1868.] OF THE SENATE. 279

that collections from amounts long due are unreliable, and
cannot be made a basis of calculation to meet the requirements
of the Treasury. In this approximate of disbursements only
the sum of fifty thousand dollars has been allowed, as likely
to be called for by the Eastern Shore railroad companies
under the Act of 1860, but as the proviso in this Act, which
directs that the one-fourth only of the amount awarded to each
county shall be paid in any one year, has been repealed by an
Act of the present Legislature, and the Treasurer will be
called on to pay over the larger portion of the whole amount
of $500,554.34, within this and the coming year, to the differ-
ent works of internal improvement now being urged forward.
The demands on the Treasury will be augmented by this ad-
ditional amount. And as by every consideration of justice
and sound policy we are called on not longer to disregard the
claims of our sister counties of St. Mary's, Charles and Cal-
vert for aid in the construction of works of internal im-
provement, which have already been recognized in the
thirty-fourth section of the third Article of the Constitution,
your Committee think it would be advisable to place it in the
power of the Treasurer to meet at any time the demands from
these sources, when their citizens shall have taken the initi-
ative, and complied with the conditions which this Legislature
will most probably enact, and make precedent to their enjoy-
ment of these funds, which are intended for their benefit,
and the development of the resources of their section of the
State. Should the whole amount of five hundred thousand
dollars be placed at their disposal in this and the next year,
we shall have to provide for a demand on the Treasury of
$1,151,000 for the several purposes hereinbefore indicated.
The works of internal improvement on the Eastern Shore
have nearly all been placed under contract, and if the dis-
tributive shares from the State are paid within the current
and the coining year, subject to the provision that before
they can be drawn from the Treasury, the Comptroller must
be first satisfied that an equal amount has been subscribed
and paid in by the company making the demand, the whole
of that productive section of our State will be brought into
connection with the main arteries of internal improvement
to the North of us, and by short steamboat transit from
Somers' Cove to Norfolk, no less closely connected with
those to the South of us.

Every principle of right as well as expediency makes it
proper and urgent that this long deferred justice should be
meted out to these portions of the State, whose resources
have been allowed to lie dormant and undeveloped by advan-
tages secured by taxation to other and more favored sec-
tions, and which they have submitted to without a murmur.
The interest on the amounts paid by these counties into the
Treasury of the State for works of internal improvement,