This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865 Excerpt: ...gauge line to Waterville, which she contributed much to build. What malign influence has blinded her eyes, and how can her representatives on this floor shut them to the obvious truths of the case. It is an instructive but sad picture to look upon. There was no great harm foreseen in the law of 1860, when it was ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865 Excerpt: ...gauge line to Waterville, which she contributed much to build. What malign influence has blinded her eyes, and how can her representatives on this floor shut them to the obvious truths of the case. It is an instructive but sad picture to look upon. There was no great harm foreseen in the law of 1860, when it was enacted, for it left the question of gauge, west of Portland to be determined by the legislature. Parties seeking to build a broad gauge line to Boston, had only to come here and make out a case, showing that the line was needed, and the capital ready, as we do now, to insure a leady compliance on the part of the State Government. Had the present difficulty, which arose on our application to Massachusetts been foreseen by the legislature of 1864, no doubt they would cheerfully have granted a repeal of the law of 1860, before inviting Massachusetts aid, if asked by us to do so. The aid of Massachusetts is now made dependent on that i repeal. What then is the duty of Portland in the premises? Either to consult the wishes of Eastern Maine, and consent to the repeal at once, or come forward and make provision for aiding the line to that amount in some other way. Instead of this, we see her representatives in the legislature forming combinations to defeat this repeal. Would they, if they could, place the entire east at her mercy? She disregards the appeal of stockholders in the broad gauge lines to Bangor and to Montreal, and joins with the ten owners of the narrow gauge lines to Augusta to give them a monopoly of the through business from the Kennebec Valley to Boston. She does not fully understand the game, and when her people find her true position, in reference to all these parties, they will repent in sackcloth and ashes of the folly of her represen...
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