Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1873-05-23
CHEAP TRANSPORTATION.

country. IF the demand came from
the South alone it would not be heed
ed but fortunately, for us at least, the
great West and Northwest are also
paralyzed by the lack of adequate
means to carry their immense bulks of
produce to market. Great as have
been the advantages given to those
sections by natural and by artificial
means of transportation, the industry
of the people and the fertility of the
soil have made the products of the
earth to outstrip them. The griev-
ance is one that demands a remedy
and as speedily as possible.
One remedy proposed is the con-
struction of new routes of transporta-
ton to the sea-board. It is contended
that the price of any article depends
mainly upon the relation the supply
bears to the demand that in this, as
in other cases, competition is the
surest regulator Of prices, and unless
transportation facilities increase in
proportion to the quantity of freights
that the rates VIII be increa ed.
Acting upon this theory, various
new routes have been proposed, three
of them water ways, seeking to con-
meet the waters of the Mississippi with
the Atlantic Ocean, to wit: one by
canal, slackwater and river navigation
through Virginia a second through
Alabama and Georgia, and third by
canal and inland navigation along the
coast of the Gulf of Mexico to the
Apalachicola river.
These routes have been surveyed by
competent engineers and pronounced
perfectly practicable. Either one of
them, if constructed, would go far
toward supplying the demand for
greater and cheaper transportation,
clared free to the commerce of
the whole country, be complete bar
to any monopoly by ANY corporation,
no matter how great.
AS was to have been expected, how
ever, these schemes have met with
more or less opposition from every
seaport north of Virginia. Baltimore
and Philadelphia each draw from the
great Western freight magazine by
railroad, and naturally look with jeal-
Gus eye upon the construction of rival
routes, that will divert Western
freights to ports further South, and
thereby inevitably build up Il direct
European trade with those ports, and
to that extent injure those further
North.
The great trouble, however, will
come from New York City and its
tributaries. That city has become the
commercial centre Of the United
States, and for that reason ali through
railway lines converge there. For
want of export facilities at Atlantic
ports, in lower ATTITUDES, al other trans
portation lines act simply as feeders to
the great through lines converging IN
New York. In word, the export and
import business of the country, the
business that ought to be scattered
along the whole Atlantic coast, is con-
centrated at one point, and that point
in remote corner Of tie country. \
| single glance at tie map viii
show that this is true. No effort
to cheaper the present high rates of
| transportation will be successful that
does not involve diversion of a large
portion of the business OF the country
from New York City to ports further
| South,
Neither freishts Ao. armies can
afford to move on long lines when
short ones are possible. The time will
| come when the great through freight
lines will run East and West, and ex-
| tend from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
and when the necessity for constantly
open communication will compel their
| location IL Southern ATTITUDES. The
| construction of ali or esti.er of the
| great internal water ways mentioned
| will constitute a long stride to that
contamination sodevoutly to he wished
| by us all.
The cheap transportation movement
is but one phase of the great irrepres-
| sible commercial conflict betv cen New
York City and the people OF The South
|
the Northwest States. That con-
| fict is inevitable, and we say
let it ceme. Every act and every
vord and every ineaeu4p that tends to
| combine and consolidate the people of
Those States in trade or politics, pre-
| pares them the better TO assert their
| commercial freedom.
Cheap transportation requires much
| shorter lines than those we now have,
! and other shipping ports than New
York city. In the days when the Mis-
| sissippi and its tributaries were suf-
| ficient for the people in IT'S great valley,
| and when the streams of the East
were StlIIlCleuL iCE Gllc pCoPlC VI 'IiO
| Atlantic slope, and so long as mum
tain ranges presented al impossible
barrier to any interchange of freights
between the Atlantic and the Mis-
| sissippi, New York i'll the North
east, and New Orleans in the South
| west, answered, perhaps we'll enough,
for the times, as commercial centres OF
their respective sections. But that
day has passed. The whole continent
| almost has become unified, CONNER
! cially. Engineers, backed by money.
| laugh at all obstacles. Cheaper and
| more abundant transpotta tion is now
the cry, and sooner or later II will
| come.
For the journal.
To the Editors Of the Wilmington