A Kingdom Waiting for Rails

That the great need of both Eastern and Western Washington is a connecting railroad is so palpable that popular sentiment of the people is being gradually concentrated upon a determination to secure one at any cost. A gentleman just from Walla Walla informs us that settlers in that section think nothing of hauling fencing twenty or thirty miles, and that where sawmills are at work there are half-a-dozen buyers for every plank before it is turned out. Had we railroad communication with them, undoubtedly a large portion of the lumber which is so plentiful on Puget Sound—and which is being crowded into the glutted market at San Francisco—would go across the Cascades to be converted into houses, barns, and fences by the farmers of those large and fertile valleys. Many settlers over there build their houses of small willow poles, with mud and straw thatching. Why? Simply because lumber, which is shipped from here to San Francisco to bring $11 to $12 per thousand, landed at their doors costs from $30 to $40 per thousand. The price, for them, is so ruinously high that even the possession of so greatly needed an article must be postponed until opulence renders their condition such as to warrant the purchase. Cord wood which sells here for $2.50 to $3.00 per cord, over there brings from $8.00 to $10.00; while coal, which we buy and sell for about $5.00 to $6.00 per ton, is bought by them (for mechanical purposes only) at even more enormous prices. Take a look at the other side of the picture: Our Eastern farmers think themselves especially fortunate when forty cents per bushel can be realized for their wheat, while the same article placed on one of our Puget Sound docks will bring from $1.20 to $1.50 per bushel. What difference now can the 'iron horse' make in these prices? Puget Sound, the natural outlet for a 'whole kingdom' of inland territory, cannot fail to reap a respectable fee from every cargo of grain shipped through her waters.