| From the New Orleans Times Picayune |
| |
| January 26, 1862 |
| |
| [Communicated] |
| Trade with Texas |
| Editors Picayune |
| My last closed with an
imperfect enumeration of the expenses, delays, vexations and loses now
attendant upon our trade with Eastern Texas. It is but justice to say
that her people have done, if not all they could do, still very much for
a young Commonwealth, to remedy these evils; and there seems really no
end to her liberality towards works of internal improvement, especially
railroads. These are just what she most needs, and to companies fairly
organized she is donating, as stated in the article in the Picayune, the
choice of location in all her public lands. These all belong to the
State absolutely, without any future adjustments to be made with the
General Government, and some of the Texas railway companies are offering
their titles thus obtained -- the clearest and best that can be offered
-- for sale at prices below those required by the State for lands
located at the same time in alternate sections. This sacrifice is made
by these companies to enable them to prosecute their works in these
times of financial difficulty, when the subscribers to their stocks can
not sell cotton nor pay installments due upon them. |
| In Eastern Texas it is done to
build their lines of railroad, not to their own markets, but to ours;
not to supply their own cities with provisions and a commerce, but ours.
That they have a convenience and a most important interest of their own
to promote by this, is true; but that does not alter the fact with
regard to us. That they are developing a vast and fertile country and
making it commercially tributary to New Orleans, remains patent,
whatever be the motive. |
| Once made, their railways will
be remunerative, and very probably, by their convergence upon our
Louisiana lines, will make it to the interest of the latter to lay down
double tracks to the Mississippi river, in order to transport the
abundant and heavy freights which must pass back and forth between them
and us. But now they struggle for life. The rich provision made for them
in cash by a loan of $6,000 per mile from the general school fund of the
State is rendered unavailable, by the depreciation and difficulty
attendant upon any attempt to use the U. S. bonds in which this loan was
to have been made. Formerly at a premium, they are now in value nobody
knows where. Therefore these companies are driven by the impulses of
patriotism, by a military as well as a civil necessity, to do the next
best thing in their power to raise money; for it takes money as well as
very much hard labor to build railroads; and money they must have. This
dernier resort is, to offer their land certificates in the market for
cash, instead of locating them. A distinguished financier, of this city,
a public spirited gentleman, and one acquainted with the Texas railroad
legislation, after conversing for some time on the subject remarked that
"the Eastern Texas Railroad had better borrow money at 20 per cent. than
to sell these certificates." And yet, under a necessity, partly military
in its nature, for immediate progress, while her stockholders are unable
to respond, that company has resolved to do this very thing. They have
determined to sell enough to enable them to complete the connection of
their road with the Houston and New Orleans Road
{Texas & New Orleans RR} at Beaumont. |
| A very large landholder of
Texas informs me he has been offered $6 per acre for all his lands in
Angelina county, along the proposed route of this road, and he refused
the offer. This company has already located man sections of these
certificates in that county, and could locate many more; but in selling
them without location they may not obtain even one dollar an acre. This
illustrates in some degree the sacrifice they are willing to make for
the sake of complying with charter requirements and meeting the wants of
the country. |
| Now, in view of these facts,
and of the further fact that this is no time to offer bonds whereby
railroad companies are in the habit of raising money to complete their
works, ought we not, as a great commercial city, to arise and help them?
Ought we not to subscribe to their stocks, or at least to purchase their
lands? By doing the former we become entitled to share with their own
citizens in all the great privileges and advantages arising out of the
munificence of the State and the profits of the roads; and by the later
we obtain, for a mere fraction of their value, lands adapted not only to
the production of our great staples, but of all the variety of
provisions that we require for consumption or export. We shall, by
either method, or by both, most essentially advance and secure our own
private interests, while we promote those of the railroad companies, and
confer a lasting benefit upon the public. |
| Surely if these companies are
willing, for the sake of constructing, without delay, their lines of
railway leading to us, to sell their land certificates at one dollar an
acre, or less; when, by locating them and awaiting the flood of
population about to flow into Texas from the border States, they could
realize from $3 to $6, we should be ready to buy as many acres as they
will consent to sell. As an investment, few can be surer, or pay better.
Probably events may show that few in real estate would afford an earlier
return of profit. |
|