Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

180
Paul Martin Howell
fiiled with -men who had conflicting interests in Switzerland, however, so while they gave their nominai support to Rothschild's proposals, in praetice they dragged their heels and temporized, seeking to promote solutions more favorable to their own particular, established interests in Switzerland.50)
Rothschild and Talabot first broached their pian for a Swiss rail-road across the Alps into the Ringdom of Sardinia in Aprii 1856. At the beginning of the following lune they won the Réunion's endorsement of their proposai to enlist the Cassa del Commercio as the principal partner in a joint undertaking. The -Italian bank was invited to seek the concession from the authorities of Canton Ticino and assured of the Réunion's financial support in the project. Luigi Bolmida and his colleagues quickly developed a prospectus which the Réunion accepted provisionally at the beginning of July, pledging to provide a third of the necessary capital. Two months later the Cassa del Commercio was able to report to the Réunion that it had vanquished the competition, which apparently had been vigorous, and reached an agreement with the representatives of the Ticino government in Bellinzona.51*
The concession which the Cassa del Commercio won from the Ticino government fell into three basic parts. One was a trunk from Bellinzona south to Chiasso on the Lombard border, on the most direct route to Milan. The second part ran from Brissago, on the Piedmontese border, through Locamo and Bellinzona to the approaches of the Lukmanier pass. The third part traversed the Lukmanier pass and reached the border of the neighbouring canton, the Grisons, where it met the concession of one of the eastern companies which Rothschild and his associates wished to include in an enlarged eastern Swiss company. The steep Lukmanier pass defied the railroad technology of the day, so the Cassa del Commercio's contract with Canton Ticino called for the construction of a horse-powered tramway to fili the gap until a railroad using steam traction could be built.S2)
The concession was an imposing one, covering nearly 150 kilometers on Swiss tenitory and carrying an estìmated price tag of just over fifty million lire to construct and outfit. With the additàon of a Piedmontese trunk from Brissago to the railhead of the state-owned network at Arona, near the southern tip of Lake Maggiore, the length of the concession
50) Gillc, Rothschild, pp. 325-326; and Cameron, France, pp. 238-240.
51) Gille, Procès-verbaux , pp. 30-39, 42-52, 59-67, 77-79; MAIC, b. 155, f. 107, sf, 8, extract from minutes of CCI board of directors meeting of 15 July 1856; OCI executive commi ttee to Ministry of Finance, 28 Jolly 1856; royal commissione! Alessandro Bolla to Ministry of Finance, 29 July 1856; Ministry of Finance to Bolla, 6 Aug. 1856 (copy); and royal decrec of 6 Aug. 1856.
52) MAIC, b. 155, f. 107, sf. 8, Copia del capitolato del Credito Mobiliare per la concessione della strada ferrata dal confine sardo presso Brissago a quello dei Grigioni sul Lucamagno e dal confiine lombardo presso Chiasso a Bellinzona , 12 Sept. 1856.