| From the Houston Telegraph |
| |
| January 27, 1865 |
| |
| The difficulties railroads
companies are now laboring under are very great. During the first year
or two of the war, most of them had good stocks of supplies, such as
machinery, extra rails, and material generally of foreign production.
They could afford to do business for compensation barely sufficient to
pay their workmen, and they continued at old rates of freight and
passage, long after the currency was depreciated to a half or a third
of its face value. But now this is all changed. Their stock is more
rapidly depreciating in usefulness than even Confederate currency,
while to replace it requires an outlay of from three to five times the
old prices, and they can replace the worn out material in but small
quantities and at great delays. |
| The bulk of the business done
by them is for the government, and of course at very low rates. They
are paid in currency and must take it at a much better than its market
value. In fact we do not believe there is a railroad in the State that
can now earn a dollar above its absolutely necessary expenditures,
leaving the wearing out everything to go unprovided for. How long can
they keep this up, remains to be seen. |
| With these considerations it
will be seen that there is very little danger of any of them availing
themselves of the act of the legislature, and redeeming their bonds
with Texas warrants. We shall soon expect to see them forfeited to the
State for the want of means, not to pay their debts, but to keep them
in actual use. |
| There is no railroad now that
would be pronounced safe by a good engineer. There is none to put
itself in a safe condition from its own resources. We are satisfied
some more liberal policy must be adopted towards them, both by the
State and the military, or ere long they will become but monuments of
public folly, instead of as now, and as they ought to be, the arteries
of the life of the public. |
|