The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-03
MAY GOBBLE UP
 THE TWO ROADS Mellen Believed to be After Both the B. & A. and
 B. & M.
POWER OF BIG SYSTEM
Financial Needs of B. & M. May Facilitate Ac-
 quirement.

A special dispatch to the Hartford Times from the Boston News Bureau yesterday says;
 Our statement that the acquisition of the Boston and Maine would be the inevitable result of the expansion pol. icy of the New Haven road has re. ceived the denials expected. Never theless, it still appears inevitsble that the next big event in the New Eng land transportation field will be tho acquisition of the Boston and Maine by the New Haven road If our first statement erred 1t was probably on the side of conservatism, for 1t is not un- likely that the Boston and Albany will enter into the trade This does not necessarily mean that the New Haven road will assume the Albany lease, but some other arrangement could be made which would make the New Haven power in Albany affairs. For instance: Why could not the New Haven be given trackage rights over the Albany system, perhaps with full power to opr crate?
 The point most questioned in the plan was that If President Mellen turned the Ontario and Western over to the New York Central he would have to have fine digestion for his own explanations, inasmuch as he ia understood to have said few years ago, when the New York Central wanted to buy the Ontario and Vest ern, that unless the New Haven main tained It's hold on that road New England manufacturing interests might at any time be forced to meet an advance in their coal of fifty cents ton.
 This does not offer a barrier. If the New Haven turns the Ontario and Western over to the Vanderbilts, and gets a dominant interest in the Boston and Maine and the right to operate over the Albany, the New England railroad situation will be entirely changed.
 The New Haven road, representing the industrial interests of all New HnEsS land as regards transportation would be so constituted as to give New Eng land a voice equal to that of any oth- CT section or railroad group in the country.
 The New Haven, directly affiliated with the Boston and Maine, controlling between 5000 and 1000 miles of road, with a gross earning power rising to $130, 900 per annum and credit of the first class, arbiter of the exchange of millions of tons of freight every year with the eastern trunk lines at Harlem River, Campbell Hall New burgh, Albany, Poughkeepsie and oth- CT Hudson river gateways, would bs able to demand and get for New Eng land anything in reason, something no isolated and provincialized system could do
 It would have, in addition, a navy op- erating as far south as Florida, bring ing all New England in direct conna.- tion, independent of the eastern trunk lines, with the Norfolk and Western the Chesapeake and Ohio, the South ern railway and all the great raw ma terial. gathering and merchandise dis tributing trunk lines of the south Over this route it could feed and drain New England. It is a club no system of trunk lines could ignore.
 The lease of the Boston and Maine by the New Haven, though possible, is not probable, If the New Haven takes the property, as now appears inevita- ble, it will do so in a manner to make the Boston and Maine stockholders partners with the New Haven.
 Boston and Maine needs $S0,000, 900 to $4O,0O0O00 or $15,O0O to $2O,0O0 per mile, spent on the property for new equipment and improvements This proposition must be met Only by this method can the Boston and Maine be put in shape to move it's passengers in faster schedules and both it's passen- gers and freight at a lower rate Ped- ldling out million or so year will never do it. In view of this, the ques- ton is: Would the Boston and Maine stockholders become partners with the New Haven, swap their stock on some agreed basis for 8 per cent. New Ha- ven stock, while the earnings of the Boston and Maine were used for the rehabilitation of that road? The acs quisition of the Boston and Maine by the New Haven would make plenty of work for the engineers.
 One of the first things projected would be subway under the city of Boston between the North and South stations for passenger trains drawn by electric motors. Members of the North Shore colony could be carried from .New York to the Massachusetts North sohre in five and one-half hours, or better, as against about six. or seven hours as at present. It is not too much to expect that the entire passen- ger service of New England would un- dergo a sweeping change and be brought nearer and cheaper to Bos- ton and New York. Such acquisition would be case of expansion. The one road would supplement the other.
 North of Boston 1t Is fair to expect that the change would cause economies, a thoroughly modern railroad system for practically all New England. The New Haven cost of handling $5S, 100000 of business last year was actually
 (Contlnued on Twelfth Page1