The Aberdeen examiner. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1866-current, 1883-04-19
EDITORIAL MATTER,
From TriWeekly issues of Friday e. Monday

W. P'O S Va
guised blessings Of which we have SC
many instances in sacred and profane
history, for the cessation of work OF
the channels and shores of the various
streams and the gateways along oul
ocean coast that contribute so much
to the needs of an ever increasing
internal and external commerce, will
set the whole country to thinking,and
make every man frame to his own
mind or the ear of his neighbor the
pertinent inquiry as to whether or not
the people, the great agricultural
masses, who are so dependent upon
cheap water ways for the transporta-
ton of their crops to market, are not
entitled to the disbursement of few
millions of the tens and hundreds OF
millions levied upon them through
the tariff,upon their water road-ways =?
1t will cause them to ask why it is
that the great metropolitan journals
that represent the owners of the rail
roads that span the Continent from
North to South and East to West,
built in large measure by appropria-
tions from the land treasure of the
Republic, should perpetually and
eternally war against every PROPOSE
ton to appropriate funds from the
money treasure for the development,
improvement, cheapening and render
ing safe those roadways that God
provided for His children, and that
they have always by jealous legisla-
ton guarded against the blockading
and disturbing influence of cupidity
and capital ?
If the people are to be taxed for
the advancement of the wages of the
operatives and artisans of the mines
and mills and factories of the Eastern
and Middle States, by Government
that confesses that it does not need
the tythes it collects, and that is beg
ging Congress to provide additional
storage accommodation for the use
less boards that are ever accumula-
ting, would it not be decent, to say
the least of it, to generously expend
each year upon the streams that are
navigable and the streams than can
be made navigable, ten, or fifteen, OF
twenty millions of the money that is
exacted in the way Of protective tariff
from the farmers who deive in the
fields that line their banks, and who
can in no other way receive particle
Of benefit from the indirect Federal
taxes they pay for the support and
enrichment of the distant employers
and laborers who levy tribute upon
their soil.
The failure to pass River and
HarboE Bill last session will cause
delay and stoppage in many impor.
tant works; ;and when we use the tern
simportant," we do not wish to be
understood as referring particularly to
the great streams or the great har
bors, for while "Hell Gate" may be
of vital Importance to the port OF
New York, it is of comparatively
little Importance to us, for if the
sands of the ocean should bar APP
proach to the piers Of that great
metropolis entirely, the ''toilers of the
sea" would find other havens of safe.
ty,and other landings for their foreign
freights; and while the channel of the
Tombigbee is of vast importance tc
Fulton, Aberdeen, Columbus and
many other interior towns, New York
would be none the worse off if by
some convulsion of nature its bee
should be converted into mountain
pastures. But to the people who live
upon the coast of each inlet and river
that sea-tongue or that stream is o.
all others the most simportant."
In Baltimore, where great outcry
was raised against the River and
Harbor Bill becauce "the children
were allowed to sit down to the table
with the grown folks" a committee o
the Board of Trade has just published
report showing that the appropria'
ton of 1882 for that harbor will be
exhausted long before another can be
made, ,and that the needed work mus
cease for many months. The New
York Herald which led the attack il
that city, is now bemoaning the stop
page of the work upon He'll Gate
and yet the appropriations that have
been made for New York harbor, a
the expense of the whole country foo
up $3, ,15S,2 200 for East River and Hell
Gate alone, and we are willing tina
the aggregate shall be swelled if nee
essary to twenty millions; but at thu
same time, in the interest of common
honesty and fair play,we demand tina
the great Mississippi shall receive full
consideration at the hands of Con
gress, and that every stream,great o
small that contributes or can be mad