THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 257 



the coal regions to the principal cities of the East, and 

 by the canals which communicate with the Delaware 

 and the Hudson rivers. These are few in number, 

 repeated consolidations having confined them to- the 

 corporations known as the Delaware, Lackawana & 

 Western, the Delaware & Hudson, the Lehigh Valley, 

 and the Philadelphia & Reading Companies. The 

 other roads leading to the coal regions are either leased 

 or controlled by these companies, and these constitute 

 a monopoly of the carrying trade. It is a well under- 

 stood fact that these corporations will not permit the 

 construction of any road which may endanger the 

 monopoly they enjoy, and they are well known to be 

 powerful enough to enforce this decision. If the coal 

 of the Pennsylvania mines reaches the markets of the 

 East at all, it must pass over the routes controlled by 

 these corporations, and pay such tolls as they may see 

 fit to levy upon it. They take care that these tolls 

 shall be high enough to return them enormous dividends 

 on the stock, which stock is popularly believed to be 

 perhaps the most liberally watered of any in the 

 market. 



The companies mentioned are not only the sole con- 

 trollers of the transportation from the mines to the 

 market, but, together with the Pennsylvania Coal Com- 

 pany, they own nearly the whole of the anthracite fields 

 of Pennsylvania. Their policy has been, and is, to buy 

 up the coal lands as fast as possible, in order that they 

 may obtain control of every branch of the coal trade of 

 the State, and thus be the absolute masters of the fuel 

 of the East. By becoming the owners of the mines and 

 of the lines of transportation by which the coal must 

 reach the markets of the Eastern States, the corpora- 

 17 



