.¿àk A.______A- — ^Ahi ¿Shfc—. —jAk^. — 1 ◄. ◄. ◄, i ◄i 4 ; ◄ | 35.88 9 In thirty years, from 1835 to 1864, Belgium increased her exports and imports almost ten-fold, while England increased hers in the same period only five fold. The harmonious growth of the commerce of Belgium with the growth of her means of communication is seen in the following table, and, taken in connection with the same result witnessed in France and England, must be accepted as establishing the new and great law in political economy, that the imports and exports of a nation are precisely in proportion to the development of its*railway system : Proportion of Belgian eooports and imports to railways and navigation. Y ear. Canals (910 miles) and railways open. Exports and imports. Exports and imports per mile open. 1838 1, 055 £15,680,000 26.920.000 47.760.000 72.120.000 97.280.000 £14,862 22,340 30,037 37,818 1845 1,205 1853 ■ 1,590 I860 1,907 1864 2,220 42,919 Americans can now understand how Belgium so rapidly became the principal workshop for the continent of Europe, and how she can sell locomotives and rails in England, and how she can underbid the English on marine and mining engines and heavy iron work for architecture. The u slow Dutch” of Holland woke up in 1850 to a consciousness of the truth that they were losing the German trade. In alarm they went t o work making railroads. But they were too late. Their condition was this: In 1839 the Dutch exports and imports were ¿£28,500,000, nearly double those of Belgium. In 1882 they were ¿£59,000,000, while those of Belgium, thanks to her railroads, were £78,000,000. TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROADS WILL GIVE US WHAT RAILWAYS CAN NOT GIVE ENGLAND OR FRANCE—INCREASE OF POPULATION BY IMMIGRATION. It can be shown by official records that the Eastern Division Pacific road, (of Kansas,) the Union Pacific, and the Central Pacific, have been instru-12 PACIFIC RAILROADS. mental in adding hundreds of thousands to the population of the States of Kansas, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, California and Nevada. Minnesota owes to the rapidity and cheapness of transportation by rail, her best population of over one hundred thousand Germans, Norwegians, and Swedes. Every foreign laborer landing on our shores is economically valued at $1,500. He rarely comes empty-handed. The superintendent of the Castle Garden Immigrant Depot has stated thatc 1 a careful inquiry extending over a period of 17 months, gave an average of $100, almost entirely in coin, as the money property of each man, woman, and child” landed at New York. From 1830, the commencement of our railway building, to 1860, the number of foreign immigrants was 4,787,924. At that ratio of coin wealth possessed by each, the total addition to the stock of money in the United States made by this addition to its population was $478,792,400! Well may Dr. Engel, the Prussian statistician, say: Estimated in money, the Prussian State has lost during sixteen years, by an excess of 180,994 emigrants over immigrants, a sum of more than 180,000,000 thalers. It must be added, that those who are resolved to try their strength abroad are by no means our weakest elements ; their continuous stream may be compared to a well-equipped army, which, leaving the country annually, is, after having crossed the frontier, lost to it forever. A ship loaded with emigrants is often looked upon as an object of compassion; it is, nevertheless, in a politico-economical point of view, generally more valuable than the richest cargo of gold dust. The Union Pacific Bailway, eastern division, has organized immigration to its lands. It has' agents in Europe who tell of the resources of Kansas, and induce people to seek a home there, aiding them if necessary to cross the Atlantic, and to reach that State by rail, and selling them the lands on long credit. This liberal and wise example will be followed. Let the Northern Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads and the homestead law go together across the continent, and in less than ten years we will see upon the lines of those roads and their outlets at least three millions of the best population of northern Europe—farmers, graziers, mechanics and miners. Beckon up their worth at $1,500 a head ,• add to the product the quantity of coin they will bring, $100 each person; then say if in $4,800,000,000 added to the wealth of the country, our government cannot find authority and courage to guarantee the interest of the bonds issued to assist in building the roads. TWO ADDITIONAL TRUNK RAILWAYS TO THE PACIFIC NECESSARY. The majority of the committee having thoughtfully considered the condition of the United States in relation to its finances, and its trade and commerce, present and prospective, declare their belief that two additional lines of railway to the Pacific ocean are necessary. ONE LINE INSUFFICIENT. 1. They are necessary because one line is not sufficient. Your committee believe that with the present population and business of California, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Oregon, Nevada, and Dakota, the single-track railroad from Omaha to San Francisco will be wholly incapable of performing the service that will be required of it. The increase of population and industry and traffic that will be effected in those States and Territories by the operation of the road will be enormous. The local traffic upon the road will immediately be large. The through domestic traffic will be immense. When to both of these is added the trade from China, Japan, and India, not only by existing steamship lines, but by others certain to be put on the route by the English, it is clear to us that a single-track railroad cannot possibly do the busi-PACIFIC RAILROADS. 13 ness that will be crowded upon it. The road will clog. What service will be performed will be done under such disadvantages as to damage the character of the new route from India to Europe, to injure property, discontent shippers, and make wide-spread trouble. The calculations of the adequacy of a single line to the Pacific have been based on the overland trade and the business of the Panama route. These will prove utterly fallacious. The Union Pacific railroad will not only take the larger part of the traffic of both these routes, but it will create a wholly new business which did not exist before, and whose growth will parallel that of the Pennsylvania road and the Hew York Central. The single track of the Pennsylvania trunk line, between the Ohio valley and the Atlantic, had to be doubled. There are four powerful rivals to the road—the Erie canal, the Hew York Central, the Erie and the Baltimore and Ohio, notwithstanding the division of the trade of the Ohio valley between these five competing lines, the volume of that trade is so enormous that the Pennsylvania road is unequal to carrying its share upon its two tracks, perfectly built and perfectly equipped, and is now building a third track over the Alleghany mountains. The majority of the committee feel sure that the most experienced railroad operators in the United States will agree with them in saying that within a year after the Union Pacific is opened it will be unequal to the traffic that will be crowded upon it. In addition to this the gradients and curves of the line at its passage pf the Sierra Nevada present difficulties of the most serious character. Some of these gradients are 116 feet to the mile, and many of the curves are from 500 to 700 feet radius. Six locomotives will be required at these points to do the work of one elsewhere. A double track cannot be built except at a duplication of the cost of the road. These engineering obstructions, as they may be termed, will of themselves and alone necessitate other railway connection with the Pacific. Ho single-track road that crosses the Sierra Hevada will be able to do the duty required of a transcontinental railway. It is a suggestive fact, and one that should be admonitory to us, that while on the whole length of the Horthern Pacific railroad, 1,725 miles, not over 250 miles will have an elevation exceeding 3,000 feet above the sea, 1,100 miles out of the total length of the Union Pacific’s line (1,657 miles) are more than 4,000 feet above the sea, and more than 500 miles of it have an elevation of 7,500 feet above the sea. A SINGLE LINE WILL BE A MONOPOLY. 