The Bennington Evening Banner

When the Grand Trunk people were seeking a Rhode Island charter for entrance to Providence, Mr. Mellen is said to have explained the indifferent attitude of the New Haven company by saying he "would take care of the Grand Trunk outside of Rhode Island." This alleged remark has found quotation in connection with the contest of the two interests before the Vermont legislature over the Brattleboro location and the charter for a Vermont Valley or Boston & Maine line between that village and South Vernon. Its applicability to this particular feature of the upriver railroad situation, however, is open to question.

There has never been any doubt that the Vermont legislature would charter for the Vermont Valley a line of its own paralleling the New London Northern line of the Grand Trunk from South Vernon to Brattleboro and giving to the Boston and Maine system an unbroken road of its own from the former place to Windsor. The Mellen interests have indeed asked for more than this. They sought new station privileges at Brattleboro under a power of eminent domain which might have operated practically to dispossess the Central Vermont (Grand Trunk) which now owns the terminal grounds at that point. But it can hardly be that they expected greatly to carry through a project which might have enabled them to throw the Central Vermont out of Brattleboro or to impose costly or prohibitory terms of admission. That would have been an achievement calling for a house cleaning at Montpelier It was no more to be expected than the Grand Trunk could have expected to, win in its opposition to a charter for a new and parallel line south of Brattleboro.

What the New Haven interests get in the bill now going through the Vermont legislature is the right to build the said parallel and connecting line, and to secure adequate station privileges at Brattleboro under Central Vermont ownership. This is reasonable and no more than this would have been reasonable or fair to the interests now in possession. The main purpose of the New Haven interests, we may suppose, is to force the Grand Trunk either to construct a line of its own from Windsor to Brattleboro or come to some terms which might involve a transfer of the Grand Trunk's southern New England lines to the New Haven company. Will the Grand Trunk build that connecting line? This is the crucial question, and doubtless the point which the New Haven is relying upon to bring itself into practical control of the Grand Trunk's approaches to southern New England. If the Grand Trunk does build, the New Haven will undoubtedly fill in the other needed link in its upriver route—a road of its own from Windsor to White River Junction.

The problem is a harder one for the Grand Trunk to deal with than for the New Haven. A new line from Windsor to Brattleboro would be a costly one to construct and the New Haven seems to command the only feasible route by which the new line could be put through Bellows Falls. But the Grand Trunk is apparently in a fighting mood; it has large support from the shipping interests of New England which regard it as the only remaining bulwark of defense for the old western freight differentials; and Vermont will not readily miss the chance of getting two lines under different ownership extended up and down the Connecticut river. The Canadian property will have to be in desperate straits financially before it will give up its extensions into southern New England.—Springfield Republican.