British Canals: is their resuscitation practicable?

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BRITISH CANALS

BRITISH CANALS:

IS THEIR RESUSCITATION
PRACTICABLE?

BY EDWIN A. PRATT

AUTHOR OF "RAILWAYS AND THEIR RATES," "THE ORGANIZATION
OF AGRICULTURE," "THE TRANSITION IN AGRICULTURE," ETC.

r

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1906

PREFACE

The appointment of a Royal Commission on Canals
and Waterways, which first sat to take evidence on
March 21, 1906, is an event that should lead to an
exhaustive and most useful enquiry into a question
which has been much discussed of late years, but on
which, as I hope to show, considerable misapprehension
in regard to actual facts and conditions has hitherto
existed.

Theoretically, there is much to be said in favour of
canal restoration, and the advocates thereof have not
been backward in the vigorous and frequent ventilation
of their ideas. Practically, there are other all-important
considerations which ought not to be overlooked,
though as to these the British Public have hitherto
heard very little. As a matter of detail, also, it is
desirable to see whether the theory that the decline
of our canals is due to their having been " captured "
and " strangled " by the railway companies — a theory
which many people seem to believe in as implicitly as
they do, say, in the Multiplication Table — is really
capable of proof, or whether that decline is not, rather,
to be attributed to wholly different causes.

In view of the increased public interest in the
general question, it has been suggested to me that

vii

viii PREFACE

the Appendix on " The British Canal Problem " in
my book on " Railways and their Rates," published in
the Spring of 1905, should now be issued separately ;
but I have thought it better to deal with the subject
afresh, and at somewhat greater length, in the present
work. This I now offer to the world in the hope that,
even if the conclusions at which I have arrived are not
accepted, due weight will nevertheless be given to the
important — if not (as I trust I may add) the interest-
ing— series of facts, concerning the past and present
of canals alike at home, on the Continent, and in
the United States, which should still represent, I
think, a not unacceptable contribution to the present
controversy.

EDWIN A. PRATT.

London, April 1906.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. INTRODUCTORY I

II. EARLY DAYS 12

III. RAILWAYS TO THE RESCUE 23

IV. RAILWAY-CONTROLLED CANALS 32

V. THE BIRMINGHAM CANAL AND ITS STORY 57

VI. THE TRANSITION IN TRADE 74

VII. CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS 93

VIII. WATERWAYS IN THE UNITED STATES . . I04

IX. ENGLISH CONDITIONS II9

X. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . 142

APPENDIX — THE DECLINE IN FREIGHT TRAFFIC ON

THE MISSISSIPPI 151

INDEX -157

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

HALF-TONE ILLUSTRATIONS
AQUEDUCT AT PONTCYSYLLTE (in the distance) . Fro?jtlspiece

WHAT CANAL WIDENING WOULD MEAN :

COWLEY TUNNEL AND EMBANKMENTS . To face page 32

LOCKS ON THE KENNET AND AVON CANAL

AT DEVIZES ?) n 42

WAREHOUSES AND HYDRAULIC CRANES AT

ELLESMERE PORT 55 ,> 4^

WHAT CANAL WIDENING WOULD MEAN :

SHROPSHIRE UNION CANAL AT CHESTER „ „ 70

" FROM PIT TO PORT ": PROSPECT PIT, WIGAN „ ,, 82

THE SHIPPING OF COAL : HYDRAULIC TIP ON

G.W.R., SWANSEA -,•>■>■> 88

A CARGO BOAT ON THE MISSISSIPPI . . ,5 » HO

SUCCESSFUL RIVALS OF MISSISSIPPI CARGO

BOATS )j » 114

WATER SUPPLY FOR CANALS : BELVIDE

RESERVOIR, STAFFORDSHIRE . . „ „ 1 28

MAPS AND DIAGRAMS

INDEPENDENT CANALS AND INLAND NAVIGA-
TIONS „ » 54

CANALS AND RAILWAYS BETWEEN WOLVER-
HAMPTON AND BIRMINGHAM . . . „ „ 56

SOME TYPICAL BRITISH CANALS . . . „ „ 98

XI

BRITISH CANALS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

The movement in favour of resuscitating, if not also
of reconstructing, the British canal system, in con-
junction with such improvement as may be possible
in our natural waterways, is a matter that concerns
various interests, and gives rise to a number of more
or less complicated problems.

It appeals in the most direct form to the British
trader, from the point of view of the possibility of
enabling him to secure cheaper transit for his goods.
Every one must sympathise with him in that desire,
and there is no need whatever for me to stay here
to repeat the oft-expressed general reflections as to
the important part which cheap transit necessarily
plays in the development of trade and commerce.
But when from the general one passes to the par-
ticular, and begins to consider how these transit
questions apply directly to canal revival, one comes
at once to a certain element of insincerity in the
agitation which has arisen.

There is no reason whatever for doubt that, whereas
one section of the traders favouring canal revival
would themselves directly benefit therefrom, there

A

2 INTRODUCTORY [chap.

is a much larger section who have joined in the
movement, not because they have the slightest idea
of re-organising their own businesses on a water-
transport basis, but simply because they think the
existence of improved canals will be a means of com-
pelling the railway companies to grant reductions of
their own rates below such point as they now find
it necessary to maintain. Individuals of this type,
though admitting they would not use the canals
themselves, or very little, would have us believe that
there are enough of other traders who would patronise
them to make them pay. In any case, if only
sufficient pressure could be brought to bear on the
railway companies to force them to reduce their rates
and charges, they would be prepared to regard with
perfect equanimity the unremunerative outlay on the
canals of a large sum of public money, and be quite
indifferent as to who might have to bear the loss
so long as they gained what they wanted for them-
selves.

The subject is, also, one that appeals to engineers.
As originally constructed, our British canals included
some of the greatest engineering triumphs of their day,
and the reconstruction either of these or even of the
ordinary canals (especially where the differences of
level are exceptionally great), would afford much
interesting work for engineers — and, also, to come
to commonplace details, would put into circulation
a certain /lumber of millions of pounds sterling which
might lead some of those engineers, at least, to take
a still keener interest in the general situation. There
is absolutely no doubt that, from an engineering
standpoint, reconstruction, however costly, would
present no unsurmountable technical difficulties ; but
I must confess that when engineers, looking at the

I.] INTERESTS AFFECTED 3

problem exclusively from their own point of view,
apart from strictly economic and practical considera-
tions, advise canal revival as a means of improving
British trade, I am reminded of the famous remark
of Sganerelle, in Moliere's ^'L'Amour Medecin " —
" Vous etes orfevre, M. Josse."

The subject strongly appeals, also, to a very large
number of patriotic persons who, though having no
personal or professional interests to serve, are rightly
impressed with the need for everything that is in any
way practicable being done to maintain our national
welfare, and who may be inclined to assume, from the
entirely inadequate facts which, up to the present,
have been laid before them as to the real nature and
possibilities of our canal system, that great results
would follow from a generous expenditure of money
on canal resuscitation here, following on the example
already set in Continental countries. It is in the
highest degree desirable that persons of this class
should be enabled to form a clear and definite opinion
on the subject in all its bearings, and especially from
points of view that may not hitherto have been
presented for their consideration.

Then the question is one of very practical interest
indeed to the British taxpayer. It seems to be
generally assumed by the advocates of canal revival
that it is no use depending on private enterprise.
England is not yet impoverished, and there is plenty
of money still available for investment where a modest
return on it can be assured. But capitalists, large or
small, are not apparently disposed to risk their own
money in the resuscitation of English canals. Their
expectation evidently is that the scheme would not
pay. In the absence, therefore, of any willingness
on the part of shrewd capitalists — ever on the

4 INTRODUCTORY [chap.

look-out for profitable investments — to touch the
business, it is proposed that either the State or the
local authorities should take up the matter, and carry-
it through at the risk, more or less, either of tax-
payers or ratepayers.

The Association of Chambers of Commerce, for
instance, adopted, by a large majority, the following
resolution at its annual meeting, in London, in
February 1905 : —

^'This Association recommends that the improve-
ment and extension of the canal system of the United
Kingdom should be carried out by means of a public
trust, and, if necessary, in combination with local
or district public trusts, and aided by a Govern-
ment guarantee, and that the Executive Council be
requested to take all reasonable measures to secure
early legislation upon the subject."

Then Sir John T. Brunner has strongly supported
a nationalisation policy. In a letter to The Times he
once wrote :

''I submit to you that we might begin with the
nationalisation of our canals — some for the most
part sadly antiquated — and bring them up to one
modern standard gauge, such as the French gauge."

Another party favours municipalisation and the
creation of public trusts, a Bill with the latter
object in view being promoted in the Session of
1905, though it fell through owing to an informality
in procedure.

It would be idle to say that a scheme of canal
nationalisation, or even of public trusts with *' Govern-
ment guarantee " (whatever the precise meaning of
that term may be) involving millions of public
money, could be carried through without affecting

I.] VARIOUS PROPOSALS S

the British taxpayer. It is equally idle to say that
if only the canal system were taken in hand by the
local authorities they would make such a success of
it that there would be absolutely no danger of the
ratepayers being called upon to make good any
deficiency. The experiences that Metropolitan rate-
payers, at least, have had as the result of County
Council management of the Thames steamboat service
would not predispose them to any feeling of confi-
dence in the control of the canal system of the
country by local authorities.

At the Manchester meeting of the Association
of Chambers of Commerce, in September 1904,
Colonel F. N. Tannett Walker (Leeds) said, during
the course of a debate on the canal question :
^* Personally, he was not against big trusts run by
local authorities. He knew no more business-like
concern in the world than the Mersey Harbour
Board, which was a credit to the country as
showing what business men, not working for their
own selfish profits, but for the good of the com-
munity, could do for an undertaking. He would
be glad to see the Mersey Boards scattered all over
the country." But, even accepting the principle of
canal municipalisation, what prospect would there be
of Colonel Walker's aspiration being realised? The
Mersey Harbour Board is an exceptional body, not
necessarily capable of widespread reproduction on
the same lines of efficiency. Against what is done
in Liverpool may be put, in the case of London, the
above-mentioned waste of public money in connection
with the control of the Thames steamboat service by
the London County Council. If the municipalised
canals were to be worked on the same system, or
any approach thereto, as these municipalised steam-

6 INTRODUCTORY [chap.

boats, it would be a bad look-out for the ratepayers
of the country, whatever benefit might be gained by
a small section of the traders.

Then one must remember that the canals, say,
from the Midlands to one of the ports, run through
various rural districts which would have no interest
in the through traffic carried, but might be required,
nevertheless, to take a share in the cost and responsi-
bility of keeping their sections of the municipalised
waterways in an efficient condition, or in helping
to provide an adequate water-supply. It does not
follow that such districts — even if they were willing
to go to the expense or the trouble involved — would
be able to provide representatives on the managing
body who would in any way compare, in regard to
business capacity, with the members of the Mersey
Harbour Board, even if they did so in respect to
public spirit, and the sinking of their local interests
and prejudices to promote the welfare of manu-
facturers, say, in Birmingham, and shippers in
Liverpool, for neither of whom they felt any direct
concern.

Under the best possible conditions as regards
municipalisation, it is still impossible to assume
that a business so full of complications as the trans-
port services of the country, calling for technical
or expert knowledge of the most pronounced type,
could be efficiently controlled by individuals who
would be essentially amateurs at the business — and
amateurs they would still be even if assisted by
members of Chambers of Commerce who, however
competent as merchants and manufacturers, would
not necessarily be thoroughly versed in all these
traffic problems. The result could not fail to be
disastrous.

1.] THE POSSIBILITY OF LOSSES 7

I come, at this point, in connection with the
possible liability of ratepayers, to just one matter
of detail that might be disposed of here. It is
certainly one that seems to be worth considering.
Assume, for the sake of argument, that, in accord-
ance with the plans now being projected, (i) public
trusts were formed by the local authorities for the
purpose of acquiring and operating the canals ;
(2) that these trusts secured possession — on some
fair system of compensation — of the canals now
owned or controlled by railw^ay companies ; (3) that
they sought to work the canals in more or less
direct competition with the railways ; (4) that, after
spending large sums of money in improvements,
they found it impossible to make the canals pay, or
to avoid heavy losses thereon ; and (5) that these
losses had to be made good by the ratepayers. I
am merely assuming that all this might happen,
not that it necessarily would. But, admitting that
it did, would the railway companies, as ratepayers,
be called upon to contribute their share towards
making good the losses which had been sustained
by the local authorities in carrying on a direct
competition with them?

Such a policy as this would be unjust, not alone
to the railway shareholders, but also to those traders
who had continued to use the railway lines, since
it is obvious that the heavier the burdens imposed
on the railway companies in the shape of local rates
(which already form such substantial items in their
"working expenses"), the less will the companies
concerned be in a position to grant the concessions
they might otherwise be willing to make. Besides,
apart from monetary considerations, the principle of
the thing would be intolerably unfair, and, if only

8, INTRODUCTORY [chap.

to avoid an injustice, it would surely be enacted that
any possible increase in local rates, due to the failure
of particular schemes of canal municipalisation, should
fall exclusively on the traders and the general public
who were to have been benefited, and in no way on
the railway companies against whom the commercially
unsuccessful competition had oeen waged.

This proposition will, I am sure, appeal to that
instinct of justice and fair play which every English-
man is (perhaps not always rightly), assumed to
possess. But what would happen if it were duly
carried out, as it ought to be? Well, in the Chapter
on *' Taxation of Railways " in my book on '' Railways
and their Rates," I gave one list showing that in a
total of eighty-two parishes a certain British railway
company paid an average of 60*25 per cent, of the
local rates ; while another table showed that in sixteen
specified parishes the proportion of local rates paid
by the same railway company ranged from 66*9 per
cent, to 86' I per cent, of the total, although in twelve
parishes out of the sixteen the company had not
even a railway station in the place. But if, in all
such parishes as these, the railway companies were
very properly excused from having to make good
the losses incurred by their municipalised-canal com-
petitors (in addition to such losses as they might
have already suffered in meeting the competition),
then the full weight of the burden would fall upon
that smaller — and, in some cases, that very small —
proportion of the general body of ratepayers in the
locality concerned.

The above is just a little consideration, en passant^
which might be borne in mind by others than those
who look at the subject only from a trader's or an
engineer's point of view. It will help, also, to

I.] MATTERS OF PRINCIPLE 9

strengthen my contention that any ill-advised, or,
at least, unsuccessful municipalisation of the canal
system of the country might have serious conse-
quences for the general body of the community,
who, in the circumstances, would do well to ^Mook
before they leap."

But, independently of commercial, engineering,
rating and other considerations, there are important
matters of principle to be considered. Great
Britain is almost the only country in the world
where the railway system has been constructed
without State or municipal aid — financial or material
— of any kind whatever. The canals were built by
" private enterprise," and the railways which followed
were constructed on the same basis. This was recog-
nised as the national policy, and private investors
were allowed to put their money into British rail-
ways, throughout successive decades, in the belief
and expectation that the same principle would be
continued. In other countries the State has (i) pro-
vided the funds for constructing or buying up the
general railway system ; (2) guaranteed payment of
interest ; or (3) has granted land or made other con-
cessions, as a means of assisting the enterprise. Not
only has the State refrained from adopting any such
course here, and allowed private investors to bear
the full financial risk, but it has imposed on British
railways requirements which may certainly have led
to their being the best constructed and the most com-
plete of any in the world, but which have, also,
combined with the extortions of landowners in the
first instance, heavy expenditure on Parliamentary
proceedings, etc., to render their construction per
mile more costly than those of any other system
of railways in the world ; while to-day local taxation

B

lo INTRODUCTORY [chap.

is being levied upon them at the rate of ;£"5, 000,000
per annum, with an annual increment of ;^25o,ooo.
This heavy expenditure, and these increasingly
heavy demands, can only be met out of the rates
and charges imposed on those who use the rail-
ways ; and one of the greatest grievances advanced
against the railways, and leading to the agitation
for canal revival, is that these rates and charges
are higher in Great Britain than in various other
countries, where the railways have cost less to build,
where State funds have been freely drawn on, and
where the State lines may be required to contribute
nothing to local taxation. The remedy proposed,
however, is not that anything should be done to
reduce the burdens imposed on our own railways,
so as to place them at least in the position of being
able to make further concessions to traders, but that
the State should now itself start in the business,
in competition, more or less, with the railway
companies, in order to provide the traders — if it
can — with something cheaper in the way of transport !
Whatever view may be taken of the reasonableness
and justice of such a procedure as this, it would,
undoubtedly, represent a complete change in national
policy, and one that should not be entered upon
with undue haste. The logical sequel, for instance,
of nationalisation of the canals would be nationalisa-
tion of the railways, since it would hardly do for
the State to own the one and not the other. Then,
of course, the nationalisation of all our ports would
have to follow, as the further logical sequel of the
State ownership of the means of communication with
them, and the consequent suppression of competition.
From a Socialist standpoint, the successive steps here
mentioned would certainly be approved ; but, even

I.] QUESTIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS ii

if the financial difficulty could be met, the country-
is hardly ready for all these things at present.

