THE BENEFIT OF RAILWAYS.

Evening Star, Issue 3075, 27 December 1872, Page 3

THE BENEFIT OF RAILWAYS.

The other day a further section of the Northern Trunk Eailway of Canterbury was opened for trafii, and the occasion was made one of considerable rejoicing. .Speeches were delivered, the burden of each address being the advantages derivable from railway communication. Our Port line will be opened in a few days—whether with any public demonstration does not yet appear—and its benefits will be quickly appreciated. On this subject we canuot do better than reprint the following extract from the San Francisco Commercial Herald of a recent date. Jt summarises the benefits which have been conferred on California by railway extension. Ti-e Herald says :

A trip through the grain-growing districts of this State will at once convince the traveller of the invaluable aid rendered by railroads. Neat and flourishing towns that had no existence one year ago have arisen like magic in the midst of almost interminable plains teeming with the staff of life. Valleys and fields that bad no inhabitants in 1870 are now the scene of industry, progress, and production. The wheat yield is amazing ; it is almost beyond belief. Wherever the gaze turns it res' s upon wheat. Steamers sailing craft, barges, are loaded with wheat. Warehouses, wharves, and all landing places are packed with wheat. All along the railways great stores of wheat are piled in the open air. awaiting transportation, avid as quickly as the indefatigable, puffing locomotives haul away trainful after trainful the gap is Ailed by fresh additions. At every station great magazines have been built, aud arc building to store away and preserve the prolific gifts of a beneficient Providence. We do nob know how far these interminable lines of sacked wheat extend, but it is miles and miles. The incitement to all this wonderful industry, to this piled-up wealth , and noble independence, is derived from the facilities which enable the farmer to market his crops and realise substantial benefit from the products of his labor. But for the railroads all this could not be. But on the broad and fertile plains silence would be unbroken, save by the coyote’s howl or the panther’s roar. But for those invaluable aids the great pasturing lands of California would be void of their woolly occupants, and what are now flourishing vineyards would be little better than waste places. Every railroad is but a substitute for a navigable stream freighted with traffic and commerce, and the greatest promoter of industrial progress. Every railroad is a public ffinefactor, supplying mankind with the facilities formutual and rapid intercourse, a free exchange of commodities, and the means of attaining a higher, a more desirable civilisation. One large landed proprietor in Mercer County, who hq,d not less than thirty-six thousand acres planted tq wheat this year, and who has rajsed enonpouq crops, assured us that prior to the railroad furnishing assistance, it co§t him four dollars a ton to ship his grain tq iStoplctouj from whence it had to be resMpped to Sah Francisco at increased expense ; but now he can land it at Oakland, where it can be placed immediately on board ship at three dollars ptrtou. He was formerly compelled to employ his men ( md teams to do much hauling with loss of time that could have been devoted to farming operations, but the railroad now comes directly within his territory of wheat, and takes it from his doors.