 1t will
give new impetus to projected railroads,
and do more to invite emigration than
any other scheme the State could devise
or put in operation.
Railroads are species of enterprise
which require an immense outlay of
money to build, equip and run, and for
this reason corporations should receive
every encouragement and all the material
aid possible from the people Of the States
which their enterprise is calculated to
benefit. This part of the country must
have railroads to meet the increasing de-
mands of travel and commerce or it will
retrograde to q condition as much behind
the age as that of the South American
States to-day. The great chain of rail-
roads, running in all directions in the
North and East, has done more toward
developing the agricultural, mineral and
commercial resources of that section than
any other system of enterprise or public
improvement; and especially is this the
case with all the important cities of that
favored region. Chicago, mere village
thirty-fve years ago, is now the fifth city
in population and commercial importance
in the Union, and this rapid, and we may
add unparalleled, increase has been en-
tirely owing to the numerous lines of
railroads which converge at that point
and which daily and hourly pour the
w
lap. And is it not fair to presume like
result will follow in the wake of railroads
South? The same influences which oper-
ate favorably there by the rapid increase
of railroad facilities will certainly, by a
like application of our means and re-
sources, rebound to our material pros
perity here.
There are millions of acres of superior
land on the line of the proposed route
OF the Mobile and Northwestern railroad
which are almost valueless in consequence
OF the want of facilities to ship the pro-
ducts of the soil, but which would be
valuable and worth twenty times the
price asked for it now We're this road in
operation. In the counties along this line
there are great many very excellent
plantations, the soil of which is CAPABLE
OF producing from one-hal1 a bale to one
bale Of cotton to the acre, and which their
owners are offering at one and two dol
lars per acre, but which would in a short
time after the completion Of this road,
increase to twenty-five or thirty dollars
per acre Nor would the increase in
value stop here, for these lands for miles
on each side of the road would continue
to enhance IN value rapidly each year
atterward, and the rapid influx of immi-
grafton which Invariably follows the con-
struction of a railroad would soon bring
even the wild lands along the line of the
route into active competition and demand
Europeans and Northerners, acens-
toned as they are to railroad facilities
dislike to settle down remote from these