Is it ready, even in principle, for either the
nationalisation or the municipalisation of canals
alone? And, if ready in principle, if ready to
employ public funds to compete with representatives
of the private enterprise it has hitherto encouraged,
is it still certain that, when millions of pounds
sterling have been spent on the revival of our
canals, the actual results will in any way justify
the heavy expenditure? Are not the physical
conditions of our country such that canal construc-
tion here presents exceptional drawbacks, and that
canal navigation must always be exceptionally slow?
Are not both physical and geographical conditions
in Great Britain altogether unlike those of most of the
Continental countries of whose waterways so much
is heard ? Are not our commercial conditions equally
dissimilar? Is not the comparative neglect of our
canals due less to structural or other defects than
to complete changes in the whole basis of trading
operations in this country — changes that would
prevent any general discarding of the quick transit
of small and frequent supplies by train, in favour
of the delayed delivery of large quantities at longer
intervals by water, however much the canals were
improved?

These are merely some of the questions and
considerations that arise in connection with this
most complicated of problems, and it is with the
view of enabling the public to appreciate more fully
the real nature of the situation, and to gain a clearer
knowledge of the facts on which a right solution
must be based, that I venture to lay before them
the pages that follow.

CHAPTER II

EARLY DAYS

It seems to be customary with writers on the subject
of canals and waterways to begin with the Egyptians,
to detail the achievements of the Chinese, to record
the doings of the Greeks, and then to pass on to the
Romans, before even beginning their account of what
has been done in Great Britain. Here, however, I
propose to leave alone all this ancient history, which,
to my mind, has no more to do with existing
conditions in our own country than the system of
inland navigation adopted by Noah, or the character
of the canals which are supposed to exist in the planet
of Mars.

For the purposes of the present work it will suffice
if I go no further back than what I would call the
*' pack-horse period " in the development of transport
in England. This was the period immediately pre-
ceding the introduction of artificial canals, which had
their rise in this country about 1760-70. It preceded,
also, the advent of John Loudon McAdam, that great
reformer of our roads, whose name has been immortal-
ised in the verb '*to macadamise." Born in 1756, it
was not until the early days of the nineteenth century
that McAdam really started on his beneficent mission,
and even then the high-roads of England — and

especially of Scotland — were, as a rule, deplorably

12

CHAP, ii.l CANALS V. ROADS 13

bad, ** being at once loose, rough, and perishable,
expensive, tedious and dangerous to travel on, and
very costly to repair." Pending those improvements
which McAdam brought about, adapting them to
the better use of stage-coaches and carriers' waggons,
the few roads already existing were practically avail-
able— as regards the transport of merchandise — for
pack-horses only. Even coal was then carried by
pack-horse, the cost working out at about 2s. 6d. per
mile for as much as a horse could carry.

It was from these conditions that canals saved the
country — long, of course, before the locomotive came
into vogue. As it happened, too, it was this very
question of coal transport that led to their earliest
development. There is quite an element of romance
in the story. Francis Egerton, third and last Duke
of Bridgewater (born 1736), had an unfortunate love
affair in London when he reached the age of twenty-
three, and, apparently in disgust with the world, he
retired to his Lancashire property, where he found
solace to his wounded feelings by devoting himself
to the development of the Worsley coal mines. As a
boy he had been so feeble-minded that the doubt
arose whether he would be capable of managing his
own affairs. As a young man disappointed in love,
he applied himself to business in a manner so
eminently practical that he deservedly became famous
as a pioneer of improved transport. He saw that if
only the cost of carriage could be reduced, a most
valuable market for coal from his Worsley mines
could be opened up in Manchester.

It is true that, in this particular instance, the pack-
horse had been supplemented by the Mersey and
Irwell Navigation, established as the result of Parlia-
mentary powers obtained in 1733. This navigation

14 EARLY DAYS [chap.

was conducted almost entirely by natural waterways,
but it had many drawbacks and inconveniences,
while the freight for general merchandise between
Liverpool and Manchester by this route came to
I2S. per ton. The Duke's new scheme was one
for the construction of an artificial waterway which
could be carried over the Irwell at Barton by means
of an aqueduct. This idea he got from the aqueduct
on the Languedoc Canal, in the south of France.

But the Duke required a practical man to help him,
and such a man he found in James Brindley. Born in
1 716, Brindley was the son of a small farmer in Derby-
shire— a dissolute sort of fellow, who neglected his
children, did little or no work, and devoted his chief
energies to the then popular sport of bull-baiting. In
the circumstances James Brindley's school -teaching
was wholly neglected. He could no more have passed
an examination in the Sixth Standard than he could
have flown over the Irwell with some of his ducal
patron's coals. '' He remained to the last illiterate,
hardly able to write, and quite unable to spell. He
did most of his work in his head, without written
calculations or drawings, and when he had a puzzling
bit of work he would go to bed, and think it out."
From the point of view of present day Board School
inspectors, and of the worthy magistrates who, with
varied moral reflections, remorselessly enforce the
principles of compulsory education, such an individual
ought to have come to a bad end. But he didn't.
He became, instead, ''the father of inland naviga-
tion."

James Brindley had served his apprenticeship to
a millwright, or engineer ; he had started a little
business as a repairer of old machinery and a maker
of new ; and he had in various ways given proof of

II.] THE BRIDGEWATER CANAL 15

his possession of mechanical skill. The Duke —
evidently a reader of men — saw in him the possibility
of better things, took him over, and appointed him
his right-hand man in constructing the proposed
canal. After much active opposition from the
proprietors of the Mersey and Irwell Navigation,
and also from various landowners and others, the
Duke got his first Act, to which the Royal assent
was given in 1762, and the work was begun. It
presented many difficulties, for the canal had to be
carried over streams and bogs, and through tunnels
costly to make, and the time came when the Duke's
financial resources were almost exhausted. Brindley's
wages were not extravagant. They amounted, in
fact, to ^i a week — substantially less than the
minimum wage that would be paid to-day to a
municipal road-sweeper. But the costs of construc-
tion were heavy, and the landowners had unduly
big ideas of the value of the land compulsorily
acquired from them, so that the Duke's steward
sometimes had to ride about among the tenantry
and borrow a few pounds from one and another in
order to pay the week's wages. When the Worsley
section had been completed, and had become
remunerative, the Duke pledged it to Messrs Child,
the London bankers, for ;^25,ooo, and with the money
thus raised he pushed on with the remainder of the
canal, seeing it finally extended to Liverpool in 1772.
Altogether he expended on his own canals no less
than ;^220,ooo ; but he lived to derive from them a
revenue of ^80,000 a year.

The Duke of Bridgewater's schemes gave a great
impetus to canal construction in Great Britain, though
it was only natural that a good deal of opposition
should be raised, as well. About the year 1765

i6 EARLY DAYS [chap.

numerous pamphlets were published to show the
danger and impolicy of canals. Turnpike trustees
were afraid the canals would divert traffic from the
roads. Owners of pack-horses fancied that ruin stared
them in the face. Thereupon the turnpike trustees
and the pack-horse owners sought the further support
of the agricultural interests, representing that, when
the demand for pack-horses fell off, there would be
less need for hay and oats, and the welfare of British
agriculture would be prejudiced. So the farmers
joined in, and the three parties combined in an effort
to arouse the country. Canals, it was said, would
involve a great waste of land ; they would destroy
the breed of draught horses ; they would produce
noxious or humid vapours ; they would encourage
pilfering ; they would injure old mines and works
by allowing of new ones being opened ; and they
would destroy the coasting trade, and, consequently,
''the nursery for seamen."

By arguments such as these the opposition actually
checked for some years the carrying out of several
important undertakings, including the Trent and
Mersey Navigation. But, when once the movement
had fairly started, it made rapid progress. James
Brindley's energy, down to the time of his death in
1772, was especially indomitable. Having ensured
the success of the Bridgewater Canal, he turned his
attention to a scheme for linking up the four ports
of Liverpool, Hull, Bristol, and London by a system
of main waterways, connected by branch canals with
leading industrial centres off the chief lines of route.
Other projects followed, as it was seen that the
earlier ventures were yielding substantial profits,
and in 1790 a canal mania began. In 1792 no
fewer than eighteen new canals were promoted. In

II.] THE CANAL MANIA 17

1793 and 1794 the number of canal and navigation
Acts passed was forty-five, increasing to eighty-one
the total number which had been obtained since
1790. So great was the public anxiety to invest in
canals that new ones were projected on all hands,
and, though many of them were of a useful type,
others were purely speculative, were doomed to
failure from the start, and occasioned serious losses
to thousands of investors. In certain instances
existing canals were granted the right to levy tolls
upon new-comers, as compensation for prospective
loss of traffic — even when the new canals were to
be 4 or 5 miles away — fresh schemes being actually
undertaken on this basis.

The canals that paid at all paid well, and the
good they conferred on the country in the days of
their prosperity is undeniable. Failing, at that time,
more efficient means of transport, they played a most
important role in developing the trade, industries,
and commerce of our country at a period especially
favourable to national advancement. For half a
century, in fact, the canals had everything their
own way. They had a monopoly of the transport
business — except as regards road traffic — and in
various instances they helped their proprietors to
make huge profits. But great changes were impend-
ing, and these were brought about, at last, with the
advent of the locomotive.

The general situation at this period is well shown
by the following extracts from an article on ''Canals
and Rail-roads," published in the Quarterly Review
of March 1825 : —

*' It is true that we, who, in this age, are accustomed
to roll along our hard and even roads at the rate
of 8 or 9 miles an hour, can hardly imagine the

c

1 8 EARLY DAYS [chap

inconveniences which beset our great-grandfathers
when they had to undertake a journey — forcing their
way through deep miry lanes; fording swollen rivers;
obliged to halt for days together when ' the waters
were out' ; and then crawling along at a pace of 2
or 3 miles an hour, in constant fear of being set
down fast in some deep quagmire, of being over-
turned, breaking down, or swept away by a sudden
inundation.

'' Such was the travelling condition of our ancestors,
until the several turnpike Acts effected a gradual and
most favourable change, not only in the state of the
roads, but the whole appearance of the country ; by
increasing the facility of communication, and the
transport of many weighty and bulky articles which,
before that period, no effort could move from one
part of the country to another. The pack-horse
was now yoked to the waggon, and stage coaches
and post-chaises usurped the place of saddle-horses.
Imperfectly as most of these turnpike roads were con-
structed, and greatly as their repairs were neglected,
they were still a prodigious improvement ; yet, for
the conveyance of heavy merchandise the progress
of waggons was slow and their capacity limited.
This defect was at length remedied by the opening
of canals, an improvement which became, with
regard to turnpike roads and waggons, what these
had been to deep lanes and pack-horses.^ But we

^ That canals also plaj'ed their part in the transport of passengers
a hundred years ago is shown by the following items of news, which
I take from The Times of 1806 : —

Friday, December 19, 1806.
"The first division of the troops that are to proceed by the
Paddington Canal for Liverpool, and thence by transports for
Dublin, will leave Paddington to-day, and will be followed by
others to-morrow and Sunday. By this mode of conveyance the
men will be only seven days in reaching Liverpool, and with
comparatively little fatigue, as it would take them above fourteen
days to march that distance. Relays of fresh horses for the

II.] RAILWAYS V. CANALS 19

may apply to projectors the observation of Sheridan,
* Give these fellows a good thing and they never
know when to have done with it,' for so vehement
became the rage for canal-making that, in a few
years, the whole surface of the country was intersected
by these inland navigations, and frequently in parts
of the island where there was little or no traffic to
be conveyed. The consequence was, that a large
proportion of them scarcely paid an interest of one
per cent., and many nothing at all ; while others,
judiciously conducted over populous, commercial,
and manufacturing districts, have not only amply
remunerated the parties concerned, but have con-
tributed in no small degree to the wealth and pros-
perity of the nation.

'' Yet these expensive establishments for facilitating
the conveyance of the commercial, manufacturing and
agricultural products of the country to their several
destinations, excellent and useful as all must acknow-
ledge them to be, are now likely, in their turn,
to give way to the old invention of Rail-roads.
Nothing now is heard of but rail-roads ; the daily
papers teem with notices of new lines of them in
every direction, and pamphlets and paragraphs are
thrown before the public eye, recommending nothing
short of making them general throughout the king-
dom. Yet, till within these few months past, this old
invention, in use a full century before canals, has

canal boats have been ordered to be in readiness at all the
stages."

Monday, December 22, 1806.

" Saturday the 8th Regiment embarked at the Paddington Canal
for Liverpool, in a number of barges, each containing 60 men.
This regiment consists of 950 men. The 7th Regiment embarked
at the same time in eighteen barges : they are all to proceed to
Liverpool. The Dukes of York and Sussex witnessed the embarka-
tion. The remainder of the brigade was to follow yesterday,
and Friday next another and very considerable embarkation will
follow."

20 EARLY DAYS [chap.

been suffered, with few exceptions, to act the part
only of an auxiliary to canals, in the conveyance of
goods to and from the wharfs, and of iron, coals,
limestone, and other products of the mines to the
nearest place of shipment. . . .

*^The powers of the steam-engine, and a growing
conviction that our present modes of conveyance,
excellent as they are, both require and admit of
great improvements, are, no doubt, among the chief
reasons that have set the current of speculation in
this particular direction."

Dealing with the question of ''vested rights," the
article warns ''the projectors of the intended rail-
roads ... of the necessity of being prepared to
meet the most strenuous opposition from the canal
proprietors," and proceeds: —

" But, we are free to confess, it does not appear to
us that the canal proprietors have the least ground
for complaining of a grievance. They embarked their
property in what they conceived to be a good specu-
lation, which in some cases was realised far beyond
their most sanguine hopes ; in others, failed beyond
their most desponding calculations. If those that have
succeeded should be able to maintain a competition
with rail-ways by lowering their charges ; what they
thus lose will be a fair and unimpeachable gain to
the public, and a moderate and just profit will still
remain to them ; while the others would do well to
transfer their interests from a bad concern into one
whose superiority must be thus established. Indeed,
we understand that this has already been proposed
to a very considerable extent, and that the level beds
of certain unproductive canals have been offered for the
reception of rail-ways.

" There is, however, another ground upon which, in
many instances, we have no doubt, the opposition of
the canal proprietors may be properly met — we mean,
and we state it distinctly, the unquestionable fact, that

II.] HIGH RATES AND BIG PROFITS 21

our trade and manufactures have suffered considerably
by the disproportionate rates of charge upon canal
conveyance. The immense tonnage of coal, iron, and
earthenware, Mr Gumming tells us,^ Miave enabled
one of the canals, passing through these districts
(near Birmingham), to pay an annual dividend to
the proprietary of ^140 upon an original share of
£140, and as such has enhanced the value of each
share from ;£'i40 to ;^3,200 ; and another canal in the
same district, to pay an annual dividend of ;;^i6o
upon the original share of ;i^200, and the shares
themselves have reached the value of ;^4,6oo each.'

''Nor are these solitary instances. Mr Sandars
informs us ^ that, of the only two canals which unite
Liverpool with Manchester, the thirty-nine original
proprietors of one of them, the Old Quay,^ have
been paid for every other year, for nearly half a
century, the ^otal amount of their investment ; and
that a share in this canal, which cost only ;^7o, has
recently been sold for ;^i,25o; and that, with regard
to the other, the late Duke of Bridgewater's, there is
good reason to believe that the net income has, for
the last twenty years, averaged nearly ;^ 100,000 per
annum ! "

In regard, however, to the supersession of canals in
general by railways, the writer of the article says : —

''We are not the advocates for visionary projects
that interfere with useful establishments ; we scout

1 Illustrations of the Origin and Progress of Rail and Tram
Roads, and Steam Carriages, or Locomotive Engines. By T. G.
Gumming, Surveyor, Denbigh, 1824.

^ A Letter on the subject of the projected Rail-road between
Liverpool and Manchester, pointing out the necessity for its
adoption, and the manifest advantages it offers to the public ;
with an exposure of the exorbitant and unjust charges of the
Water-Carriers. By Joseph Sandars, Esq., Liverpool, 1825.

^ Mersey and Irwell Navigation.

22 EARLY DAYS [chap, n.]

the idea of a general rail-road as altogether imprac-
ticable. . . .