2. Two additional lines are necessary to avoid the danger of a monopoly certain to be established by one and fhe only line. This evil might be cured by another evil, the intervention of the government in the business of the road, and its prescription of fares, freights, and time-tables) but it had better be cured by avoidance. With three lines across the continent, there would be competition that would keep down charges to living rates and fair profits$ there would be an effort to make fast time and punctual running; attention would be given to the comfort and safety of passengers; care would be taken of freight, and an unrelaxing struggle» would exist to win the favor and patronage of travellers and shippers. THE SOUTH IS ENTITLED TO A LINE. 3. The southern States are in the Union. They have the same rights that the middle States have, or the northern States. They have the rightPACIFIC RAILROADS. of access to the Pacific, on their parallels of latitude. They have a right to their share of the trans-continental commerce between Asia and Europe-Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans can justly complain of a middle State monopoly which pours all this intercontinental traffic into New York and Philadelphia. The States lately in rebellion are ruined and impoverished. Their peculiar products of cotton, sugar, rice, and tobacco, are of the utmost value to the nation. It is sound public policy to aid the restoration of the annual production of this wealth, which is confined by the laws of climate to the south. To the extent that a southern Pacific railroad will stimulate Ihe growth of the peculiar southern agriciiltural products, the northern and middle States have each a large and direct interest in having it constructed, and the prosperity of the foreign commerce of the United States demands that it shall be constructed. THE NORTH IS ENTITLED TO A PACIFIC ROAD. ) ’ 4. There is no argument that had weight to determine the construction of the Union Pacific road from Omaha west, that will not support the claim of the extreme northern States and Territories to have a connection with the Pacific at Puget sound and the mouth of the Columbia river, and a share of the trade that is to be diverted from the Cape of Good Hope across the United States. Washington and Oregon object with reason to go 700 miles south to get 1,700 miles east, and the people of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi justly will insist on starting at their own homes for the Pacific, instead of goingup to Nebraska to commence the journey. No answer can be found to the argument, sure to be urged by the inhabitants of the northern tier of States and Territories and the southern tier of sugar and cotton States and Territories, that they have a right to be exempted from the loss of time, loss of increased expense, damage to freight and enhanced risks, inseparable from a commerce which sends them and theif property long distances up and down lines of longitude, in order to get on a latitude of travel. The feeling north that the north is entitled to a Pacific road is honest and earnest. The feeling south that the south is entitled to a Pacific road is equally sincere and strong. In both cases the feeling is founded on a conviction of the local necessity and national importance of the two roads. This feeling, if combatted and thwarted, will inevitably run into sectional passion, and into politics. That result, the majority of the committee think, had better be avoided. ADDITIONAL LINES NECESSARY TO HAVE UNINTERRUPTED COMMUNICATION. 5. It is an undetermined problem if the Union Pacific railroad between Omaha and Sacramento can be operated throughout the year. Of the elements to solve this question there are: 1st, the known effects of drifting snowr upon the railway lines of central Illinois, and of the hilly districts of New England and Pennsylvania; 2d, the known depths to .which snow falls and packs in portions of the Eocky Mountain region; 3d/ the extraordinary height of the grades, and sharpness of the curves, in the passage of the Sierra Nevadas. Trains in Illinois have often been snowed under, and travel and traffic in and out of Chicago have been completely embargoed. Eailroad communication in Massachusetts, New York ana Pennsylvania, is often suspended in winter. These vicissitudes take place in States where labor is abundant, where the stations on the lines are very near together, where fuel and food, draught animalsPACIFIC RAILROADS. 15 and tools, are plentiful and accessible. But the line between Omaha and Sacramento is at present almost a continuous wilderness-r-portions of it never will be settled. Population is scarce—help in trouble cannot be had outside of the train—the stock of accessible fuel may be limited to the supply on the cars. In the deep cuttings, and in some of the canons of Dakota, Utah, Nevada and California, snow is well known to drift chock full to the top and to pack hard. Thè depth of snow in places travelled by the overland stage-sleighs has been credibly reported at from 30 to 50 feet, and it was not melted till June. Granting the efficacy of roofing, granting the adequacy of machinery to accomplish as much on the Union Pacific’s line as on the Chicago and Northwestern, or the Albany and Boston, there remains a risk, which must be constant with the recurrence of winter, that the operations of this Pacific road may experience long and serious interruptions, accompanied occasionally with shocking misfortunes. If such interruptions should take place, the effect upon the new trade from Asia to Europe, across the United States, would be very damaging. They would characterize the route as one not to be relied on by international commerce. But there is no doubt that a railroad on the 35th parallel of latitude could be operated to San Francisco 365 days in the year* Nor is there any doubt that a line between Puget’s Sound and Lake Superior could be operated without serious obstruction by snow. Its grades through the mountains are all comparatively low, and its line is within the isothermal line of mean annual temperature of 50 degrees. TWO MORE ROADS A MILITARY NECESSITY. We have shown that two additional lines of railway to the Pacific are necessary to the internal and external commerce of the country. We believe that they are necessary to the government as a part of its military system. They are necessary to move troops and supplies at the minimum cost and greatest speed into the Indian country. 'War with the Indians will endure for years and years. It is not in Indian nature to meekly accept the loss of hunting grounds and a forcible change of their traditional life. It is not in the nature of the American to abstain from new and unoccupied soils ; he will have them. The causes of war will continue while the large game lasts, unless sooner the Indians learn their inferiority and submit to its destinies. Indian cavalry, perfect in horsemanship, unattached to fixed abodes, and free from the ties of accumulated or fixed property, deadly with the arrow, and armed with the best breech-loaders, are slow to learn that they cannot with impunity scalp and rob white borderers and travellers to the gold regions. Indeed, till General Sheridan came, their teaching had all been the other way. This Parthian cavalry roam, hunt, pillage and murder, from the British possessions to the boundary of Mexico. They attack trains, camps and ranches, with a suddenness that is generally a fatal surprise. They come unseen. They are out of sight and beyond pursuit in a moment. Our warfare upon them is a tardy pursuit of vanishing trails. To fight them with infantry and cavalry in the season of grass is to fight shadows. PACIFIC RAILROADS WILL SETTLE THE INDIAN QUESTION. They can only be permanently conquered by railroads. The locomotive is the sole solution of the Indian question, unless the government changes its system of warfare and fights the savages the winter through as well as in summer. The railroads will settle the country as they progress. The water stations and freight stations built on the lines imme-16 PACIFIC RAILROADS. diately become the germs of towns and tbe centres of military operations. Farms follow the roads, and a column-front of self-sustaining settlements moves slowly but surely towards the Eocky mountains. As fast as the roads go by military posts and forts, these