What is the history of this matter as we
see it in adjoining States? I am informed
that. in both of the adjoining States, the States
have sold their interest in the public canals.
Those interests have been purchased at once
by the leading railroad corporations of the
State. And in one State forty miles of a great
State highway to-day lies in ruins, and use-
less; simply that, its non-use may result to
the greater benefit of the corporation which
purchased it.
Now, you will see bow the railroad and
canal in Maryland operate one upon the other.
So long us the canal maintains its present
rate of freightage, the railroad is necessarily
compelled lo keep down to a certain stand-
ards Suppose now that yon sell your in-
terest in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,
and in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Who
doubts that the immediate purchaser of both
interests would be the private stockholders of
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad? It has
operated so elsewhere, right along your bor-
ders, and who doubts but what that would
be the practical result of the whole thing in
this State; that the private stockholdership
of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad would
become the immediate purchasers of the
State's interest in both of these corporations.
Passing them into the hands of a single cor-
pora ion, I ask whether it may not be the
interest of the corporation which may be the
sole owner of both of these public works,
that that canal should go to ruin., and cease
to be the highway of the great traffic that
now travels over it? What bus been t!ie case
elsewhere may be the case here and I think
we should be exceedingly careful bow we act
in this matter.
And I want to say now to the majority
with whom I act that the people sent you
here, and me here to inaugurate a new era,
after full, fair discussion before them, in the
history of your State. They have by their
verdict agreed to what you told them, that
the State was half a desert, when it might by
the adoption of a new system of labor become
almost altogether a garden. They sent you
here to decide that matter. But being here, we
are bringing in all these other matters never
discussed before the people, and upon which
the people have never passed. And I tell you
we have a weighty responsibility in this mat-
ter. Whatever the people may say about it,
we have pot to bear the responsibility. It is
not the minority of this house who are charge-
able with everything done here, unless they
join a minority of the majority and do some-
thing; then for that they are responsible,
share and share alike. But the people hold
us to a responsibility for all that is dune here.
And if we undertake to act in a matter in
which we are not sent here by them to act,
and if we act counter to their wishes, they
will turn you and me down, and justly so,
and the State will be remitted to that status |
from which the people have been struggliug
so long to remove it. If gentlemen can as-
sign any good reason for immediate action in
this matter, then I will join them, and unless
they can I will not.
You have acted upon that part of your
constitution which provides the means for
further changes in your organic law hereafter
should they be found necessary. What is
the hurry of the hour? Can you not wait
a year, until the people can be heard upon
this subject, and until you can get the ver-
dict of the people? If they want this done,
will they not have it done, just as they are
having other changes made? Let the people
instruct, their delegates in the next legisla-
ture, which will probably meet here next
winter, that in their opinion their interest
requires the sale of the State's interest in
these public works, and they will have the
sale made, just as soon as, and long before, it
can become of any use.
I think, therefore, that underall the cir-
cumstances, looking to the fact that the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal is now in such a,
condition that it cannot command a fair
price; looking to the amount which the State
has already invested in it and which if sold
will be a dead loss forever; looking to what
is likely to be the result of a sale at this time,
we should hesitate about selling now, I do
in my heart believe, from the opinion of some
of the ablest men in Maryland, Francis Thomas
among them, that that canal stock will some
time be the best paying stock in Maryland.
And I will tell you why I believe so. 1 heard
that good man say, a year or more ago, that
with a proper system of labor Allegany coun-
ty could put into the market from her mines
$50,000,000 annually for a thousand years
to come. And what is to be the great high-
way to tide-water for those minerals? The
canal, unless the private stock interest of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad gets control of
it, so as to make it the interest of the railroad
to let it go to ruin, The canal is going to be
made the great thoroughfare within twenty
years from this day. We have borne a heavy
burden of taxation for more than twenty
years; and in less than twenty years more,
according to the opinion or some of the
wisest and best men with whom I have con-
versed, this canal will be the great avenue
over which $50,000,000 worth of minerals
annually will reach tide-water. The aunnal
amount of the mineral contributions of Alle-
gany to the public wealth of the State to-day
is hardly under $15,000,000. And with
peace in the land, with order restored, this
property in the next ten or twenty years is
going to quadruple in value. And who
has the right to that value? I do not think
there can be a rational doubt that the value
of that property is going to enhance, and
greatly. Who has the right to that increase
in value? The people of the State, for the |
