Every reduction of the transportation tax acts then as a direct encouragement to the industry of Massachusetts, just as much so as if it were a bounty or bonus: it is just so much weight taken off in the race of competition." No words of mine can add any force to this plain statement of facts; but yet we are told that transportation is only _one_ element in the cost and price of goods, and frequently not that of the greatest consequence, but the importance of this _one_ element is fourfold, and often more, to the Massachusetts manufacturer, making the transportation of more importance in many cases than the cost of materials transported. This transportation tax is the _very_ element that is to build up a competition in these favored localities that will either extinguish or transfer many classes of our industrial interests that we can ill afford to lose. It is only necessary for one to travel West and South and observe the great development and success of the manufacturing interest in these sections to be convinced that New England cannot long hold the prestige as the "workshop" of the country with so heavy a transportation tax imposed upon her industrial productions. The importance of this ONE element will be more fully realized by the Eastern manufacturer when he finds that his Southern and Western rivals save it altogether by having the raw material at hand, and a home market with all the other elements (save skilled labor which can be transported) that make manufacturing industry profitable at a much less cost. A combination of our manufacturers to establish cheap transportation, and the sale of their goods upon a home market, would be far more to their interest and profit than the exaction of an extra hour's labor and would confer a great blessing upon their overtasked employees. EFFORTS TO REDUCE THE TRANSPORTATION TAX. Since the railroad system was inaugurated in 1831, the statutes of this Commonwealth bear yearly evidence of the persistent and liberal policy pursued by the legislature toward the railroads. It would be tedious to enumerate the many acts which have been passed loaning the credit of the State to aid the struggling corporations in establishing and completing their lines. Almost all the leading lines in the State sought and obtained this aid, without which there must have been a great delay, if not failure in accomplishing these enterprises; and here let me say, that with the exception of the Hartford and Erie loan, and the losses arising from the repayment by the Eastern, and Norwich and Worcester railroads in legal tender instead of gold, there has never been a dollar lost by the railroad loans of the State. The result has been to build up a system of railroads, centering in the city of Boston, having no superior, if equal, for completeness on this continent. Massachusetts has more miles of railroad in proportion to population and territory than any similar extent of territory in America.