**As to those persons who speculate on making
rail-ways general throughout the kingdom, and
superseding all the canals, all the waggons, mail
and stage-coaches, post-chaises, and, in short, every
other mode of conveyance by land and water, we
deem them and their visionary schemes unworthy of

notice."

CHAPTER III

RAILWAYS TO THE RESCUE

It is not a little curious to find that, whereas the
proposed resuscitation of canals is now being actively
supported in various quarters as a means of effecting
increased competition with the railways, the railwav
system itself originally had a most cordial welcome
from the traders of this country as a means of
relieving them from what had become the intolerable
monopoly of the canals and waterways I

It will have been seen that in the article published
in the Quarterly Rci'ieiv of March 1S25, from which
I gave extracts in the last Chapter, reference was
made to a "Letter on the Subject of the Projected
Rail-road between Liverpool and Manchester," by
Mr Joseph Sandars, and published that same vear.
I have looked up the original *' Letter," and found in
it some instructive reading. Mr Sandars showed that
although, under the Act of Parliament obtained by
the Duke of Bridgewater, the tolls to be charged
on his canal between Liverpool and Manchester
were not to exceed 2s. 6d. per ton, his trustees had,
by various exactions, increased them to 5s. 2d. per
ton on all goods carried along the canal. Thev had
also got possession of all the available land and
warehouses along the canal banks at Manchester,
thus monopolising the accommodation, or nearly so,

24 RAILWAYS TO THE RESCUE [chap.

and forcing the traders to keep to the trustees,
and not patronise independent carriers. It was,
Mr Sandars declared, ''the most oppressive and
unjust monopoly known to the trade of this country
— a monopoly which there is every reason to believe
compels the public to pay, in one shape or another,
;^ 100,000 more per annum than they ought to pay."
The Bridgewater trustees and the proprietors of the
Mersey and Irwell Navigation were, he continued,
''deaf to all remonstrances, to all entreaties"; they
were "actuated solely by a spirit of monopoly and
extension," and "the only remedy the public has
left is to go to Parliament and ask for a new line
of conveyance." But this new line, he said, would
have to be a railway. It could not take the form
of another canal, as the two existing routes had
absorbed all the available water-supply.

In discussing the advantages of a railway over a
canal, Mr Sandars continued : —

"It is computed that goods could be carried for
considerably less than is now charged, and for one-
half of what has been charged, and that they would
be conveyed in one-sixth of the time. Canals in
summer are often short of water, and in winter are
obstructed by frost ; a Railway would not have to
encounter these impediments."

Mr Sandars further wrote : —

"The distance between Liverpool and Manchester,
by the three lines of Water conveyance, is upwards
of 50 miles — by a Rail-road it would only be
33. Goods conveyed by the Duke and Old
Quay [Mersey and Irwell Navigation] are exposed
to storms, the delays from adverse winds, and the
risk of damage, during a passage of 18 miles

III.] WATER TRANSPORT 25

in the tide -way of the Mersey. For days
together it frequently happens that when the wind
blows very strong, either south or north, their
vessels cannot move against it. It is very true
that when the winds and tides are favourable
they can occasionally effect a passage in fourteen
hours ,* but the average is certainly thirty. How-
ever, notwithstanding all the accommodation they
can offer, the delays are such that the spinners
and dealers are frequently obliged to cart cotton on
the public high-road, a distance of 36 miles, for
which they pay four times the price which would
be charged by a Rail-road, and they are three
times as long in getting it to hand. The same
observation applies to manufactured goods which
are sent by land-carriage daily, and for which the
rate paid is five times that which they would be
subject to by the Rail-road. This enormous sacrifice
is made for two reasons — sometimes because con-
veyance by water cannot be promptly obtained,
but more frequently because speed and certainty as
to delivery are of the first importance. Packages
of goods sent from Manchester, for immediate ship-
ment at Liverpool, often pay two or three pounds
per ton ; and yet there are those who assert that
the difference of a few hours in speed can be no
object. The merchants know better."

In the same year that Mr Sandars issued his
''Letter," the merchants of the port of Liverpool
addressed a memorial to the Mayor and Common
Council of the borough, praying them to support
the scheme for the building of a railway, and
stating : —

''The merchants of this port have for a long time
past experienced very great difficulties and obstruc-
tions in the prosecution of their business, in conse-
quence of the high charges on the freight of goods

D

26

RAILWAYS TO THE RESCUE [chap.

between this town and Manchester, and of the
frequent impossibility of obtaining vessels for days
together."

It is clear from all this that, however great the
benefit which canal transport had conferred, as
compared with prior conditions, the canal companies
had abused their monopoly in order to secure what
were often enormous profits ; that the canals them-
selves, apart from the excessive tolls and charges
imposed, failed entirely to meet the requirements of
traders ; and that the most effective means of obtain-
ing relief was looked for in the provision of railways.

The value to which canal shares had risen at this
time is well shown by the following figures, which
I take from the Gentleman^s Magazine for December,
1824 : —

Canal.

Shares.

Price.

£,

s.

d.

£

Trent and Mersey .

75

0

0

2,200

Loughborough

197

0

0

4,600

Coventry .

44

0

0 (and bonus)

1,300

Oxford (short shares)

32

0

0 ), 5)

850

Grand Junction

10

0

0 » n

290

Old Union

4

0

0

103

Neath

15

0

0

400

Swansea .

II

0

0

250

Monmouthshire

10

0

0

245

Brecknock and Abergavenny .

8

0

0

175

Staffordshire & Worcestershire

40

0

0

960

Birmingham ....

12

10

0

350

Worcester and Birmingham .

I

10

0

56

Shropshire ....

8

0

0

175

EUesmere

3

10

0

102

Rochdale

4

0

0

140

Barnsley ....

12

0

0

330

Lancaster

I

0

0

45

Kennet and Avon .

I

0

0

29

III.] CANAL SHARES 27

These substantial values, and the large dividends
that led to them, were due in part, no doubt, to the
general improvement in trade which the canals had
helped most materially to effect ; but they had been
greatly swollen by the merciless way in which the
traders of those days were exploited by the representa-
tives of the canal interest. As bearing on this point,
I might interrupt the course of my narrative to say
that in the House of Commons on May 17, 1836,
Mr Morrison, member for Ipswich, made a speech
in which, as reported by Hansard, he expressed
himself ^'clearly of opinion" that '^ Parliament
should, when it established companies for the
formation of canals, railroads, or such like under-
takings, invariably reserve to itself the power to
make such periodical revisions of the rates and
charges as it may, under the then circumstances,
deem expedient " ; and he proposed a resolution to
this effect. He was moved to adopt this course in
view of past experiences in connection with the
canals, and a desire that there should be no repeti-
tion of them in regard to the railways then being
very generally promoted. In the course of his speech
he said : —

**The history of existing canals, waterways, etc.,
affords abundant evidence of the evils to which I
have been averting. An original share in the Lough-
borough Canal, for example, which cost £1^2, 17s.
is now selling at about ;^ 1,250, and yields a dividend
of £go or ;^ioo a year. The fourth part of a Trent
and Mersey Canal share, or ;^5o of the company's
stock, is now fetching ;^6oo, and yields a dividend
of about £2P ^ year. And there are various other
canals in nearly the same situation."

At the close of the debate which followed,

28 RAILWAYS TO THE RESCUE [chap.

Mr Morrison withdrew his resolution, owing to the
announcement that the matter to which he had
called attention would be dealt with in a Bill then
being framed. It is none the less interesting thus
to find that Parliamentary revisions of railway rates
were, in the first instance, directly inspired by the
extortions practised on the traders by canal companies
in the interest of dividends far in excess of any that
the railway companies have themselves attempted to
pay.

Reverting to the story of the Liverpool and
Manchester Railway — the projection of which, as
Mr Sandars' *^ Letter" shows, represented a revolt
against *'the exorbitant and unjust charges of the
water-carriers " — the Bill promoted in its favour was
opposed so vigorously by the canal and other interests
that ;^7o,ooo was spent in the Parliamentary pro-
ceedings in getting it through. But it was carried
in 1826, and the new line, opened in 1830, was so
great a success that it soon began to inspire many
similar projects in other directions, while with its
opening the building of fresh canals for ordinary
inland navigation (as distinct from ship canals)
practically ceased.

There is not the slightest doubt that, but for the
extreme dissatisfaction of the trading interests in
regard alike to the heavy charges and to the short-
comings of the canal system, the Liverpool and
Manchester Railway — that precursor of the ^'railway
mania " — would not have been actually constructed
until at least several years later. But there were
other directions, also, in which the revolt against
the then existing conditions was to bring about
important developments. In the pack-horse period
the collieries of Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire

III.] CANALS AND COAL TRANSPORT 29

respectively supplied local needs only, the cost of
transport by road making it practically impossible
to send coal out of the county in which it was raised.
With the advent of canals the coal could be taken
longer distances, and the canals themselves gained
so much from the business that at one time shares
in the Loughborough Canal, on which ;tf 142 had been
paid, rose, as already shown, to ;^4,6oo, and were
looked upon as being as safe as Consols. But the
collapse of a canal from the Leicestershire coal-fields
to the town of Leicester placed the coalowners of
that county at a disadvantage, and this they over-
came, in 1832, by opening the Leicester and Swin-
nington line of railway. Thereupon the disadvantage
was thrown upon the Nottinghamshire coalowners,
who could no longer compete with Leicestershire.
In fact, the immediate outlook before them was that
they would be excluded from their chief markets,
that their collieries might have to be closed, and
that the mining population would be thrown out of
employment.

In their dilemma they appealed to the canal
companies, and asked for such a reduction in rates
as would enable them to meet the new situation ;
but the canal companies — wedded to their big
dividends — would make only such concessions as
were thought by the other side to be totally inadequate.
Following on this the Nottinghamshire coalowners
met in the parlour of a village inn at Eastwood, in
the autumn of 1832, and formally declared that '* there
remained no other plan for their adoption than to
attempt to lay a railway from their collieries to the
town of Leicester." The proposal was confirmed by
a subsequent meeting, which resolved that ''a rail-
way from Pinxton to Leicester is essential to the

30 RAILWAYS TO THE RESCUE [chap.

interests of the coal-trade of this district." Com-
munications were opened with George Stephenson,
the services of his son Robert were secured, the
'^Midland Counties Railway" was duly constructed,
and the final outcome of the action thus taken — as
the direct result of the attitude of the canal companies
— is to be seen in the splendid system known to-day
as the Midland Railway.

Once more, I might refer to Mr Charles H.
Grinling's *' History of the Great Northern Rail-
way," in which, speaking of early conditions, he
says : —

'^ During the winter of 1843-44 a strong desire arose
among the landowners and farmers of the eastern
counties to secure some of the benefits which other
districts were enjoying from the new method of
locomotion. One great want of this part of England
was that of cheaper fuel, for though there were
collieries open at this time in Leicestershire,
Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire, the nearest pits
with which the eastern counties had practicable trans-
port communication were those of South Yorkshire
and Durham, and this was of so circuitous a
character that even in places situated on navigable
rivers, unserved by a canal, the price of coal often
rose as high as 40s. or even 50s. a ton. In remoter
places, to which it had to be carted 10, 20, or even
30 miles along bad cross-roads, coal even for house-
firing was a positive luxury, quite unattainable by
the poorer classes. Moreover, in the most severe
weather, when the canals were frozen, the whole
system of supply became paralysed, and even the
wealthy had not seldom to retreat shivering to bed
for lack of fuel."

In this particular instance it was George Hudson,
the ''Railway King," who was approached, and the

III.] ORIGIN OF GREAT SYSTEMS 31

first lines were laid of what is now the Great Northern
Railway.

So it happened that, when the new form of trans-
port came into vogue, in succession to the canals, it
was essentially a case of ^' Railways to the Rescue."

CHAPTER IV

RAILWAY-CONTROLLED CANALS

Both canals and railways were, in their early days,

made according to local conditions, and were intended

to serve local purposes. In the case of the former the

design and dimensions of the canal boat used were

influenced by the depth and nature of the estuary or

river along which it might require to proceed, and

the size of the lock (affecting, again, the size of the

boat) might vary according to whether the lock was

constructed on a low level, where there was ample

water, or on a high level, where economy in the use

of water had to be practised. Uniformity under these

varying conditions would certainly have been difficult

to secure, and, in effect, it was not attempted. The

original designers of the canals, in days when the

trade of the country was far less than it is now

and the general trading conditions very different,

probably knew better what they were about than

their critics of to-day give them credit for. They

realised more completely than most of those critics

do what were the limitations of canal construction

in a country of hills and dales, and especially in

rugged and mountainous districts. They cut their

coat, as it were, according to their cloth, and sought

to meet the actual needs of the day rather than

anticipate the requirements of futurity. From their

32

CHAP. IV.] HANDICAPPED WATERWAYS 33

point of view this was the simplest solution of the
problem.

But, though the canals thus made suited local
conditions, they became unavailable for through
traffic, except in boats sufficiently small to pass the
smallest lock or the narrowest and shallowest canal
en route. Then the lack of uniformity in construction
was accompanied by a lack of unity in management.
Each and every through route was divided among,
as a rule, from four to eight or ten different naviga-
tions, and a boat-owner making the journey had to
deal separately with each.

The railway companies soon began to rid them-
selves of their own local limitations. A ''Railway
Clearing House " was set up in 1847, in the interests
of through traffic ; groups of small undertakings
amalgamated into ''great" companies; facilities of
a kind unknown before were made available, while
the whole system of railway operation was simplified
for traders and travellers. The canal companies,
however, made no attempt to follow the example
thus set. They were certainly in a more difficult
position than the railways. They might have
amalgamated, and they might have established a
Canal Clearing House. These would have been
comparatively easy things to do. But any satis-
factory linking up of the various canal systems
throughout the country would have meant virtual
reconstruction, and this may well have been thought
a serious proposition in regard, especially, to canals
built at a considerable elevation above the sea level,
where the water supply was limited, and where, for
that reason, some of the smallest locks were to be
found. To say the least of it, such a work meant
a very large outlay, and at that time practically all

E

34 RAILWAY-CONTROLLED CANALS [chap.

the capital available for investment in transport was
being absorbed by new railways. These, again, had
secured the public confidence which the canals were
losing. As Mr Sandars said in his " Letter" : —

'* Canals have done well for the country, just as
high roads and pack-horses had done before canals
were established ; but the country has now presented
to it cheaper and more expeditious means of convey-
ance, and the attempt to prevent its adoption is
utterly hopeless."

All that the canal companies did, in the first
instance, was to attempt the very thing which
Mr Sandars considered '^utterly hopeless." They
adopted a policy of blind and narrow-minded hostility.
They seemed to think that, if they only fought them
vigorously enough, they could drive the railways off
the field ; and fight them they did, at every possible
point. In those days many of the canal companies
were still wealthy concerns, and what their opposition
might mean has been already shown in the case of
the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The new-
comers had thus to concentrate their efforts and meet
the opposition as best they could.

For a time the canal companies clung obstinately
to their high tolls and charges, in the hope that
they would still be able to pay their big dividends.
But, when the superiority of the railways over the
waterways became more and more manifest, and
when the canal companies saw greater and still
greater quantities of traffic being diverted from them
by their opponents, in fair competition, they realised
the situation at last, and brought down their tolls
with a rush. The reductions made were so substantial

IV.] CANAL COMPANIES' POLICY 35

that they would have been thought incredible a few
years previously.

In the result, benefits were gained by all classes
of traders, for those who still patronised the canals
were charged much more reasonable tolls than they
had ever paid before. But even the adoption of this
belated policy by the canal companies did not help
them very much. The diversion of the stream of
traffic to the railways had become too pronounced to
be checked by even the most substantial of reductions
in canal charges. With the increasing industrial
and commercial development of the country it was
seen that the new means of transport offered advan-
tages of even greater weight than cost of transport,
namely, speed and certainty of delivery. For the
average trader it was essentially a case of time
meaning money. The canal companies might now
reduce their tolls so much that, instead of being
substantially in excess of the railway rates, as they
were at first, they would fall considerably below ;
but they still could not offer those other all-important
advantages.

As the canal companies found that the struggle
was, indeed, ** utterly hopeless," some of them adopted
new lines of policy. Either they proposed to build
railways themselves, or they tried to dispose of their
canal property to the newcomers. In some instances
the route of a canal, no longer of much value, was
really wanted for the route of a proposed railway,
and an arrangement was easily made. In others,
where the railway promoters did not wish to buy,
opposition to their schemes was offered by the canal
companies with the idea of forcing them either so to
do, or, alternatively, to make such terms with them as
would be to the advantage of the canal shareholders.

