If the benefit of this increase in business can be secured to the people who furnish the traffic, instead of to the corporations who provide the capital, an immense public benefit will follow. The most valuable experiment to be tried at the present day is to ascertain how cheaply railroad transportation can be afforded. Corporations formed to make money for their stockholders, can hardly be expected to fairly try this experiment. The greatest need of this Commonwealth is cheap transportation. To secure this the Hoosac Tunnel has been constructed at a cost of $12,000,000 of public money. We are fully convinced that to secure to the people the full advantages to be derived from the construction of this new avenue to the West, and to secure equal lights to all parties desiring to use it, the State must not part with the control of the tunnel. We are equally convinced that to secure efficiency in the lines working through the tunnel, consolidation is necessary, and that the tunnel itself must be worked and managed for all parties using it, by one head. It would follow that the State, retaining the tunnel, should operate it, and should also own or control one line of road between Boston and the West, at the same time giving to all parties, without discrimination, equal advantages to the tunnel. The state management cannot afford to be unjust or to discriminate. No private corporation can be trusted when its own interests may conflict with the interests of other and perhaps rival corporations, to establish or to enforce rules for the transaction of such business. We therefore report and recommend the passage of the accompanying Bill: "To incorporate the State Board of Trustees of the Hoosac Tunnel Railroad." Its purpose is to form a corporation for the management of the Troy and Greenfield Railroad and Hoosac Tunnel, with all the powers of a railroad corporation. It is to be composed of five trustees, to be appointed by the governor and council, each to hold office for five years, and one of whom shall be appointed annually. To these five state trustees are to be added not exceeding three, one by each of the railroad corporations whose property may be acquired or managed under the terms of the Act.