The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-23
A FINAL WARNING.
From the N. Z. World

A FINAL WARNING.
From the ~ Y. World.
If a well-to-do landholder of New Jersey,
his farm in good order and well stocked, were
to take it into his head, wearied of owner
ship, to sell out or lease his land in perpetu-
ity, he would be very apt to look into. the
solvency of the proposed purchaser or lessee,
and the prospect of securing his purchase
money or the rent. If the farm we're mort
gagged the creditor would most probably bestir
himself, and know, or try to know, what pros
pect there was for the sure payment of the
interest. If this purchaser we're found to be
a rash, harumscarum speculator, who at the
very moment was resorting to all manner Of
contrivances to raise money to meet
current demands, we imagine that
the old-fashioned proprietor would
we are very sure his friends would put him in
the lunatic asylum. Yet this, on a grand
scale, is now going on in a neighboring State.
The PENNSYLVANIA Railroad is absolutely mas
ter of the internal position. AT the very mo-
ment when it is buying up, regardless of out
lay, railroads everywhere, assuming their
debts, guaranteeing their dividends it is
issuing new stock and borrowing more money
in order to pay the interest on its own bonds
and keep its stock from depreciating in the
markets of the world. ''The more see and
learn of it" writes an honest Pennsylvania
capitalist, one of the few unseduced and un-
terrified, ''the more am satisfied there never
has been in this or any other country more
dangerous, less trustworthy corporation
one more surely verging on ruin" Yet this
is the corporation into whose custody New
Jersey and her accredited companies are
about to surrender themselves, and hardly a
word of remonstrance is uttered.
No one can measure its enormous, almost
ipcono avOrbitanoInc Lat 11a-cnaaKinn IN
our misguided neighbors across the river, to
the bond and stockholders here, to the
holders of the securities abroad-give a spe-
cifc illustration of what we mean, and we
beg for it earnest attention. The Pennsyl-
vania Railroad Company buys up or leases,
which is the same thing, railroads without
stint, assuming their debts. and guaranteeing
their dividends all over creation. In their
own language, they never ''yield to timid
counsels." Audace ct toujoUrs audace is their
corporate motto. But with all this intrepidity
they are not without dash of that quality
which, according to its object and its means,
is wisdom or cunning In their last annual
report this passage occurs, which, in warn
ing to our New Jersey friends, we repro
duce:-
"With view to give greater simplicity and effci-
ency to the management OF this large interest, and
far as practicable return to our former policy a
charter was obtained from the Commonwealth OF
rany' to which all the interests aforementioned OF
the Pennsylvania Railroad Company will be trans
ferred the first OF March next, and SS000,000 OF
the preferred capital stock of the Pennsylvania
Company received therefor, which amount covers
fully all OF our expenditures in this connection"
The "Peunsylvania Company" is to be the
depositary of these new investments, and the
railroad company, having shifted its respon-
| sibility to this new creation, is calmly and
peacefully to relapse to its 'former policy
of fostering local interests and doing what il
alone was Incorporated for. And what is this
new Pennsylvania Company? ID requires
industry to find it out, for it is hidden fan
away in the labyrinth of Pennsylvania stat
utes. 1t is company incorporated in 1870
with half a dozen picked corporators, nom
inal capital of 800, 10000 per cent. OF
which, or 20,000, is to be paid in. AS to iti
privileges, it is difficult to describe wha
is SO vast and limitless. It literally
defes description, and it, we repeat, is to bt
the intermediate agency by which all th'
affiliated enterprises are to be manipulated
Doubtless after a time, when the poor, SO
duced corporations shall have been sufficient,
drugged, they will find their 10 per cent
guarantee, the price of innocence, quietl!
transferred to this myth, and their securitie
dickered like the unlueky Pennsylvania Sink
ing Fund. The design of this ''Pennsylvani
Company" is to create q credit based OF
furnished with certificates of all sorts o
stocks, to be guaranteed if necessary, whic
will hereafter, under all sorts of delusiv
puffs, be sold to unsuspecting parties in Eu
rope and elsewhere.
Into the NAV of this giant, deliberately
and with their eyes open, are marching tn
innocent corporations of New Jersey, tn
State authorities asserting, the press lulle
by the narcotism which the wizard-nc
Michael, but Thomas A.-so well knows no
to use, and the trustees of the mortgae
loans, who in the management of their pr
vate concerns would commit no such foil.
acquiescing This is doing, and the onl
word of warning comes from distance. III
grasp of corporate monopoly clutches ever.
thing. The city of Philadelphia, with del
larger than was that of Pennsylvania when
failed to pay her interest, holds millions, fV
we believe, of this imperilled stock, whic
for fear of offense she dare not SELL and whic
, one would think gives her right to speak,
, least in caution. Yet not word Her pre-
is dumb. Trenton is no better off, and Ne
: Jersey is to become what Delaware ont
| was, or indeed worse than Delaware ev,
t was, an appendage to Pennsylvania corp'
q ration.
a WHY IMMIGRATION HALTS.