The news & observer., 1897-02-13

lature ought to protect the people by
doing all in it's power to secure the an
nullment of the bad contract made oy
the peoples trustees. If they fan, they
will share in the wrong-doing.
The North Carolina Railroad ought 10
be rented for as much as can be had
under the stimulus of competitive blds
from responsible parties. The sum that
the Southern puts up, $4,000 in bonds,
is no guarantee worth considering that
the rental will be paid. The State is
bound for ninety-nine years; the lesseS
are bound only so long as the road pays
them we'll If five years hence, by some
unexpected occurrence, the Southern
should decide to build by Mocksville and
Mooresville, finding that it would be to
their interest, the lease could be thrown
back on the State, the Southern losing
only $175,000 by the surrender. There
is no danger of surrender because the
road paws more than six per cent on
eight million dollars, and the Southern
has big profit every year by means of
the contract it extorted from the unwise
and scared trustees of the State, and
that profit will go ON increasing with the
growth of the population and the indus
trial development of the section through
which the road runs. Every dollar of
additional income that comes to the road
from the industry of this generation, and
two generations yet unborn, will go into
the pockets of the Rothschilds and the
Morgans and be just that much taken
from the people. Is this right? Ought
directors, who thus turn over the prop
erty of their own generation, to be per-
mitted to take from children yet unborn?
The value of the North Carolina Rail-
road increases every time child is born
from Charlottee to Goldsboro; every
time farmer makes two blades OF grass
grow where one now grows; every time
q new whistle calls men into the facto-
ries and workshops; every time a new
spindle begins to make music in cotton
mill Is it fair that for century all this
increase should be denied to the sons and
grandsons of the men who sacrificed to
build this road, and be given to a rich
syndicate? The few North Carolina
men VINO are now personally enriched
by procuring this wrong to future gen
erations win soon pass away. Is it right
that, in order to help them for a few
years, the people should be required TO
give the Rothschilds at least $4,000 an
nually for century?
There is no law in North Carolina say
ing that Mr.. Duke shall not receive more
rent for a store in Durham, now that it
has grown to be city, than he received
twenty-five years ago when it was vii
lage; and there ought to be no
such law. The fact that he and
all other owners of property in that city
get higher rents now than a
quarter of century ago, shows that the
State of North Carolina ought to get
proportionately a greater rental for the
only valuable piece of property it owns
in the most prosperous section of North
Carolina Is not this true? If so, then
all argument for the lease falls to the
ground.
John A. Gilmer, John w Graham, and
e. B. Withers, in a report to the Legis-
lature, criticized the Republican directors
because they had rented property
worth over s5,000,000" for per cent
on $4,000,000 stock, or for rental of
$240000 year for thirty years, when the
road for the three previous years had been
paying more than 100000 per annum,
and the year preceding had paid over
$4,000. The market value of the stock
then was less than forty-fye cents in the
attempted to be made, the stock was
worth S105, and the road was leased for
ninety nine years for seven per cent, or
little more than half, according to the
market value of the stock, that was re-
ceived in 1871. As business proposition
the secret and condemned lease OF 1871,
was better than the lease of 1895, when
the increase of population, growth of in
dustries, and market value of the stock
are considered.
The rental has been proved TO be $780,
600 year too low.
Shall we fold our hands, see this sum
go into the pockets OF u rich syndicate,
and thus submit to the century wrong
to the people of the whole State?