| From the Richmond Sentinel |
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| December 24, 1864 |
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| The following paper has been published by
the Presidents of some of the Virginia Railroads: |
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| Maintenance of Our Railroads |
| That the maintenance in efficiency of our
railroads is absolutely necessary to the supply of the wants of our
people and to the success of our struggle for liberty and
independence, will be ??ingly admitted by every one. But the gross
misconceptions are maintained as to the means of maintaining them, and
as to the profits earned by them, as manifest from the debates in
Congress and in the State Legislature. |
| To correct these misconceptions the
following statement of facts is respectfully submitted: |
| The enormous and unprecedented increase in
the cost of the necessities of life, and the scarcity of mechanics,
have made unavoidable an increase of not less than 800 per cent. in
their wages, as compared with the wages they received before the war.
The hires of negroes during the same time having increased about 400
per cent, and may probably be much higher next year. |
| But in every other item of railroad
expense the rates of increase have very far exceeded what they have
been in wages and hires. The hires of negroes constitute but a very
small fraction of the cost to the railroad companies. To feed them,
corn ??? must be bought at prices from thirty to forty times, and meat
at from sixty to seventy times, what they were before the war; and
their clothing, shoes and hats all now cost at least forty times their
cost before the war. While the increase in nearly every other item of
railroad expense is fully equal to these, in some it is much greater,
as in the large items of oils, tallow and grease, the cost of which to
some railroads is one hundred times what it was before the war, and in
the finer pieces and materials of machinery. |
| Nor are these the only or principal
sources of loss to railroad companies. Nearly or quite all of them
have suffered heavy losses in the destruction by the enemy and b y our
own forces of their engines and trains, and of their bridges, roadways
and other structures. All of them have incurred, are daily incurring,
and must continue to incur much heavier losses in the daily
deterioration and depreciation of their property from excessive use
and wear, without the possibility of obtaining either the materials,
the men or the opportunity for repairs necessary for their maintenance
in good order. Not a rail, nor a locomotive, nor any other railroad
machinery is now made in the Confederacy. Their artisans and their
other employees are conscripted. All mines and workshops are engrossed
by the Government, who also constantly overbid them for all mechanical
and other labor; while the timber and wood, on which they formerly
depended for supplies, are destroyed by hostile armies. |
| The depreciations of their property from
these and like causes, it is difficult to estimate. But a careful
calculation made by the officers of one of the principal railroad
companies in this State, estimated their losses to that company to be
annually over $700,000, or more than its gross revenue. And this did
not include any of its losses, estimated at over $1,000,000, from the
destruction of its machinery, bridges, roadway and other structures by
the enemy and by our own armies. |
| With these expenses and losses, let the
increase in the rates of tolls and fares charged on these railroads be
contrasted. In these, during the first two years of the war, little or
no increase had been made. Indeed, beginning to perform the
transportation for the Government and armies at only half the then
existing rates of tolls and fares, they have since continued to do so
at greatly reduced rates compared with those charged private
transportation. And on these last only within the past eighteen months
has there been any considerable and gradual increase, made
reluctantly, and in some cases, only after experience had demonstrated
that the rates then received were wholly insufficient to defray the
current expenses of the roads, without providing any means for future
repairs, or for paying the funded debts of the company, and leaving
the stockholders without any revenue from their investments. Under
these circumstances, these tolls and fares have been, chiefly during
the past year, repeatedly and gradually increased, until they are now,
the tolls about ten times, and the fares about five times, what they
were before the war. |
| A like disproportion will be found to
exist between the increase in the values of articles of freight and
the increases in the toll now charged upon them; the increase in
values being in very few articles less, and in many more than five
times as great as the increase in tolls. and though this reason does
