The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1871-11-27
THE PR ESS.
MONDAY MORNING, NOV. 81, 1871


What ;s the Supreme Court going to dc
obont consolidation? Four months have
now ELAPSED since the arguments Of the State
and of the defendants on the quo aodrrd'l"
suit were heard, and no decision has yet beer
announced. Justice to both the road ana u
the people demands that the court should ue
terInine before the meeting of the Leglsia'ui'
whether the lease of the Portland d hehIe'
bee road to the Maine Central is legal. Ii Il
is not. the defendant corporation has beer
long enough in the exercise of its illegal pow
ers. The roads in that case would undoubt-
edlv make an appeal to the Legislature to le
palize the contract, on the ground that they
have proceeded so far that any disturbance O.
their existing relations would not only entail
great and disastrous losses on them, but
would seriously impair their ability to meet
the wants of the public in running trains ant
transporting freight. If on the other hand
the famous contract of May 18th, 1870 is pro
nounced legal by the court, the people will
reconcile themselves to the new arrangement
as best they can. They will make the most o.
such incidental advantages as result from IT,
They will rejoice in the more perfect system
more direct responsibility and perhaps greater
promptness in the transaction of business ano
improved condition of the roads arising from
unity of management. These incidental ad
yantages, however, will not, we are certain
even if the utmost that is expected is realized
from them, blind the people to the fact that a
great danger menaces them. The corpora
ton owning the Maine Central, Portland &
Kennebec, Androscoggin, Belfast & Moose
head Lake and Dexter & Newport roads, is
unquestionably monopoly which, in proper
ton to the size of the State,is quite as formid
able as those which have elsewhere made the
local governments mere instruments for re
cording their DEGREES, and which exercise
despotic control not only of the business an6
property but the politics of the States ovel
which their sway extends. The kind of con-
centration that has taken place is that which
in other States has come only after long ex-
perience of consolidation in its simplest, most
defensibe and most natural kind-that O.
connecting roads. But here our first expert
ence of any considerable concentration O
railroad interests has taken the form of the
consolidation of parallel roads. 1t is in THU
respect like the Vanderbilt or New Yorl
Central monopoly, which controls both tn
Hudson River and Harlem roads; and lik
that greatest of all monopolies, the Pennsy
vania Central, which has been obliged to ge
rid of competition by buying two or thre
parallel roads extending westward. 1t i
4 hot hnro hos haaD I'M tn the
time an absence of those high-handed ant
openly lawess measures which have made
the Erie and other great corporations so no
torious The Maine Central can indeed b
charged with effecting the obnoxious arrange
ment when fresh from the refusal of the Leg
an indifference to the wishes of the peopl
which its managers no doubt thought wa
justified by the impunity enjoyed by wealth
corporations in other States that have proceed
ed in manner still more glaringly defiant {
the popular will. But we are not of thos
ates are more likely to make an improper us
of their power than other men. But sue
immense concentrations of property are daI
gerous, no matter how blameless the indivit
uals in whose hands they are lodged, unles
they are under proper legislative contro
The following imperfect table, which we hav
prepared from the confused and fragmentar
returns for the year 1870, made to the Secre
tary of State in compliance with law, wi
give at least vague idea of the extent an
powers of the combination: