| From the New Orleans Daily Crescent |
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| March 23, 1861 |
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| The Convention and our Railroads |
| An ordinance is before the
Convention, which has for its object to empower the State Legislature
to authorize the issue of State bonds at the rate of $6000 per mile
for each mile of graded roadway ready for the track, on which the
track is not laid, in behalf of those roads only in which the State is
now a stockholder: provided, however, that no more than the unpaid
balances of her present subscription to the capital stock of said
roads shall be thus paid by the State. The object of this ordinance
seems to be the suspension -- in behalf of the three railroads now in
progress, in which the State is now a stockholder, viz: the Vicksburg,
Shreveport & Texas Railroad, the Grosse Tete Railroad {Baton
Rouge, Grosse Tete & Opelousas RR}, and the Opelousas
Railroad -- of a constitutional provision, which prohibits the payment
of the State's subscription, except in proportion to the total amount
of capital stock of each company paid in by all other parties. |
| The capital stock of the New
Orleans, Opelousas & Great Western Railroad Company was fixed at
$6,000,000, and the State's subscription of one-fifth is $1,200,000,
or 18,000 shares of $25 each. On this the State has issued to date
$650,000 in bonds, equal to 26,000 shares: leaving $550,000, or 22,000
shares unpaid. |
| Since the State subscription
to the stock of this Company, the Company have received from the late
United States a grant of land amounting to about 700,000 acres. It is
clear that if the road can be built for less than the six millions of stock,
the sales of land furnishing the means instead of stock
subscriptions, the road, when finished, will be much more valuable to
the stockholders. If, therefore, this Company obtain money on bonds to
build their road, and afterwards pay off the bonds by the proceeds of
their land sales, as will be done, then the road will be unencumbered,
and represented by only three and a half to four millions of stock in
place of six millions. Would it not be wiser to aid the Company by
paying up the State subscription in full, as the city of New Orleans
did with her $1,500,000 subscription, than to compel the Company to
issue $6,000,000 of stock and then pay up, as the State would have to
do by existing laws? In the one case the $1,200,000 subscribed by the
State would give her the ownership on one-third of the road and
its earnings, when completed, which, in the other, the same amount
would give her but one-fifth. |
| On the first one hundred and
twenty-five miles of their line this Company have but a limited
quantity of land, the largest portion lying beyond Opelousas. On
reaching Opelousas the sales of land will ensure the rapid extension
and completion of the road to the Sabine river, or eastern boundary of
Texas. The object now is to reach Opelousas at the earliest possible
period, and the aid of the State, as provided for in the ordinance
before the Convention, would accomplish this object. By July next
about seventy-five miles of roadway will be graded and ready for the
track, and the whole eighty-five miles, extending from Berwick's Bay
to Opelousas, can be graded by October or November next. The balance
of the State's subscription would furnish the rails for this
eighty-five miles of road, and leave the Opelousas Company in a
condition to complete their road to Texas without embarrassment or
loss of time. |
| The State now owns 1,400,000
acres of land within the limits of the Opelousas Railroad grant, or
twice the amount belonging to the Railway Company. Fully 1,000,000
acres of this is within the "six mile limits," and if sold
at a minimum of $2.50 per acre, the price fixed on the same by the
late United States, after the building of the railroad, would realize
to the State $2,500,000; add the remaining 400,000 acres at $1.25, and
the total is $3,000,000. Nearly the whole of this land is at present
unsaleable, and will be so till the railroad is finished; then it will
sell rapidly. |
| The extension of the Opelousas
road ensures also the completion of the Louisiana division of the
Texas & New Orleans Railroad, extending from Houston, Texas, to a
junction with the Opelousas road. The Legislature have just passed a
bill to aid the Texas & New Orleans Railroad by a grant of land.
Within the limits of that road our State owns about 700,000 acres of
land, and between both roads she owns 1,500,000 acres, or a total in
all, within the grants of both roads and between both, of 3,600,000
acres, all of which would be made valuable and saleable by the
completion of these railroads. As a great landed proprietor, then, the
State should have the power, through her Legislature, to encourage the
early completion of the Opelousas Railroad, if she deems it wise to
give this encouragement. The ordinance, as I understand it, only
empowers the Legislature to act. |
| Is it not sound State policy
to encourage the settlement and development of the sparsely settled
portions of the parishes of Calcasieu, Rapides, St. Landry, and
Vermillion, and thus to diminish the ration of taxation by
distributing the burthen among a greater number? Do not all the other
States foster and aid their railways? The wisdom of so doing is fully
exemplified in the case of Georgia. |
| The Opelousas Railroad will be
258 miles in length, and will have connection with the Red river
valley, South-western Louisiana, Northern and North-western Texas, and
all Southern and Middle Texas. With its small capital of three and a
half to four millions, it must pay heavy dividends. The State, by
completing her subscription, will make her stock a profitable
investment, and secure what she has already paid against the
possibility of loss, besides developing her territory and making her
3,600,000 acres of land saleable. |
| In a military point of view
this road is a necessity, for without it Texas might as well be at the
Rocky Mountains, if troops have to march 500 miles overland in case of
war. The rapid concentration of troops, at any point in the
Confederate States, is of the greatest importance. |
| Commercially, this railway
connection with Texas is a necessity to New Orleans and to Louisiana,
if we are to maintain New Orleans as the great center of trade of the
Southwest -- the exporting and importing depot of the Southern States. |
| Why should not the State, like
the city of New Orleans, pay up her subscription in full, in view of
the immense importance, at this juncture, of the immediate completion
of the railway connection with Texas? View the question in any light
whatever, and the State will be vastly benefited, without the
possibility of losing in any way. In any event, the Convention would
simply authorize the Legislature to do a certain thing, nothing
more. Our great railroads are no longer an experiment; their standing
is well known, their importance generally appreciated. |
| B. |
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