G36 TRANSPORTATION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 



lature, or the public, trustwortliy information as to what railroads should 

 be encouraged and what obstructed, nor as to the judicious location of 

 such roads as may be desirable in a general way. Upon every occasion 

 on which the State was asked to grant a charter and to confer the " right 

 of way " along a given route for a railroad, even in cases where the State 

 was asked to aid the enterprise, the field of discussion has been left solely 

 to volunteers. Thus the public interests involved in the undertaking 

 were rarely if ever adequately represented, and as a general thing only 

 that side of the case which was urged by the advocates of the enterprise 

 ever had a hearing either in the Legislature or the newspapers. An}' 

 voice raised in dissent was weak and ineffectual against the clamor of 

 the interested, while arguments in opposition were too often answered 

 only by charges of unworthy motives on the j^art of those who ventured 

 to make them public. 



It has been an unfortunate thing that the State abolished the Board of 

 Public Works just at the time when in the building of its railroads such 

 an institution would have been most useful. If the board had been re- 

 tained, and had been charged with the duty of laying out a systematic 

 and comprehensive scheme of railroads for the whole State, leaving each 

 route to be taken up by a private corporation as soon as it proved to be 

 attractive, we should now be far better off than we are in respect to rail- 

 road accommodations. Our railroads, in that case, would have been less 

 costly, and therefore might have remained in the hands of the original 

 stockholders; whatever extensions might have been required to meet the 

 demands of increased population and production, could have been made 

 in accordance with a carefully considered and definitely settled plan, 

 avoiding injury to previously vested interests of the same character. It 

 is not yet too late for the State to provide in some way for supplying the 

 public and the Legislature with the advice of a disinterested engineer of 

 high professional standing, whose views, under the sanction of official re- 

 sponsibility, should be obtained upon every project of public improve- 

 ment which may be hereafter brought forward. It is now obvious that 

 such an official, regarding matters from the stand-point of the general in- 

 terest of the people,, apart from local interests, would have been eminently 

 useful in the past, and on that ground alone, even if there were no others, 

 it is likely that in the future there will be equal need of a State engineer. 

 There are, however, other reasons wh}' the State should have in its ser- 

 vice engineering talent and skill. Our road laws are of the worst form 

 of the antique, they were not good when made, and are entirely un- 

 suited to present uses. Certain neighborhood roads may perhaps be ad- 

 vantageously and economically kept up b}' this antiquated method of per- 

 sonal service, but certainly every highway should be maintained in good 



