New-York tribune., 1873-02-25


twenty miles wide, but wide enough in all
natural resources to support railroad by the
traffic of its way stations. 1t il the only re-
naming route between the two rivers, the
only unclosed gap between the two great cities
of the country, the only highway left between
Ncw-York and the Cotton States. We do
not state the case more strongly
than the Pennsylvania people under
stand it. They know that If they ac-
auire this charter they hold the whole road
bed of half a continent. There is no room
elsewhere for the greatest traffic and travel
known TO the world, already crowded and
iammed TO the throat. If there were some
other notch, some other route little more 10
the east or west of the existing th0r0ughiare'
some line which might compete with the
Pennsylvania as the Erie does with the New
York Central. the affair would he OF lesser
consequence. But there is no other Even II
the Legislature follow the hasty but not III
intended advice of some to pass Do'h
bills" practically giving the same iran
chise to two different CORPORATIONS
the difficulty is only intensified and the wrong
made an insult. The Air Line men, who nave
expended their money with reslstless energy
of construction, have the right of highest con-
sideIation, and il is unfair that the state
should plead the baby act at this stage or the
game and claim that it was an infant when
the StanhOpe charter was passed. Legally Oy
title, by nomination in the bond, Vice-Chan-
cellor DOdd was right in declaring 1t an lndl-
rection, but every man who voted for 1t knew
what it meant.
W of VI riObf N
saw about this matter. Whatever our own
faults, whatever the dictation of Mr.. Wander
bilt, to which we yield, or the grasp of Erie to
which we submit, the fact remains that belt
ing the State we have two great competing
lines of railroad, aud that all schemes to com
bine the two have been defeated. Without a
general railroad law, no charter has been
denied to those who honestly intended to
build a road as the NewYOrk and Oswego
Midland Road, competing with both the Cen
tral and the Erie, is living witness. We have
been right in ourselves in our censures OF
New-Jersey monopoly, for nowhere on the
continent is there competition so fair and so
earnest as that which crosses New-YOrk.
We have been eating humble-pe of late,
and have listened without plant to many lee
Jersey perpetrates the final folly and sur
renders the whole right of way across the
State to single corporation, she may no
longer parade her virtue and her abstract
Justice i'll our eyes. The thing is too wrong
and absurd. No commonwealth can afford so
heavy a sacrifice, and our neighbor least of
all. The time is close at hand when a dozen
railroads ought to lie side by side across the
Newark Meadows. To this end New-Jersey
should look. Her opportunity lies not in the
subsidy paid by foreign corporation, but IN a
free franchise to al roads. Best of all would be
n general law, next to that the Air Line, last
of all the consolidation under one gigantic
control, an Attila of the West, of all the roads
that tend hitherward from the borders of
Pennsylvania The Assembly at Trenton
cannot honorably recede. The Senate can, and
we believe it will. But we shall watch its
action with close scrutiny and unsparing
criticism The State has its opportunity and
should improve it. Nor, finally, should 1t be
forgotten that this same new franchise
WAS the b6te ROr of the Cam
den and Amboy. They sold because
they had not strength enough to forbid this
same charter as against themselves They
knew that the Pennsylvania would claim
demand, enforce it, with a purchasing power
such as Camden and Amboy has not possessed
of late years. They would have built the new
road as against the ancient corporation. 1t
remains to be seen whether they will build it
as a side line to their own main track. Possibly;
but to the State the argument comes back with
redoubled force Shall all the routes to North
and South be held by single foreign corpora
finn