take effect. So it will go on, the question
agitating the public mind year after year, in
the election of the legislature, until the opportunity
arrives to make a suitable sale.
So far as I am concerned, representing the
constituency of Anne Arundel county, I am
willing that the interest of the State in the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal shall be sold,
and that these other works shall be sold,
rather than that the interest of the State in
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad shall be sold.
What is this canal? Gentlemen have prophesied
time and again of the vast financial
benefit that was to accrue to the State at
some future period of its operation; of the
revenue that the State was to derive from it.
We have heard these things in this hall, ever
since the work began, for twenty or thirty
years. For years and years, the State has
been spending its money, from that time down
almost to the present, and never was paid
and never will be paid one cent in return for
the vast amount of her investments in that
work.
I would not be for filling up the canal, because
we have expended so much money upon
it; but I would to God, that the spade had
never beenframed that ever dug out ashovel-
full of dirt from that canal. A gentleman
from Allegany county told me the other day,
that you might talk as you pleaded about the
transportation of coal, which is the only thing
that can be exported upon that canal; but
that the transportation of coal, an article
heavy and bulky as it is, upon the railway, is
cheaper than its transportation by the canal.
And he further informed me, that there was a
project now made by citizens of Allegany,
and those interested in the coal fields there
people of New York; and they have expended
thirty millions of dollars for a railway, which
will take the coal direct from Allegany county
to Harrisburg, and thence to the city of New
York. The interest the people have in the
canal, and the interest they have in the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad, will be but trifling
when that railroad is completed. I venture
to say, that we shall then find gentlemen
from Allegany county coming down here
willing to sell the State's interest in that
canal; for after the completion of the rail-
road, it will not affect them.
See what the last exhibit of this canal
makes it out. I have before me a report laid
upon my table, the 36th annual report of the
president and directors of the Chesapeake and
Ohio Canal, to the Stockholders June 6, 1864
That gives the receipts in a table. signed by
Mr. Ringgold, the treasurer; which differs
materially, I think, from the report of the
president of the company, from which I will
read the abstract of receipts and payment
from the treasury of the company from Janu
ary 1st to December 31st, 1863.
The receipts were as follows, viz : |
Tolls ..........$154,790 38
Water rents...... ..................... 6,254 60
Rents of house's and lands......... 1,091 24
Acquisition of lands................. 750 00
Fines and penalties.................. 3 83
Construction .... ......... 2671
$162.916 76
Balance from 31st Dec. 1862. 7,277 76
$170,194 52
The payments were as follows, viz:
Construction...... ...................$136,118 14
Pay of officers..... ............... 13,27002
Contingent expenses................. 1,000 00
Engineer department............... 500 00
L. J. Brengle and F. D. Herbert. 2,40^0 00
Postages ............................... 16 00
Printing and stationery........... 289 58
Temporary loans...... ............. 1,200 00
Interest paid .................... 5,39084
$160,184 64
In the treasury, viz :
(L) 475 Maryland 5 per cent.
bonds...... ...........$2,111 12
Inbanks................. 7,89876
— 10,009 88
$170.194 52
That does not show a very favorable state
of affairs. It does not give us much indication
thaat the State will, in any short time, realize
anything from that. How will the canal be
sold? if it be put into the hands of indi-
viduals, who will work it practically, the
people of the State will be just as much bene-
fitted by it, as if it was under State manage-
ment. It is a mere political machine as it
now exists. The officers, toll-keepers, and
numerous employees, working all along the
line of the road, make it a vast political ma-
chine; and it is so managed, paying their
salaries, keeping them in office, but producing
revenue for nobody, not even for the bond-
holders of that canal. The scripholders have
no more expectation of ever getting a cent of
their money under the State's management,
than they have under private management.
So far as the question of work is concerned,
running boats along that canal, gentlemen
would suppose to hear the argument here,
that that was to stop immediately. I think
the business of the canal will increase. There
will be more wheat, more flour, more lime,
more plaster, carried over that canal, if it is
properly managed, than ever before; and it
will be a greater benefit to the State.
I am not so familiar with these other canal
companies. I have not had the same means of
getting information with reference to them;
but I presume that pretty much the same
argument will apply. Gentlemen are afraid |
