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IVIaps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams Illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent Atre filmte A des taux de reduction diffirents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour fttre reprodult en un seul clichA. il est f ilm6 A partir de I'angle suptrieur gauche, de gauche d drolte, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessalre. Les diagrammes suivants iilustrent la m6thode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 THE GREAT SOUTHERN RAILWAY OP CANADA. LETTER TQ THE RAILWAY COMMITTEE, IN FAVOR OP THE EXTENSIONS CLAIMED nv THE WOODSTOCK AND LAKE ERIE RAILWAY, BY R. G. BENEDICT. Cbler Bnglneer. APRIL, 1855. ♦«: -V PRINTED BY E. R. FRECHETTE, PRINTER, NO 13, MOUNTAIN STREET, QUBBEO. THE GREAT SOFTHERN RAILWAY OF CANADA. LETTER TO THE RAILWAY COMMITTEE, IN FAVOR OP THE EXTENSIONS CLAIMED BY THE WOODSTOCK AND LAKE ERIE RAILWAY, BY R. G. BENEDICT, Chief Engineer. APRIL, 18o5. PRINTED BY E. R. FRECHETTE, PRINTER, N° 13, MOUNTAIN STREET, QUEBEC. II 'ri ■ HH TO THE HONORABLE SIR ALLAN MACNAB, ^F. P. P., Chairman, ami to the Menihers of the Convjuillec on Raihcaij nnd 2hkf^i'aph Zdnci,. A Pamphlet, entitled " TiiE Pnoi'osED SOUTHERN Railway,'' has been laid before vour Coiiimittcc and circulated in the House of Assembly, advocating the merits and claims of a Rail- way from Amherstburg, on the Detroit River, to the City of Hamiltoa, to be called the " Hamilton and South Western Rail- way," sigtied by H. B. Willson and J. Adam, Esqrs., Delegates on the part of the Petitioners for such Railway. This pamphlet contains statements and assertions in relation to the AVoodstock iind Lake Erie Railway, and the Hamilton and Port Dover Rail- way, so entirely at variance with the facts and intentions of those Companies, that-, as their Chief Engineer, I beg to lay before yoii the following answer to it In order not to occupy your time unnecessarily, I assume that, at the present time, the wants of the country call for the conti- nuation of a line of Railway from the Detroit River to the Suspen- sion Bridge and Buffalo, along the north shore of LakeEiie. The statistical information collected with great care, which will Vjc laid before you by parties applying for an Act to charter a line from St Thomas to the Detroit River, as likewise the arginnents made use of b}*- Messrs. Willson and Adam, are, in my opinion, incontestible evidence of the fact. The whole distance from Amherstburg to Buffalo and the Suspension Bridge, by the most direct lines that the face of the country will admit of, is as follows : to Buffalo, two hundred and twenty five and one half miles; and to the ^Su^pe^^ioll Bridsre. two hundred and twcntv one milcii. Tiiii* givuiiii iri now oct'upiod u.i I'ulluw.s: I'lX'iij Biiiriilu lo J)iiuiivilk', oO^ ]nil(V, ii liailway is constructed find in ()}K'riili(iii ; I'roin Duinivillo to Siincoc*, Ijdjf miles, ii line i.s chartered, the sur- veys made and tlic conti-act let by the \Voodst()ek and Lake Krie KaiUvay Com])any, From Simcoe to St. Thomas the same (\)m])any oeeu|)y IG^ miles of the gn^und, and it is to prev>')it \v apiilicvl i'w sucli an cxtcnsiuii, uml llrl i-onlnk-ut tliat Yonr Connnittou will not bo mislocl l)y tho ary tlit* Krie and Onlai'io Railway t<» Niajjara, the only open winter liarbonr in Canada, on Lake Ontario. The Krie and Ontario Ilailway, ])eing already (r()ini)letod and in suecessrul operation, wonld nndonV)tedly draw u lar^^c amount oftraflie to Niajj^ara, oven iftliu advantage ol'an open winter liarl)unr were not in its tavor. After eonsiderin;^ the numy facilities offered for traflle to roach Lake Ontari(j from the line of the Groat Sontheni Railway, an shewn above, the appeal of the Agents of the Hamilton and Southwestern Line to the Grand Trunk and Provincial interests, api>ears really ridiculous, and the argument used for the puipose of creating a feeling in the minds of the Committee and Members of tlie House of Assomblv. bv exciting their fears ajyainst " foreign carriers," amounts simply to this, that unless the ]Iamilton and SoutliAVostern charter is given to the Petitioners, and all other roads made subservient to it, the whole immense ireighting business of the Western States and of the counties through which the line i)asses, will be forced to the Suspension Bridge and into the State of New York, no matter where its destination. It will, I fancy, require rather more logic than