36 RAILWAY-CONTROLLED CANALS [chap.

The tendency in this direction is shown by the
extract already given from the Quarterly Review ; and
I may repeat here the passage in which the writer
suggested that some of the canal companies ^' would
do well to transfer their interests from a bad concern
into one whose superiority must be thus established,"
and added: '' Indeed, we understand that this has
already been proposed to a very considerable extent,
and that the level beds of certain unproductive canals
have been offered for the reception of rail-ways."
This was as early as 1825. Later on the tendency
became still more pronounced as pressure was put
on the railway companies, or as promoters, in days
when plenty of money was available for railway
schemes, thought the easiest way to overcome actual
or prospective opposition was to buy it off by making
the best terms they could. So far, in fact, was
the principle recognised that in 1845 Parliament
expressly sanctioned the control of canals by rail-
way companies, whether by amalgamation, lease,
purchase, or guarantee, and a considerable amount
of canal mileage thus came into the possession, or
under the control, of railway companies, especially
in the years 1845, 1846, and 1847. This sanction
was practically repealed by the Railway and Traffic
Acts of 1873 and 1888. By that time about one-
third of the existing canals had been either volun-
tarily acquired by, or forced upon, the railway
companies. It is obvious, however, that the re-
sponsibility for what was done rests with Parliament
itself, and that in many cases, probably, the railway
companies, instead of being arch-conspirators, anxious
to spend their money in killing off moribund com-
petitors, who were generally considered to be on
the point of dying a natural death, were, at times,

IV.] ATTITUDE OF RAILWAYS 37

victims of the situation, being" practically driven
into purchases or guarantees which, had they been
perfectly free agents, they might not have cared to
touch.

The general position was, perhaps, very fairly
indicated by the late Sir James Allport, at one
time General Manager of the Midland Railway
Company, in the evidence he gave before the
Select Committee on Canals in 1883.

'' I doubt (he said) if Parliament ever, at that time
of day, came to any deliberate decision as to the
advisability or otherwise of railways possessing canals ;
but I presume that they did not do so without the
fullest evidence before them, and no doubt canal
companies were very anxious to get rid of their
property to railways, and they opposed their Bills,
and, in the desire to obtain their Bills, railway
companies purchased their canals. That, I think,
would be found to be the fact, if it were possible to
trace them out in every case. I do not believe that
the London and North-Western would have bought
the Birmingham Canal but for this circumstance. I
have no doubt that the Birmingham Canal, when
the Stour Valley line was projected, felt that their
property was jeopardised, and that it was then that
the arrangement was made by which the London and
North-Western Railway Company guaranteed them
4 per cent."

The bargains thus effected, either voluntarily or
otherwise (and mostly otherwise), were not necessarily
to the advantage of the railway companies, who
might often have done better for themselves if
they had fought out the fight at the time with their
antagonists, and left the canal companies to their
fate, instead of taking over waterways which have
been more or less of a loss to them ever since.

38 RAILWAY-CONTROLLED CANALS [chap.

Considering the condition into which many of the
canals had already drifted, or were then drifting,
there is very little room for doubt what their fate
would have been if the railway companies had left
them severely alone. Indeed, there are various
canals whose continued operation to-day, in spite of
the losses on their wholly unremunerative traffic, is
due exclusively to the fact that they are owned
or controlled by railway companies. Independent
proprietors, looking to them for dividends, and
not under any statutory obligations (as the railway
companies are) to keep them going, would long ago
have abandoned such canals entirely, and allowed
them to be numbered among the derelicts.

As bearing on the facts here narrated, I might
mention that, in the course of a discussion at the
Institution of Civil Engineers, in November 1905,
on a paper read by Mr John Arthur Saner, ^' Water-
ways in Great Britain " (reported in the official '' Pro-
ceedings " of the Institution), Mr James Inglis, General
Manager of the Great Western Railway Company,
said that ''his company owned about 216 miles of
canal, not a mile of which had been acquired
voluntarily. Many of those canals had been forced
on the railway as the price of securing Acts, and
some had been obtained by negotiations with the
canal companies. The others had been acquired in
incidental ways, arising from the fact that the traffic
had absolutely disappeared." Mr Inglis further told
the story of the Kennet and Avon Canal, which his
company maintain at a loss of about ;^4,ooo per
annum. The canal, it seems, was constructed in
1794 at a cost of ;£" 1,000,000, and at one time
paid 5 per cent. The traffic fell off steadily with
the extension of the railway system, and in 1846

IV.] KENNET AND AVON CANAL 39

the canal company, seeing their position was hope-
less, applied to Parliament for powers to construct
a railway parallel with the canal. Sanction was
refused, though the company were authorised to
act as common carriers. In 1851 the canal owners
approached the Great Western Railway Company,
and told them of their intention to seek again for
powers to build an opposition railway. The upshot
of the matter was that the railway company took
over the canal, and agreed to pay the canal company
£h112> ^ year. This they have done, with a loss
to themselves ever since. The rates charged on the
canal were successively reduced by the Board of Trade
(on appeal being made to that body) to ijd., then to
id., and finally Jd. per ton-mile ; but there had never
been a sign, Mr Inglis added, that the reduction had
any effect in attracting additional traffic.^

To ascertain for myself some further details as
to the past and present of the Kennet and Avon
Navigation, I paid a visit of inspection to the canal
in the neighbourhood of Bath, where it enters the
River Avon, and also at Devizes, where I saw the
remarkable series of locks by means of which the
canal reaches the town of Devizes, at an elevation
of 425 feet above sea level. In conversation, too,
with various authorities, including Mr H. J. Saunders,
the Canals Engineer of the Great Western Railway

^ Another of the speakers, Mr Gordon C. Thomas, engineer to
the Grand Junction Canal Company, said that " notwithstanding
the generous expenditure on maintenance, and the large sums
recently spent upon improvements, the through traffic on the
Grand Junction was only one-half of what it was fifty years ago,
and now the through traffic was in many cases unable to pay as
high a rate as the local traffic."

40 RAILWAY-CONTROLLED CANALS [chap.

Company, I obtained some interesting facts which
throw light on the reasons for the falling off of the
traffic along the canal.

Dealing with this last mentioned point first, I
learned that much of the former prosperity of the
Kennet and Avon Navigation was due to a sub-
stantial business then done in the transport of coal
from a considerable colliery district in Somersetshire,
comprising the Radstock, Camerton, Dunkerton, and
Timsbury collieries. This coal was first put on the
Somerset Coal Canal, which connected with the
Kennet and Avon at Dundas — a point between
Bath and Bradford-on-Avon — and, on reacliing this
junction, it was taken either to towns directly served
by the Kennet and Avon (including Bath, Bristol,
Bradford, Trowbridge, Devizes, Kintbury, Hunger-
ford, Newbury and Reading) or, leaving the Kennet
and Avon at Semmington, it passed over the Wilts
and Berks Canal to various places as far as Abingdon.
In proportion, however, as the railways developed
their superiority as an agent for the effective distribu-
tion of coal, the traffic by canal declined more and
more, until at last it became non-existent. Of the
three canals affected, the Somerset Coal Canal,
owned by an independent company, was abandoned,
by authority of Parliament, two years ago ; the Wilts
and Berks, also owned by an independent company,
is practically derelict, and the one that to-day survives
and is in good working order is the Kennet and
Avon, ov/ned by a railway company.

Another branch of local traffic that has left the
Kennet and Avon Canal for the railway is repre-
sented by the familiar freestone, of which large
quantities are despatched from the Bath district.
The stone goes away in blocks averaging 5 tons

IV.] THE DECLINE IN TRAFFIC 41

in weight, and ranging up to 10 tons, and at first
sight it would appear to be a commodity specially-
adapted for transport by water. But once more the
greater facilities afforded by the railway have led
to an almost complete neglect of the canal. Even
where the quarries are immediately alongside the
waterway (though this is not always the case) horses
must be employed to get the blocks down to the
canal boat ; whereas the blocks can be put straight
on to the railway trucks on the sidings which go
right into the quarry, no horses being then required.
In calculating, therefore, the difference between the
canal rate and the railway rate, the purchase and
maintenance of horses at the points of embarkation
must be added to the former. Then the stone could
travel only a certain distance by water, and further
cost might have to be incurred in cartage, if not in
transferring it from boat to railway truck, after all,
for transport to final destination ; whereas, once put
on a railway truck at the quarry, it could be taken
thence, without further trouble, to any town in Great
Britain where it was wanted. In this way, again,
the Kennet and Avon (except in the case of consign-
ments to Bristol) has practically lost a once important
source of revenue.

A certain amount of foreign timber still goes by
water from Avonmouth or Bristol to the neighbour-
hood of Pewsey, and some English-grown timber
is taken from Devizes and other points on the canal
to Bristol, Reading, and intermediate places ; grain
is carried from Reading to mills within convenient
reach of the canal, and there is also a small traffic
in mineral oils and general merchandise, including
groceries for shopkeepers in towns along the canal
route ; but, whereas, in former days a grocer would

F

42 RAILWAY-CONTROLLED CANALS [chaf.

order 30 tons of sugar from Bristol to be delivered
to him by boat at one time, he now orders by post,
telegraph, or telephone, very much smaller quantities
as he wants them, and these smaller quantities are
consigned mainly by train, so that there is less for
the canal to carry, even where the sugar still goes
by water at all.

Speaking generally, the actual traffic on the Kennet
and Avon at the western end would not exceed more
than about three or four boats a day, and on the
higher levels at the eastern end it would not average
one a day. Yet, after walking for some miles along
the canal banks at two of its most important points,
it was obvious to me that the decline in the traffic
could not be attributable to any shortcomings in the
canal itself. Not only does the Kennet and Avon
deserve to rank as one of the best maintained of any
canal in the country, but it still affords all reason-
able facilities for such traffic as is available, or seems
likely to be offered. Instead of being neglected by
the Great Western Railway Company, it is kept in
a state of efficiency that could not well be improved
upon short of a complete reconstruction, at a very
great cost, in the hope of getting an altogether
problematical increase of patronage in respect to
classes of traffic different from what was contem-
plated when the canal was originally built.

Within the last year or two the railway company
have spent ;^3,ooo or ;^4,ooo on the pumping
machinery. The main water supply is derived from
a reservoir, about 9 acres in extent, at Crofton,
this reservoir being fed partly by two rivulets
(which dry up in the summer) and partly by its
own springs ; and extensive pumping machinery is
provided for raising to the summit level the water

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IV.] LOCKS AT DEVIZES 43

that passes from the reservoir into the canal at a
lower level, the height the water is thus raised
being 40 feet. There is also a pumping station at
Claverton, near Bath, which raises water from the
river Avon. Thanks to these provisions, on no
occasion has there been more than a partial stoppage
of the canal owing to a lack of water, though in
seasons of drought it is necessary to reduce the
loading of the boats.

The final ascent to the Devizes level is accomplished
by means of twenty-nine locks in a distance of 2^
miles. Of these twenty-nine there are seventeen
which immediately follow one another in a direct line,
and here it has been necessary to supplement the
locks with ^' pounds " to ensure a sufficiency of reserve
water to work the boats through. No one who walks
alongside these locks can fail to be impressed alike by
the boldness of the original constructors of the canal
and by the thoroughness with which they did their
work. The walls of the locks are from 3 to 6 feet in
thickness, and they seem to have been built to last
for all eternity. The same remark applies to the
constructed works in general on this canal. For a
boat to pass through the twenty-nine locks takes
on an average about three hours. The 39J miles
from Bristol to Devizes require at least two full
days.

Considerable expenditure is also incurred on the
canal in dredging work ; though here special diffi-
culties are experienced, inasmuch as the geological
formation of the bed of the canal between Bath
and Bradford-on-Avon renders steam dredging in-
advisable, so that the more expensive and less
expeditious system of ^Mragging" has to be relied
on instead.

44 RAILWAY-CONTROLLED CANALS [chap.

Altogether it costs the Great Western Railway
Company about ;£i to earn each los. they receive
from the canal ; and whether or not, considering
present day conditions of trade and transport, and
the changes that have taken place therein, they would
get their money back if they spent still more on the
canal, is, to say the least of it, extremely problematical.
One fact absolutely certain is that the canal is already
capable of carrying a much greater amount of traffic
than is actually forthcoming, and that the absence of
such traffic is not due to any neglect of the waterway
by its present owners. Indeed, I had the positive
assurance of Mr Saunders that, in his capacity as
Canals Engineer to the Great Western, he had never
yet been refused by his Company any expenditure he
had recommended as necessary for the efficient main-
tenance of the canals under his charge. '^ I believe,"
he added, ''that any money required to be spent for
this purpose would be readily granted. I already
have power to do anything I consider advisable to
keep the canals in proper order ; and I say without
hesitation that all the canals belonging to the Great
Western Railway Company are well maintained, and
in no way starved. The decline in the traffic is due
to obvious causes which would still remain, no
matter what improvements one might seek to carry
out."

The story told above may be supplemented by
the following extract from the report of the Great
Western Railway Company for the half-year ending
December 1905, showing expenses and receipts in
connection with the various canals controlled by
that company : —

IV.]

FINANCIAL RESULTS

45

• GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY CANALS,

FOR HALF-YEAR ENDING 3ISt DECEMBER I905.

Canal. To Canal Expenses.

By Canal Traffic

Bridgwater and Taunton .

^1,991 2 8

^664 8 9

Grand Western .

197 7 I

119 10 10

Kennet and Avon

5,604 0 9

2,034 18 8

Monmouthshire .

1,557 3 3

886 16 8

Stourbridge Extension

450 19 4

765 7 I

Stratford-upon-Avon

1,349 II 3

724 I 4

Swansea

• 1,643 15 7

1,386 14 9

;^I2,793 19 II

;^6,58i 18 I

The capital expenditure on these different canals,
to the same date, was as follows : —

Brecon

Bridgwater and Taunton
Grand Western .
Kennet and Avon
Stourbridge Extension
Stratford-on-Avon
Swansea

;^6l,2i7

19

0

73,989

12

4

30,629

8

7

209,509

19

3

49,436

15

0

172,538

9

7

148,711

17

6

Total,

^746,034 I 3

These figures give point to the further remark
made by Mr Inglis at the meeting of the Institution
of Civil Engineers when he said, " It was not to
be imagined that the railway companies would
willingly have all their canal property lying idle ;
they would be only too glad if they could see how
to use the canals so as to obtain a profit, or even
to reduce the loss."

On the same occasion, Mr A. Ross, who also took
part in the debate, said he had had charge of a
number of railway-owned canals at different times,
and he was of opinion there was no foundation

46 RAILWAY-CONTROLLED CANALS [chap.

for the allegation that railway-owned canals were
not properly maintained. His first experience of
this kind was with the Sankey Brook and St Helens
Canal, one of wide gauge, carrying a first-class traffic,
connecting the two great chemical manufacturing
towns of St Helens and Widnes, and opening into
the Mersey. Early in the seventies the canal became
practically a wreck, owing to the mortar on the
walls having been destroyed by the chemicals in
the water which the manufactories had drained into
the canal. In addition, there was an overflow into
the Sankey Brook, and in times of flood the water
flowed over the meadows, and thousands of acres
were rendered barren. Mr Ross continued (I quote
from the official report) : —

*^The London and North- Western Railway Com-
pany, who owned the canal, went to great expense in
litigation, and obtained an injunction against the
manufacturers, and in the result they had to purchase
all the meadows outright, as the quickest way of
settling the question of compensation. The company
rebuilt all the walls and some of the locks. If that
canal had not been supported by a powerful corpora-
tion like the London and North- Western Railway, it
must inevitably have been in ruins now. The next
canal he had to do with, the Manchester and Bury
Canal, belonging to the Lancashire and Yorkshire
Railway Company, was almost as unfortunate. The
coal workings underneath the canal absolutely wrecked
it, compelling the railway company to spend many
thousands of pounds in law suits and on restoring
the works, and he believed that no independent canal
could have survived the expense. Other canals he
had had to do with were the Peak Forest, the
Macclesfield and the Chesterfield canals, and the
Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation, which
belonged to the old Manchester Sheffield and Lincoln-

IV.] THE SHROPSHIRE UNION 47

shire Railway. Those canals were maintained in
good order, although the traffic was certainly not
large."

On the strength of these personal experiences
Mr Ross thought that '^if a company came forward
which was willing to give reasonable compensation,
the railway companies would not be difficult to deal
with."

The *' Shropshire Union" is a railway-controlled
canal with an especially instructive history.

