in it must he materially sacrificed. The best
means of affecting it was the adoption of the pro-
position of the gentleman from Frederick, as
amended by the gentleman from Baltimore
county, [Mr. Howard.]
And when the railroad shall have reached the
Ohio, and its trains returned to Cumberland la-
den with the abundant productions of the west,
as the contest waxes warmer and the strife con-
tinues, would it be, judging from the past, be-
yond the reach of probability to suppose, that
the tolls from Cumberland to the District, on all
articles transported in care to Cumberland from
the west, should be so reduced as to be merely
nominal in amount, and thus tempt the owners
of freight from the west from motives of econo-
my in transportation, to unload it at Cumber-
land, and send it by the canal to the District
cities? After what has been realized, we should
fear the worst, and use every precaution in our
power to guard against it. His friend from
Montgomery, too, (Mr. Davis,) had shown him
a statement where the railroad company, from
no conceivable motive but to enable it to com-
pete with the canal, had charged nearly three
times as much for transportation from points on
the road, at which there could be no competion
for it, as from points where such competition
was known to exist.
But there is another fact, which speaks vol-
umes upon the subject; and was shown by the
newspapers some very few weeks ago, that the
rail road although now without profit, and as
many thought at a loss, were transporting coal
from Cumberland to Baltimore, at one cent and
one-third per ton per mile, yet that it had noti-
fied the public, that after the first of June next,
(when the canal reduction of toll on coal was to
go into operation,) the cost of transporting coal
on the rail road, from Cumberland to Baltimore
would be reduced twenty-one cents per ton. This
sacrifice of its interests by the rail road, could
only be made to protect the trade of Baltimore.
Oilier facts might be adduced to show the ruin-
ous competition now raging, though as yet, in its
commencement, between the railroad and canal
companies, but he forebore to waste the time of
this Convention in detailing them. Such a com-
petition is the necessary, natural result of the
present condition of these companies, and no
proof can be required to prove the necessity of
controlling, and guarding against it. The judi-
cious amendment then of the gentleman from
Baltimore county, (Mr. Howard,) cannot need
argument to induce its adoption.
The deleterious consequences of this competi-
tion are too apparent to need a detached enu-
meration. It, in the first place extinguishes the
State's hopes of any income from the canal for
the $11,000,000 of its expenditures. It compels
the rail road to make sacrifices of its income,
otherwise derived than from its transportation
from Allegany, for the benefit or the commerce
of Baltimore. To what extent these sacrifices
may extend, no man can foresee; it maybe for
ought we can know to the rendering of the rail
road unable to make dividends, or pay the inter- |
est on the State's loan to it, of the $3,200,000.
The consequence would be inevitable. The State
must, by additional taxation provide for the pay-
ment of the $3,200,000. The value of property
in Baltimore would be greatly depreciated, and
the rest of the State, consequently charged with
a portion of the State taxes now paid by the city
of Baltimore, and much larger proportion of the
taxes levied for the payment of the interest on
the $3,200,000 that it would otherwise have
been.
Mr. SCHLEY asked, if better agents or those
possessing more intelligence would result from
the mere fact of their election by the people?
Mr. DORSEY answered no. But as commissioners
of public works, much more extended
powers were designed to be given them; and he
hoped, from their altered localities, an entirely
different course of conduct would be pursued by
them. That the ruling principle of their actions
would not be to aggrandize the district cities and
advance the prosperity of Allegany county, at
the sacrifice of the most important interests of
the city of Baltimore and the Slate of Mary-
land.
His friend, (Mr. Davis,) appeared to think that
he, (Mr. D.,) ought to have mentioned a fact of
which he had been informed: that Mr. DAVIS had
called on George Brown, Esquire, Mr. Gushing
and other distinguished citizens of Baltimore,
offered to make one of them a director in the
Chesapeake and Ohio canal company, (Mr. D.,)
said, his failure to mention it, was not to do in-
justice to his friend from Montgomery; but that
he regarded it as no immaterial fact or by no
means one, placing the conduct of the State's
agents in a less exceptionable point of view. If
the offer had been to give to Baltimore a majori-
ty of the directors then would Baltimore have
had less cause to complain. But to offer Balti-
more one out of six directors was a mockery; and
the Baltimorean who would have accented to
such a proposition must have been a dupe in-
deed, who would consent to serve in a board
where he was powerless to do good; being in a
minority of one to five, and though vehemently
opposed to those ruinous measures which they
were perpetrating against the interests of those
they represented, yet he was held in some de-
gree responsible therefor, as a member of the
board.
Such an offer renders less defensible the con-
duct of the State's agents, by showing they were
aware of the interests, it was their duty to pro-
tect, but were unwilling to provide any adequate
means for their protection.
Whether the State's agents possessed any power
to unite with the Canal directors in reducing the
tolls in the manner they have done, was a ques-
tion which lie had not examined as he would have
done, but for the unexpected manner in which he
had been involved in this discussion. But con-
ceding their power to the propriety of their ex-
cising it as they had done, he must ever dissent.
He had been examining the present subjects of
discussion as if they involved nothing more than
the mere expediency of a change in the State's
agents, or their mode of appointment. Nothing |