is displayed in the pamphlet in question, to induce the Members of the Committee to believe that the large quantities of produce naturally seeking Lake Ontario for an outlet from those fertile counties, can be turned by interested parties int(j any particular channel, to suit their own interests, regardless of the natural laws that govern trade ; or that produce, consigned to New- York from Michigan or Canada, can be turned off from Simcoe to Hamilton, when it is not the interest of the shipper to send it by that route. Thousands of barrels of Canadian flour have passed through Hamilton, this Avinter, to the Suspension Bridge for the New York market, and this fact is known to no one better than the persons who are so fearful that " foreign carriers " will get the control of the Great Southern Railway, and use it to the injury of the carrying trade on Lake Ontario and the River St. Lawrence. The Great Western Railway was very properly carried through Hamiltonj at an extra expense of nearly one million of pounds, 10 acoonimuJai*.' ilic uiulo ol Wi^tmi ('iiiKH.la aiir Uiimiltoii. This line is now ('oiuplctcd, iiikI the local tnillir nii itshews that those who ejitiiiKitctI ihat business, liowi-vor sanguine thny might have been, tlitl not iu reality a|»]»roaeli near the lull amount; but had the road been stopped at Ilaniilt(.»n, as was at one time proposed, and not continued to th;.' Susi)ension Bridget to accommodate, tlie " Foreign Traffic," it would not at tliis time be paying working expenses. Instead of that wc see that, by having a foreign market during the winter, tlie receipts of the last week exceeded £14,000, that the road is taxed to its utmost capacity and can hardly do the immense trafiie, both local anil through, that is crowding upon it. This plainly shews, notwith- standing the specious reasoning of Messrs. Willson and Adam to the contrary, that the " Basin of Lake Ontario " is not destined to receive all the produce of Canada from Hamilton to the Detroit River, but that it passes through to find a market on the Atlantic^ when that market is better tlian those of Montreal and Quebec. A line of Railway from Detroit River to the Sus^xjnsion Bridge on the route proposed for the Great Southern could have a business equal in extent and not interfere in the least with what is already being done by the Great Western and which legitimately belongs to that road, but no road merely running from Amherst - bur{5 to Hamilton could ever pay working expenses. Althougli the local business would be heavy, yet without the through traffic, both freight and passengers, it would not be a paying line, and if the charter of 150 miles of it were placed in the hands of the Hamilton people, there would be little inducement for the Woodstock and Lake Erie Company to continue their line from Suncoe to Dunnville, or for the Erie and Ontario Railway to extend from the Suspension Bridge to Dunnville. Without such extensions, their proposed road would be dependent upon local business alone for its .support. The delegates, in their pamphlet, say that their " Bill pre- pared provides for merging the Hamilton and Port Dover Railway Charter into the new one." I believe, and feel justified in making the assertion, that the Petitioners for the Hamilton and South Western Railway, never consulted with the Directors of the Hamilton and Port Dover Railway on this subject, and 8 ii i that it is not llie wish of ihc Dirc'tors of the hitter company to iiavc their jjroject merged into u lino to tlie Detroit River. It would ut least have been an act of courtesy on the part of the Petitioners for the Hamilton and South AVestern road to liave ascertained the views of those l)ireet(jrs previous to coming before Parliament and the llaihvay Committee with a Bill ready drawn, asking for a charter, that should compel other lines, already chartered, organised and surveyed, to merge into their line and be controlled by them. I cannot pass over that portion of the statement made by Messrs. AVillson and Adam in relation to the Hamilton and Port Dover road which conveys the im- pression, that the charter of that road is held by persons " lios- tile to the interests of the City of Ilimiilton. " The President of the Company is Sir Allan N. Macnab, the Chainnan of Your Committee, and it needs nothing further from me, after making this statement, to show what means have been resorted to, to create false impressions in regard to that road in the minds of the Committee and