Year: 1873

The project Of a direct freight railway
from New York to Chicago is discussed in
the newspapers of the latter city, and the
Chicago Board of Trade has prepared me-
mortal on the subject to be presented to
Congress. 1t suggests that the railway
should he built by the aid of the national
government, but should not be managed
by government officials. The cost of a
double track is estimated at $3.50, 900 900.
We have often suggested and pressed the
advantages to all parts of the Union of
such means of internal communication
1t would tend 10 produce cheap food, cheap
coal, and more frequent intercourse be-
tween every section. Two or three grand
national highways penetrating the West
and South. running at cheap rates, and de-
signed finally to be practically free to all,
would do more for the general welfare of
the country than politicians have imagined
or reformers devised. They would carry
with them intelligence and the common
school, immigration and cheap labor the
spread of a new population over Western
Virginia and Eastern Tennessee, the dis
co very of fresh fields of agriculture in the
South, and the opening of the vast gianary
of the Northwest. They would diminish
the cost of living on the sca-board, and in
crease the revenue of every farmer in the
interior.


To the proposition that the national gov
ernment should aid or perhaps build such
railways it is objected that the tendency to
centralization is already too great, and that
the political influence of the administra-
ii IN would be improperly enlarged by the
control of series of roads and railway
officials; that building railways is beyond
the province of the state, and should be
left altogether to private enterprise. But
it may be shown that scarcely one of our
canals or railroads has or could have been
built without either state or national aid;
that principle is well settled among us that
the government is only the representative
of the whole community, and may well be
called upon TO execute the public works
necessary for the convenience of all its peo-
pie. 1t is not an uninstructive fact that the
English government, conscious of the in
justice of permitting the national highways
10 remain in the hands of private specula-
tors, already proposes TO buy up all the
Irish railways, and that II large party in
England is pressing the government to
purchase all the English roads, and man
age them for the interest of the public. 1t
is found that the system OF private compe-
titon tends only TO the embarrassment of
trade and the ablshment of troublesome
monopolies.


10 a1g ,.tit 1, al, n,,t
force, that if Congress lends its aid TO one
or more railways, it will he precedent for
endless claims, that sectional iealousies
will be aroused, and that every part of the
country will demand the support of the
government for its necessary roads. Yet II
may be replied that ii is only upon a few
extended and important routes that this
support is absolutely needed, and that one
or two grand trunk lines, penetrating to
the West or South, ar call that can properly
seek government aid. A new avenue to
the Northwest is demanded by the whole
food-producing portion of the Union. The
interests of the whole country require that
a perfect communication should be opened
from the sea board to Minnesota, The
commerce Of every Eastern city is threat
ened by the rival railway route projected
by the Canadian government from Chicago
TO Halifax; and there is plain danger that
English enterprise may divert large share
of our trade. The rev route would, there
fore, be a national rather than a sectional
advantage. That II grand trunk railway
penetrating the cotton and agricultural dis
trcts of the South is scarcely less desirable
might be shown. That the government
should own or control the chief highways
of the nation, and manage them for the
convenience of the people, seems proved
by the experience of all other countries as
we'll as our own. The introduction of rail-
ways has not changed the principle that
tho avenues of commerce and travel, the
sources of the prosperity of every nation,
should never be taken from the control Of
tho whole mmunity.-Harper's Weekly.