Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-08-24
The FOREIGN ASSAULT.

Referring to the assault the Canadian
Pacific Railway is making upon the com
merce of San Francisco and American
carriers, the San Francisco NefS Letter saws:
The fight with the Canadian road and its
steam lines upon which California is about TO
enter, is to be one of no mean dimensions.
There are large interests which conflict with
ours, but they must be met and encountered for
all that. The conference shortly to be he d in
the Chamber or Commerce in this city must
look all these difficulties squarely in the face
and grapple with them with a strong hand
The questions with which it proposes to deal,
are the most vital to the future of San Fran
cisco that have ever been submitted to public
consideration. The commanding issue is as to
whether San Francisco shall retain her stand
ing as the entrepot of the trade and commerce
of the Pacific, or lose it for al time to come
Our British neighbor is bidding high but with
the full hand they hold, our merchants must
net lack the courage to see her and go one
better.
But the struggle upon which we have
already entered does not concern the COM
mercial men of San Francisco alone.
Their Interests are indeed great, and in
great peril, but the whole country has
something at stake, and notably the whole
State of California is interested. If the
Canadian Railway competition, backed as
it is by the power and money and patron
age of one of the wealthiest Empires Cd
the face of the globe, subsidized as has
been no other private commercial or other
enterprise, succeeds in stripping from the
trans-continental American roads the
through CARRYING business and the Asistic
IL I
revenue that will seriously reduce their
earning capacity, and compel them to
either abandon business or make their
local or way business yield sufficient to
meet the operating expenses of the roads.
and the returns essential to the invest
ment. What this means any one can see
by momentary glance. 1t will mean an
unavoidable raising of rates along the
whole line Of way business; for it is the
through traffic that enables the way com
merce to enjoy reasonable rates. 1t would
amount to this, then: That the people of
all the interior would be paving tax
quite equal to the operating expenses of
the Canadian Pacific Railway, in order
that it might rob our own carriers of their
through business
The interest of the interior is, there
fore, quite as much involved as is that of
the metropolis Such revolution as is
possible under the unrestricted competition
of the alien road would operate to handi-
cap the business OF the entire interior, in.
crease the cost of living for every con-
sumner, and disastrously affect every local
industry. The State, therefore, has vital
interest in defeating the American con-
quest the British propose to make By the
arts of peace. 1t is an unfortunate fact,
and one that complicates the situation
that New England finds her selfish inter
est in favoring the scheme of the Canadian
Pacific. Boston is DESTROYS Of rivaling
New York as commercial giant, and
thinks that she sees the way to that end
through the foreign avenue. She there
fore favors close connection with that line,
and the continuation and extension of the
bonding privilege, which would ride down
the protective principle in this case, and
would enable the foreign road to do the
American transcontinental carrying trade,
without being subjected to the regulation
and taxation visited upon American lines.
While this may be the interest and gain
Of New England, it will assuredly wreck
American commercial interests upon this
coast. 1t is to the consideration of this
question especially that the conference of
commercial bodies is to be held in San
Francisco next week.