GOVERNMENT AID TO AMERICAN RAILWAYS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2512, 21 January 1869, Page 3

GOVERNMENT AID TO AMERICAN RAILWAYS.

The New York correspondent of the Scotsman writes as follows: It is no new thing in the United States for railway companies to receive assistance from the General Government, to enable them to complete their enterprises. For the moat part, however, until very lately, this assistance has been confined to grants of land; and in making these donations, the Government, li'ad the satisfaction of knowing that the gift blessed both the giver and receiver, since by thus securing the construction of railways through vast unsettled tracts of country, immigration and settlement along these lines were stimulated, and by giving away one million of acres of land, a market was found for five more millions, which otherwise would have remained unsaleable.. This result, and other still more important ones which followed after, were especially manifest in the Western States—for example Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. In 1840, when there was scarcely 100 miles of railway in either of these States, their aggregate population was 2,924,000. In 1850, they had 2500 miles of railroads, and a population of 4,533.000, and they raised annually 255,636,000 bushels of grain. In the next ten years they had increased their railways to 10,000 miles, their population to 7,000,000, and their cereal products to 415,146,000 bushels. It was in a great measure owing to the wise liberality of the Government in granting donations of land to almost every railway compauy which applied for it that so many roads were constructed. Since, 1850, no less than sixty-six companies have received these donations of portions of the public domain, and the whole amount of land thus given away amounts to 154,175,000 acres-more than, 240,000 miles, an area more than twice as great as that of Great Britain. But of late years these laud grants have proved comparatively useless to the companies which received them owing to the fact that there was difficulty experienced in obtaining the ready money with ~which to construct the roads. It was a knowledge of this fact that led '■ the Government to advance; one step further, and, in the case ofj the Pacific Railway, to not only bestow a gift of every alternate square mile of land for twenty miles on each side of its entire length, but to lend to it the aid of Goyernment credit also. There are three com' piinies thus favoured, all of which, however, are essentially one—to wit, the Central Pacific, which has a line 726 miles long; the Western Pacific, 120 miles; and the Union Pacific, which, with its branches, has a line of 1581 miles. These roads receive the aid of the Government, in the shape of its bonds, as they proceed with the work of construction, and the whole amount of the subsidy, when the whole 2,427 miles are built, will be 60,000,000 dots, on which the annual interest is 3,600,000 dols. This interest the Government pays, but it makes it a charge against the companies to be set against the sums earned by the roads for the transportation of troops, army supplies, and mails. This is ail very well so far as it goes; : the arrangement is a very good one for i the companies and is not a bad one for ; the Government, since it has frequently [ paid three millions and sometimes five [ millions of dollars per year for the transportation of military' stores and • munitions across the plains by wagons. [ But now there are_ plain indications i that at the approaching session of Coni gress, the national Legislature will U

importuned to bestow similar favours' to those given the Pacific Bailway Companies to no lesß than ten other enterprises, the demands of which, if complied with, will involve the grant of 103,000,000 dols in Government bonds, at an annual expense of 6,180,000 dols for interest; Among these projects are two for the construction of other roads to the Pacific coast—one a northern route, reach-

ing the Pacific at, Puget Sound; the other a southern route, crossing New Mexico on the 35th parallel, Neither of these projects is at all new —the American press having repeatedly dwelt, with somewhat tiresome prolixity, upon them. More has been said, however, of the northern than the southern route, the latter, nevertheless, being at once the most important and the most feasible. Its western terminus is to be San Francisco, but instead of striking east, as does the line now under construction, it is to come southward, through the San Joaquin Valley nearly to the southern boundary of California, cross the mountains at the Tejon Pass, where

he elevation is but 4000 feet above

the sea, and then come eastward to Albuquerque, in New Mexico; from which latter point it would have branches to New Orleans, Little Ecck, and St. Louis. The ten companies which will, in all probability, apply to Congress for subsidies, within the next few months, and the amounts of aid for which each will ask, are as follows : The Northern Pacific, from Lake Superior to Puget Sound, 1700 miles 34,000,000dols; the San Joaquin and Southern, from San Francisco to Albuquerque, 1000 miles, 20,000,000d015, the Oregon Branch, from Portland, Oregon, to Humbold Hive, 400 miles, 8,000,000 dols; the Montana Branch, from Virginia City to Salt Lake, 250 miles, 5,000,000dols; the Kansaß Branch, from Fort Wallace to Albuquerque, 580 miles, 5,000,000dols; the South Pacific, from Springfield, Missouri, to Albuquerque, via Fort Gibson, 1000 miles, 10,000,000dols; the Memphis and Pacific, from Little Eock, Arkansas, to Fort Gibson, 300 miles, 3,000,000 dols; the Cairo and Fulton, from Little Eock to Tyler, Teias, 400 miles, 4,000,000dols; and the New Orleans and Santa Fe, from Shreveport, Louisiana, to Albuquerque, 1000 miles, 10,000,000d015. Here are 6950 miles of road, of which the projectors are confident the whole can be built if the Government will " start" them with this subsidy, and agree to " take it out" in what the roads can earn by transporting the mails and the army. They propose to issue first mortgage bonds for ah equal sum, the Government to have only a secondary lien for its security. The policy of the Democratic party in days gone by has always been opposed to using the public money or credit for any purpose outside the ordinary and legitimate channels of Government expenditure, But the Democratic party is not likely to have much to say about the disposition of affairs for some years to come, and the chances are, I suppose, that the railways, or some of them, will get what they ask for.