transportation, $1.77 per 100 lbs. per hundred miles, or the enormous sum of $35.40 per ton per hundred miles. There is no doubt whatever that, should the Government fail to receive full reimbursement for such payment of interest as it might make, it would be amply secured against loss by the important saving which would enure to it in the postal service in the transmission of its military supplies, and in those sent by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

The increase in the internal revenue, of which mention has already been made, and the importance of immediately settling a territory large enough to constitute half a dozen new and prosperous States in the Union, cannot be estimated. These, however, will be among the results of the completion. of the Northern Pacific Railroad.

The Bill now under consideration cannot be construed in any way as pledging the Government to the construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad, or as involving it in any responsibility in connection therewith. Nor does it in any sense furnish the capital for the great work, except as its guarantee will enable the Company to go into the money markets of the world and negotiate for it on equitable terms. For every dollar to which the pledge of the Government will be extended, sixteen and two-third dollars must, by the terms of the Bill, have been specifically advanced and spent by the Company; and as nearly one half of the amount requisite to build the road must be obtained without any Government assistance, both principal and interest, the total amount raised by private enterprise, compared with that promised in the Bill, will be about as thirty-five to one. This certainly is not calculated to weaken self dependence, or lead individuals to rely unduly upon the Govvernment in the prosecution of great national improvements.

One further consideration should be presented in justice to the Company. The act of incorporation prohibits the mortgage of the road under any circumstances whatever.

The stock is to be open to all the citizens of the country, and they are entitled to subscribe to it upon equal terms. Upon the stock thus subscribed for the road must be built; and the rights and privileges of the stockholders, large and small, must be kept inviolate. The Company is deprived, therefore, of the ordinary means by which it has become the usage to provide money for railway construction. While it cannot be denied that the new method is in all respects the more sound and safe of the two; yet, to restrict a company to it, which will have few of the inducements usually held out to capitalists to offer to those whom it may ask to subscribe to its stock, without giving it some substituted advantage, would seem to be hardly reasonable. If railroads, projected where the population is comparatively dense and wealth abundant, are, almost without exception, obliged to have recourse to bonds; this road which is to pass through an almost entirely new territory, and which is designed to attract population, not to follow it, should enjoy some facility to compensate it for a check like this upon its financial operations. The Government guarantee of interest will afford it a most healthful and legitimate opportunity to obtain its money, and will enable it to demonstrate that a railroad really can be, as it always ought to be, built upon its capital stock. Upon this plan the European railroads have been built with entire success, the temporary aid of the Government having been given in many cases, as contemplated in the present instance.

In view of all these considerations, the undersigned express the hope that Congress at its present session will take action, as is proposed by the Bill referred to, in favor of the Northern Pacific Railroad and Telegraph, and thus impart an impulse to the prosperity of the great Northwest, which will be felt and participated in by every section of the country. They cannot more appropriately close what they have endeavored to express in the present paper, than

by quoting the words of the Honorable Secretary of State in a despatch written by him a few months since in reference. to one of the great telegraph lines which are to connect our country with the Old World:

"It seems to me that, in extending dominion over inland mountain regions, and setting up the National Flag on the Pacific coast, the American people, however inconsiderately, assumed the duty of diffusing an equal civilization throughout the whole of the great country which they thus included within their borders. Nor would it be wise to shut out from our thoughts the consideration which necessarily results from contemplating calmly the position and the resources of our new Northwestern and Western States. It becomes our duty to act upon the conviction that, from this time henceforth, those States are to perform an important part in a great work which shall make the shores of the Pacific Ocean the home of communities that shall be as busy, as prosperous, as free, as enlightened, as powerful, and as happy as those which now cluster upon the Atlantic shores. The Atlantic States, by their intermarriage with those of the Pacific, have come under an obligation to favor this great development."

ALEX. RAMSEY,

Senator from Minnesota.

D. S. NORTON,

Senator from Minnesota.

G. H. WILLIAMS,

Senator from Oregon.

J. W. NESMITH,

Senator from Oregon.
IGNATIUS DONNELLY,

Representative from Minnesota.

WILLIAM WINDOM,

Representative from Minnesota.

J. H. D. HENDERSON,

Representative from Oregon.

A. A. DENNY,

Delegate from Washington Territory.
E. D. HOLBROOK,

Delegate from Idaho Territory.

SAMUEL MCLEAN,

Delegate from Montana Territory.

WASHINGTON, April 9, 1866.

EXPLANATION

OF THE

BILL NOW BEFORE CONGRESS,

WITH A STATEMENT

Showing the amount of money which the Government will receive from the Company from sales of lands and from the earnings of the road; also, the amount of interest for which the Government will become liable under the provisions of the Bill.

The Northern Pacific Railroad was chartered to extend from some point on the south shore of Lake Superior, in Wisconsin or Minnesota, through Dakotah, Montana, Idaho, and Washington Territories, to Puget's Sound, with a branch to the Columbia river, making a length of about 1,800 miles, and traversing a district capable of subdivision into eleven or twelve States of the size of Pennsylvania.

The country through which this road is to pass is well adapted to agriculture, and abounds in mineral wealth and the precious metals, as much so perhaps as any portion of the continent. The products of the great fertile valleys of the Red River of the North, and the Saskatchewan and the Assiniboine, the gold fields of British Columbia, as well as the whole, business of the British Possessions would become tributary to it.

Located as this road will be near our Northern border, facing the possessions of the only Power whose military strength can cause us any anxiety, it will furnish a ready means of transporting troops and munitions of war, in case of need, and will thereby make us masters not only of our own territory, but also of that of the enemy. General Grant says:

"HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES,

"April 20, 1866.

"The construction of a railroad by the proposed route would be of great advantage to the Government pecuniarily, by saving in the cost of transportation to supply troops whose presence in the country through which it is proposed to pass is made necessary by the great amount of emigration to the gold-bearing regions of the Rocky Mountains. In my opinion, too, the United States would receive an additional pecuniary benefit in the construction of this road, by the settlement it would induce along the line of the road, and consequently the less number of troops necessary to secure order and safety. How far these benefits should be compensated by the General Government beyond the grant of land already awarded by Congress, I would not pretend to say. I would merely give it as my opinion that the enterprise of constructing the Northern Pacific Railroad is one well worth fostering by the General Government, and that such aid could well be afforded as would insure the early prosecution of the work.

"U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant General."

The climate, as indicated by the isothermal line, is about that of New York and the Middle States; and, in the mountains, according to the reports of Captain Mullan and other Government Engineers, snow seldom falls to the depth. which it does in Vermont and New Hampshire, and no more obstruction from this cause, in operating railroads, need be apprehended than in the States referred to; and, as the Pacific Coast is approached, the climate is found very much milder than in the same latitude on the Atlantic.

From data collected from the sales of lands upon other land-grant roads in the Western States, and from the speedy settlement and development of the resources of the country as fast as such roads are built, it is evident that the lands adjoining the Northern Pacific Railroad will be taken up and settled steadily in advance and along with its construction, and a heavy local business will at once be created along its line.

The cost of construction is estimated at $150,000,000, being much increased by the high rates which must be paid for labor in the mining regions of Montana and Idaho, as well as by the great expense which must be incurred in the transportation of iron, material, and supplies.