The Muskoka Road.

The struggles of the rival railway projects during the past session to obtain needful legislation were so earnest and severe as to promise well for practical results. The lines of railway chartered to serve the Lake Erie Counties are possessed, in the strictest sense, by competitive charters. It must soon be decided which organization is to build the railway, for both cannot. As to the other charters of the session, we feel the deepest interest in the Toronto and Muskoka Company—the line to connect the Free Grant district with Toronto. The Port Hope, Lindsay and Beaverton Company obtained an Act, which does not at present authorize any steps to be taken towards an extension of their line into the territory which the Muskoka Company proposes to serve. In the event, however, of the Port Hope line being completed, and in running order to Beaverton, within a limited time, powers of extension, in a direction strictly competitive with the Muskoka line, will come into operation. We do not propose to discuss the chances of any early completion to Beaverton, but we would urge upon the promoters of the Toronto line to continue the most energetic efforts to place their Company in a perfectly secure position before the extension powers of the rival road can possibly come into operation. We value highly the spirit of enterprise that has prompted so many of our leading business men to connect themselves with this project. They see the values of fifty or sixty miles of railway stretching out into a new section of country, and rendering its trade directly tributary to Toronto in perpetuity. The farther our feeders are from the centre the more valuable they are to use, mile for mile. In proportion to their length they supply railway services to a wider territory, and are thus more profitable to our commerce than the multiplication of lines in the immediate vicinity of the city. The force of this argument prompter the small municipality of Port Hope, only a year ago, to aid to their utmost a distant extension of the line that feeds and sustains their town.

In the success of the Muskoka Railway several municipalities of North Simcoe and North Ontario are immediately interested; and, now that the system of granting bonuses has lost its novelty and is recognized as the true basis for the construction of our local railways, there should be no difficulty in procuring liberal assistance from these municipalities. It is also to be remembered that while both the outer municipalities and Toronto have a duty to perform in this matter, which we hope will neither be delayed nor neglected, there is a prosperous railway Company deeply interested in the construction of this line. There must be, and we believe there is, a clear understanding that the Northern Railway is to aid this new enterprise by all the means at its disposal—and there are many ways in which a Company enjoying the prosperity of the Northern can afford practical assistance towards the completion of a new and tributary road.

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