become useless and are abandoned. The roads push the border farther west every day. As the thorough and final solution of the Indian question, by taking the buffalo range out from under the savage, and putting a vast stock and grain farm in its place, the railroads to the Pacific surely are a military necessity. As avenues of sudden approach to Indians on the war-path, and of cheap and quick movement of supplies to troops, they are equally a military necessity. TESTIMONY OF OUR MILITARY COMMANDERS. General Grant, in his report as Secretary of War, said that “the completion of the Pacific railroads will go far to a permanent settlement of our Indian difficulties.’7 General Sherman testified last summer before a congressional committee that “the extension of the Kansas Pacific railroad is a military necessity.77 General Sheridan wrote to General Grant last May urging the completion of the Kansas road, for the reason that “it would end, almost substantially, our Indian troubles by the moral effect it exercises over the Indians, and the facility it gives the military in controlling them.77 General Hancock wrote in June last to the Secretary of War that the extension of the Kansas Pacific railroad, “in respect to the transportation of troops and supplies, was a necessity.77 Quartermaster General Meigs, advocating the coustruction of the North Pacific road in April, 1806, said, “as a military measure, contributing to national security and defence alone, it is worthy the cost of effectual assistance from the government.77 General Ingalls recorded his opinion in the same year, that “from an experience of many years in the quartermasters7 department in the west and northwest, it is of the utmost importance to the nation that this road be constructed at the earliest moment possible.77 And what is the cost of our Indian wars as compared with the cost of the Pacific railways, which will speedily end the Indian wars % A compilation from the official records of the government shows that these wars for the last 37 years have cost the nation 20,000 lives and more than $750,000,000. In the years 1864, 1865, the quartermasters7 department spent $28,374,228 for military service against the Indians infesting the country upon the lines of the proposed northern and southern roads to the Pacific, money spent in hauling supplies. The chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs estimated recently that the present current expenses of our warfare with the Indians was $1,000,000 a week—$ 144,000 a day. Nine weeks of it consume the interest of the sum that would build the additional railways to the Pacific provided by this bill; consume it without leaving4 anything whatever behind, save an increase of the pension list. THE SAVTNGr TO THE TREASURY THAT TWO MORE ROADS WOULD EFFECT. The annual saving to the government that would be effected by these two additional trunk lines of railway to the Pacific would far exceed the entire sum guaranteed to aid their construction. There are 60 different posts in Kansas, southern Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and southern California, at which there are permanently kept 105 companies of infantry and cavalry. The annual cost of an infantry regiment in those distant regions is over $1,000,000—of a cav-, PACIFIC RAILROADS. IT airy regiment about $2,000,000. Rations, forage and general supplies for these troops and posts have to be transported immense distances by wagons and at tbe very highest known rates of freight. At the last session of Congress the point was made before a committee of the Senate that if the Kansas Pacific road, commonly called the Eastern Division, was complete to Albuquerque, the larger part of the cost of this military service and maintenance could be saved to the government. General Sherman came before the committee and testified that if that road was in operation to the point named, one-half of the troops could be dispensed with, and $3,500,000 a year be saved to the country. Also at the last session of Congress the Committee on Military Affairs of the House of Representatives reported, that on the basis of the cost to the government of transportation in 1867 over the portion of the Kansas Pacific railroad then finished, (which was $511,908,) if the military supplies had been wagoned, and the mails carried by stage, and the troops marched on foot, the cost, calculated at the average contract price of that year, would have been $1,358,291, and that the road saved the government in 1867 the large sum of $846,383 That committee also reported that at that rate of saving the United States bonds thus far issued in aid of the road would be paid and extinguished in less than four years. This was the actual result in one year, in which no extraordinary movement of troops or supplies took place, the force on this route not having been increased by reason of Indian outrages. Having considered the subject of the south westward extension of the road beyond the terminus of its subsidy, (near Port Wallace,) the committee reported that nearly all the supplies for the three regiments in Hew Mexico were wagoned from the end of the Kansas Pacific road at a cost of $1 28 per 100 pounds per 100 miles; and that if the road were in operation to Albuquerque the saving in transportation on these supplies to that point, at the road’s published freight rates, would amount to $851,880 a year. The committee also found that there would be an addi-itional saving to the government in the transportation to Albuquerque of troops, munitions, mails, and treaty supplies for Indians of $231,922 a year. The total annual saving, therefore, to the treasury of the United States by the use of a section of the Kansas Pacific railroad, only 466 miles long, from the end of its subsidy in western Kansas southwestward to Albuquerque, would amount to the immense sum of $1,083,872. By a provision of the Pacific railroad acts 50 per cent, of the compensation for service to the government is retained by the Secretary of the Treasury to be applied to the payment of the interest and the principal of the bonds advanced in aid of the roads. In addition to the facts above set forth the House Military Committee found that the annual saving of $1,083,872 would not only keep down the interest of the bonds then asked for to build the Kansas Pacific road from Port Wallace to Albuquerque, but would provide an annual sinking fund, which, in connection with the retention of 50 per cent, of the government transportation dues, would wipe out 4he whole loan, principal and interest, in six years—twenty-four years before it would fall due. The House Military Committee, moreover, found that a proportional saving in the public service, quite as large if not much greater than that above set forth, would be effected by the extension of this road along the 35th parallel all the way west of Albuquerque to the Pacific. And well they might come to this conclusion upon evidence like the following, which was placed before them: The surveyors of the Kansas Pacific road in November, 1867, bought of the United States quartermaster at Rep. Ko. 219----------218 PACIFIC RAILROADS, Fort Bowie, in Arizona, under General Grant’s order, 200 pounds of pork and 84 pounds of salt, at the cost price at Fort Yuma of $47; but bad to pay in addition tbe cost of transporting the salt and pork by wagon from Yuma to Bowie, which was $133, nearly three times the first cost of the articles, and five times what the freight would have been by rail all the way from San Francisco if the road had been in operation. And at that time every pound of rations and every pound of forage consumed by the government at Fort Bowie cost the treasury 23 cents in coin for transportation. Bear in mind that the House Committee on Military Affairs reported on the figures and results of a year on the Kansas Pacific railroad in which there was no unusual movement of troops or supplies. Yastly more striking and conclusive would be a comparative statement made up from the extraordinary movement of supplies and troops by General Sheridan this winter. He has about 5,000 cavalry in the field campaigning and fighting in snow. His transportation of necessity is immense. Yet the successful battle of Witchita could not be followed up for want of supplies. Both horses and men had to be marched back temporarily to Fort Hayes. That battle