This system has a total mileage of just over 200
miles. It extends from Wolverhampton to EUesmere
Port on the river Mersey, passing through Market
Drayton, Nantwich and Chester, with branches to
Shrewsbury, Newtown (Montgomeryshire), Llan-
gollen, and Middlewich (Cheshire). Some sections
of the canal were made as far back as 1770, and
others as recently as 1840. At one time it was owned
by a number of different companies, but by a process
of gradual amalgamation, most of these were absorbed
by the EUesmere and Chester Canal Company. In
1846 this company obtained Acts of Parliament which
authorised them to change their name to that of ^' The
Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company,"
and gave them power to construct three lines of
railway: (i) from the Chester and Crewe Branch of
the Grand Junction Railway at Calveley to Wolver-
hampton ; (2) from Shrewsbury to Stafford, with a
branch to Stone ; and (3) from Newtown (Montgomery-
shire) to Crewe. Not only do we get here a striking
instance of the tendency shown by canal companies
to start railways on their own account, but in each one
of the three Acts authorising the lines mentioned I

48 RAILWAY-CONTROLLED CANALS [chap.

find it provided that *' it shall be lawful for the Chester
and Holyhead Railway Company and the Manchester
and Birmingham Railway Company, or either of
them, to subscribe towards the undertaking, and hold
shares in the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal
Company."

Experience soon showed that the Shropshire Union
had undertaken more than it could accomplish. In
1847 the company obtained a fresh Act of Parliament,
this time to authorise a lease of the undertakings of
the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company
to the London and North- Western Railway Company.
The Act set forth that the capital of the Shropshire
Union Company was ;^482,924, represented by shares
on which all the calls had been paid, and that the
indebtedness on mortgages, bonds and other securities
amounted to ;^8i4,207. Under these adverse condi-
tions, " it has been agreed," the Act goes on to say,
^' between the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal
Company and the London and North- Western Rail-
way Company, with a view to the economical and
convenient working " of the three railways authorised,
^'that a lease in perpetuity of the undertaking of the
Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company
should be granted to the London and North- Western
Railway Company, and accepted by them, at a rent
which shall be equal to . . half the rate per cent, per
annum of the dividend which shall from time to time
be payable on the capital stock of the London and
North-Western Railway Company."

We have in this another example of the way in
which a railway company has saved a canal system
from extinction, while under the control of the London
and North-Western the Shropshire Union Canal is
still undoubtedly one of the best maintained of any

WAKKHOUSKS AND HYDRAULIC CRANES AT ELLESMEKli PORT.

\To face page 48.

IV.] MAINTENANCE AND IMPROVEMENTS 49

in the country. There may be sections of it, especially
in out-lying parts, where the traffic is comparatively
small, but a considerable business is still done in the
conveyance of sea-borne grain from the Mersey to the
Chester district, or in that of tinplates, iron, and
manufactured articles from the Black Country to the
Mersey for shipment. For traffic such as this the
canal already offers every reasonable facility. The
Shropshire Union is also a large carrier of goods to
and from the Potteries district, in conjunction with
the Trent and Mersey. So little has the canal been
''strangled," or even neglected, by the London and
North-Western Railway Company that, in addition
to maintaining its general efficiency, the expenditure
incurred by that company of late years for the
development of Ellesmere Port — the point where the
Shropshire Union Canal enters the Manchester Ship
Canal — amounts to several hundred thousand pounds,
this money having been spent mainly in the interest
of the traffic along the Shropshire Union Canal.
Deep-water quay walls of considerable length have
been built ; warehouses for general merchandise,
with an excellent system of hydraulic cranes, have
been provided ; a large grain depot, fully equipped
with grain elevators and other appliances, has been
constructed at a cost of ;^ 80,000 to facilitate, more
especially, the considerable grain transport by canal
that is done between the River Mersey and the
Chester district ; and at the present time the dock
area is being enlarged, chiefly for the purpose of
accommodating deeper barges, drawing about 7 feet
of water.

Another fact I might mention in regard to the
Shropshire Union Canal is in connection with
mechanical haulage. Elaborate theories, worked out

G

50 RAILWAY-CONTROLLED CANALS [chap.

on paper, as to the difference in cost between rail
transport and water transport, may be completely
upset where the water transport is to be conducted,
not on a river or on a canal crossing a perfectly
level plain, but along a canal which is raised, by
means of locks, several hundred feet on one side of
a ridge, or of some elevated table-land, and must
be brought down in the same way on the other
side. So, again, the value of what might otherwise
be a useful system of mechanical haulage may be
completely marred owing to the existence of innumer-
able locks.

This conclusion is the outcome of a series of
practical experiments conducted on the Shropshire
Union Canal at a time when the theorists were still
working out their calculations on paper. The
experiments in question were directed to ascertaining
whether economy could be effected by making up
strings of narrow canal boats, and having them
drawn by a tug worked by steam or other motive
power, instead of employing man and horse for each
boat. The plan answered admirably until the locks
were reached. There the steam-tug was, temporarily,
no longer of any service. It was necessary to keep
a horse at every lock, or flight of locks, to get the
boats through, so that, apart from the tedious delays
(the boats that passed first having to wait for the
last-comers before the procession could start again),
the increased expense at the locks nullified any saving
gained from the mechanical haulage.

As a further illustration — drawn this time from
Scotland — of the relations ,of railway companies to
canals, I take the case of the Forth and Clyde Naviga-
tion, controlled by the Caledonian Railway Company.

,v.] FORTH AND CLYDE NAVIGATION 51

This navigation really consists of two sections —
the Forth and Clyde Navigation, and the Monkland
Navigation. The former, authorised in 1768, and
opened in 1790, commences at Grangemouth on
the Firth of Forth, crosses the country by Falkirk
and Kirkintilloch, and terminates at Bowling on the
Clyde. It has thirty-nine locks, and at one point
has been constructed through 3 miles of hard
rock. The original depth of 8 feet was increased to
10 feet in 18 14. In addition to the canal proper, the
navigation included the harbours of Grangemouth
and Bowling, and also the Grangemouth Branch
Railway, and the Drumpeller Branch Railway, near
Coatbridge. The Monkland Canal, also opened in
1790, was built from Glasgow via Coatbridge to
Woodhall in Lanarkshire, mainly for the transport
of coal from the Lanarkshire coal-fields to Glasgow
and elsewhere. Here the depth was 6 feet. The
undertakings of the Forth and Clyde and the Monk-
land Navigations were amalgamated in 1846.

Prior to 1865, the Caledonian Railway did not
extend further north than Greenhill, about 5 miles
south of Falkirk, where it joined the Scottish Central
Railway. This undertaking was absorbed by the
Caledonian in 1865, and the Caledonian system was
thus extended as far north as Perth and Dundee.
The further absorption of the Scottish North-Eastern
Railway Company, in 1866, led to the extension of
the Caledonian system to Aberdeen.

At this time the Caledonian Railway Company
owned no port or harbour in Scotland, except the
small and rather shallow tidal harbour of South
Alloa. Having got possession of the railway lines
in Central Scotland, they thought it necessary to
obtain control of some port on the east coast, in the

52 RAILWAY-CONTROLLED CANALS [chap.

interests of traffic to or from the Continent, and
especially to facilitate the shipment to the Continent
of coal from the Lanarkshire coal-fields, chiefly served
by them. The port of Grangemouth being adapted
to their requirements, they entered into negotiations
with the proprietors of the Forth and Clyde Naviga-
tion, who were also proprietors of the harbour of
Grangemouth, and acquired the whole undertaking
in 1867, guaranteeing to the original company a
dividend of 6^ per cert.

Since their acquisition of the canal, the Caledonian
Railway Company have spent large sums annually
in maintaining it in a state of efficiency, and its
general condition to-day is better than when it was
taken over. Much of the traffic handled is brought
into or sent out from Grangemouth, and here the
Caledonian Railway Company have more than
doubled the accommodation, with the result that
the imports and exports have enormously increased.
All the same, there has been a steady decrease in
the actual canal traffic, due to various causes, such
as {a) the exhaustion of several of the coal-fields in
the Monkland district ; {b) the extension of railways ;
and {c) changes in the sources from which certain
classes of traffic formerly carried on the canal are
derived.

In regard to the coal-fields, the closing of pits
adjoining the canal has been followed by the
opening of others at such a distance from the
canal that it was cheaper to consign by rail.

In the matter of railway extensions, when the
Caledonian took over the canal in 1867, there were
practically no railways in the district through which
it runs, and the coal and other traffic had, perforce,
to go by water. But, year by year, a complete net-

IV.] TRAFFIC DIVERTED TO RAILWAYS 53

work of railways was spread through the district by
independent railway companies, notwithstanding the
efforts made by the Caledonian to protect the interests
of the canal — efforts that led, in some instances, to
Parliament refusing assent to the proposed lines.
Those that were constructed (over a dozen lines
and branches altogether), were almost all absorbed
by the North British Railway Company, who are
strong competitors with the Caledonian Railway
Company, and have naturally done all they could
to get traffic for the lines in question. This, of
course, has been at the expense of the canal and
to the detriment of the Caledonian Railway Com-
pany, who, in view of their having guaranteed a
dividend to the original proprietors, would prefer
that the traffic in question should remain on the
canal instead of being diverted to an opposition line
of railway. Other traffic which formerly went by
canal, and is now carried on the Caledonian Rail-
way, is of a character that would certainly go by
canal no longer, and for this the Caledonian and
the North British Companies compete.

The third factor in the decline of the canal relates
to the general consideration that, during the last thirty
or forty years, important works have no longer been
necessarily built alongside canal banks, but have
been constructed wherever convenient, and connected
with the railways by branch lines or private sid-
ings, expense of cartage to or from the canal dock
or basin thus being saved. On the Forth and
Clyde Canal a good deal of coal is still carried,
but mainly to adjoining works. Coal is also
shipped in vessels on the canal for transport to
the West Highlands and Islands, where the
railways cannot compete ; but even here there is an

54 RAILWAY-CONTROLLED CANALS [chap.

increasing tendency for the coal to be bought in
Glasgow (to which port it is carried by rail), so
that the shippers can have a wider range of markets
when purchasing. Further changes affecting the
Forth and Clyde Canal are illustrated by the fact
that whereas, at one time, large quantities of
grain were brought into Grangemouth from
Russian and other Continental ports, transhipped
into lighters, and sent to Glasgow by canal, the
grain now received at Glasgow comes mainly from
America by direct steamer.

That the Caledonian Railway Company have done
their duty towards the Forth and Clyde Canal is
beyond all reasonable doubt. It is true that they
are not themselves carriers on the canal. They
are only toll-takers. Their business has been to
maintain the canal in efficient condition, and allow
any trader who wishes to make use of it so to do,
on paying the tolls. This they have done, and,
if the traders have not availed themselves of their
opportunities, it must naturally have been for
adequate reasons, and especially because of changes
in the course of the country's business which it is
impossible for a railway company to control, even
where, as in this particular case, they are directly
interested in seeing the receipts from tolls attain
to as high a figure as practicable.

I reserve for another chapter a study of the
Birmingham Canal system, which, again, is '^ rail-
way controlled " ; but I may say here that I think
the facts already given show it is most unfair to
suggest, as is constantly being done in the Press
and elsewhere, that the railway companies bought
up canals — "of malice aforethought," as it were —

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IV.] THE ^^STRANGULATION" FICTION 55

for the express purpose of killing such competition
as they represented — a form of competition in which,
as we have seen, public confidence had already
practically disappeared. One of the witnesses at the
canal enquiry in 1883 even went so far as to assert :

''The railway companies have been enabled, in some
cases by means of very questionable legality, to obtain
command of 1,717 miles of canal, so adroitly selected
as to strangle the whole of the inland water traffic,
which has thus been forced upon the railways, to
the great interruption of their legitimate and lucrative
trade."

The assertions here made are constantly being
reproduced in one form or another by newspaper
writers, public speakers, and others, who have gone
to no trouble to investigate the facts for themselves,
who have never read, or, if they have read, have
disregarded, the important evidence of Sir James
AUport, at the same enquiry, in reference to the
London coal trade (I shall revert to this subject
later on), and who probably have either not seen
a map of British canals and waterways at all, or
else have failed to notice the routes that still
remain independent, and are in no way controlled
by railway companies.

I give, facing p. 54, a sketch which shows the
nature and extent of these particular waterways, and
the reader will see from it that they include entirely
free and independent communication {a) between
Birmingham and the Thames ; {b) from the coal-
fields of the Midlands and the North to London ;
and {c) between the west and east coasts, vid
Liverpool, Leeds, and Goole. To say, therefore,
in these circumstances, that ''the whole of the

56 RAILWAY-CONTROLLED CANALS [chap. iv.

inland water traffic " has been strangled by the
railway companies because the canals or sections of
which they '^obtained command" were *'so adroitly
selected," is simply to say what is not true.

The point here raised is not one that merely
concerns the integrity of the railway companies —
though in common justice to them it is only right
that the truth should be made known. It really
affects the whole question at issue, because, so
long as public opinion is concentrated more or less
on this strangulation fiction, due attention will not
be given to the real causes for the decay of the
canals, and undue importance will be attached to
the suggestions freely made that if only the one-
third of the canal mileage owned or controlled by
the railway companies could be got out of their
hands, the revival schemes would have a fair chance
of success.

Certain it is, therefore, as the map I give shows
beyond all possible doubt, that the causes for the
failure of the British canal system must be sought
for elsewhere than in the fact of a partial railway-
ownership or control. Some of these alternative
causes I propose to discuss in the Chapters that
follow my story of the Birmingham Canal, for
which (inasmuch as Birmingham and district, by
reason of their commercial importance and geo-
graphical position, have first claim to consideration
in any scheme of canal resuscitation) I would beg
the special attention of the reader.

Cannock

.Bloxwich

^*.,

Wednesfield

■w^'

WOLVERHAMrtTON

Willenhall

g^'Walsall

^ilston

^ Darla^ton

IWednesbury

CoseleyTunnel •\

Tiptonj .}•/

■^>p.

v>V WestBromwich

^/% Oldbury^

vN.

SmethwickK

sGostyHiU Tunnel

Stourbridge

Map of the Canals & Railways between

WOLVERHAMPTON & BIRMINGHAM

/J//7es

O I 2 3

Birmingham Ca.na.h
Other Canals =

Rajlways

to
join
^Coventry
Ca.na.1

\(

1 1 RM INCH A

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4"

To face page 56.

CHAPTER V

THE BIRMINGHAM CANAL AND ITS STORY

What is known as the '^ Birmingham Canal" is
really a perfect network of waterways in and around
Birmingham and South Staffordshire, representing a
total length of about i6o miles, exclusive of some
hundreds of private sidings in connection with
different works in the district.

The system was originally constructed by four
different canal companies under Acts of Parlia-
ment passed between 1768 and 1818. These
companies subsequently amalgamated and formed
the Birmingham Canal Navigation, known later on
as the Birmingham Canal Company. From March
1 8 16 to March 1818 the company paid £2>^ per
annum per share on 1,000 shares, and in the follow-
ing year the amount paid on the same number of
shares rose to £^0 per annum. In 1823 £2^ per
annum per share was paid on 2,000 shares, in 1838
£9 to ;^i6 on 8,000, in 1844 £S on 8,800, and from
May 1845 to December 1846 £^ per annum per
share on 17,600 shares.

The year 1845 was a time of great activity in
railway promotion, and the Birmingham Canal
Company, who already had a canal between that
town and Wolverhampton, proposed to supplement
it by a railway through the Stour Valley, using for

57 H

58 THE BIRMINGHAM CANAL [chap.

the purpose a certain amount of spare land which
they already owned. A similar proposal, however,
in respect to a line of railway to take practically
the same route between Birmingham and Wolver-
hampton, was brought forward by an independent
company, who seem to have had the support of
the London and Birmingham Railway Company ;
and in the result it was arranged among the
different parties concerned (i) that the Birmingham
Canal Company should not proceed with their
scheme, but that they and the London and
Birmingham Railway Company should each sub-
scribe a fourth part of the capital for the con-
struction of the line projected by the independent
Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and Stour Valley
Railway Company ; and (2) that the London and
Birmingham Railway Company should, subject to
certain terms and conditions, guarantee the future
dividend of the Canal Company, whenever the net
income was insufficient to produce a dividend of
;^4 per share on the capital, the Canal Company
thus being insured against loss resulting from
competition.

