Year: 1873

Monopoly oppression received what seems
TO have been its death-blOw i'll the New-Jcr-


sey Legislature yesterday. AS we predicted
Oh Tuesday, the rumOr that majority of the
Assembly had been bribed to vote for the
Senate monopoly bill was mt least not e2tirely


true. for that body stood manfully by It's
record and refused to act upon bill so
plainly illegal and dishonest. The demonstra-


tive exhibitions of joy by the people when


Yesterdays vote was announced shows how


closely they were watching their Representa-


tives and how eagerly they desire freedom


from the lOng-bome oppression. Whether


these wishes shall be fully gratied will be


decided by the action of the Senate to-day. The
General Railroad bill comes up there as
special order, the more important amendments


proposed by the Senate Committee having


passed by decisive majOrities, while the OBJ
structive changes proposed by the monopoly


met with the cold shoulder. The bill is
amended and not emasculated, and the Assem-


bly, can wisely concur in the alterations made


by the Senate. The fear has been that the


bill would be so loaded and tinkered as to
disgust its friends and be useless to the State.


That peril seems well over, for clear ma


iorty for the people is now counted in the
Senate, and Pennsylvania must look to the AS
sembly, already pledged and bound to the bill
so far that only one motive, and that the
meanest, can account for change of policy:
The action of the Pennsylvania management
has been both insolent and foolish. 1t rea-
soned from false premises 1t supposed that
political chicane would be as powerful in Jer-
sey as across the Delaware. True, New
Jersey held fast to the Camden and AmbOy
monopoly, and did so by the action of many
of her highest citizens but it was
because the monopoly was contract, ter
minable at given date, and not before. The
date arriving the contract was terminated.
Camden and Amboy, fearing and unwilling to
face this very exigency of competing roads.
sold a perpetual lease to the Pensylvanians,
and the latter seem to have imagined that
they purchased the monopoly as well as the
lease, and that they, with money alone, could
do in the Legislature what Camden and Am
boy had hard work to do with money, backed
by the good faith of the State and the de-
cisions of its highest and purest courts.


We trust they will find their mistake. There
is no contract now. Pennsylvania bought
nroperty, valuable enough for the money paid,
but out of which one great element of value
had perished. There is no letlnor hinderance
now, no shadow of bad faith in permitting the
construction of competing roads either by spe-
cial charter or by General Law. The mon
opoly was made terminable for that very pur-
pose. Moreover, Jerseymen not only regard the
Pennsylvania as an alien corporation, but
they are already painfully aware that their
local facilities-the chief source of population
and wealth-are merciessly cut down to ac
commOdate the through traffic that the old
precision as to time, so essential to the person
doing business in New-Y York, is no longer pre-
served. The road has not the necessary facili
ties for its traffic. VIII New-Jersey have COM
petition, or revive the old monopoly by grant
ing new charters to the Pennsyvanians ?
There are two courses by which to avoid this
disaster, which contemplates surrendering the
whole belt of lands available for through
traffic to a single corporation. The first rem
edy ia in tho General Railroad law, which
ought to pass even at the risk of seeing the
avail itself Of all its privileges