was fought on the winter camping grounds of the Cheyennes, through which the line from Fort Smith in Arkansas and Shreveport in Louisiana will run to connect with the Kansas Pacific road at Anton Chico, or Albuquerque, the two to run thence as one road on the 35th parallel to the ocean. We have no doubt that the accounts of the W ar Department to be made up next June will show that the cost of this winter’s campaign, against but a part of the hostile Indians, will amount to a sum which would construct the entire line to the Rio Grande. A similar necessity for a railroad to avoid the enormous expense of wagon transportation of military supplies exists in the region between Lake Superior and Puget sound. Within it are 100,000 Indians. Of United States military posts there are 28. There are of cavalry, artillery, and infantry 76 companies permanently stationed. The stores required to supply them amount to 22,995 tons per annum. The cost of transporting these stores, estimated on the basis of contracts reported by the Secretary of War in 1867, and the distances declared by the Quartermaster General in 1866, is the enormous sum of $6,158,972. Well might General Grant say in his report as Secretary of War: During the last summer, and before I caused inspections to be made of the various routes of travel and supply through the territory between the Missouri river and the Pacific coast, the cost of maintaining troops in that section was so enormous that I desired if possible to reduce it. This I have been enabled to do to some extent from the information obtained from these inspections; but for the present the military establishment between the lines designated must be maintained afia great cost per man. The completion of the railroads to the Pacific will materially reduce this cost, as well as the number of men to be kept there. The completion of these roads will also go far towards a permanent settlement of our Indian difficulties. Quartermaster General Meigs was certainly prophetic when he said in 1866: The same course of events which has led to the immense expenditure for transportation upon the routes to Utah and to New Mexico, is certain to come in the near future on the routes to Idaho, Montana, and the valley of the Columbia. * There will be an immense conflict to determine the question, which no philanthropy and no policy can avoid, whether the northern region of the United States, between the lakes and the ocean, shall be kept as an antelope park and buffalo range for the use of Indian hunters, or whether it shall be cut up and occupied in farms by white men. And when that conflict comes the cost of military transportation, above officially stated at over $6,000,000 a year, will be trebled and quadrupled, unless thePACIFIC RAILROADS 19 Eortli Pacific railroad is built. Tire government surely ought not to wait till that war breaks out to make its economical choice between the locomotive that exerts upon the railway the power of 2,000 horses, and the heavy plains-wagon, which drawn by ten oxen, and loaded with 5,500 pounds, crawls but sixteen miles a day. The charge for military transportation over the Kansas Pacific road in 1867 was lOj5^- cents per ton per mile. The average rate paid by government for wagon transportation on the plains in 1867 was $1 28 per 100 pounds per 100 miles from April to July; $1 56 J in July, and $2 16J from August to December, inclusive; being an average for the year of $1 79 per hundred pounds per 100 miles, or 35-^ cents per ton per mile. This difference in favor of steam power over cattle power amounts to over 230 per centum, and should on principle be availed of by the administration of a nation out of debt, and should be snatched at by a nation in debt. The economy of rail over wagon transportation for the army on an average use of 153tll miles of the Kansas Pacific railroad in 1867, as reported by the Military Committee of the House, has been tabulated thus: Wagon transportation. Rail transportation. Saving in favor of rail transportation. Government freight Government troops ............ / $1,143,462 03 163,135 65 51,693 38 $368,310 02 108,757 10 34,841 12 $775,152 01 54,378 55 16,852 26 Government mails.... ............. Totals ............. ..... 1,358,291 06 511,908 24 846,382 82 A similar exhibit, showing a saving to the government of nearly twice the whole cost of rail transportation for the year, the Korth Pacific road, when completed, can also make for the entire length of its main and branch lines, 1,975 miles. HOW ADDITIONAL LINES WILL OTHERWISE PAY THE NATION. These additional lines of railroad to the Pacific, besides reducing the annual expenditure, will pay the nation: I. By bringing into market hundreds of millions of acres of good land which are now dead property to the United States—by adding millions of population to the present number of its producers and tax-payers of the country—by doubling, trebling, quadrupling and, indeed, indefinitely increasing the annual yield of the precious metals in the United States —by a vast increase of our customs revenue to be derived from importations from Asia into the harbors of Puget sound, San Francisco, and San Diego—by the general stimulus of production, manufactures and trade in all the States east of the Mississippi, to supply the wants of the settlers in the new regions to be traversed by the roads—by all that diversified good in pursuit of which England, France, Belgium, Holland and Austria have spent such enormous sums of money, pledged without stint their public credit, and found their reward in doing so, to the first named nation, in the control of the trade and commerce of the world, and to the others not only an astonishing increase of wealth, commerce and revenue, but the sure means of paying their several national debts out of sinking funds for that purpose made a part of their railway systems respectively. Our reward for the construction of these20 PACIFIC RAILROADS. two additional lines to the Pacific will, upon the English system we have unfortunately been copyists of, be in any event immense. * THESE RAILWAYS CAN PAY THE NATIONAL DEBT. But if we should engraft upon our Pacific railway system the feature that so wisely characterizes those of France, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Spain, Portugal and Italy, to make every person who travels or traffics by rail contribute, without knowing it, a fractional sum towards the discharge of the public debt, and to make the railways the agents of collecting and funding this tax, infinitessimally small in amount, and unaccompanied by any show of revenue machinery, and of handing it over to the state as a sinking fund to pay off the national obligations, we would confer one of the greatest boons within the scope of legislation upon ourselves and our posterity. Among its blessings would be a settlement of most of the financial and currency questions which vex our politics and unsettle our trade. By means of this railway sinking fund, France will, in less than 90 years, be relieved of the entire burden of her national debt of $2,500,000,000. By means of it Belgium will pay off, in 1884, the $40,000,000 she borrowed to construct her first 352 miles of railway, and she will then have a net annual revenue from her entire system of roads of $4,700,000, sufficient to pay the interest on her national debt of $130,000,000. By means of this railway sinking fund improvident Spain will pay off $200,000,000 of her debt of $820,000,000; and Austria will get relief from $325,000,000 of lier financial burden of $1,250,000,000. On the continent of Europe it is now an accepted maxim among financiers and statesmen that the railway is the true sinking fund for the payment of national indebtedness. THE NORTH PACIFIC ROAD WILL ACQUIRE FOR US THE BRITISH POSSESSIONS. II. The line of the North Pacific road runs for 1,500 miles near the British possessions, and, when built, will drain the agricultural products of the rich Saskatchewan and Bed river districts east of the mountains, and the gold country on the Frazier, Thompson, and Kootenay rivers west of the mountains. If we do not build this railroad the English surely will build one through their territory so soon as the proprietary lights of the Hudson’s Bay Company have been determined and disposed of. To save to the Crown the province west and north of Lake Superior the home government will undoubtedly construct the line, unless it shall be made unprofitable by being forestalled by the North Pacific. From Canton to Liverpool, on the 49th i>arallel of latitude, it is 1,500 miles nearer than by the way of San Francisco and Hew York. This advantage in securing the overland trade from Asia will not be thrown away by the English, unless it is taken away by our first building the North Pacific road, establishing mercantile agencies at Puget sound, fixing mercantile capital there, and getting possession on land and on the ocean of all the machinery of the new commerce between Asia and Europe. The opening by us first of a North Pacific railroad seals the destiny of the British possessions west of the 91st meridian. They will become so Americanized in interests and feeling that they will be in effect severed from the new dominion, and the question of their annexation will be but a question of time. An evidence of the feeling that already impels them towards us will be found in a petition to the home government, exten-PACIFIC RAILROADS. 