The building of the Stour Valley Line between
Birmingham and Wolverhampton, with a branch to
Dudley, was sanctioned by an Act of 1846, which
further authorised the Birmingham Canal Company
and the London and Birmingham Railway Company
to contribute each one quarter of the necessary capital.
The canal company raised their quarter, amounting
to ;^ 190,087, by means of mortgages. In return for
their guarantee of the canal company's dividend, the
London and Birmingham Railway Company obtained
certain rights and privileges in regard to the working
of the canal. These were authorised by the London

v.] NATURE OF THE ARRANGEMENT 59

and Birmingham Railway and Birmingham Canal
Arrangement Act, 1846, which empowered the two
companies each to appoint five persons as a com-
mittee of management of the Birmingham Canal
Company. Those members of the committee chosen
by the London and Birmingham Railway Company
were to have the same powers, etc., as the members
elected by the canal company ; but the canal company
were restricted from expending, without the consent of
the railway company, ^* any sum which shall exceed
the sum of five hundred pounds in the formation of
any new canal, or extension, or branch canal or other-
wise, for the purpose of any single work to be here-
after undertaken by the same company"; nor, without
consent of the railway company, could the canal
company make any alterations in the tolls, rates, or
dues charged. In the event of differences of opinion
arising between the two sections of the committee of
management, the final decision was to be given by
the railway representatives in such year or years as
the railway company was called upon to make good
a deficiency in the dividends, and by the canal repre-
sentatives when no such demand had been made
upon the railway company. In other words the
canal company retained the deciding vote so long
as they could pay their way, and in any case they
could spend up to ;^5oo on any single work without
asking the consent of the railwa}^ company.

In course of time the Stour Valley Line, as well
as the London and Birmingham Company, became
part of the system of the London and North- Western
Railway Company, which thus took over the responsi-
bilities and obligations, in regard to the waterways,
already assumed ; while the mortgages issued by the
Birmingham Canal Company, when they undertook

6o

THE BIRMINGHAM CANAL

[chap.

to raise one-fourth of the capital for the Stour
Valley Railway, were exchanged for ;^ 126, 725 of
ordinary stock in the London and North-Western
Railway.

The Birmingham Canal Company was able down
to 1873 (except only in one year, 1868, when it required
;^835 from the London and North-Western Company)
to pay its dividend of ;^4 per annum on each share,
without calling on the railway company to make good
a deficiency. In 1874, however, there was a sub-
stantial shortage of revenue, and since that time
the London and North-Western Railway Company,
under the agreement already mentioned, have had
to pay considerable sums to the canal company, as
the following table shows : —

Year
1874
1875
1876

1877
1878

1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889

Year

^10,528 18

0

1890 .

nil.

189I .

4,796 10

9

1892 .

361 7

9

1893 .

r 1,370 5

7

1894 .

20,225 °

5

1895 .

13,534 19

6

1896 .

15,028 9

3

1897 .

6,826 7

I

1898 .

8,879 4

7

1899 .

14,196 7

9

1900 .

25,460 19

10

I9OI .

35,169 9

6

1902 .

31,491 14

I

1903 .

15,350 10

IT

1904 .

5,341 19

1 1 r , 1

3

1905 .

/-- ni .

;^22,o69 9

17,626 2

29,508 4

31,618 19

27,935 8

39,065 15

22,994 o

10,186 19

10,286 13

18,470 18

34,075 19
62,644

27,645

34,047
37,832

3

2

4

9

2

10
7

3
I
6
8

3
6

39,860 13 o

The sum total of these figures is ;^685,265, 2s. iid.

It will have been seen, from the facts already
narrated, that for a period of over twenty years from
the date of the agreement the canal company con-

v.] DECREASED PROSPERITY 6i

tinued to earn their own dividend without requiring
any assistance from the railway company. Meantime,
however, various local, in addition to general, causes
had been in operation tending to affect the prosperity
of the canals. The decline of the pig-iron industry
in the Black Country had set in, while though the
conversion of manufactured iron into plates, imple-
ments, etc., largely took its place, the raw materials
came more and more from districts not served by the
canals, and the finished goods were carried mainly
by the railways then rapidly spreading through the
district, affording facilities in the way of sidings to
a considerable number of manufacturers whose works
were not on the canal route. Then the local iron
ore deposits were either worked out or ceased
to be remunerative, in view of the competition of
other districts, again facilitated by the railways ;
and the extension of the Bessemer process of
steel -making also affected the Staffordshire iron
industry.

These changes were quite sufficient in themselves
to account for the increasing unprofitableness of the
canals, without any need for suggestions of hostility
towards them on the part of the railways. In point
of fact, the extension of the railways and the provision
of ''railway basins" brought the canals a certain
amount of traffic they might not otherwise have got.
It was, indeed, due less to an actual decrease in the
tonnage than to a decrease in the distance carried
that the amount received in tolls fell off, that the traffic
ceased to be remunerative, and that the deficiencies
arose which, under their statutory obligations, the
London and North- Western Railway Company had
to meet. The more that the traffic actually left
the canals, the greater was the deficiency which, as

62 THE BIRMINGHAM CANAL [chap.

shown by the figures I have given, the railway
company had to make good.^

The condition of the canals in 1874, when the
responsibilities assumed by the London and North-
Western Railway Company began to fall more heavily
upon them, left a good deal to be desired, and the
railway company found themselves faced with the
necessity of finding money for improvements which
eventually represented a very heavy expenditure,
apart altogether from the making up of a guaranteed
dividend. They proceeded, all the same, to acquit
themselves of these responsibilities, and it is no
exaggeration to say that, during the thirty years
which have since elapsed, they have spent enormous
sums in improving the canals, and in maintaining
them in what — adverse critics notwithstanding — is
their present high state of efficiency, considering the
peculiarities of their position.

One of the greatest difficulties in the situation was
in regard to water supply. At Birmingham, portions
of the canal are 453 feet above ordnance datum ;
Wolverhampton, Wednesfield, Tipton, Dudley, and
Oldbury are higher still, for their elevation is 473
feet, while Walsall, Darlaston, and Wednesbury are
at a height of 408 feet. On high-lands like these

' In the evidence he gave before the Royal Commission on
Canals and Waterways on 21st March 1906, Sir Herbert Jekyll,
Assistant Secretary to the Board of Trade, said (as reported in The
Times of 22nd March) : — " One remarkable feature was notice-
able— that, although the tonnage carried rather increased than
diminished between 1838 and 1848, the receipts fell off enormously,
pointing to the conclusion that the railway competition had brought
about a large reduction in canal companies charges. It was also
noteworthy that on many canals the decrease in receipts had
continued out of all proportion to the decrease, if any, in the
tonnage carried.'^

v.] WATER SUPPLY 63

there are naturally no powerful streams, and such is
the lack of local water supplies that, as every one
knows, the city of Birmingham has recently had to
go as far as Wales in order to obtain sufficient water
to meet the needs of its citizens.

In these circumstances special efforts had to be
made to obtain water for the canals in the district,
and to ensure a due regard for economy in its use.
The canals have, in fact, had to depend to a certain
extent on water pumped from the bottom of coal pits
in the Black Country, and stored in reservoirs on the
top levels ; the water, also, temporarily lost each time
a canal boat passed through one of the many locks
in the district being pumped back to the top to be
used over again.

To this end pumping machinery had already been
provided by the old canal companies, but the London
and North-Western Railway Company, on taking
over the virtual direction of the canals for which they
were financially responsible, substituted new and
improved plant, and added various new pumping
stations. Thanks to the changes thus effected — at,
I need hardly say, very considerable cost — the average
amount of water now pumped from lower to higher
levels, during an average year, is 25,000,000 gallons
per day, equal to 1,000 locks of water. On occasions
the actual quantity dealt with is 50,000,000 gallons
per day, while the total capacity of the present pump-
ing machinery is equal to about 102,000,000 gallons,
or 4,080 locks, per day. There is absolutely no
doubt that, but for the special provisions made for
an additional water supply, the Birmingham Canal
would have had to cease operations altogether in
the summer of 1905 — probably for two months —
because of the shortage of water. The reservoirs

64 THE BIRMINGHAM CANAL [chap.

on the top level were practically empty, and it was
solely owing to the company acquiring new sources
of supply, involving a very substantial expenditure
indeed, that the canal system was kept going at all.
A canal company with no large financial resources
would inevitably have broken down under the strain.

Then the London and North- Western Company
are actively engaged in substituting new pumping
machinery — representing ^^all the latest improve-
ments " — for old, the special aim, here, being the
securing of a reduction of more than 50 per cent,
over the former cost of pumping. An expenditure
of from ;^ 1 5,000 to ;^ 1 6, 000 was, for example,
incurred by them so recently as 1905 at the Ocker
Hill pumping station. In this way the railway
company are seeking both to maintain the efficiency
of the canal and to reduce the heavy annual demands
made upon them in respect to the general cost of
operation and shareholders' dividend.

For reasons which will be indicated later on, it is
impossible to improve the Black Country canals on
any large scale ; but, in addition to what I have
already related, the London and North-Western
Railway Company are constantly spending money
on small improvements, such as dredging, widening
waterway under-bridges, taking off corners, and put-
ting in side walls in place of slopes, so as to give
more space for the boats. In the latter respect many
miles have been so treated, to the distinct betterment
of the canal.

All this heavy outlay by the railway company,
carried on for a series of years, is now beginning to
tell, to the advantage alike of the traders and of the
canal as a property, and if any scheme of State or
municipal purchase were decided on by the country

v.] MINING OPERATIONS 65

the various substantial items mentioned would
naturally have to be taken into account in making
terms.

Another feature of the Birmingham Canal system
is that it passes to a considerable extent through the
mining districts of the Black Country. This means,
in the first place, that wherever important works
have been constructed, as in the case of tunnels,
(and the system passes through a number of tunnels,
three of these being 3,172 yards, 3,027 yards, and
3,785 yards respectively in length) the mineral rights
underneath have to be bought up in order to avoid
subsidences. In one instance the railway company
paid no less than ;^28,5oo for the mining rights
underneath a short length (754 yards) of a canal
tunnel. In other words, this ;^28,5oo was practically
buried in the ground, not in order to work the
minerals, but with a view to maintain a secure
foundation for the canal. Altogether the expenditure
of the company in this one direction, and for this
one special purpose alone, in the Black Country
district, must amount by this time to some hundreds
of thousands of pounds.

Actual subsidences represent a great source of
trouble. There are some parts of the Birmingham
Canal where the waterway was originally constructed
on a level with the adjoining ground, but, as more
and more coal has been taken from the mines under-
neath, and especially as more and more of the ribs
of coal originally left to support the roof have been
removed, the land has subsided from time to time,
rendering necessary the raising of the canal. So far
has this gone that to-day the canal, at certain of these
points, instead of being on a level with the adjoining
ground, is on an embankment 30 feet above. Drops

I

66 THE BIRMINGHAM CANAL [chap.

of from ID to 20 feet are of frequent occurrence, even
with narrow canals, and the cost involved in repairs
and restoration is enormous, as the reader may well
suppose, considering that the total length of the
Birmingham Canal subject to subsidences from
mining is about 90 miles.

I come next to the point as to the comparative
narrowness of the Birmingham Canal system and
the small capacity of the locks — conditions, as we
are rightly told, which tell against the possibility of
through, or even local, traffic in a larger type of boat.
Such conditions as these are generally presented as
one of the main reasons why the control should be
transferred to the State, to municipalities, or to public
trusts, who, it is assumed, would soon get rid of them.

The reader must have fully realised by this time
that the original size of the waterways and locks
on the Birmingham Canal was determined by the
question of water supply. But any extensive scheme
of widening would involve much beyond the securing
of more water.

During the decades the Birmingham Canal has
been in existence important works of all kinds have
been built alongside its banks, not only in and
around Birmingham itself, but all through the Black
Country. There are parts of the canal where almost
continuous lines of such works on each side of the
canal, flush up to the banks or towing path, are to
be seen for miles together. Any general widening,
therefore, even of the main waterways, would involve
such a buying up, reconstruction of, or interference
with extremely valuable properties that the expendi-
ture involved — in the interests of a problematical
saving in canal tolls — would be alike prodigious and
prohibitive.

v.] WIDENING: TRAFFIC TO-DAY 67

There is the less reason for incurring such expendi-
ture when we consider the special purposes which the
canals of the district already serve, and, I may even
say, efficiently serve. The total traffic passing over
the Birmingham Canal system amounts to about
8,000,000 tons per annum, ^ and of this a considerable
proportion is collected for eventual transport by rail.
Every few miles along the canal in the Black Country
there is a '' railway-basin " put in either by the London
and North-Western Railway Company, who have had
the privilege of finding the money to keep the canal
going since 1874, or by the Great Western or the
Midland Railway Companies. Here, again, very
considerable expenditure has been incurred by the
railway companies in the provision alike of wharves,
cranes, sheds, etc., and of branch railways connecting
with the main lines of the company concerned. From
these railway-basins narrow boats are sent out to
works all over the district to collect iron, hardware,
tinplates, bricks, tiles, manufactured articles, and
general merchandise, and bring them in for loading
into the railway trucks alongside. So complete is
the network of canals, with their hundreds of small
^* special " branches, that for many of the local works
their only means of communication with the railway

^ In Mr Saner's paper the Birmingham Canal navigations are
classed among the " Independently-Owned Canals," and Mr Saner
says : — "There are 1,138 miles owned by railway companies, which
convey only 6,009,820 tons per annum, and produce a net profit
of only ^40 per mile of navigation. This," he adds, "appears
to afford clear proof that the railways do not attempt to make
the most of the canals under their control." But when the
Birmingham Canal, with its 8,000,000 tons of traffic a year, is
transferred (as it ought to be) from the independently-owned
to the railway-controlled canals, entirely different figures are
shown.

68 THE BIRMINGHAM CANAL [chap.

is by water, and the consignments are simply con-
veyed to the railway by canal boat, instead of, as
elsewhere, by collecting" van or road lorry.

The number of these railway-basins — the cost of
which is distinctly substantial — is constantly being
increased, for the traffic through them grows almost
from day to day.

The Great Western Railway Company, for example,
have already several large transhipping basins on
the canals of the Black Country. They have one
at Wolverhampton, and another at Tipton, only
5 miles away ; yet they have now decided to construct
still another, about half-way between the two. The
matter is thus referred to in the Great Western
Railway Magazine for March, 1906 : —

''The Directors have approved a scheme for an
extensive depot adjoining the Birmingham Canal at
Bilston, the site being advantageously central in the
town. It will comprise a canal basin and transfer shed,
sidings for over one hundred and twenty waggons,
and a loop for made-up trains. A large share of the
traffic of the district, mainly raw material and manu-
factured articles of the iron trade, will doubtless be
secured as a result of this important step — the
railway and canal mutually serving each other as
feeders."

The reader will see from this how the tendency,
even on canals that survive, is for the length of
haul to become shorter and shorter, so that the
receipts of the canal company from tolls may decline
even where there is no actual decrease in the weight
of the traffic handled.

In the event of State or municipal purchase being
resorted to, the expenditure on all these costly basins
and the works connected therewith would have to be

v.] THROUGH ROUTES 69

taken into consideration, equally with the pumping
machinery and general improvements, and, also,
the purchase of mining rights, already spoken of ;
but I fail to see what more either Government or
County Council control could, in the circumstances,
do for the Birmingham system than is being done
already. Far more for the purposes of maintenance
has been spent on the canal by the London and
North-Western Railway Company than had been so
spent by the canal company itself; and, although
a considerable amount of traffic arising in the district
does find its way down to the Mersey, the purpose
served by the canal is, and must necessarily be,
mainly a local one.

That Birmingham should becom.e a sort of half-
way stage on a continuous line of widened canals
across country from the Thames to the Mersey is
one of the most impracticable of dreams. Even if
there were not the question of the prodigious cost
that widenings of the Birmingham Canal would
involve, there would remain the equally fatal draw-
back of the elevation of Birmingham and Wolver-
hampton above sea level. In constructing a broad
cross-country canal, linking up the two rivers in
question, it would be absolutely necessary to avoid
alike Birmingham and the whole of the Black
Country. That city and district, therefore, would
gain no direct advantage from such a through route.
They would have to be content to send down their
commodities in the existing small boats to a lower
level, and there, in order to reach the Mersey,
connect with either the Shropshire Union Canal or
the Trent and Mersey. One of these two waterways
would certainly have to be selected for a widened
through route to the Mersey.

70 THE BIRMINGHAM CANAL [chap.

Assume that the former were decided upon, and
that, to meet the present-day agitation, the State,
or some Trust backed by State or local funds, bought
up the Shropshire Union, and resolved upon a
substantial widening of this particular waterway,
so as to admit of a larger type of boat and the
various other improvements now projected. In this
case the crux of the situation (apart from Birmingham
and Black Country conditions), would be the city of
Chester.

For a distance of \\ miles the Shropshire Union
Canal passes through the very heart of Chester.
Right alongside the canal one s^^s successively
very large flour mills or lead works, big ware-
houses, a school, streets which border it for some
distance, masses of houses, and, also, the old city
walls. At one point the existing canal makes
a bend that is equal almost to a right angle.
Here there would have to be a substantial clearance
if boats much larger than those now in use were to
get round so ugly a corner in safety. This bend,
too, is just where the canal goes underneath the
main lines of the London and North- Western and
the Great Western Railways, the gradients of which
would certainly have to be altered if it were desired
to employ larger boats.

