New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-11-01
THE TRANSPORTATION DIFFICULTY

The startling financial disorders of the past
few weeks have drawn of attention from the
great grievance of tho West, but it has by no
means been allayed, and before the Winter is
over it will press upon the Farmers more
heavily than ever. The general scarcity Of
money and interruption Of business will cause
them to count more closely than usual the
value of their crops, and to watch with an
especial jealousy every tax laid upon 1t by
the transportation companies. On the other
hand, the railroads will have double induce
ment to increase their rates, first in their own
necessities, and secondly in the stoppage OF
many projected lines and the consequent
les5ening of competition. The freight ques-
ton, therefore, has growing economical ana
political significance, and at the opening OF
Congress will divide with banking and cur
rency problems, and the deficiencies or the
revenue, principal share Of the attention OF
our national legislators.
One thing, we may assume at the start, has
been settled by the recent panic. There must
he no more Government railroads. The abuses
of the land subsidy system precipitated the
recent financial convulsion, and it is pretty
well understood that Jay Cooke e. Co. were
European bankers declined to risk, by the firm
assurance that if they got into tight place
the United States would help them out. II
they could have sustained themselves lew
months longer they would have gone to Con-
gress with a petition for further AID to the
Northern Pacific Railroad. 1t is well under
stood now that the Northern Pacific road
means to petition the national legislature for
guarantee of its bonds; and if the request
is to be granted the mania for building un-
profitable railroads and canals with the public
money will be inaamed still further, and we
shall have all sorts of schemes for
uniting imaginary cities with costly iron high
ways, and bringing the visionary commerce OF
problematic communities across mountain
ranges and trackless deserts,-all at the cost
of the national treasury and for tho profit OF
private spectators. Surely the history of the
Union, and Central, and Northern Pacific roads
has taught us n lesson. The extrv2gant
donations to those enterprises have resulted in
corruption, lawsuits, political immortality, the
ruin of illustriOus character, and wide spread
bankruptcy.
Now it is time for us to take another course.
Wherever railroads are wanted, private capital
There is no longer a necessity for opening
remote regions to settlement, or bringing dis
tant communities within easy reach of the
political and commercial capitals of the nation.
We have opened all the country that we
can occupy for many years to come. If there
is need of double track freight railroad from
Chicago to New-YOrk, or a canal across the
Alleghanies, or a tunnel under the Rocky
Mountains, there are capitalists ready to build
them without help, provided we refuse to help
them. This is only another way of saying
that if the proposed new transportation routes
cannot be opened without aid from Congress
then they are not adequate remedies for the
transportation difficulties and should not be
attempted route that will pay is always
an attractive investment for private capitalists,
and route that will not pay cannot give cheap
rates.