21 sively circulated in British Columbia last year, in which the memorialists prayed her Majesty: Either to relieve us immediately of the expense of an excessive staff of officials, assist the establishment of a British line of steamers to Panama, so that emigrants from England may reach us, and also assume the debts of this colony, or that your Majesty will graciously per mit the colony to become a portion of the United States. That every feeling of loyalty and cherished sentiments of our hearts prompt us to cling to our present connection with our mother country, and to count as our best inheritance our birthright as Britons; but all our commercial and business relations are so intimate with the neighboring American population that we see no other feasible help out of our present difficulties than by being united with them, unless your Majesty’s government will help us as aforesaid. THE SOUTHERN PACIFIC ROAD WILL ANNEX NORTHERN MEXICO. III. In like manner tbe Southern Pacific railroad, on the 35tli parallel of latitude, will so intimately relate us by trade, mining operations, and other enterprises with the northern states" of old Mexico, from which branch roads will soon be built to the main trunk, that they will be Americanized, and eventually absorbed into our Union without the cost of purchase or the crime or expense of conquest. THE GUARANTEE OF THE INTEREST UPON THE ROADS’ BONDS PERFECTLY SAFE. The guarantee by the government of six per cent, interest upon the bonds of the roads to the extent of $30,000 a mile is perfectly safe. 1. The two trunk roads will earn the money to pay the interest. The Southern Pacific goes in large part through a settled country long under cultivation, and which now possesses abundantly the elements of a freight traffic in wheat, corn, barley, wool, hides, wine, cattle, horses, sheep, timber, coal, and ores of gold, silver, lead, and copper. The North Pacific wil] start from the western edge of what has been truthfully called the u continental wheat garden,” and will traverse a succession of rich grain and grazing districts the whole length of its line. Each of the roads will carry immense amounts of machinery and supplies to the mining regions. 2. There was never exacted by capitalist from borrower such comprehensive security against loss as the government has taken in this bill. First, it takes every acre of land the roads own; second, it takes the whole of their earnings for transportation for the government; third, it takes ten per cent, of the entire gross receipts of the roads; fourth, on default it takes the roads themselves! There cannot be a question about the fullness of the security to the government for its guarantees. There may be a question, howrever, if roads thus dealt with and divested of their resources can ever be built. 3. The experience of the government with the eastern division, or Kansas Pacific road, demonstrated that one-hctlf of the charges arising from services to the government in moving troops, supplies, and mails, is more than sufficient to meet the accruing interest on the bonds to be guaranteed. We have elsewhere shown that the retention of the 50 per cent, under the existing Pacific railroad laws was more than enough to keep down the interest on the bonds issued to that road, and to provide a sinking fund to redeem them before they matured. It is of departmental record, and wholly incontrovertible, that such has been the result. This result will characterize the relations of the government to the road in New Mexico and distant Arizona more fully than it did in Kansas. The business done for the government by the eastern division in Kan-22 PACIFIC RAILROADS. sas in 1867, as shown by the accounts of the quartermaster’s department, presented the following results: Transportation of freight.................................................. $368,310 02 Transportation of troops................................................... 108,757 10 Transportation of mails.................................................... 34,841 12 Total................................-...................... 511,908 24 Fifty per cent, retained by the government.................................$255, 954 12 Total interest on bonds issued in aid of the road, (paid by the government, as certified to by register of the treasury)............................... 201,234 55 Leaving an excess in the hands of the government of......................... 54,719 57 Which is sufficient to provide a sinking fund that will extinguish all the bonds at maturity, and still leave a balance in the hands of the government of_ 11,204 77 This was the result of the first year’s operation of the road, paid in cash into the treasury by the road, without any reference to the economy and advantages of rail over wagon transportation. Instead of the road being in debt to the government, the government came in debt to the road. What is thus demonstrated to be true of the Kansas Pacific road will prove to be equally true in the case of the North Pacific road. We fully believe that the experience of the United States in its aid of these additional Pacific railways will be that of Napoleon’s government in assisting the establishment of the railways of Prance. He without hesitation guaranteed five per cent, interest on the capital that would be invested in building 2,351 miles of new railway. The roads completed paid 10 per cent. dividends, and the government guarantee ivas never tvanted and never called for. THE OBJECTION OF TJNTIMELINESS OF PRESENT AID ANSWERED. The objections urged to a grant of government aid to two additional trunk lines to the Pacific concede the importance and necessity of the lines, but insist on the untimeliness of present aid. It is said that the country is in debt, that the treasury cannot afford the burden, that the national indebtedness ought not to be increased, and that these two enterprises should await the restoration of specie payments. These objections might have a show of force if the government aid asked was a gift of money, or an advance of bonds, the interest and the principal of which the government was expected to pay. But that is not what is asked. The roads apply for a loan of the public credit, without any issue of bonds, and furnish evidence that they can and will protect it so that nothing will have to be paid by the government. The objections on this score then being without substance, the question recurs—what time is the best time for the United States to aid these two vastly important enterprises ? Certainly the best time to begin the reduction of military expenditures of the government, the cost of its postal service, and of maintaining territorial governments in the western half of the continent, is the present time and not any future. Certainly the best time to begin to acquire the commerce, the population, the wealth, and the increased revenues which the two additional roads will give us is now, and not hereafter. If the roads are to be profitable to the country, it is manifest that the sooner they are built the better. If they will accomplish the good which their obstructors admit they will accomplish, postponement of their construction certainly is national loss and damage on a gigantic scale.PACIFIC RAILROADS. 