Year: 1873




the West in agitating the question of cheap
transportation. The politicians will soon
plunge into it with view to promote their
own interests and to divert the movement, if
possible, to party ends Everywhere this
question, in connection with that of the rail-
road monopoly and other monopolies is loom
ing up grandly and overshadowing lesser
issues. Tonight there will be mass meeting
at the Cooper Institute, in order that our me
chants md others may express their views and
give an impetus to the general movement Ii
| we mistake not it will be such q gathering OF
| influential business men as has been rarely
witnessed. At least it ought to be, and


will be if our merchants and wealthy
citizens do not show the same apathy
on this subject that they have usually
shown in political and governmental
affairs. There have been several preliminary
and smaller meetings of the business men OF
the city to discuss the subject of cheap trans
portation and railroad matters connected
Herewith, and these have led to the call for the
larger and more popular meeting tonight
There were some five hundred signatures Of the
prominent merchants in the different branches
of trade appended to that call. If, therefore,
these gentlemen are in earnest, the meeting
cannot fail to have important results


We notice, too, by despatch from Washing
ton, that two of the Senate Committee on
Transportation, Senators Window and Con-
over, were to leave the capital this morning to
attend the meeting at the Cooper Institute.
The Senate, during the last session of Con-
gress, ordered the appointment of this COM
mittee to investigate the whole subject Of
transportation. The committee has been at
work in different parts of the country, and was
in this city at one time taking evidence. The
object appears to be to spend the time be-
tween the close of the last session and tho
opening of Congress in December in
collecting matter for an exhaustive
report. The meeting this evening will
furnish materials for that, and we are
pleased to learn that two of the members of the
committee will be there. If we may judge
from the views expressed by several of our
principal grain and shipping merchants to a
representative of the HERALD, published on
Monday the interests of New York, as the
commercial metropolis, will be considered in
connection with the subject of transportation
generally and the welfare of the whole coun-
try. But the interests Of New York and Of
the Western farmers must be made identical.
People and sections of a country look to their
own material welfare first, however patriotic
they may be, and if the Western farmers and
merchants can find cheaper route for their
produce and merchandise by the st. Law
renee and British colonies than by New York,
they will use the former There are two OBJ
jects then, to be kept in view-the question
of transportation generally as affecting the
whole country, and particularly the West and
Southwest, and as connected with the trade of
New York.


We have for long time been urging atten-
tion to the subject of cheap transportation,
and even before the farmers oranges took it
up, and have called upon our merchants and
capitalists, as well as the State and federal
governments, to act in the matter. AS the
question is at last coming to practical solu-
ton through popular movements let us con-
slider what is best to be done. Various plans
have been suggested to cheaper and increase
the facilities of transportation from the remote
interior to the Atlantic seaboard. Some urge
the enlargement of the Erie Canal and making
of other canals, because freight by water is
least expensive, and the bulky produce of the
soil can be transported IN greater quantities
that way. Others advocate freight railroads
exclusively, either to be constructed by govern
ment or to be under government control.
Then, again, there are those who would have
the government purchase all the railroads of
the country and run them, as it does the Post
Office, for the public interest. That some
thing has to be done every one admits.
Europe wants our grain, corn and other
produce. We have enough almost, or
could have enough, to feed half the
population of the Old World. Yet it rots on
the ground, or cannot be removed to the sea-
board on account of the cost of transportation.
And this superabundance, needing facilities
to market, is augmenting greatly every year,
and in more remote localities, as population
continues to move westward. A great deal
has been said about home markets by our po-
litical economists and those protectionists who
look only to certain special or local interests.
While we comprehend the value of these and
know how varied industries enrich nation
we cannot lose sight of the fact that this is
and must be for long time to come an agri-
cultural country chiefly, and that we must de-
pend upon the expectation of our surplus pro-
duce to pay for the luxuries we import and
our Indebtedness abroad. We can only bring
the balance of trade in our favor, prevent the
expectation Of gold and come to specie basis
by increasing the export of products of the
soil. This question of cheap transportation,
then, is one of national importance, as well
as of deep interest in a material point Of view
to the Western farmers and New York mer-