ed thither, not all of it, probably for many years, but certain it is that no further extensions will be made here, and, as all manufacturers know, concentration in a favorable location is the tendency of the age, so the day may come, let us hope not for many years, when the last machine will be turned on the banks of the little river, and the name Claremont, N. H., will be no longer familiar to miners and rock cutters from Alaska to Patagonia, from icy Spitzbergen to South Africa, from Australia, India and the Straits Settlements Japan and Northern China.

to

eighty

away.

Adjoining the plant above described is a large group of buildings where another manufacturing industry was established nearly years ago. Cotton, the bulky raw material used by it, is brought from Texas fifteen hundred miles Its product, still bulky, is transported to the consumers an average distance of a thousand miles; its coal is brought from West Virginia. The writer has no knowledge of this company's business, but believes that, thus handicapped, it is only by the most commendable enterprise, in the production of an

almost unrivalled

specialty, that it has been able to do business at a profit. In the matter of lifting assessed valuations the visiting statesmen were wholly impartial; for the taxes of the cotton mill were likewise "jacked up" in

joyous disregard of the well known fact that the tendency of the cotton industry is strongly towards the cotton states, states of cheap labor, cheap power and comparatively cheap

taxes.

These two industries in 1921 paid more than a third of the taxes paid in Claremont. Together, in ordinary times, they employ fully three-quarters of the men and women engaged in manufacturing industries in the

town.

The visiting statesmen were kind enough to explain that were all valuations doubled taxes would be halved, but failed to mention that wherever this interesting experiment has been tried the rate per thousand has very soon risen to what it was before. They visited us with the purpose of increasing assessed valuations. They, or at least some of them, may live to see that thus increasing valuations decreases values; for if the machinery of these two corporations were moved away Main Street would be as silent as the hills, and signs "For Sale" in the windows of hundreds of village homes. When the manufacturing buildings were sold, if any purchasers could be found, it is doubtful whether one twentieth of their present assessed valuation could be realized. The goose can be killed once, but not resuscitated to undergo the operation a second time.

Mr. President, Members of the New England Street Railway Club, and Guests:

At a gathering in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary in the street rail

way industry of our distinguished and respected host, Mr. E. C. Foster, president of the Manchester Traction, Light and Power Company, it is particularly fitting that we should consider in a retrospective light the early days of electric power generation and the building and equipping of the present-day electric street rail

ways.

A great deal of credit is due the pioneers of the '60s, '70s and '80s for their public spirit manifested in going ahead with their charters. From their devotion to an intense interest has resulted the power and street railway companies of to-day. Our present New Hampshire street railway systems, with an

operated

mileage of 240 miles, represent the out-growth of lines first created as horse railroads, among them being the Manchester Horse Railroad. chartered in 1864 and revived five years later. Numerous charters were taken out which were never exercised--which is undoubtedly the case in other sections of the country-although that fact is indicative of the part taken by our ancestors in those industries which were destined to play such an important part in the future welfare of the people of this state.

Public utilities have done more for the development of America's natural resources than have any other of the instruments of civilization. In de

veloping the bounties of nature they have brought them to the service of the whole people. Each and every form of public utility has contributed to such development. Before the electric light and power companies high-grade illumination was unknown, and in factories there was a considerable waste of time in turning shafts, pulleys and belts. These companies have taken advantages of the mysteries of magnetism in producing power in a form which could be carried on wires and kept available for service on demand.

New Hampshire, however, is not a large state, neither has it the natural resources from which a stupendous power like that of a "Niagara" can be developed, but it looks with a local pride to the Connecticut, from which power is taken for the supplying of current to the western part of the state and to many cities and industrial companies in Southern New England, and to the Merrimack which has been splendidly developed at Sewall's Falls and Garvin's Falls, where current is generated for the requirements of utilities at Concord and Manchester. There are other developments in operation, along the Androscoggin and Blackwater rivers in the northern and central parts of the state, and that of the Lamprey River in the eastern part of the state, the development of which is in its infancy just at present but which is expected to show real progress in the early future.

