1867.] OF THE SENATE. 313

predict a great Increase of prosperity along the line, they
speak of that part of the line which, in their own judgment,
will -not be constructed except under the constraint of a law
which, in thejudgrnent of the undersigned, will be ineffectu-
al. It is from the same unpromising quarter that they an
ticipate such immense additions to the trade of Baltimore.

If the projected Rail Road from Baltimore to Washington
were merely unnecessary and useless, it might be safely left
under the control of political or financial speculators. But its
effects will be very detrimental to the State. That it will
greatly reduce, if not destroy, the revenue which the State
now derives from the Washington branch of the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad is manifest. The Committee estimates
that in the future this revenue will not exceed $50,000 per
annum. But the State owns $550,000 of stock in that road
on which an annual dividend of ten per-cent. or $55,000 has
been paid for many years. Besides, the State receives one-
fifth of the passenger's fares, and has for several years derived
a revenue from that source alone of about $250,000 per an-
num. During the last six months the State proportion on
that account is $80,700, or at the rate of $161,400 per an-
num making with the dividend $216,400 per annum, now
actually realized; unquestionably that revenue will be increas-
ed by the increase of travel, unless a parallel rail road be
built for the mere purpose of taking away the very travel
from which it is derived.

That such is the purpose of those who have contracted to
build the new road is manifest. Their purpose however, is
not merely to take the travel from a road in which Maryland
has a great interest, but to transfer the profits and incident-
al advantages of that travel to others whose interests are for-
eign to this State, and even inimical to her welfare. Herein
lies the greatest danger of the scheme. Of course, the design
is carefully concealed, but it can be made sufficiently evi-
dent.

When the "foreign contractors" who have seized upon the
Baltimore and Potomac charter shut their eyes to that great
business between the North and South which, as the Com-
mittee show, will reward the construction of a railroad from
Baltimore to the lower Potomac; when they are insensible to
the immense advantages which it would confer on Baltimore
and Southern Maryland; when they need to be driven into
that enterprize by a heavy penalty, as the committee propose
to drive them; when they avow, as the committee declare,
that the branch to Washington is "of such paramount im-
portance that a repeal of the right to make it" would be
equivalent to a repeal of the charter, and when they contract
to advahce $2,900,000 to construct the work; they demon-

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