1856.]          OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES.          613

more importance to the citizens of Maryland than the whole
$682,000, (i. e.,) that the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Com-
pany shall transport over their road within the limits of the State
of Maryland, all minerals, manures, agricultural and mechanical
merchandize, wares and goods of all description, at a price as low
as any other Rail Road in the United States for the same kind of
articles. Now this is a principle for which the directors on the
part of the State have been contending for the last ten years with-
out being able to effect the object; as the facts will shew by refer-
ence to the local toll-sheets of the company: for they now charge
twenty-five cents per ton more, to bring Coal from Cumberland'
to Frederick city, (sixty miles west or Baltimore,) than they do to
bring it clear through to Baltimore, which is clearly a discrimina-
tion against the citizens of Frederick; and they charge in like pro-
portion along the entire line within the State of Maryland. This
being the fact, what becomes of all the clamour about low tolls.
Has any material reduction taken place on the local toll-sheet?
Certainly not. All the material reductions have been made on the
through toll-sheet, giving Baltimore the advantage at one end of
the road, and the city of Wheeling the other; discriminating at all
times against the people of Maryland through which the road
passes. In proof of the policy of tolls now advocated by the citi-
zens of Baltimore, your committee will refer you to the late annual
message of the Mayor. His honor, the Mayor, says, that in work-
ing the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road, the interest of the mer-
cantile classes of the city of Baltimore are to be considered "para
mount," and that the matter of dividends, in which the State is
largely concerned, is entirely "secondary." In other words, that
the State of Maryland who has liberally subscribed $500,000 to
the stock of said road, is to receive nothing, if the interests of the
mercantile classes call for a toll-sheet which shall make it im-
possible for the company to pay an interest upon its stock; by this
policy the State of Maryland is to lose $30,000 per annum to
benefit a class of people who may not have individually contributed
one dollar towards the road. And further, if the company reduce
the toll-sheets so low, a contingency by no means improbable, that
the company can pay no dividends upon its stock, what becomes
of this $500,000 which the State has subscribed in this road? She
will never receive one dollar in return: besides we are by no means
confident, under such a policy, that you would not endanger the
interest upon the Slate's $3,000,000 of preferred stock, as well as
this $500,000 of common stock. Now what concessions does this
bill require the State of Maryland to make, to enable her to get
seventy-five per cent, or perhaps par value, for this unproductive
stock? They really amount to nothing, his true, that the bill re-
quires the State to withdraw her directors from the main stem of the
road if she sells her stock at the above prices, for the only induce-
ment for the company to buy this stock at such a high figure is, to
get the control of the road, so they may adopt their own system of