23 ENGLAND AND FRANCE GUARANTEED COSTLIER RAILWAY UNDERTAKINGS, THOUGH LESS ABLE TO DO SO THAN THE UNITED STATES ARE. Great Britain lias guaranteed tlie interest on $60,000,000 loaned to construct railways in Canada, and on $440,000,000 advanced to build the cotton railways in India. Her ability to meet a liability of six per cent, interest upon $500,000,000 is not as great as that of the United States. The debt of Great Britain in 1863, the time she began to aid with her credit the developments of her colonial railway systems, was $3,915,000,000, resting upon a population of less than 30,000,000, with a distributive burden per capita of $130 40 to every man, woman, and child. She then had a standing army of 198,518 officers and men, and 27,331 horses. The expenses of her government that year were $469,000,000. France within the last 11 years has loaned her credit to private companies to stimulate railroad construction to the extent of $620,000,000, the government guaranteeing four and five per cent, interest and 0.65 per cent, for a sinking fund to pay off the debenture debt in 50 years. Her public debt in 1862, the year in which she most boldly adventured on this wise career of improvement, was $2,206,000,0005 her population was 37,000,0005 the distributive share of each person’s load of the debt being $59 65. The standing army of France in 1863 was, u peace establishment,” 404,195 men and 83,368 horses 5 uwar establishment,” 757,725 men and 143,238 horses. The expenses of her government that year were $515,900,000. The public debt of the United States on the 1st of January, 1869, was $2,540,707,201 25. Our population then was about 41,000,000 5 the burden of the debt was $61 97 per capita. The regular army of the United States does not contain over 40,000 men. The expenses of the govern^ ment for the current fiscal year are officially estimated at $336,000,000, including the payment of interest on the public obligations. Which of the three countries is in the best condition to embark in a career of developing wealth and acquiring power through an increase of commerce and industry ? Beyond all question the United States. Presently she is in the best condition 5 prospectively she is in a better condition than either France or England ever can be. See our growth in population, and u that tells the story? Since the first national census in 1790 the increase of population in the United States has been so uniform that its future can be predicted with certainty. The following shows the percentage of growth for each 10 years : Per cent. 1790 to 1800....................... 35.02 I860 to 1810....................... 36.45 1810 to 1820....................... 33.01 1820 to 1830....................... 33.49 Per cent, 1830 to 1840..................... 32.67 1840 to 1850.......:............ 35.87 1850 to 1860......................35.46 Average for seventy years........*34.57 At this rate of increase the population of the United States in 1870 will be 42,322,710 5 in 1880 will be 57,966,368 5 in 1890 will be 76,676,7315 in 1900 will be 103,205,880. If our present public debt shall be maintained, like that of Great Britain, the principal of which no Englishman dreams will ever be paid, this great increase of our population would reduce it by distributing its burden per capita, so that it would scarcely be felt 5 but if will be i)aid. We have already commenced to pay it at a rate of speed which would strain the resources and business of any other country“ on the globe. When the war ended, less than four years ago, our debt, liquidated and unliquidated, amounted to over $3,300,000,000. On the 1st of September In each ten years.24 PACIFIC RAILROADS. last it was in round numbers only $2,500,000,000—a reduction by actual cash payment in three years and a half of $800,000,000. The debt of Great Britain, on the other hand, which in 1816 was $4,200,000,000, was in 1863, in round numbers, $3,900,000,000. It took her 47 years to reduce it $300,000,000. But the increase of population in the United States will be accompanied by a .more than proportional increase of wealth. We have the authority of five of the most eminent statisticians in England for the statement that during the period of 25 years, from 1833 to 1858, the increase of wealth in Great Britain was 66 per cent. In the 20 years from 1840 to 1860 the increase in the United States was over 330 per cent. Uor is this an isolated fact in the comparative progress of the two countries. From 1800 to 1858, (58 years,) Great Britain’s increase in wealth was 233 per cent.; from 1800 to 1860, (60 years,) our increase was 1,400 per cent. During the 40 years from 1793 to 1833 the growth of wealth in Great Britain was 151 per cent.; during substantially the same period the increase of the United States in wealth was 253 per cent. From 1833 to 1858 Great Britain’s increase was 69 per cent.; from 1830 to 1860 the increase in the United States was 508 per cent. These facts and figures authorize the declaration that there is no nation on the earth so capable of undertaking and carrying through great enterprises, to develop a country’s resources and increase its trade and commerce, as is the American republic. If England—with a debt much larger than ours, increasing in population, wealth; and annual production in a far less ratio than we do, with a costly standing army five times greater than ours, with a wasteful navy four times greater than ours—if she, without hesitation, guarantees $500,000,000 of bonds to aid the construction of railroads in two of her colonies, can we not find the courage to help build two additional trunk lines to the Pacific by guaranteeing the interest on thirty year bonds to one-third of that amount? Il\ France—with a public debt almost as large as our own, with a population that in 60 years has increased only one-twentieth as fast as ours— with a standing army ranging from 400,000 to 750,000 men to support— if she welcomes railway extension on its first coming from England, and promptly grants her credit to the amount of $620,000,000 simply to develop her domestic and foreign trade, shall we with cowardly stupidity sit down till our national notes and bonds are all paid, and refuse to lend the government’s endorsement of the interest alone on $150,000,000 of perfectly responsible and safe paper, to accomplish the building of railways which will be channels for the world’s commerce, and will populate and develop 500,000 square miles of the richest mineral and agricultural territory on the globe, nearly every acre of which is public property ? FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY MILLIONS OF BONDS GUARANTEED BY ENGLAND SIMPLY TO DESTROY THE UNITED STATES’ MONOPOLY OF COTTON. The sagacity and courage with which the British government carried out their determination to procure a supply of cotton from India, that should make them indepehdent of the United States, merit special mention, and should serve to stimulate us to some form of rivalry. British India covers an area 1,800 miles long and 1,500 miles broad. It is a country of vast and almost impassable jungles, huge forests, mighty rivers,'chains of mountains, and extensive plains, all combined with an extraordinary luxuriance of vegetation, which obstructs progress and almost presents passage by man or beast. The most favorable cot-PACIFIC RAILROADS. 