|F385.'7I C8Uc ■?P7*',"»w;;WgipjBt;5frsfs«f»^T-?;T '-j";-iVjr ■i-i-i^TO^;.- >4^ tjirn.'. >jiirrresent the public sympathy is daily becoming more and more alienated from them. If things go on in the old way for another twenty years, we can easily imagine that it will be necessary to subject railroad companies to much harsher measures than any which public opinion is now prepared for. There are some far-sighted men who believe that the evils of the present system of railroad management are so deeply ■ ^ :■,"■■■:-■■,',' Seated iis to be curable only by one method — the abolition of railroad companies and the purchase of their undertakings by Government. It is not our purpose here to discuss this phase of the question. We have said sufficient to show the desirability of the appointment of a Railroad Commission, a'^ J we have some hope that railway magnates, who cannot as a class be considered otherwise than shrewd, will see their way clearly to at least offering no factious opposition to the reform. THE ESPLANADE DIFFICULTY. [From The Globe, Toronto, Saturday, February Ist, 1879.] Mr. Cumberland, in his characteristic letter concerning the access to the Espla- nade difficulty printed yesterday, succeeds admirably in throwing no light whatever on the points which the citizens of Toronto are vitally concerned to know. The public are comparatively indifferent as to the extent to which the General Manager and Board of Directors of the Northern Railway have succeeded in keeping them- selves in official ignorance of the wish of the Credit Valley Company to enter upon the public land now in the possession of Mr. Cumberland's Company. What they really want to know is, why the Northern Company, which, according to Mr. Cum- berland, had not the faintest idea as to what route the Credit Valley would take, should suddenly, and in direct contravention of an agreement signed by one of the Company's own officials, have plumped down a station across the route of the new road, and have proceeded to cover it with new tracks for which, in these days of depression and lessened travel, there cannot have arisen all at once such a very urgent demand. These performances would go to indicate that Mr. Cumberland, the indi- vidual, was all the time wide awake to circumstances of which Mr. Cumberland, the Manager, now professes entire and most amusing ignorance. It is quite clear that there is ample room on the 100 feet reservation for two tracks for the Northern, two for the Grand Trunk, and one for the Credit Valley ; and after the latter line was accommodated there would still be enough of land left for a sixth line. Under these circumstances, what is Mr. Cumberland going to do when at length the knowledge that the Credit Valley line wants access to this land is brought home to the official intellect 1 Is he again going majestically to order the Credit Valley to other land ? Is he going to point out an alternative route which it would bankrupt Croesus to construct 1 and is he for ever to keep off competitors from land which does not belong to him ? It may easily be that Mr. Cumberland has " no misgivings about the title " to this laud. Neither have we. It is indisputably pixblic land, and the fact that the Northern Company have never paid a cent for it is on record in the proceedings of the Court of Chancery. Mr. Cumberland seems to think the fencing in of this piece of land, the laying down of a railway track therein, and the payment of taxes which could not he avoided, enough of payment to satisfy the most unreasonable objector. On the strength of these achievements the General Manager, personifying the Corporation, poses as a public benefactor, instead of, as would be more appropriate, an interloper. Admitting, as he does, the fact that there are " 100 feet right of way from Queen-street to Bathurst-street " — a most important admission to be made by one who has blocked up all access to that right of way — what consummate assurance must Mr. Cumberland possess when he orders off a possi- ble competitor to a route which the General Manager describes as being partly within this right of way, but which actually appears to be entirely without it. Why should the Credit Valley Company be compelled to go even partly outside this right of way 1 If there is a right of way, as Mr. Cumberland, unfortunately for his case, calls it, then his Parkdale Station is an obstruction and a nuisance. Mr. Cumberland — in his capacity of General Manager, of course — seems to us to resemble a strong man armed, who has squatted in a poor man's cottage, and then patronizingly informs the rightful owner that he may sit with one foot inside the door of his own house as long as offence is not given to the High Mightiness within. Of course it was horribly '* low " for the Credit Valley people to have been thankless even for small mercies ; but it seems to us that the Jupiter Tonans of the Northern Railway might as justifi- ably have ordered the Credit Valley road to enter the city via Yorkville, as to have indicated for it a road which is only partly within the right of way to which the new Company have a title that — barring the important point of possession — is exactly as good as that of the Northern itself. As to the proposed Railway Commission, the absolute necessity of such a body is now more than ever apparent. It is quite clear that if such a matter as this in dis- pute about the access to the Esplanade were left to the ordinary course of law, a prolonged series of law suits would ensue, which could only end in the ejectment of the intruding railways from the public land, their re-admission on plainly specified terms, and the further reduction of the interest paid to those English bondholders about whose dividends Mr. Cumberland is so anxious. The need of the commission being so plain, the country will breathe more freely now it has ascertained from his