Members of the House of Assembly. The surveys for the road were commenced in May of last year and completed in August ; at wliicli time, on account of the strin- gency of the money market, it was not thought prudent by the Directors to commence the construction of it. Some members of the Board of Directors have offered to the people of Hamilton to give up this charter to any company organized in Hamilton that will take their stock off their hands and pay the expenses of the company up to the time of the transfer, and this offer would undoubtedly be ratified by the whole Board. They did not tliink it would be acting the part of prudent business men to commence the construction of the line in the present unsettled state of the public mind, and crisis in money affairs in England, but were perfectly willing to let the people of Hamilton under- take it, and give it their "powerful aid." Amongst the many other reasons given by Messrs. Willsonand Adam to strengthen their claim before the Committee to the right for a charter, they say, that one of the chief movers in the scheme to build a Southera line from Niagara to the Detroit Kiver is an " American citizen," and owns a large property at 9 the Falls of Niagara. Tliis property, -they omit to ir entlon, is in Canada West. This American citizen, upon whom the writers of tlic pamphlet seek to throw discredit, is Mr. Zimmerman, a gentleman well, known for the magnitude and success of the enterprizes engaged in by him, and whose very name in connection with the project of a Southern railway, through Canada would give it more strength with capitalists in the United States and the people of Canada, than perhaps any that could be selected, Yet his con- nection with the scheme is used as an argument why the charter should be given to the people of Hamilton who held that of the Great Western Eailway eighteen years before they made a movement that resulted in building it ; and then it was this " American Citizen," Mr. Zimmerman, who by his zeal and'con- fiience in the work urged them on. The project must indeed be lame that requires such arguments to prop it up. Messrs. Wilson and Adam state that a Bill has been " smuo-o-led into the House," under a simple notice for amendments to the Woodstock and Lake Erie Eailway. The notice of the applica- tion for the Act was published the requisite length of time, stating what was to be asked for. At the time it appeared, Mr. Willson was living in London (England), and Mr. Adam was engaged in mining operations, not having, at that time, turned his attention to railway projects. They also say that " both the Erie and Ontario and Wood- stock lines are controlled by the same parties, and botli. run in wrong directions to command a paying business." There is no connection whatever between the two companies; they are controlled by entirely different men and interests, and as regards the statement that they do not command a paying business, it is the strongest argument that the Directors of both these Com- panies can make use of to induce your Committee to grant the .amendments and extensions they ask for. They have expended in good faith, upon their two lines, upwards of £300,000 ; by granting these additional powers, they will be enabled to make the whole line pay a fair interest upon the capital invested ; whercr !^, by chartering the Hamilton and Southwestern Eailway, an- 10 other " unprofitable enterprise " will be added to the others and fastened upon the country. If the arguments made use of in this communication and the facts set forth in favor of the amendments to the charter of the Woodstock and Lake Erie Railway Company are correct, Your Committee cannot hesitate as to granting the prayer of their peti- tion and rejecting that of the people of Hamilton, whose interests will be equally well served by the construction of the Hamilton and Port Dover line. No injustice will then be done to those parties who have already obtained charters and expended a large sunx in partially carrying out this undertaking, relying, as before stated, on obtaining the extension they now ask for. Should there be any points in connection with the above statements upon which Your Committee require information it will afford me much pleasure to ium^.sh it at any time during the present session^ For the Woodstock and Lake Erie Railway and Harbour Company, and the Hamilton and Port Dover Railway Company, R. G. BENEDICT, Chief Enorineor, Russell's Hotel, Quebec, 23rd. April, 1855,