| OCR Text |
Show Tho subvention of railroad companies compa-nies is neither absolutely right nor wrong. Circumstances govern the policy pol-icy of it, and if these in some instances havo been abused, that abuse is an argument ar-gument against the circumstances of particular cases, and not against the general principle of granting public aid to private enterprises. 1'ublic donations do-nations or subscriptions to the capita; stock of a railway company, are induced in-duced by tho expectation that the road will prove a public benelit, by furnishing cheap and expeditious means of freighting and traveling, and by increasing the aggregate value of property subject to taxation. The same considerations influence private individuals to take stock in railroad enterprises. The holders of a few shares in a railroad corporation, do not always expect dividends upon the cash cost of them; they rely upon the enhanced value of property which a railroad causes to take place along its line, for a profit on the money they have invested. If real estate is advanced ad-vanced iu value one, two or five hundred hun-dred per cent., as is often the case, by connecting it by railroad with a market, mar-ket, the owners of it ought, as a matter mat-ter of policy and of justice, to assist to build that road; and as whole cities, counties, and States are often benefited bene-fited by the construction of a railway, sound policy in such cases justifies a subvention to assist in building it. It is the only manner of reaching the miserly property-holders, who refrain from subscribing to the stock of a great public improvement, simply because they suppose that men more enterprising enter-prising than themselves will do so, and that they will reap the full benefits of tho improvement wtthou' contributing a cent to its cost. It is certainly obligatory upou any community deriving great aggregate benefits from railroads or other public improvement, to assist in constructing construct-ing them; and a corporative subscription subscrip-tion or subsidy is in many instances the fairest mode of rendering th.it as sistanvc. |
