New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-02-23

RAILROAD BUILDING AND ITS RESULT
Ordinarily fluctuations at the Stock Exchange
are regarded by the public with great indiffer-
ence. A mere decline in prices proves nothing.
I'm nine cases out of ten it is the work of specu-
lators who decry and depress properties in
order to buy, and will puff and initiate the
same properties the next week or next month
in order to sell. But any real loss of public
confidence, based upon ascertalned facts Ill the
condition of the transporting interest, Is a
different matter. 1t does not tend to cure Itself
in day. That interest no longer concerns a
few men only. The capital nOminally repre-
scented by railroad stocks and bonds is greater
than the capital employed i'll all branches OF
manufacture. If the transporting interest has
been unwisely managed, or improperly ex-
tended, or has lost the confidence of investors,
the consequences must seriously affect every
department of industry and business.
There are some signs that this undesirable
condition, though not yet actually reached, Is
nearer at hand than it ought to be. The tone
of foreign journals respecting the management
of American railways is not encouraging. The
railroad war has been quite generally treated
as the work of speculative managers, who
damage properties intrusted to them in order
to buy at lower prices. Here 1t is known that
this impression is very unjust to some OF the
men concerned that causes independent OF
speculation made it difficult, if not impossible,
to maintain agreed rates. But the fact that
the impression exists is important. Moreover,
the frequency of appeals to the courts to serve
palpably speculative ends, and the fact that
these appeals have not always failed to defeat
n to Il
trust abroad Then there is a growing i'm
preston that recent extensions and consolida-
tons have placed some of the most solid and
valuable properties in danger, and this feeling,
in some instances at least, is not entirely I'M
warranted Conditions having arisen in
Europe which promote distrust of all invest
nents, and prompt investors to get their
money as much as possible within reach, con-
siderable blocks of American securities have
recently been sold here on foreign account, or
sent over to be sold, and the effect upon the
rate of exchange has been evident. In some
degree, the same causes have operated to i'm
pair confidence at home. Less injustice is
done to the motives of railway managers, per-
haps, but the very fact that the causes which
forced a controversy between them are under
stood tends to produce distrust because it is
seen that those causes are not wholly tempo
rary The struggle for the possession of the
New England traffic, the desire of Baltimore
and Philadelphia to secure an adva".1ye in
rates and the rapid development ana .4,loas-
ing cheapness of water transportation, are
causes of disturbance which do not pass away
with the adoption of any resolutions. But the
principal cause of difficulty is the construction
of new roads and the organization of new lines
by the consolidation of roads previously ex-
listing.
1t is not very long since Mr.. Vanderbilt said
that there were five trunk lines, without traffic
enough for three. Since that time, the CheSa-
peake and Ohio has been completed so that it
can move freight from Chicago or from the