not at first seem applicable to an increase of fares to passengers,
yet it is true that very few persons now travel, except on some
business which yields them a profit very far exceeding in its rate the
increase in their fare. This may be illustrated by the following
incident similar to many others of daily occurrence; A gentleman
having complained that he was required to pay $20 for some 100 miles
of transportation, for which he formerly paid only $4, was told by the
superintendent of the road, that he might pay his fare with two pounds
of tallow, which before the war cost the company at most but twenty
cents, but which now would cost it twenty four dollars; so that if
paid in tallow his fare would be only one twentieth what would have
been paid, if in tallow before the war. and, if he was coming to
Richmond to sell 200 pounds of such tallow he would get for it $1,200,
instead of $10, or one hundred and twenty prices. Out of this he could
surely well afford to pay the increased fare. Nor can any one be said
to be unable to do this, when there is nothing, however valueless
before, which may not now be sold at similar high prices and when even
broom straw and persimmons are brought to market over railroads, they
yield large returns, all profit. |
| These rates, it is believed, will be
inadequate on some roads to defray the current expenses of the
company, and must be further increased; unless there shall be a
decline in the cost of railroad materials, supplies and labor; or the
railroads cannot be kept in operation. It is equally unjust and absurd
to expect that their stockholders will maintain them in operation, not
only at a present ??? of revenue and money, but with the prospect of
very much greater loss in the depreciation of their property, and in
the cost of repairing and restoring it, when the opportunity for doing
this shall occur. |
| It is not forgotten that, in reply to
this, the apparently large surplus revenues reported by some of these
companies, and the dividends declared by their directors, will be
referred to, as indicating a business much more profitable than has
been here represented. But this apparent inconsistency, in even these
few cases, will at once disappear to any unprejudiced mind, when it is
considered that this surplus revenue results from the impossibility of
making the usual and proper repairs, now more than ever before needed,
from excessive use, to the roads and machinery, and additions to the
machinery, needed to keep them up; and that all this has yet to be
inevitably done at a future day, at whatever expense, out of the means
of the company and its stockholders; and that as these dividends will
now purchaser for the stockholders, is many cases dependent on them
for subsistence of the necessaries of life, only one fortieth as much
as they would have purchased before the war, they should justly and
properly be ??d at only one fortieth of their apparent amount. |
| Thus it is seen, that so far from being
more or ??? and valuable to its owners, railroad property is in reality
far less so now than it was before the war, and in many cases, has
been and is a source of positive present expenses and of prospective
greater loss. |
| Nor can this result be in any degree
truthfully attributed to want of economy in its management. In most of
these companies those in charge of its management are its largest
owners, and most largely interested in its economical management; and
in all these companies they are subject to the same supervision of
their intelligent and needy stockholders. Never probably was more
rigid economy exercised in the management of our railroads. |
| From these facts it follows, that unless
our railroads are sustained by enlightened and liberal legislation and
??n of our public authorities, State and Confederate; instead of being
made without defence or advocacy, the object of constant and blind denunciation,
and of hostile class legislation; they inevitably must be broken down,
and be lost to the country and to our military operations; for all
history and experience proves, that their ??? maintenance and
operation by Government officials, will inevitably only hasten when
greatly increased expenses their final ruin. They are now in the
control and management of those, whose personal interest in basic
maintenance and efficiency, is far ???, and whose justice, liberality
and patriotism, are certainly no less than those of any Government
officer. |
| Edmond Fontaine, Pres. of the Va. Central R. R. Co. |
| John S. Barbour, Pres. of the Orange & Alex. R. R.
Co. |
| R. H. Owen, Pres. of the Va & Tenn R. R. Co. |
| P. V. Daniel, Pres. of the R., F. & P. R. R.
Co. {Richmond, Fredericksburg &
Potomac RR} |
| Charles Ellis, Pres. of the R. & Petersburg R. R.
Co. |
| Sam'l M. Wilson, Pres. of the S. & R. R. R.
Co. {Seaboard & Roanoke RR} |
| Wm. Mahone, Pres. of the Norfolk & Petb'g R. R. Co. |
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