CHAPTER XIV

effect of the construction of railroads upon canal rev¬
enues----formation of the new york central system----

the erie railroad—increase in tonnage carried by rail

----^influence of the grain carrying trade upon railroad

rates----assembly   committee   to   investigate   railroad

abuses----its  report----injustice  of  secret  and  special

rates----recommendations of the committee—passage of

constitutional amendments affecting canals----improve¬
ment   of   canals   and   inland   waterways----governor

Roosevelt's committee on the state canal policy and
its report----provision for the $101,000,000 barge canal.

When, after the completion of the Erie canal, it was found
to bring a golden flood of benefits into the State, in the general
optimism of feeling that the commerce of the west had become
perpetually tributary to the state, the beHef prevailed that canals
would always bring immense revenues into its treasury.' Gover¬
nor Clinton, as early as 1818, declared that the canals were to be
"a prolific source of revenue for the general purposes of govern¬
ment."   The Erie canal might have proved a veritable Pactolus
 

I. "The revenue from tolls was so large during the decade after the
completion of the Erie that extravagant notions were entertained as to
their volume in the future. It was predicted that they would amount to a
million dollars in 1836 and four million in 1856, and would continue to
increase in that proportion for half a century" (Hill, "Waterways and
Canal Construction in New York State," 152).

The gross tolls in 1876 were only $1,340,000, and in 1877 only $880,000,
a lower amount of receipts for tolls than had been known, said Governor
Robinson in 1878, for the preceding forty-five years. There was a slight
advance in the next year, but the gross tolls for the year ending Sep¬
tember, 1882, fell to $818,264.61.

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