1860.] OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES.           159

ing resolution adopted by the House of Delegates, received
by me on the 21st inst.:

Ordered, That the Presidents of the Northern Central and
Baltimore and Ohio railroads, be requested to inform this House
whether their companies have not discriminated against the
city of Baltimore, in their rates of freight.

It gives me pleasure to answer the inquiry propounded in
that order.

This company does not discriminate against the city of
Baltimore in its rates of freight. It has on the contrary
been its constant effort to contribute to the welfare and pros-
perity of that community., by making the largest practicable
differences in its favor.

I presume that the inquiry owes its origin to circumstances
which I will briefly ask you to lay before the House of Dele-
gates.

The Baltimore and Ohio railroad company, is one of the seve-
ral great lines of railway, which stretch from the seaboard to
the west. The others are the Pennsylvania railroad com-
pany, the New York and Erie, and the New York Central.
Not one of these roads reaches by its own line to the vallies
of the Mississippi and Missouri, and the leading cities in the
west and southwest, from which an immense traffic is drawn.
They connect with other western lines.

Upon the character of the arrangements which they make
with those lines, depends the amount of trade which each is
able to obtain.

The road which does not compete with them in making
such arrangements, receives no part of the freight which
passes over them to the eastern markets.

The Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and Baltimore city,
were long the victims of the agreements thus made between
the northern and western lines.

The road has, in consequence, as occasion required, retali-
tued to vindicate its real advantages.

In executing this policy, and in the very maintainance of
a discrimination by this company, in favor of Baltimore, a
conflict occurred with the northern lines last year.

During a brief portion of that time, all the companies en-
gaged in competition for western traffic, and in that battle,
carried through freight at rates below the actual cost of trans-
portation.