Under the electric system the cost of power begins with its utilization and ends when the need is completed.

It means the distribution of power to places where the use of coal would be very expensive. It means, in effect, also, the finding of a new coal supply for every horse-power developed.

It would be an impossibility for human mind to prognosticate the demands that will be made a score of years ahead for electrical current for domestic or power requirements. We certainly cannot stand still, we must place ourselves in a position to meet the needs of users, but for that service there should be a rate representing a fair return-not merely the non-confiscatory return that barely escapes condenation of the courts, but a return sufficient to reward efficiency and economy, and it is to be hoped that the development of our resources can continue and that our successors will be able to point to their achievements with the same degree of pride that we do as we reflect on the progress in which we have shared.

Along with the advance in the electrical industry came the graduation of horse railroad operations to lines operated by electric motive power. And in this connection we would be remiss in our duty to-day without a tribute to those who served as members of the former Railroad Commission of New Hampshire and devoted so much of their time to the companies seeking to improve the conditions in their respective sections. The Railroad Commission was succeeded in 1911 by the Public Service Commission, and of the members of the former Commission it is a pleasure to recall that Honorable Arthur G. Whittemore, of Dover, and Attorney-General Oscar D. Young, of Laconia, are still with us.

In the Act creating the Public Service Commission the State Legislature gave that body broad and discretionary powers which have been honestly and fearlessly exercised.

An assignment to a tribunal standing between the public and the corporation is not an enviable position, and the trust imposed by the call to such service can only be met by a character that will judge and act as between the right and the wrong. It is necessary that appointments to the personnel of the Commission should be men of exceptional ability and training and the legislature can make an appropriation no more wisely, or for greater resultant good to its peoples than a sufficient allowance for the proper conduct of the office. Investigations conducted by the Commission are expensive, in that rights of the public as well as the utilities have full measure of protection, and the compensation for such a service should be sufficient to attract men of the highest calibre.

the

There is much of interest in the early history of the street railway business as an industry. The first street horse car was built by John Stevenson, of New York, and was used upon a road which was opened November 26, 1851, but the development was very slow and it was not until 1856 that the first New England road was constructed in Boston. In 1887 electricity was first successfully applied upon a street railway, and the following year witnessed the perfection of the first overhead trolley in Richmond, Virginia, on May 4th. It was a double-track line, had thirty cars in operation, and was built by Frank J. Sprague still a resident of New York. To Moses Gerrish Farmer, an American inventor and electrician, born in Boscawen and educated at Andover, in this State, is due the credit for the invention of the electrical locomotive. Since 1888, when it had become an established fact that electricity was to be generally employed as a motive power for street railway transportation the history of street railroading has been a

Outside the larger cities. these roads were constructed by men who were residents of the towns in which they were located, and who had in view the development of those towns and convenience of themselves and neighbors more than the net earnings of the roads. They helped build street railways very much as they sometimes contributed to the erection of foundations or the construction of sidewalks. Each took as many shares as he thought he could afford to, not as an investment but as one which would promote the prosperity of the community. The public as well as their owners regarded them as public improvements rather than as moneymaking enterprizes. Under those circumstances street railway corporations were given all the rights and privileges they asked for, and they asked for more than any other class of profit-sharing corporations ever dared to and were permitted to charge for transportation all they could get. On the grounds that they were public improvements rather than speculative ventures they cost very little and in many cases they came to being dividend-paying properties which returned to their owners fair rates of interest upon the money invested in them.

