| From the Southern Watchman (Athens,
Ga.) |
| |
| April 1, 1863 |
| |
| Want of Transportation |
| That the extravagant prices of
every thing are due in some degree to a want of adequate means of
transportation, we have no doubt. The following remarks on this
subject are extracted from a late issue of the Savannah Republican: |
| "But the great trouble
with us -- the effective hand-maid of monopoly, extortion, and all
manner if injustice and imposition -- in the lack of
transportation. The products of the earth, to be available in
feeding the mouths of the hungry and clothing the naked, must be
carried from the producer to the consumer, and we have not the means
of accomplishing this necessary change from place to place. The
country is dependent almost entirely on railroads for the particular
service, and unless something be done to supply the deficiency, we
shall exhort the people to plant corn in vain. There are millions
pounds of bacon and bushels of corn which now lie massed up in various
sections of the Confederacy, whilst the people not fifty miles distant
are actually suffering from hunger. Open the flood gates and we shall
have plenty, if not peace. The railroad companies of the South are
much to be blamed for this disastrous state of affairs. They have gone
on coining money apparently without a thought of the future, or at
least without making any adequate preparation to meet its exigencies
successfully. Why have they not long since combined and from their
well stuffed coffers appropriated a sufficient amount to establish at
one or more central points, extensive works for the manufacture of
locomotives, car wheels, rail road iron and all the necessary
machinery for the successful conduct of their business? Had it been
done a year ago, we should now have but little of stagnant commerce
and a starving army and people. A fearful time awaits us, and we
regard not only the feeding of the people but the existence of the
government itself dependent, in a great measure, upon the enlargement
and judicious control of our means of transportation. Hitherto our
army has been supported in great part from the products of the country
immediately surrounding it, but we have a very different state of
things before us. Northern and western Mississippi, Northern Alabama,
nearly the whole of Tennessee, and the best portion of Virginia, are
in the hands of the enemy or so seriously threatened that agriculture
must cease for the time being. The entire support of the army,
therefore, will have to be transported to them from a distance over
our railroads, and when we recollect that the means of performing this
increased amount of labor are daily diminishing, we have a gloomy
prospect indeed. Add to this the probable necessity of frequent
transportation of troops, baggage and munitions of war, and where
shall we be found at the end of the year? Let our railroad men and the
public arouse to a proper appreciation of these momentous
considerations. |
| {The Savannah Republican
was owned by Sims, who had recently taken up his duties as assistant
to Wadley, Chief of RR Transportation. Sims had recently been in
Raleigh and may have visited his family in Savannah. If such a visit
took place, this article may be the result of Wadley's frustration
with the railroads and Sims visit with his newspaper's editor.} |
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