25 ton districts were inaccessible for want of facilities of communication. To get the staple to market it was necessary to carry it on the backs of men and animals, through regions of wooded wilderness, across gorges and ravines, over mountains, and to ferry it across rivers. The breaks ing out of our civil war was seized on as the favorable moment for inaugurating a vast system of railways, which should enable the English to get this cotton cheaply to tide-water, and consequently to stimulate its continuous production throughout India to the extent of a new and independent supply. It was determined to build 4,600 miles of railroad. The estimates of their cost presented the formidable sum total of $440,000,000! Without hesitation the imperial government granted its credit in aid of the works. It offered to guarantee 5 per cent, interest on all capital that should be invested in Indian railroads. What has been the result1? The East Indian railroad company have now under its management 1,310 miles of railway which cost $100,000,000. The Great Indian Peninsular road was in operation last year for 1,233 miles of its unfinished line. From Calcutta to Bombay, a distance of 1,458 miles, there is unbroken railroad communication. The branch lines connected with the main stems are of vast extent, and will cost as much money as the stems have cost. India has now 4,200 miles of railway in operation, almost wholly the fruit of government aid. It is only 15 years ago that she had her first mile of railroad. What have these wisely conceived and bravely undertaken improvements accomxfiished for Great Britain's present, monopoly of the manufacture and trade in cotton goods'? More than one-half of the cotton spun and wove in England is derived from India. The United States have lost their monopoly of supplying Europe with this prime staple of necessity. The Indian railroads have removed the chief obstacles to the production, by the English, of an almost unlimited supply of cotton. The guaranteeing of interest to the investors in the Indian railroads was a splendid act of statesmanship on the part of the British ministry. Financially it has proven as safe as in policy it was wise. For the roads were so remunerative as commercial roads alone, that in 1867 the earnings of several of them exceeded the 5 per cent, guaranteed interest. During the half year ending in December, 1867, the East Indian and Great Peninsular companies declared surplus dividends. Half the amount of surplus income was devoted to the repayment of the government's advances for interest, and the other half was divided among the shareholders. And, as might have been foreseen, the amount of guaranteed interest which the government pays diminishes every year. In 1865 the amount was £1,450,000; in 1866 it was £800,000) in 1867 it was only £600,000. The great earnings and profits of the roads make the government guarantee yearly less and less necessary. Surely, what the British government has profitably done for a single article of British industry and commerce, the United States can afford to do for two additional trunk railroads to the Pacific, that will develop almost one half of our country and give us overland the trade of Asia with Europe, besides causing a direct saving to the government in transportation, and in maintaining and protecting our western Territories. SO PROFITABLE ARE RAILROADS THAT THE GOVERNMENT COULD HAVE AFFORDED TO BUILD ALL IN THE UNITED STATES. So impressed are the majority of your committee with the importance of these projected highways to the Pacific, that they do not hesitate to say that if the existing railroads throughout the United States could have26 PACIFIC RAILROADS. been constructed in no other manner, it would have been the soundest policy for the government to have assumed their construction, even without the expectation of deriving a dollar of income from them. The actual cost of these works would have been about $1,200,000,000. The interest on this sum is $72,000,000. The roads have created a commerce worth $10,000,000,000 annually. That commerce has enabled the people to pay yearly $400,000,000 into the public treasury with far greater ease than they could have paid $100,000,600 without them. Without these roads it would not have been possible for the people to maintain the war against the rebellion or sustain the financial burdens it imposed. With the roads they bore them with comparative ease. Ho railroad line of ordinary importance was ever constructed that did not from the wealth it created speedily repay its cost, although it may not have returned a dollar to its shareholders or bondholders. If this be true of local and unimportant works, how much more so must it be true of great national lines like the Northern Pacific and the Southern Pacific, which will open the central continental domain now unoccupied, but abounding in every element of wealth, and will save the necessity of lingering voyages around Cape Horn and the cape of Good Hope; THE GUARDED PROVISIONS OF THE BILL ATTACKED BY THE MINORITY OF THE COMMITTEE. In regard to the bill which has been unwarrantably criticized by the minority of the committee -the majority would say that though it designated by name six roads to be aided, there were in reality but three: the Northern Pacific, from Lake Superior to Puget’s Sound; the Southern Pacific railroad, on the 35th parallel, with connections, to give the Southern States some outlet to the western ocean; and a branch to Oregon up the Humboldt valley, connecting the northwest with the central line from San Francisco to Omaha. Unavoidably mentioned and treated in detail simply because they were separate interests or independent organizations, four of the roads named in, the bill served to weight it down arithmetically, though they were but a part of a single and connected system, as the delta outlets of the Mississippi are but the distributing channels of its current. The Atlantic and Pacific railroad, and Little Eock and Fort Smith railroad, forming together a continuous line from Little Eock in Arkansas to Anton Chico, or Albuquerque, in Hew Mexico, and the extension of the Kansas Pacific railway southwestward from its present stoppage in the middle of the plains to a junction with the Atlantic and Pacific at or east of Albuquerque, in connection with the trunk-line westward along the 35th parallel to the Colorado river, to be constructed jointly by the Kansas Company and the Atlantic and Pacific Company, all constituted, with the Southern Pacific railroad of California, in reality, but one line—the United States Southern Pacific railroad. The six roads named in the bill are all parts of a general system of transcontinental railway, which had its origin in the first railroad surveys and explorations made by the government, with a view to attaining speedy communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific—a system which acknowledged the equal rights of the southern, central, and northern portions of the republic, and which from the beginning was understood to be and accepted as the policy of the government, since repeatedly confirmed by legislation. The central line from Omaha to San Francisco has received all the aid it asked for in land and bonds, and is nearly completed. The Horthern Pacific has been chartered and endowed with lands. The Atlantic and Pacific has been chartered and endowed with lands. Some of the lines constituting its eastern delta have been incorporated andPACIFIC RAILROADS. 27 endowed. No policy of the government has been more defined or determined than the construction by public aid of three trunk lines of railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific States, one of them flanking and two of them crossing the Rocky mountains. The endeavor, by two of the minority of the committee, to cast a stigma upon the bill by calling it an “ omnibus/7 into which have been thrown “ distinct measures having no relation to each other for the too appa-rant purpose of combining strength for the whole that might not be obtained for the separate parts/7 is unjust. The measures are kindred, far more so than are the separate appropriations for improving harbors in a general river and harbor appropriation bill, or the appropriations for fortifications, for the increase of the cavalry force, and the support of the West Point Academy, in a general military appropriation bill. These railroads, with the Union Pacific, belong to and constitute a single system. There cannot be a just objection to the combination of them in a single act. The provisions in favor of each of the roads in the bill were as accessible to criticism, amendment, and even motions to strike out, as if they had singly come before the Senate in separate bills. Special care was taken in framing the bill to so draw it that elemina-tions of portions should not affect the residue, and that the bill could be easily modified in respect to any one of the roads without involving the rest, or introducing confusion. To embrace them all in one act certainly had the merit of simplifying action on them in the two branches of Congress, and of economizing time and labor. If strength was got by this union, it was only the legitimate strength of the several parts. The measures separately were entitled to the favorable action of Congress. Put together, they certainly did not lose their merits and their claims. But the most remarkable “view77 of the minority of the committee