Helena weekly herald., 1877-10-18
Jay Cookies 1sOthe rmal Road.
lErom the st. Paul Pioneer Press.

The Cincinnati Commercial has done lyinl
and railing enough in times past about th'
Northern Pacific railroad, if lies were tie
and railing were rails, to build railroad
across the continent of every parallel of lati
tude from the Gulf Of Mexico to the Arctic
circle. And still it is not satisfied.
The editor of the Commercial docs mo-
seem to know that the Northern Pacific rail
road has survived his ridicule and his false
hoods; that over four hundred miles of this
railroad have been constructed and have beer
for years iu operation from Duluth to the
Missouri river, traversing one of the richest
and most productive wheat districts on the
globe; that it forms the main outlet and adit
of the Canadian province of Manitoba, and
the contiguous districts of British America,
with which it is connected by rail and river,
and is shortly to be connected by continu-
Gus line of rail that it has contributed very
largely to the settlement and developement of
the fertile wheat acres of the Red river val
ley and northern Dakota, where on one farm
alone $50, 600 bushels of wheat were raised
this year that it is the main avenue of COM
munication with the gold fields of the Black
Hills, and with the military posts on the Mis-
souri, and the Yellowstone, nearly all of
whose supplies reach them by this channel; !;
that the net earnings of the Minnesota and
Dakota divisions for the year ending August
31st, 1877, were nearly $400, 1000, and will
probably reach $6C0, 900 next year, so rapid
next month when the Brainerd branch, con-
Meeting it more directly with st. Paul, will
be completed, it will have constructed and in
operation $50 miles OF road, including its Pa
cific division. Perhaps the editor of the Conn.,
mercsal, who is condemned by his geograph-
ical situation to a sluggish rural isolation
from the great currents of colonization and
commercial activity which are pressing west
ware across the great northern zone of wheat,
may think the Northern Pacific of no benefit
because it is beyond the verge Of bis little To-
cal horizon and does not pay tribute of pork
and whiskey to Cincinnati; but we who live
within the sound of the rattle of its trains as
they start every day on their way to the far
Missouri, laden with merchandise for the
people of the new settlements it has built up,
know that it is of vast benefit to region of
country eight or ten times as large as the
State of Ohio, and that it is opening up fields
for the colonization of the unemployed labor
of our northern cities, and new areas of ag-
production which are already prov
ing of great benefit to the whole North, and
will be in the future of incalculable benefit to
the whole country.
And since, in spite of the stale sneers
and staler lies of the Cincinnati Commercial,
he Northern Pacific is bound to be compile
ted, step by step and stage by stage, till it
reaches the gold fields of Montana and de-
sends the great valley of the Columbia to
Puget Sound, that event will emancipate the
commerce of the continent from
he oppressive monopoly of the Union Pacific, !
md because it will furnish shorter route
rom New York or Liverpool to China by
'everal hundred miles, and reduce the time of |
ravel some four or five days, it is tolerably |
certain that the Northern Pacific will become |
he main highway of the commerce and
ravel between the two oceans. 1t is tolerably |
certain that the completion of the Northern
Pacific railway would, by reason of its shor-
er line and better gradients, and its position
n higher latitudes in the direct course of trade
,etween Liverpool and Shanghai, which
would enable it to carry at cheaper rates than
he Union Pacific, and by reason of the COM
,etition between the two, greatly reduce the
ost of transportation for man and merchan-
lise across the continent and thus prove of
ncalculable benefit not only to the whole
North, but to the whole SouiA and the whole
world. In what, then, is fbe Northern Paci-
d: a frand? srs vr,e-sGs t.s#, sg.Sissi