While it may be said that under the present system of railroads, the
Commonwealth has been prosperous, there are drawbacks and defects
which need careful examination, and if possible a remedy. To those who
are familiar with the condition of our manufactures, the most striking
want is the failure of our home market for our productions.
We are tributary to New York in many ways. The great sale of our
manufactured goods is made in New York, and goes to build up a rival
city. Our great commission houses have been compelled to establish
branches in New York, which in a short time have surpassed in business
and in importance the home establishments.
If we could have kept at home the sale of our manufactured goods--have
retained here in Boston the great houses through which the exchanges
are made--could have brought to New England the purchasers from the
West and South, it would have vastly increased the prosperity of
Boston and of New England.
Business can be done cheaper in Boston than in New York; and yet New
York has drawn away from us a large proportion of our legitimate
business,--the sale of our manufactured goods; and this loss can be
directly attributed to a defect in our railroad system, which can and
should be remedied. I say defect, but, more properly, the want of a
strong and independent line of railroad through to the West,
controlled in the interest of Massachusetts. Why, Mr. President, if we
could withdraw from New York the firms and business that represent the
sale of Massachusetts goods, it would more than cover the burnt
district of this city, and double the business of Boston; and New York
would feel that her loss was much greater than the Boston fire. And
why is it that our goods are sent to New York to be sold? Simply
because New York has _three_ great trunk routes to the West, which
control the transportation of the Southern and Western productions,
and the owners, who are the merchants, follow their goods, and are the
customers who purchase our manufactured goods of New York houses, and
ship them in return over these same trunk lines, giving them a large
and profitable business; which should be and can be controlled, by
proper management, in the interest and for the benefit of a through
line or lines from Boston to the West.
To-day Boston is without a through and independent line to the West,
and while we are shipping our goods to New York to be sold, to be
transported over the great lines leading South and West, our _own_
Western road, so called, in 1872, according to the annual report of
the directors, carried through from Boston to Albany 112,071 tons of
freight, and from Albany to Boston 556,202 tons--more than four times
as much _from_ the West than is carried _to_ the West; which state of
things would be reversed if the sale of our goods was made here
instead of New York; but this can only be accomplished by a through
line West, controlled in the interests of Massachusetts, and not in
the interest of New York.
A line to the Lakes in competition,--not with the Boston and Albany
Railroad, as that is dependent upon the New York Central Railroad in a
great measure for its Western freights,--but an independent line, so
organized as to guard against any combination, that will force by
competition the New York lines to give to the Boston and Albany and
the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroads less rates, making Boston a
competing point, thus securing the advantages of four competing
Western lines, including the great Northern line, which must bring to
our seaboard the products of the great West, and thus secure an
exchange of trade that will increase the growth, and prosperity of
Massachusetts, that will equal the prophecies of those who are called
_visionary theorists_. It was by competition of the three great trunk
lines running to New York--discriminating against Boston--that forced
the removal of the sale of Massachusetts productions to that city; and
it is estimated these sales amount to more than two hundred and fifty
millions of dollars per annum at the present time; and the golden
opportunity is now at hand to restore in a great measure the
advantages lost by not having a strong and efficient line of railroad
leading to the great West, in the interest of the State.