is their declarations that “ if Congress is to continue the policy of granting the credit of the government for the construction of railways it would be far better to adhere to the plan of granting directly the bonds of the government.77 This is so utterly in conflict with the determination to which the Pacific railroad committee unanimously came not to repeat the costly errors in the endowment of the Union Pacific road, that the majority of the committee can not forbear the expression of their astonishment that a preference for the bond-subsidy plan should be publicly avowed by two of the minority, after it had been repudiated by the entire committee, as it had been previously stigmatized by officers of the government and repudiated by the people. One of the minority of the committee, from his official connection with the Union Pacific road, certainly was in a position to know that for the government it was not “better to adhere to the plan of granting bonds directly77 in aid of new roads. It has been, in effect, charged by government officials authorized to inquire, that that road has been built with the proceeds of its own bonds, and that the bonds and lands granted in aid of it by the government have been put into the pockets of its constructors. This is accepted as true throughout the country, and it Jins not only created a scandal discreditable to the federal legislation, but has produced an angry prejudice against governmental aid of any kind to public enterprises, which does wrong to many projects of the greatest merit and retards the development of the country. The committee, anxious to avoid the repetition of the error which marred the initial legislation of Congress on transcontinental railway aid, unanimously agree to substitute the plan of guaranteeing interest in lieu of the plan of issuing bonds—and of fixing a uniform maximum per mile of the entire length of their lines, to which the roads to be aided28 PACIFIC RAILROADS. should issue their bonds, instead of subsidizing them with cumulating aid of $16,000, $32,000, and $48,000 per mile to meet imaginary, difficulties of work and hypothetical cost of construction. More, the committee was determined that abuse of the government aid should not be possible in any bill they reported to the Senate, and that the aid they recommended should go wholly to the construction of the lines, and none of it to the unearned benefit of the parties contracting to build them. The bill they framed, therefore, so jealously guarded the interests of the people that it is perhaps open to the complaint that it is oppresive if not destructive to the roads. It took from the roads all of their lands—all the money derived from transportation done for the United States-—took ten per cent, of all their gross receipts—required them to pay the interest on their bonds before it fell due—applied the principles of the homestead law to all of their lands—and in case of default to perform any of the conditions imposed upon them, declared the roads bankrupt and handed them over to fhe government. If better security for the United States could be got, it is difficult to be imagined how it could be devised. The more important question is, if the roads could possibly be built under such severe restrictions, and if the country under this form of governmental aid would not lose the benefits aimed at in the construction of these national highways ! THE PROVISIONS OF THIS BILL INTENDED TO BE A FINALITY OF THE PACIFIC RAILROAD SYSTEM. The applications for aid to railroads which have from time to time been referred by the Senate to this committee were very numerous. The majority deemed it wise to select from them the lines that would most advantageously place the several geographical sections of the country in connection with the Pacific—which would penetrate those portions of the public domain in the central and western parts of the continent that were best adapted to agriculture and the rapid production of mineral wealth—in which the government has the largest direct interest by reason of its lines of military posts, and in which costly transportation and maintenance of troops has for many years existed, and will continue to exist, until thé country is settled by railroads and becomes self-protecting. The bill, instead of being u dangerous,” as charged, by opening the door indefinitely for future railroad grants, was expressly designed to be the finality of Pacifie railroad legislation. Under its provisions no section of the country can, with a shadow of justice, complain that it has not been provided with its best line of communication to the great harbors of the Pacific ocean. On the contrary, had the measures thus combined in the bill been taken up separately, the result would be that the country would drift into an inferior system, and long and expensive lines would be required where short branches have been made to answer in this bill. lan of this bill, the whole sum guaranteed would have amounted to exactly $1,198,697 93—very nearly the amount of its transportation for government alone (all of which would have been retained under this bill) during the same period. The result above stated was attained, let it be borne in mind, while the road was in course of construction. The gross earnings of the eastern division, or Kansas Pacific railway during its construction from Octpber, 1866, to January, 1869, have been $3,906,285 99. This amount was earned without a pound of u through freight” and with the line in an unfinished condition. Ten per cent, of those gross earnings, to be retained by the United States under the provisions of this bill, would be $390,628 60. The entire sales of lands belonging to this company during the same period amounted to $337,606 33, all of which the government would have retained under this bill. Summing up the above items— Government transportation............................$1,033,569 94 Ten per cent, of gross earnings...................... 390, 628 60 Proceeds of land sales............................... 337, 606 33 We have a total of................................. 1, 761,304 87 as security for a guarantee amounting in that period of time to exactly $1,198,697 93, over half a million more than sufficient. The majority of the committee have had satisfactory evidence presented to them that, by reason of the greater cost of maintaining troops in the more distant Territories of Kew Mexico and Arizona, and the large amount of commercial business that would be thrown upon the line if it were extended to the Pacific ocean, results greater than the above would have been attained throughout. A WARNING INCIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE WAR. The second year of the war presented a memorable case, which covered the questions at issue between the minority and majority of your committee, which we beg to recall to the attention of the Senate. The War Department was disabled by act of Congress from building a railroad from Kentucky to Knoxville, in Tennessee, the construction of which had been ordered as a military necessity. It was feared that somebody would make money out of the work. Of course it was stigmatized as a u railroad job.” Its cost was estimated at $10,000,000. It has been repeatedly stated by the most eminent commanders in the western army that had that road been built it would have saved to the government in the three subsequent years of the war twenty times its cost 5 that it would have shortened the war in the west, one year, and have saved the lives of 20,000 soldiers. But Congress was persuaded to believe that it was u a railroad job.” The majority of the Pacific Bailroad Committee, in conclusion, beg leave to say that they believe that the people of the United States demand the roads provided for in this bill) that the people clearly understand the advantages of them, and do not participate in the recently raised outcry against government railroad aid. They also believe that the credit of the nation and the market-value of its securities will bePACIFIC RAILROADS. 31 enhanced and not diminished by our entering immediately upon the execution of our avowed policy of trans-continental railways, and steadily pursuing it to the end. The majority of the committee earnestly recommend the passage of the bill. W. M. STEWART. CHAS. D. DRAKE. JOHN CONNESS. ALEXANDER RAMSEY. J. O. ABBOTT. B. E. RICE.