The widening of the Shropshire Union Canal at
Chester would, in effect, necessitate a wholesale
destruction of, or interference with, valuable property
(even if the city walls were spared), and an expenditure
of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Such a thing
is clearly not to be thought of. The city of Chester
would have to be avoided by the through route from
the Midlands to the Mersey, just as the canals of
Birmingham and the Black Country would have to

v.] DIFFICULTIES AND DRAWBACKS 71

be avoided in a through route from the Thames.
If the Shropshire Union were still kept to, a new
branch canal would have to be constructed from
Waverton to connect again with the Shropshire
Union at a point half-way between Chester and
Ellesmere Port, leaving Chester in a neglected bend
on the south.

On this point as to the possibility of enlarging
the Shropshire Union Canal, I should like to
quote the following from some remarks made by
Mr G. R. Jebb, engineer to the Shropshire Union
Railways and Canal Company, in the discussion
on Mr Saner's paper at the Institution of Civil
Engineers : —

''As to the suggestion that the railway companies did
not consider it possible to make successful commercial
use of their canals in conjunction with their lines, and
that the London and North - Western Railway
Company might have improved the main line of
the Shropshire Union Canal between Ellesmere
Port and Wolverhampton, and thus have relieved
their already overburdened line, as a matter of fact
about twenty years ago he went cai'efully into the
question of enlarging that particular length of canal,
which formed the main line between the Midlands
and the sea. He drew up estimates and plans for
wide canals, of different cross sections, one of which
was almost identical with the cross section proposed
by Mr Saner. After very careful consideration with
a disposition to improve the canal if possible, it was
found that the cost of the necessary works would be
too heavy. Bridges of wide span and larger headway
— entailing approaches which could not be constructed
without destroying valuable property on either side —
new locks and hydraulic lifts would be required, and
a transhipping depot would have been necessary
where each of the narrow canals joined. The

72 THE BIRMINGHAM CANAL [chap.

company were satisfied, and he himself was satisfied,
that no reasonable return for that expenditure could
be expected, and therefore the work was not pro-
ceeded with. . . . He was satisfied that whoever
found the money for canal improvements would get
no fair return for it."

The adoption of the alternative route, via the Trent
and Mersey, would involve (i) locking-up to and
down a considerable summit, and (2) a continuous
series of widenings (except along the Weaver Canal),
the cost of which, especially in the towns of Stoke,
Etruria, Middlewich, and Northwich, would attain to
proportions altogether prohibitive.

The conclusion at which I arrive in regard to the
Birmingham Canal system is that it cannot be
directly included in any scheme of cross-country
waterways from river to river ; that by reason alike
of elevation, water supply, and the existence of a
vast amount of valuable property immediately along-
side, any general widening of the present system
of canals in the district is altogether impracticable ;
that, within the scope of their unavoidable limitations,
those particular canals already afford every reason-
able facility to the real requirements of the local
traders; that, instead of their having been ^^ strangled"
by the railways, they have been kept alive and in
operation solely and entirely because of the heavy
expenditure upon them by the London and North-
western Railway Company, following on conditions
which must inevitably have led to collapse (with
serious disadvantages to the traders dependent on
them for transport) if the control had remained with
an independent but impoverished canal company ;
and that very little, if anything, more — with due

v.] MORAL OF THE STORY 73

regard both for what is practical, and for the avoid-
ance of any waste of public money — could be done
than is already being done, even if State or muni-
cipal authorities made the costly experiment of trying
what they could do for them with their own 'prentice
hands.

K

CHAPTER VI

THE TRANSITION IN TRADE

Of the various causes which have operated to bring
about the comparative decay of the British canal system
(for, as already shown, there are sections that still
retain a certain amount of vitality), the most
important are to be found in the great changes
that have taken place in the general conditions of
trade, manufacture and commerce.

The tendency in almost every branch of business
to-day is for the trader to have small, or comparatively
small, stocks of any particular commodity, which he
can replenish speedily at frequent intervals as occasion
requires. The advantages are obvious. A smaller
amount of capital is locked up in any one article ; a
larger variety of goods can be dealt in ; less accommoda-
tion is required for storage ; and men with limited
means can enter on businesses which otherwise could
be undertaken only by individuals or companies
possessed of considerable resources. If a draper
or a grocer at Plymouth finds one afternoon that
he has run short of a particular article, he need
only telegraph to the wholesale house with which
he deals in London, and a fresh supply will be
delivered to him the following morning. A trader
in London who wanted something from Dublin, and
telegraphed for it one day, would expect as a matter

74

CHAP. VI.] SMALL LOTS, SHORT INTERVALS 75

of course to have it the next. What, again, would
a London shopkeeper be likely to say if, wanting
to replenish his limited stock with some Birmingham
goods, he was informed by the manufacturer : — *' We
are in receipt of your esteemed order, and are send-
ing the goods on by canal. You may hope to get
them in about a week"?

With a little wider margin in the matter of
delivery, the same principle applies to those trading
in, or requiring, raw materials — coal, steel, ironstone,
bricks, and so on. Merchants, manufacturers, and
builders are no more anxious than the average shop-
keeper to keep on hand stocks unnecessarily large,
and to have so much money lying idle. They
calculate the length of time that will be required
to get in more supplies when likely to be wanted,
and they work their business accordingly.

From this point of view the railway is far superior
to the canal in two respects, at least.

First, there is the question of speed. The value
of this factor was well recognised so far back as
1825, when, as I have told on page 25, Mr Sandars
related how speed and certainty of delivery were
regarded as ''of the first importance," and constituted
one of the leading reasons for the desired introduction
of railways. But speed and certainty of delivery
become absolutely essential when the margin in
regard to supplies on hand is habitually kept to a
working minimum. The saving in freight effected
as between, on the one hand, waiting at least several
days, if not a full week, for goods by canal boat,
and, on the other, receiving them the following day
by train, may be more than swallowed up by the
loss of profit or the loss of business in consequence
of the delay. If the railway transport be a little

76 THE TRANSITION IN TRADE [chap.

more costly than the canal transport, the difference
should be fully counterbalanced by the possibility
of a more rapid turnover, as well as the other
advantages of which I have spoken.

In cases, again, where it is not a matter of quickly
replenishing stocks but of effecting prompt delivery
even of bulky goods, time may be all-important.
This fact is well illustrated in a contribution, from
Birmingham, published in the '^ Engineering Supple-
ment" of The Times of February 14, 1906, in which
it was said : —

'* Makers of wheels, tires, axles, springs, and
similar parts are busy. Of late the South African
colonies have been larger buyers, while India and
the Far Eastern markets, including China and Japan,
South America, and some other shipping markets are
providing very good and valuable indents. In all
cases, it is especially remarked, very early execution
of contracts and urgent delivery is impressed by
buyers. The leading firms have learned a good deal
of late from German, American, Belgian, and other
foreign competitors in the matter of rapid output.
By the improvement of plant, the laying down of
new and costly machine tools, and by other advances
in methods of production, delivery is now made of
contracts of heavy tonnage within periods which not
so long ago would have been deemed by these same
producers quite impossible. In no branch of the
engineering trades is this expedition more apparent
than in the constructional engineering department,
such as bridges, roofs, etc., also in steam boiler
work."

Now where, in cases such as these, ^^ urgent
delivery is impressed by buyers," and the utmost
energy is probably being enforced on the workers,
is it likely that even the heavy goods so made

VI.] PROMPT DELIVERY 77

would be sent down to the port by the tediously
slow process of canal boat, taking, perhaps, as
many days as even a goods train would take hours?
Alternatively, would the manufacturers run the risk
of delaying urgent work by having the raw materials
delivered by canal boat in order to effect a small
saving on cost of transport?

Certainty of delivery might again be seriously
affected in the case of canal transport by delays
arising either from scarcity of water during dry
seasons, or from frost in winter. The entire stoppage
of a canal system, from one or other of these causes,
for weeks together, especially on high levels, is no
unusual occurrence, and the inconvenience which
would then result to traders who depended on the
canals is self-evident. In Holland, where most of
the goods traffic goes by the canals that spread as
a perfect network throughout the whole country, and
link up each town with every other town, the advent
of a severe frost means that the whole body of traffic
is suddenly thrown on the railways, which then have
more to get through than they can manage. Here
the problem arises : If waterways take traffic from
the railways during the greater part of the year,
should the railways still be expected to keep on
hand sufficient rolling stock, etc., not only for their
normal conditions, but to meet all the demands
made upon them during such periods as their
competitors cannot operate ?

There is an idea in some quarters that stoppage
from frost need not be feared in this country because,
under an improved system of waterways, measures
would be taken to keep the ice on the canals
constantly broken up. But even with this arrange-
ment there comes a time, during a prolonged frost,

78 THE TRANSITION IN TRADE [chap.

when the quantity of broken ice in the canal is so
great that navigation is stopped unless the ice itself
is removed from the water. Frost must, therefore,
still be reckoned with as a serious factor among the
possibilities of delay in canal transport.

Secondly, there is the question of quantities. For
the average trader the railway truck is a much more
convenient unit than the canal boat. It takes just
such amount as he may want to send or receive.
For some commodities the minimum load for which
the lowest railway rate is quoted is as little as 2 tons ;
but many a railway truck has been run through to
destination with a solitary consignment of not more
than half-a-ton. On the other hand, a vast pro-
portion of the consignments by rail are essentially
of the *^ small" type. From the goods depot at
Curzon Street, Birmingham, a total of 1,615 tons
dealt with, over a certain period, represented 6,110
consignments and 51,114 packages, the average
weight per consignment being 5 cwts. i qr. 4 lbs.,
and the average weight per package, 2 qrs. 14 lbs.
At the Liverpool goods depots of the London and
North- Western Railway, a total weight of 3,895 tons
handled consisted of 5,049 consignments and 79,513
packages, the average weight per consignment being
15 cwts. I qr. 20 lbs., and the average weight per
package 3 qrs. 26 lbs. From the depot at Broad
Street, London, 906 tons represented 6,201 con-
signments and 23,067 packages, with an average
weight per consignment of 2 cwts. 3 qrs. 19 lbs.,
and per package, 3 qrs. 4 lbs. ; and so on with
other important centres of traffic.

There is little room for doubt that a substantial
proportion of these consignments and packages con-
sisted partly of goods required by traders either

VI.] AVERAGE CONSIGNMENTS 79

to replenish their stocks, or, as in the case of
tailors and dressmakers, to enable them to execute
particular orders ; and partly of commodities
purchased from traders, and on their way to the
customers. In regard to the latter class of goods,
it is a matter of common knowledge that there
has been an increasing tendency of late years to
eliminate the middleman, and establish direct trad-
ing between producer and consumer. Just as the
small shopkeeper will purchase from the manu-
facturer, and avoid the wholesale dealer, so, also,
there are individual householders and others who
eliminate even the shopkeeper, and deal direct
with advertising manufacturers willing to supply to
them the same quantities as could be obtained
from a retail trader.

For trades and businesses conducted on these lines,
the railway — taking and delivering promptly con-
signments great or small, penetrating to every part
of the country, and supplemented by its own com-
modious warehouses, in which goods can be stored
as desired by the trader pending delivery or ship-
ment— is a far more convenient mode of transport
than the canal boat ; and to the railway the perfect
revolution that has been brought about in the
general trade of this country is mainly due.
Business has been simplified, subdivided, and
brought within the reach of ''small" men to an
extent that, but for the railway, would have been
impossible ; and it is difficult to imagine that
traders in general will forego all these advantages
now, and revert once more to the canal boat,
merely for the sake of a saving in freight which,
in the long run, might be no saving at all.

Here it may be replied by my critics that there

8o THE TRANSITION IN TRADE [chap.

is no idea of reviving canals in the interests of the
general trader, and that all that is sought is to
provide a cheaper form of transport for those heavier
or bulkier minerals or commodities which, it is
said, can be carried better and more economically
by water than by rail.

Now this argument implies the admission that
canal resuscitation, on a national basis, or at the
risk more or less of the community, is to be effected,
not for the general trader, but for certain special
classes of traders. As a matter of fact, however,
such canal traffic as exists to-day is by no means
limited to heavy or bulky articles. In their earlier
days canal companies simply provided a water-
road, as it were, along which goods could be taken
by other persons on payment of certain tolls. To
enable them to meet better the competition of the
railways, Parliament granted to the canal com-
panies, in 1846, the right to become common carriers
as well, and, though only a very small proportion
of them took advantage of this concession, those
that did are indebted in part to the transport of
general merchandise for such degree of prosperity
as they have retained. The separate firms of canal
carriers (*' by-traders") have adopted a like policy,
and, notwithstanding the changes in trade of which
I have spoken, a good deal of general merchandise
does go by canal to or from places that happen to
be situated in the immediate vicinity of the water-
ways. It is extremely probable that if some of the
canals which have survived had depended entirely
on the transport of heavy or bulky commodities,
their financial condition to-day would have been
even worse than it really is.

But let us look somewhat more closely into this

VI.] HEAVY GOODS 8i

theory that canals are better adapted than railways
for the transport of minerals or heavy merchandise,
calling for the payment of a low freight. At the
first glance such a commodity as coal would claim
special attention from this point of view ; yet here
one soon learns that not only have the railways
secured the great bulk of this traffic in fair and
open competition with the canals, but there is no
probability of the latter taking it away from them
again to any appreciable extent.

Some interesting facts in this connection were
mentioned by the late Sir James Allport in the
evidence he gave before the Select Committee on
Canals in 1883. Not a yard, he said, of the series
of waterways between London and Derbyshire,
Nottinghamshire, part of Staffordshire, Warwick-
shire and Leicestershire — counties which included
some of the best coal districts in England for
supplying the metropolis — was owned by railway
companies, yet the amount of coal carried by
canal to London had steadily declined, while that
by rail had enormously increased. To prove this
assertion, he took the year 1852 as one when there
was practically no competition on the part of the
railways with the canals for the transport of coal,
and he compared therewith the year 1882, giving
for each the total amount of coal received by canal
and railway respectively, as follows : —

1852 1882

Received by canal 33,000 tons 7,900 tons
,, ,, railway 317,000 ,, 6,546,000 ,,

The figures quoted by Sir James Allport were
taken from the official returns in respect to the
dues formerly levied by the City of London and the

L

82

THE TRANSITION IN TRADE [chap.

late Metropolitan Board of Works on all coal
coming within the Metropolitan Police Area, repre-
senting a total of 700 square miles ; though at an
earlier period the district in which the dues were
enforced was that included in a 20-mile radius. The
dues were abolished in 1889, and since then the
statistics in question have no longer been compiled.
But the returns for 1889 show that the imports of
coal, by railway and by canal respectively, into the
Metropolitan Police Area for that year were as
follows : —

BY RAILWAY

Tons.

Cwts

Midland

2,647,554

0

London and North-Western

1,735,067

13

Great Northern

1,360,205

0

Great Eastern

1,077,504

13

Great Western

940,829

0

London and South-Western

81,311

2

South-Eastern

27,776

18

Total by Railway

7,870,248

6

BY CANAL

Grand Junction

12,601

15

Difference ....

7,857,646

II

If, therefore, the independent canal companies,
having a waterway from the colliery district of the
Midlands and the North through to London (without,
as already stated, any section thereof being controlled
by railway companies), had improved their canals,
and doubled, trebled, or even quadrupled the quantity
of coal they carried in 1889, their total would still
have been insignificant as compared with the quantity
conveyed by rail.

The reasons for this transition in the London coal

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VI.] LONDON COAL TRADE 83

trade (and the same general principle applies else-
where) can be readily stated. They are to be found
in the facilities conferred by the railway companies,
and the great changes that, as the direct result
thereof, have taken place in the coal trade itself.
Not only are most of the collieries in communication
with the railways, but the coal waggons are generally
so arranged alongside the mouth of each pit that
the coal, as raised, can be tipped into them direct
from the screens. Coal trains, thus made up, are
next brought to certain sidings in the neighbour-
hood of London, where the waggons await the orders
of the coal merchants to whom they have been con-
signed. At Willesden, for example, there is special
accommodation for 2,000 coal waggons, and the
sidings are generally full. Liberal provision of a
like character has also been made in London by
the Midland, the Great Northern, and other railway
companies in touch with the colliery districts. An
intimation as to the arrival of the consignments is
sent by the railway company to the coal merchant,
who, in London, is allowed three "free" days at
these coal sidings in which to give instructions
where the coal is to be sent. After three days he
is charged the very modest sum of 6d. per day
per truck. Assuming that the coal merchant gives
directions, either within the three days or later, for
a dozen trucks, containing particular qualities of coal,
to be sent to different parts of London, north, south,
east and west, those dozen trucks will have to be
picked out from the one or two thousand on the
sidings, shunted, and coupled on to trains going
through to the stated destination. This represents
in itself a considerable amount of work, and special
staffs have to be kept on duty for the purpose.

