The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1892-03-18
The Reading Deal and h Lehigh

| LIS INttuluS CoA &h0 S"O
Valley Water Claims
In Yesterdays JERSEY CITY News
we gave some particulars regarding
| the concerted raid that was made on
all water legislation at Trenton this
year. Today we give the ingenious
suggestion of a gentleman who has
studied the subject deeply as to a
means by which Governor Albeit
might conceivably dispose of the
whole water question as a vexatious
issue, and might at the same time
score a great popular triumph in re-
spect to the Reading deal. We are
not prepared to say hat the PROPOSE
| ton comes within the field of prac-
teal possibility, but we are very sure
that if it be possible, it would be
| highly beneficial to the State and its
municipalities. The water question
assumes bigger and bigger proper
| tions every veal. The Newark con-
tract by no means disposes of it or
gives an irresistible trend towards one
only solution. On the contrary, the
Newark robbery shows the utter i'm
| possibility of any other city dealing
| with the matter in the same way;
| while it constitutes an obstacle to
| dealing with it in any broader or
honester fashion.
OF course, extremists on the water
question will say that the Lehigh
Valley Railway has really nothing to
| surrender to the State in the matter
of water rights. The old and perfect
ly true proposition that there can be
no private ownership in running
water will be advanced. 1t will be
said that if the State wants the water
for its cities, it may take it at any
time. This is quite true, but the fact
remains that the railway owns certain
rights and privileges in respect to
four-fifths of the best water supply in
the State, which nav not-certainly
do not-constitute an indefeasible
title, but which constitute a sort of
easement which could only be wrested
away by long, arduous and most ex-
pensive litigation. The surrender of
ike claims which the railway COM
pany has always pertinaciously as
serted would, we think, in the judg-
ment of all fair-minded persons,
amount to a very fair return for the
concession of signing a very doubtful
statute which may in the long run be
upset by the courts.
The making of such a bargain with
a railway company would not be by
any means out of line with Governor
Abbett's policy in other contests.
The long fight with the Morris and
Essex Railway was terminated by a
bargain in which the company sur
rendered an alleged right in return
for a concession made to it by the
State. The Governors course was
universally approved on that occasion,
and there is no possible reason why,
if he could make the bargain now
suggested, he should not win great
applause by doing so. We under
stand that before he signs the bill, the
proposition will be presented to him.
Doubtless he will give it careful con-
sideration, and, if there be anything
in it, will make the most of it. The
public interests are always safe in
Governor Abbett's hands.
THE resolutions adopted by the
Republican Convention yesterday
were a precious specimen of back
number literature. They were drafted
previous to the meeting of March 2,
and neatly type written and cut and
dried in anticipation of the renomina-
ton of Mayor Cleveland. When the
convention adjourned they were for
gotten until it was necessary to trot
them out for adoption yesterday.
Then cold shivers ran down the dele
gates spines as they perceived their
antique inappositeness. They were
simply an arraignment of the abuses
which Allan L. McDermott has been
nominated and Will be elected to
remedy. They might have been very
good against any representative of the
old regime. but they raise no issue
with the Democracy as matters actual
~ stand.
IN aremarkable fake gotten up by
its ex- World reporter yesterday on the
subject of %tunnclling the Hudson, the
Journal speaks of "St. Pancreas'
railway station in London. The Jour
nal has its anatomical and geographic
cal information mixed in an interest
ing
The inside history of the water
bills published yesterday shows what
II wretched tool of the Essex gang
Speaker Bergen On the whole,
we think Mr.. Bergen the most objec-
tionable democrat we have ever come
across in politics. The fact that he is
a man of some brains and education
makes his conduct all the worse. He
vas a mixture of petty tyrant and
subservient tool to a disgusting ex-