Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1882-09-28
Helena, Montana, Thursday, September 28, 1882.
An English View of Our Railroad
System.
London Times. |

No people have ever excelled the people o
the United States in the energy with which
1t masters and acts upon new ideas. Othel
nations might have comprehended az
shrewdly as the American the advantage O.
railroad construction to their countries
None could have displayed such resolution
and faith in applying the discovery. Rail
ways for the American people are as much
labor-savlng machines as the spinning Jenny
and steam plough The American people
have inherited huge domain, with few
laborers to develop it. The 10000 miles OF
railroad computed to be in process of addi-
ton to the United States system in this year
will enable the farmers of thousands of miles
OF fertile land to do the work of double their
number. To the American nation it's stu
pendous acreage is less a possibility of
future homes than stock in trade
American soil and its capabilities for
producing marketable goods are what Amer
leans count upon for the maintenance and
advancement Of their position in the world.
For their object it is not sufficient that they
should after weary pilgrimage, like the
! disciples of Brigham Young discover spot
which they can occupy, and which may
yield them food and raiment. The road
back has to be yet easier than the road
thither. BY mechanical arrangements space
must be practically obliterated, or nine
tenths of the American farmers would take
to another vocation and to more accessible
quarters. AS population grows and becomes
more self-sufficing American railways will
somewhat change their function. They will
more especially serve the purpose, as in older
countries, Of enabling the people and its re-
sources to circulate among themselves. For
the present they belong more to populations
thousands Of miles away than to the villag-
ers and townsmen along their course. They
are the means by which distant populations
realize the riches which nature has bestowed
upon them in the Far West and Northwest.
The hundreds Of millions which have been
raised in European and American Stock Ex-
changes for the building of American rail-
ways are a recognition of the truth that the
planters whom and whose produce the roads
convey are doing the work of the world as
we'll as their own. These lines are collectors
dispatched to recover the worlds dues from
willing nature. Their construction is specu-
lation into which distant capitalists enter
with their eyes open. While the balance
sheet is so favorable as that for the last year
foreign investors are not likely to hold aloof |
They and the agriculturalists North and
0oNN'h s'AASA ''>oS "1OoS poAIL1S CouolI-
tute themselves, have been doing an excel
lent business. Great as are the working ex-
penses, which in the aggregate are sixty-two
per cent. of the gross receipts, tolerable
surplus remains for the present. Hope not
tastens a liberal mortgage on
the future. Were the net profit much less
foreign capitalists might still
consent to promote American railway con-
as it would undoubtedly be for the
benefit of the localities to accept the aid. If
an American line be able in the present to
pay its way, its supporters are entitled to
calculate upon ample sources of profit here
after. Every opening of fresh employment
for American industry cannot but act as a
feeder of the general American railway treas
Try. Provided American railway boards be
airly honest and competent and prudent,
hey need not fear that their overtures for
financial assistance will be met suspiciously
n coldly in native or foreign money markets
The qualification may appear considerable
American railway managers are however,
ware that investors are not excessively criti-
al or censorious in scrutinizing to what ex- ]
ent it has been complied with. ]