New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-12-10
SALE OF THE WHARvEs AND WATER
WORKS.

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have been courteously requested by Mr..
Fellows to consider the plan which he has
communicated, we will do so.
We had invited ne,p suggestions. This
offered by Mr.. Fellows is as old as the
first proposition to purchase the public
franchises of regulating food, water and
wharfage, and take pay in city securities.
We have committed the REPUBLICAN too
strongly against this system of selling the
public property and hiring out the people,
to indorse it under any shape or upon any
authority.
The proposal is to sell certain proper
| ties belonging to the city and apply the
proceeds to the reduction of the debt. To
this proposal, SO far as it may embrace
property-real or personal-we can have
no objection. These are legitimate assets,
and may be subjected by law to the pay
nent of the corporate debt When, how
ever, it is proposed to sell property whose
value depends in any degree upon the ex-
ercise of the right of corporate taxation,
we would rigidly separate and reserve that
right to the corporation, which indeed we
do not admit to possess the power to alien
ate this power of taxation.
Suppose the city sell the fee simple of
the riparian ground to the edge of the
water, or the fee simple in the ground and
structures of the markets. Of what value
would these properties be to the pur-
chasers? The city has the right to impose
upon the wharves tax equal to the max
ing and maintenance of this easement of
commerce. The city has no right to
charge for landing ship at these wharves,
any revenue or profit. If individuals
were allowed to build these wharves and
make no higher charges than remunera-
ton for erecting and keeping up these
wharves, what profit would they derive
from the purchase? Would Mr.. Fellows
contend that any citizen has such right to
preoccupy and obstruct landing upon
navigable water, as that the vessel must
pay an exaction for the privilege of dis
charging Or loading cargo? We do not
suppose he will contend that such right
can anywhere exist under our laws. If
we are correct in regard to this principle
the dilemma is presented, either the city
must find purchasers who will be content
to build and maintain wharves for q rent
that will compensate them for so doing,
or, the city must sell the wharves, with
the right of the purchaser to charge for
the commercial use of our river just what
ever he can exact from the shipper and
shipowner. There is further public use
for the margin of the river; it is for the
right of transit and movement of people
and vehicles. 1t is as well street as a
wharf. Could the city government abne-
gate its duty of providing for the public
use of public way?
The purchaser of the markethouse and
ground in fee simple would stand in the
same situation. Could the city delegate
to the lessees of the public markets the
right to impose any rate on the occupa-
ton of stalls or the right of traffic under
the roof that the lessees might think
proper to make. The REPUBLICAN has
argued that the city should in wisdom
derive no revenue from the markets, be-
cause it imposes an indirect tax upon pop
ular consumption. Suppose the city
should sell the markethouses without the
right to demand any rents for the privi-
lege of sale and purchase which the les
see might choose to impose? Of what
value would such property be to the pur-
chaser if be could merely exact pay for the
making and maintenance of these build
ings? Suppose the city should not, by
the closure of private markets, drive the
people into the taxed stalls? Would such
property be of any more value than pri-
vate market of equal structural and local
value?
1t we have made these views plain, it
will appear that unless the city delegates
to the purchaser of the public wharves
and markets the power of taxation upon
the people who use these agencies, the
purchaser will find little motive to pay
all those millions to which Mr.. Fellows
has referred.
To the sale of batture or accretion we
can have no objection. The Mississippi
river has most generously helped the city
out of many difficulties by presenting
periodically a space of solid ground,
worth million or more of dollars. This
has been sold in fee simple, and covered
with commercial buildings, but no Coun-
Gil has ever sold this batture to the preju-
dice of the river landing and the streets.
This sale may go on as long as the city
stands and the river runs as it does now.
No administration, however, has dared do
more than lease out the levees for short
time, and in those cases the commercial
public has complained justly of the con-
tractors. For particulars on this subject
see the able exposition of Administrator
Burke. ...-.
IF the city government puts SO many of
the duties heretofore performed into COM
mission and admits its incompetency to
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