The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1885-07-02
S. Country about Vance's Ferry on
either side of the river and other por-
tions of Berkeley and Georgetown Coun.

6. Parts OF Horny and Williamsburg
and some portion of upper Marion to-
wards the North Carolina line.
These points, it will be observed, are
almost entirely within the upper pine
belt of the State, which, according to
Major Hammond's statistics in the book
published by the State Board of Agri-
culture on the resources of the State,
has population of but 355 to the square
mile-a population certainly unable to
support more railroads.
Except then in the upper pine belt of
the State, and one or two parts of the
lower, we have already sufficient rail.
road facilities to allow one on good roads
to go from any point in the State to
some railroad and return in the same
day. But is urged that while this is
true with the map and compass, that it
is not true practically, because oul roads
are so laid out, or rather have so run
themselves, that the distances from rail-
roads which must be travelled is in
many instances much more than the
map and compass would show. Granted /;
but which, then, is the better remedy-to
straighten and improve our country
roads or to build more railroads I? This
is the question we would have consider;
ed.
We would have our people bear in
mind that it is not within the design
and scope of railroads to run to every
barn door nor to run on both sides of
every stream. Railroads can never take
the place of highways. As Mr.. Nimmo,
the chief of the bureau of statistics,
treasury department, in his last report on
the internal commerce of the United
States, observes: "The fact that the
railroad is an avenue of commerce, the
pathway of which is no wider than the
wheel of the vehicle which moves upon
it, at the very outset forbade that it
should become, in the ordinary sense, a
free highway" "The railroad" as he
elsewhere says, "became, therefore, at the
very beginning, and from the very exi.
gencies of its being, q monopoly" The
buildings of highways has everywhere
and always been the proper subject for
taxation but however the courts may
have decided as to the technical, consti-
tutional right to build railroads by taxa.
tion, the propriety of doing so must still
remain open to question. The argument
that railroad, though highway, is at
the same time not only private property
but monopoly, and that the public
should not be taxed to build that the
profits of which enure always to the
benefit of few private individuals and
practically never to repayment of the
taxes, is not answered by the technical
decision of the Courts.
On the other hand, the improvement
and repair of our country roads is to the
emolument of no private individuals,
but to the benefit of the public and all
the public alike. In regard to them
there is no monopoly of highway. Ev-
cry person may use them, ride or walk
upon them without question from any
one else.
We have often wondered to observe
the towns moving in new railroad enter
prises, for with the general through con.
nection we already have, it is seldom
their interest to do so. Railroads are
absorbers of towns-they are suckers to
the great cities-the money centres. Let
US illustrate. The town of Camden is
now at what may be termed the head of
railroad navigation in that section. All
the produce in the country around, in a
radius say of fifteen or twenty miles,
comes into Camden to the railroad there.
But its citizens are dissatisfied, and
think that by inducing railroad from
Hamlet or some other point to the north
to come to Camden they will improve its
condition. Is not this a mistake? If
such railroad is built will not all the
cotton that now comes to Camden from
the north and east of it go to the nearest
station north of Camden rather than be
hauled in wagons to Camden and then
by rail again North This has certainly
been the result to Chester upon the
building of the Cheraw and Chester
Railroad. Before that railroad was
built Chester did all the business be.
tween the Charlotte, Columbia and
Augusta Railroad and the Catawba
River, but since that railroad has been
opened it has lost thousands of bales Of
cotton. The cotton that ia put on the
railroad at Fort Lawn and Richburg
does not stop in Chester, but passes
through to Baltimore or New York.
Chester loses this year 1858 bales ship
ped from Richburg which, but for the
Cheraw and Chester Railroad, would
have come to it. So again with Black.
Vile. Since the building of the Barnwell
Railroad Blackville has lost many bales
of cotton that formerly were handled in
that town.
But it will be said the community at
large is benefited even though these
towns suffer. If so then let the commu.
nifty at large build the railroads, and do
not call upon the towns to do 80. But is
the community at large benefited by the
"drying up" if we may use the express
sion, of our small money centres. The
general diffusion of wealth has been
urged as one of the fundamental maxims
of political economy; but is not the
effect of our building of railroads the
exact reverse of this principle. The
accumulation of capital in the towns
small though such accumulations may in
each instance be-keeps the means of
planting and Of improvements within
reach Of the farmers, especially of the
small farmers, but the shipping of cotton
directly from the way.stations to the
great money centres is destructive to the
banking interests Of the towns and yet
the farmer who has avoided the town in
the sale of is produce is found to return
to it for the capital to renew his opera
tions and purchase his supplies.
The making of good country roads, on
the other hand, certainly tends to the
building up of our towns and the accu-
mutation OF capital in their banks. Sup
pose, for instance, that the money expen.
ded for building the railroads from Ches.
ter and Blackville had been expended
instead in building good turnpikes radi-
ating from these towns in different direc-
tions until they reach territory tributary
to other towns, would not the money have
haen mnch hetter expended in their in.