In these days when we think we are having an uphill climb it is inter

esting to consider what might have been the problems of the operators of the '80s in our own state. The first report of the Railroad Commissioners under the "new" law and issued in 1884 states "The total length of horse railroads is 12.68 miles," and further, that it was 2.37 miles in 1878 and 7.37 miles in 1880. These were the statistics for 1882. Construction was not progressing very rapidly and mileage gained but 3.1 miles in the next three years. It is learned that the gross earnings of the Manchester, Concord, Dover, Laconia and Lake Village companies. for 1885 were $47,801.24, and for the following year $62,480.13. During these two years the companies mentioned had a net income of $10,078.41. They carried 881,600 passengers in 1885 and 1,105,888 in 1886. Progress at this period was apparently slow,--there appears to have been quite a degree of doubt in the minds of the Railroad Commissioners as to whether or not the development was moving within the scope of personal benefit to the promoters rather than for the benefit of the public. abstract from the 1890 report says—

An

"The street railways of this State were originally constructed by men who had in view the development of suburban lands, or other incidental advantages to themselves, neighbors, and friends, rather than the direct profits which might result from investments in such properties, and in the early history of those enterprises most of them were controlled by those who had too much other business to give them close attention, and managed in some cases by those who were entirely unfamiliar with the work they undertook. Under such conditions they were not, of course, handled in the best way, and they not only failed to command the patronage they might have had, but were allowed to rapidly deteriorate."

And further

"The Dover road, under the management of the Dow family, Mrs. Dow being president and her husband treasurer, was a failure. It neither served the public satisfactorily nor earned the dividends it paid, but the transfer of the

Dow stock to Massachusetts capitalists gave them the franchise and what there was left of the equipment, and having obtained in August, 1889, a charter for a new electric street railway to Great Falls, they proceeded to consolidate the two, and then to dispose of the horses and cars and to remove the track of the old road, and finally to build in its place a new electric road, which was extended to Great Falls and opened for business August 8, 1890."

Even the Manchester road did not escape criticism because we find recorded in the same report—

"The Manchester road was much the worse for wear, its tracks badly out of repair, its horses old and feeble, its cars dingy and dilapidated, and its service fitful and unsatisfactory, when Gen. Williams purchased a controlling interest in its stock and began to impress upon it his liberal and progressive management, which proceeds upon the theory that a railroad should first spend and then earn its money. New trucks, new cars, and new horses have taken the place of old ones."

But in 1892 an awakening as to the part street railways would play in the growth of the community occurred. Electricity was being substituted for motive power and the fact was in evidence that whenever this was done

sion of the legislature as to what general legislation, if any, the public good required in reference to the powers to be enforced upon, or exercised by, railroads operated by other than steam power. And the bill further provided that pending such examination and until such report

was made, all bills for the incorporation of such railroads, or enlarging the powers of those aready chartered, lie upon the table or be postponed until the next session of the general

court.

The Commission made a thorough study of the situation and came to this conclusion:

"Assuming that the street railway of the future is to be an electric, that it is to be built and financed by capitalists, probably from other states, for the purpose of making money, that it is to have at its command abundant cash, credit, courage and cunning, that it will be dominated by the same selfishness and shrewdness that characterize the management of great corporations generally, we must welcome and encourage it, and at the same time prescribe such conditions as are fair and prudent.

On July 1, 1896, seven street railroads having an aggregate of about

"Because, while it does not pay to haul cars by horse power over long stretches of unsettled territory in order to reach a village or pleasure resort, this can profitably be done by electricity, after an electric plant has been established."

At that time of the five street railways in the state, two used electricity as motive power, and both paralleled broad gauge roads; the Dover, between that city and Great Falls, and the Concord, between that city and Penacook.

The situation became a little troubled in 1892 and the Legislature of 1893 passed a bill which provided that the Railroad Commissioners should examine and report to the next ses

were capitalized at $1,358,500, and during the year following earned $282.820.97, and expended for operation and fixed charges the sum of $282,839.28. None of them made an allowance for depreciation, and only one of them, the Manchester, paid a dividend.

By 1900 construction work was well under way. The legislature of 1899 had granted charters for eight electric street roads, and as many more unused ones granted by previous legislatures were alive. The most important at that time was the building of an electric line in Portsmouth, through the towns of Rye and North Hampton to a connection with the Exeter, Hampton & Amesbury at Hampton line. A charter had been taken by the Boston & Maine Railroad permitting it to