234 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



of the line, that no proceeds of the land sale will be 

 available to supplement the interest-paying fund, and 

 that the circumstances will arise for which the sale of 

 land is to furnish a remedy. How the trustees can re- 

 alize money by the sale of unsaleable land is not very 

 clear. The same objection applies to the measures pro- 

 vided for in Article 2, empowering the trustees to take 

 charge of the line and work it themselves. What 

 benefits are the bondholders likely to derive from that ? 

 The trustees will hardly be able to convert a non-paying 

 line into a paying line, and it might even be hazardous 

 to take the management out of the hands of people 

 acquainted with local and other conditions, simply be- 

 cause a crisis had ensued which, by no exertions and 

 foresight, could by any human possibility have been 

 averted. Finally, the powers conferred upon the trus- 

 tees by Article 3 ought to have been given, in my 

 opinion, by Article 1. If the interest on the bonds 

 should not be paid, the bondholders the mortgagees 

 of the Northern Pacific Railway must, according 

 to my view of the matter, have the power to bring 

 the object mortgaged, in the case before us the 

 property of the Northern Pacific Railway Company, 

 under the hammer of the auctioneer, in order to realize 

 out of the proceeds a pro rata dividend upon their claims, 

 as in any other case of insolvency ; but this power must 

 not be withheld for a space of three years, and only 

 conceded when other and questionable measures have 

 proved fruitless. 



" I find in the mortgage of July 1st, 1870, which de- 

 termines the rights of the bondholders, less a security 

 for the exercise of those rights than a troublesome ol> 

 stacle to the execution of rights guaranteed to the bond- 