own pen that the scheme meets, "conditionally," with the General Manager's " heartiest approval." Before the new tribunal Mr. Cumberland can orate as majesti- cally and epigrammatically as he likes about " unjust invasion of rights"— squatter's rights, he should have said ; about " false appeals to public prejudices," which consist in enlightening the public when their rights are being invaded ; and " usurption," cou- sisting of a simple desire to benefit from what was intended to be used as a common right. But if he thinks that a Railway Commission such as the one we want could be humbugged by a piece of special pleading like his letter, ;ve fancy that he would soon see cause to alter his opinion about the desirability of Railway Commissions in general. A RAILWAY COMMISSION. [Prom The Mail, Toronto, Friday, February 14th.] The suggestion made in these columns some time ago that the Dominion Govern- ment should establish a permanent railway commission for the settlement of difficulties such as that existing between the Northern and Credit Valley Roads, has been received by the press of the Province with a.most universal commendation. For years past there has been growing up a feeling that the managers of our great lines of rail- way possess too much power, and use it often-times arbitrarily. In the United States, the Granger movement was a protest against railroad tariff anomalies and raili'oad combinations generally. In this country we have taken no active steps to tight for the rights of the people and against railroad tyranny, chiefly because, in the absence of combined effort on the popular side, the railroad giants have been invincibly strong. There is no doubt, however, that the construction of new lines of road competing with the older lines which has signalized the history of Canada for the past ten years, is to a great extent an emphatic protest against, and a determined attempt on the part of the nation to escape from, the domination of the railroad magnates who control those older lines. English capitalists and their representatives here are in the habit of upbraiding the people for encouraging these new undertakings to the prejudice of the old ones ; but they overlook the fact that the people would not tax themselves so freely without urgent cause, and that cause is mainly the intolerable arrogance that charac- terizes the management of the older roads. The magnate regards his road as English property, in the management of which the Canadian people have no business to inter- fere ; forgetting that the Canadian people have enormous proprietary rights in every one of the old lines — rights morally as sacred and as much to be respected as those of the British bondholder. It is this disregard of Canadian claims that is the source of the hostility that exists between our people and the magnates, and that has of late years sent almost every municipality, -in- the .Dpjninioi^ to subsidising competitive schemes. What Canadian, or for. iliai I'l^Wst^er .what* jijorial: haait,! 'for example, can •V; .'••. ::.:':- .-.. ; .. .... .*'* 16 Understf.nd wliy an ^i.morican shipper in Chiaigo should have his wheat carried through Canad i to the seaboard for less than the Canadian rfhipper at St. Mary's or St. Thomas is compelled to pay t The magnate says he can't be bothered with local freight ; in other words. Canadian interests are subordinate lo foreign interests, and the roau is run not as a Canadian institution for the benefit of the Canadian people, but princi- pally and prini.\rily as an instrument for the accommodation or profit of outsiders. The existence of this feeling of hostility is much to be deplored. It works mutual prejudice and benefits nobody ; but how to remove it is a problem yet to be solved. There can be no doubt, however, that the establishment of a tribunal such OS the railway commission, standing impartially between the people and the corpora- tions, and arbitrating on the difficulties that are ever cropping up, would tend to that end. It would protect popular rights, while at the same time protecting the railroad corporations from the injury their managers inflict on them by constantly bringing them into collision with the people. In short, a tribunal of this kind would be a source of security and strength to all concerned ; it would be to the mutual advan- tage of the railway and its Canadian customer. In England a somewhat similar institution has been in existence for years, and there tlie railroads would bo the first to acknowledge its great practical utility. It does away to a great extent with costly lawsuits, and deals out a ready and equitable justice. Such scandals as the Esplanade difficulty — in which a powerful corporation is actually using a piece of public property, which it has appropriated from the taxpayers of the City of Toronto, as a weapon for crushing out a younger and weaker rival to which those taxpayers have given a large subsidy — are impossible ther i. The powerful are prevented from injuring the weak, and the weak have not to combine in a spirit of angry defiance against the strong. Mutual confidence is engendered with beneficial results to all parties. We trust the Dominion Government, when they have disposed of the important measures with which they were specially charged by the electorate in September, will turn their attention to this important subject. It is not a political one ; every man is interested in it, and we are sure Reformers eqaully with Conservatives would unite in the work. The time has come for the people to stand up for themselves and insiit on just treatment from the powerful railroad corporations ; and since the latter can- not be persuaded to move even half way in that direction, we can only look to the supreme power of the State for the assistance it owes its subjects in all mattera affecting their present welfare and future prosperity.