works above alluded to. So far as your committee can discover, the same principles are involved in all these works, and the same good sense which prompted members to give their support to the appropriation for the Grand Rapids canal, cannot fail to induce their cordial support to all the measures above alluded to. The test upon the appropriation already made, as it stands recorded upon the journals of this House, and as it has gone forth to the remotest regions of the State, gives ample and conclusive evidence, by a vote of 43 against 11, that the principle and policy of such appropriations has been, and will again be respected by this House. Your committee are also of opinion that the same even handed justice which would aid in the improvement of rivers, will also lend a helping hand to the citizens of other portions of the State, in the construction of turnpike roads, and such important thorougfares as the imperious necessity of the case may demand. It seems to the committee too obvious to need illustration, that the citizens of the State who live remote from navigable rivers, have as just and strong claims upon the protection of the State, as those who live upon the margin of those majestic and beautiful streams. No reason has yet been advanced to show why the farmer of our northern wilds, who is compelled to transport his produce to market upon a cart or a sled, is not just as much entitled to legislative aid and protection, as he who floats it upon the bosom of our proudest rivers. Your Committee believe that this government cares alike for all its citizens; and that so far as the limited ability of the State will allow, its favors will be dispensed with an impartial hand. Under this conviction your committee would earnestly recommend to the favorable consideration of this House, the following appropriations for the construction and improvement of various turnpikes and state roads, believing the same to be of vital importance to the different sections of the State in which they are located; and believing that in proportion to the amount of the several appropriations proposed, the interests of the State would be advanced in like proportion: Corunna and Northampton Plank Road, Grand River Road, Allegan and Ottawa Road, Plank Road at St. Mary's, 8,000 acres. 10,000 Pontiac and Grand River Road, Eaton and Saranac Road, Surveying Roads in Upper Peninsula, State Road from Independence to Witherbee's Battle Creek and Grand Rapids State Road, Flint River and Saginaw Turnpike, Clinton and Kalamazoo Canal, It is hoped by your committee that the appropriations herein recommended will not be grudgingly withheld. It is hoped that the hardy sons of toil who have sent up their petitions for legislative aid, will not have their fond hopes blasted by a cold denial of their reasonable request. Let this legislative body come at once to the rescue, and different portions of the State which are now separated from each other by barriers almost if not totally impassable, will be brought near together, and put in immediate connexion with each other. Sections remote from each other will be brought in close contiguity. The widerness will greet the city, and the city will respond back to the wilderness. The same avenues which will pour forth the accumulated products of the interior, will invite and convey back to the interior the foreign emigrant. Our dense forests will fail before the woodman's axe. Our beautiful and fertile plains will be cleft by the husbandman's ploughshare. Where now the settled silence of the wilderness broods undisturbed, the busy hum of the hamlet will then be heard; and where the smoke of the Indian's wigwam now curls upward amid nature's forest trees, the spire of the village church will glitter in the beams of the morning sun. All of which is respectfully submitted. ENOS GOODRICH, Chairman. Minority Report. The undersigned, members of the committee to whom was referred various bills making appropriations of internal improvement lands, respectfully report: That by the report of the Auditor General they find the internal improvement debt is $1,987,140 77, and the total resources applicable to the payment of this debt is $422,123, which chiefly consist in internal improvement lands; the amount of those lands as shown by said report is 244,166 acres, against which there is now outstanding warrants to the amount of $14,701 65. It is now proposed to appropriate 85,000 acres of these lands on various roads, bridges and rivers, add to this the amount already appropriated for the construction of a canal around the Grand Rapids, will make 110,000 acres. From this course of policy the minority of your committee resspectfully dissent. They are of the opinion that the policy of a state commencing and continuing a system of internal improvement, for which her citizens must be taxed, is at least questionable, and may not be founded upon those principles of equity and justice that should form the basis of legislative action. Works of internal improvement of almost every kind must necessarily be, and are of a local character, and cannot benefit all alike, while all must be taxed to pay for their construction. Hence, the inequality, and, perhaps we might say, injustice of adopting and continuing such a course of policy, with a debt of nearly $2,000,000, created for the purpose of constructing works of internal improveWith no other means left but the small remnant of land to meet the interest of this debt, except such as are drawn from the pockets of the people by direct taxation, would it be the part of ment. wisdom or sound policy, further to continue the system, and scatter and fritter away what little means we have left? If the minority of your committee rightly understand the wishes of a majority of the tax payers of this State, they are in favor of disposing of the residue of their public works; collecting together and husbanding all their legitimate means, for the payment of the State debt, and for the present, abandoning the system of internal improvement. The necessity for pursuing such a course, in the opinion of the minority, is rendered more obvious in view of the facts set forth in the report of the committee of ways and means, in which we are informed that it will be necessary to impose an additional tax to meet the interest on our internal improvement debt. Most, if not all the objects for which appropriations are now asked, have merits that under other circumstances, would commend them to the favorable action of the legislature, and in most cases would no doubt greatly benefit their immediate sections of the State. And the undersigned would cheerfully join with the friends of those appropriations if the State had any means that, in their opinion, might be applied without diverting them from other and more legitimate objects; but in view of the facts before stated, the large amount of the State debt in comparison to the means to pay, and which must ultimately be paid by direct taxation-for the opinion of the minority of your committee, precludes the application of the residue of the internal improvement lands to any other object than the payment of the State debt. All of which is respectfully submitted. L. B. PRICE, |