Year: 1871

rOhuB ana 0Hefb Jnem lot sale AT B1.OU per
acre, is sufficient eusranty that the rail.
road companies will not hold their lands,
at an exorbitaut figure; end the fact that
the business and success of the roads will
depend very largely upon the rapidity
with which the adjacent lands are settled,
is ample warrant that the railroads will
not long hold their lands out of the mar.
ket Selfinterest and the public good
will here harmopize.


p The Northern Pacific Company, in
coming before Congress and asking for
the recent legislation, which has. occa.
stoned 50 much discussion and misunder.
standing requested four things: a. That
the original land grant, voluntarily con-
ferred by Congress six years ago, be made
good by permitting the Company to ap-
propriatt other public lands to compen-
safe for those belonging to the grant,
which had been taken up by settlers and
speculatGs; (2.) That the short branch
road TO be constructed from Portland,
Oregon, 10 Puget Sound be entitled to
the same land subsidy as the main line I;
| (3) that the company be permitted to
make the junction of its two western


branches at point further east than the
original charter speoifed,-this in order
to avoid engineering difficulties in the
mountain region;' and IA that specific
authority be given the company to make
a siRle mortgage covering oil its proper
ty aid rights of property. This last re-
quet was made in order to avoid the ne
cestty of making fresh mortgage every
tim new instalment of land came into
thehands of the company by the compile
tioi of each twenty ve-mile section of
road. Under the legislation recently en-
ha nf he
grmt will pass under the general mort
gaze TO the bondholders Just as fast as by
the completion of successive portions of
tho road, they pass into the control and
wnership of the company-and no faster.
The current assertion that the bill author
ize the company to mortgage its lands in
advance of the construction of the road,
is without foundation and absurd. The
cbtrter provides when and on what con-
ditons the lands OF the grant shall be-
cone the property of the company, and
the recent legi Station does not change the
charter in this regard, nor authorize the
company to mortgage that which is not its
property. ~ 7. So at


The fact that the application of the
Northern, Pacific Company for the add.
tional legislation named above was pre-
ceded and followed by the introduction in
Congress of a swarm of petty land grant
schemes for local and imaginary roads
schemes having NO merits and no claims
to opsideration-should not be allowed
to prjudice great and genuine enter
prise, which the people are really desirous
To aid, because it win aid them in return.
Undoubtedly the country wishes Congress
to limit the application of the land sub
sidy policy to the three trunk lines of
Da M hn IF III
tincuon should be drawn, and here the
nation should put down its foot. Let the
continent be traversed by Northern, a
Central and Southern Pacific Railroad,
opening up the western wilderness, In
three broad belts, to settlement and cHl-
ture, travel and trade; then let local rail
roads be built by private enterprise as fast
as population and business demand them.
The land-grant system, as applied to these
three main routes, is common sense and
sound economy. Carried to the extreme,
S5d apnnsifffb fbtf tf the numberless local cor
doors of Congress, it is indefensible waste