84 THE TRANSITION IN TRADE [chap.

Then, at no fewer than one hundred and thirty-five
railway stations in London and the suburbs thereof,
the railway companies have provided coal depots on
such vacant land as may be available close to the local
sidings, and here a certain amount of space is allotted
to the use of coal merchants. For this accommoda-
tion no charge whatever is made in London, though
a small rent has to be paid in the provinces. The
London coal merchant gets so many feet, or yards,
allotted to him on the railway property ; he puts
up a board with his name, or that of his firm ; he
stores on the said space the coal for which he has
no immediate sale ; and he sends his men there to
fetch from day to day just such quantities as he
wants in order to execute the orders received. With
free accommodation such as this at half a dozen, or
even a score, of suburban railway stations, all that
the coal merchant of to-day requires in addition is
a diminutive little office immediately adjoining each
railway station, where orders can be received, and
whence instructions can be sent. Not only, also, do
the railway companies provide him with a local coal
depot which serves his every purpose, but, after
allowing him three *^free" days on the great coal
sidings, to which the waggons first come, they
give him, on the local sidings, another seven
*^free" days in which to arrange his business. He
thus gets ten clear days altogether, before any charge
is made for demurrage, and, if then he is still await-
ing orders, he has only to have the coal removed from
the trucks on to the depot, or ^* wharf" as it is
technically called, so escaping any payment beyond
the ordinary railway rate, in which all these privileges
and advantages are included.

If canal transport were substituted for rail transport.

VI.] COAL BY RAIL AND CANAL 85

the coal would first have to be taken from the mouth
of the pit to the canal, and, inasmuch as comparatively
few collieries (except in certain districts) have canals
immediately adjoining, the coal would have to go
by rail to the canal, unless the expense were incurred
of cutting a branch of the canal to the colliery — a
much more costly business, especially where locks are
necessary, than laying a railway siding. At the
canal the coal would be tipped from the railway truck
into the canal boat,^ which would take it to the canal
terminus, or to some wharf or basin on the canal
banks. There the coal would be thrown up from the
boat into the wharf (in itself a more laborious and more
expensive operation than that of shovelling it down,
or into sacks on the same level, from a railway
waggon), and from the wharf it would have to be
carted, perhaps several miles, to final destination.

LTnder this arrangement the coal would receive
much more handling — and each handling means so
much additional slack and depreciation in value ; a
week would have to be allowed for a journey now
possible in a day ; the coal dealers would have to
provide their own depots and pay more for cartage, and
they would have to order particular kinds of coal by
the boat load instead of by the waggon load.

This last necessity would alone suffice to render the
scheme abortive. Some years ago when there was
so much discussion as to the use of a larger size of
railway waggon, efforts were made to induce the coal
interests to adopt this policy. But the 8-ton truck was
so convenient a unit, and suited so well the essentially

1 The fact that coal tipped into a canal boat would have a
longer drop than coal falling from the colliery screen into railway
waggons is important because of the greater damage done to the
coal, and the consequent decrease in value.

86 THE TRANSITION IN TRADE [chap.

retail nature of the coal trade to-day, that as a rule the
coal merchants would have nothing to do with trucks
even of 15 or 20 tons. Much less, therefore, would
they be inclined to favour barge loads of 200 or 250
tons.

Exceptions might be made in the case of gas works,
or of factories already situated alongside the banks of
canals which have direct communication with collieries.
In the Black Country considerable quantities of coal
thus go by canal from the collieries to the many local
ironworks, etc., which, as I have shown, are still
actively served by the Birmingham Canal system.
But these exceptions can hardly be offered as an
adequate reason for the nationalisation of British
canals. The general conditions, and especially the
nature of the coal trade transition, will be better
realised from some figures mentioned by the chairman
of the London and North- Western Railway Company,
LordStalbridge, at the half-yearly meeting in February
1903. Notwithstanding the heavy coal traffic — in
the aggregate — the average consignment of coal, he
showed, on the London and North- Western Railway
is only 17J tons, and over 80 per cent, of the total
quantity carried represents consignments of less than
20 tons, the actual weights ranging from lots of 2 tons
14 cwts. to close upon 1,000 tons for shipment.

''But," the reader may say, "if coal is taken in
i,ooo-ton lots to a port for shipment, surely canal
transport could be resorted to here ! " This course is
adopted on the Aire and Calder Navigation, which is
very favourably situated, and goes over almost
perfectly level ground. The average conditions of
coal shipment in the United Kingdom are, however,
much better met by the special facilities which rail
transport offers.

vi.] COAL FOR SHIPMENT 87

Of the way in which coal is loaded into railway
trucks direct from the colliery screens I have already
spoken ; but, in respect to steam coal, it should be
added that anthracite is sold in about twelve different
sizes, and that one colliery will make three or four
of these sizes, each dropped into separate trucks
under the aforesaid screens. The output of an
anthracite colliery would be from 200 to 300 tons a
day, in the three or four sizes, as stated, this total
being equal to from 20 to 30 truck-loads. An order
received by a coal factor for 2,000 or 3,000 tons of a
particular size would, therefore, have to be made up
with coal from a number of different collieries.

The coal, however, is not actually sold at the
collieries. It is sent down to the port, and there it
stands about for weeks, and sometimes for months,
awaiting sale or the arrival of vessels. It must
necessarily be on the spot, so that orders can be
executed with the utmost expedition, and delays to
shipping avoided. Consequently it is necessary that
ample accommodation should be provided at the
port for what may be described as the coal-in-waiting.
At Newport, for example, where about 4,000,000 tons
of coal are shipped in the course of the year (inde-
pendently of '^bunkers,") there are 50 miles of coal
sidings, capable of accommodating from 40,000 to
50,000 tons of coal sent there for shipment. A record
number of loaded coal trucks actually on these sidings
at any one time is 3,716. The daily average is 2,800.

Now assume that the coal for shipment from
Newport had been brought there by canal boat.
To begin with, it would have been first loaded, by
means of the colliery screens, into railway trucks,
taken in these to the canal, and then tipped into
the boats. This would mean further breakage, and.

88 THE TRANSITION IN TRADE [chap.

in the case of steam coal especially, a depreciation
in value. But suppose that the coal had duly
arrived at the port in the canal boats, where
would it be stored for those weeks and months to
await sale or vessels? Space for miles of sidings
on land can easily be found ; but the water area in
a canal or dock in which barges can wait is limited,
and, in the case of Newport at least, it would hardly
be equal to the equivalent of 3,000 truck-loads of
coal.

There comes next the important matter of detail
as to the way in which coal brought to a port is to
be shipped. Nothing could be simpler and more
expeditious than the practice generally adopted in
the case of rail-borne coal. When a given quantity
of coal is to be despatched, the vessel is brought
alongside a hydraulic coal-tip, such as that shown
in the illustration facing this page, and the loaded
coal trucks are placed in succession underneath the
tip. Raised one by one to the level of the shoot,
the trucks are there inclined to such an angle that
the entire contents fall on to the shoot, and thence
into the hold of the ship. Brought to the horizontal
again, the empty truck passes on to a viaduct, down
which it goes, by gravitation, back to the sidings,
the place it has vacated on the tip being at once
taken by another loaded truck.

Substitute coal barges for coal trucks, and how
will the loading then be accomplished? Under any
possible circumstances it would take longer to put
a series of canal barges alongside a vessel in the
dock than to place a series of coal trucks under the
tip on shore. Nor could the canal barge itself be
raised to the level of a shoot, and have its contents
tipped bodily into the collier. What was done in

THE SHIPPING OF COAL: HYDRAULIC TIP ON G.W.K., SWANSEA.

The loaded truck is hoisted to level of shoot, and is there inclined to necessary angle
to "tip" the coal, which falls from shoot into hold of vessel. Empty truck
passes by gravitation along viaduct, on left, to sidings.)

[To face page 88.

i

VI.] LOADING PROBLEMS 89

the South Wales district by one colliery some years
ago was to load up a barge with iron tubs, or
boxes, filled with coal, and placed in pairs from
end to end. In dock one of these would be lifted
out of the barge by a crane, and lowered into the
hold, where the bottom would be knocked out, the
emptied tub being then replaced in the barge by
the crane, and the next one to it raised in turn.
But, apart from the other considerations already
presented, this system of shipment was found more
costly than the direct tipping of railway trucks, and
was consequently abandoned.

Although, therefore, in theory coal would appear
to be an ideal commodity for transport by canal, in
actual practice it is found that rail transport is both
more convenient and more economical, and certainly
much better adapted to the exigences of present day
trade in general, in the case alike of domestic coal
and of coal for shipment. Whether or not the country
would be warranted in going to a heavy expense
for canal resuscitation for the special benefit of a
limited number of traders having works or factories
alongside canal banks is a wholly different question.

I take next the case of raw cotton as another bulky
commodity carried in substantial quantities. At one
time it was the custom in the Lancashire spinning
trade for considerable supplies to be bought in
Liverpool, taken to destination by canal, and stored
in the mills for use as required. A certain propor-
tion is still handled in this way ; but the Lancashire
spinners who now store their cotton are extremely
few in number, and represent the exception rather
than the rule. It is found much more convenient to
receive from Liverpool from day to day by rail the
exact number of bales required to meet immediate

M

90 THE TRANSITION IN TRADE [chap.

wants. The order can be sent, if necessary, by
post, telegraph, or telephone, and the cotton may be
expected at the mill next day, or as desired. If
barge-loads of cotton were received at one time,
capital would at least have to be sunk in providing
warehousing accommodation, and the spinner thinks
he can make better use of his money.

The day -by -day arrangement is thus both a
convenience and a saving to the trader ; though it
has one disadvantage from a railway standpoint, for
cotton consignments by rail are, as a rule, so small
that there is difficulty in making up a ^* paying
load" for particular destinations. As the further
result of the agitation a few years ago for the use
of a larger type of railway waggons, experiments
have been made at Liverpool with large trucks for
the conveyance especially of raw cotton. But, owing
to the day-by-day policy of the spinners, it is no
easy matter to make up a 20-ton truck of cotton
for many of the places to which consignments are
sent, and the shortage in the load represents so
much dead weight. Consignments ordered forward
by rail must, however, be despatched wholly, or at
any rate in part, on day of receipt. Any keeping
of them back, with the idea of thus making up a
better load for the railway truck, would involve the
risk of a complaint, if not of a claim, against the
railway company, on the ground that the mill had
had to stop work owing to delay in the arrival of
the cotton.

If the spinners would only adopt a two- or three-
days-together policy, it would be a great advantage
to the railways ; but even this might involve the
provision of storage accommodation at the mills, and
they accordingly prefer the existing arrangement.

VI.] RAW COTTON, BRICKS, ETC. 91

What hope could there be, therefore, except under
very special circumstances, that they would be willing
to change their procedure, and receive their raw
cotton in bulk by canal boat?

Passing on to other heavy commodities carried in
large quantities, such as bricks, stone, drain-pipes,
manure, or road-making materials, it is found, in
practice, that unless both the place whence these
things are despatched and the place where they are
actually wanted are close to a waterway, it is
generally more convenient and more economical to
send by rail. The railway truck is not only (once
more) a better unit in regard to quantity, but, as in
the case of domestic coal, it can go to any railway
station, and can often be brought miles nearer to the
actual destination than if the articles or materials in
question are forwarded by water ; while the addition
to the canal toll of the cost of cartage at either end,
or both, may swell the total to the full amount of the
railway rate, or leave so small a margin that con-
veyance by rail, in view of the other advantages
offered, is naturally preferred. Here we have further
reasons why commodities that seem to be specially
adapted for transport by canal so often go by rail
instead.

There are manufacturers, again, who, if executing
a large shipping order, would rather consign the
goods, as they are ready, to a railway warehouse at
the port, there to await shipment, than occupy
valuable space with them on their own premises.
Assuming that it might be possible and of advantage
to forward to destination by canal boat, they would
still prefer to send off 25 or 30 tons at a time, in
a narrow boat (and 25 to 30 tons would represent
a big lot in most industries), rather than keep

92 THE TRANSITION IN TRADE [chap. vi.

everything back (with the incidental result of block-
ing up the factory) until, in order to save a little
on the freight, they could fill up a barge of 20Q or
300 tons.

So the moral of this part of my story is that, even
if the canals of the country were thoroughly revived,
and made available for large craft, there could not be
any really great resort to them unless there were,
also, brought about a change in the whole basis of
our general trading conditions.

CHAPTER VII

CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS

The larger proportion of the arguments advanced in
the Press or in public in favour of a restoration of
our own canal system is derived from the statements
which are unceasingly being made as to what our
neighbours on the Continent of Europe are doing.

Almost every writer or speaker on the subject
brings forward the same stock of facts and figures as
to the large sums of money that are being expended
on waterways in Continental countries ; the conten-
tion advanced being, in effect, that because such
and such things are done on the Continent of
Europe, therefore they ought to be done here. In
the *^ Engineering Supplement" of The Times ^ for
instance — to give only one example out of many —
there appeared early in 1906 two articles on ** Belgian
Canals and Waterways " by an engineering con-
tributor who wrote, among other things, that, in
view of '^the well-directed efforts now being made
with the object of effecting the regeneration of the
British canal system, the study of Belgian canals
and other navigable waterways possesses distinct
interest " ; and declared, in concluding his account
thereof, that ''if the necessary powers, money, and
concentrated effort were available, there is little doubt
that equally satisfactory results could be obtained in

93

94 CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS [chap.

Great Britain." Is this really the case? Could we
possibly hope to do all that can be done either in
Belgium or in Continental countries generally, even
if we had the said powers and money, and showed
the same concentrated effort? For my part I do not
think we could, and these are my reasons for thinking
so : —

Taking geographical considerations first, a glance
at the map of Europe will show that, apart from
their national requirements, enterprises, and facilities,
Germany, Belgium, and Holland are the gateways
to vast expanses producing, or receiving, very large
quantities of merchandise and raw materials, much
of which is eminently suitable for water transport
on long journeys that have absolutely no parallel
in this country. In the case of Belgium, a good
idea of the general position may be gained from
some remarks made by the British Consul-General
at Antwerp, Sir E. Cecil Hertslet, in a report
(^* Miscellaneous Series," 604) on *' Canals and other
Navigable Waterways of Belgium," issued by the
Foreign Office in 1904. Referring to the position
of Antwerp he wrote : —

^^ In order to form a clear idea of the great utility
of the canal system of Belgium, it is from its heart,
from the great port of Antwerp, as a centre, that
the survey must be taken. . . . Antwerp holds a
leading position among the great ports of the world,
and this is due, not only to her splendid geographical
situation at the centre of the ocean highways of
commerce, but, also, and perhaps more particularly,
to her practically unique position as a distributing
centre for a large portion of North-Eastern Europe."

Thus the canals and waterways of Belgium do
not serve merely local, domestic, or national purposes,

VII.] INTERNATIONAL TRAFFIC 95

but represent the first or final links in a network of
water communications by means of which merchan-
dise can be taken to, or brought from, in bulk, ^^a
large portion of North-Eastern Europe." Much of
this traffic, again, can just as well pass through
one Continental country, on its way to or from the
coast, as through another. In fact, some of the
most productive of German industrial centres are
much nearer to Antwerp or Rotterdam than they
are to Hamburg or Bremen. Hence the extremely
keejn rivalry between Continental countries having
ports on the North Sea for the capture of these
great volumes of trans-Continental traffic, and hence,
also, their low transport rates, and, to a certain extent,
their large expenditure on waterways.

Comparing these with British conditions, we must
bear in mind the fact that we dwell in a group
of islands, and not in a country which forms part
of a Continent. We have, therefore, no such transit
traffic available for ^' through " barges as that which
is handled on the Continent. Traffic originating in
Liverpool, and destined say, for Austria, would not
be put in a canal boat which w^ould first go to Goole,
or Hull, then cross the North Sea in the same boat
to Holland or Belgium, and so on to its destination.
Nor would traffic in bulk from the United States
for the Continent — or even for any of our East Coast
ports — be taken by boat across England. It would
go round by sea. Traffic, again, originating in
Birmingham, might be taken to a port by boat.
But it would there require transhipment into an
ocean-going vessel, just as the commodities received
from abroad would have to be transferred to a canal
boat — unless Birmingham could be converted into a
sea-port.

96 CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS [chap.

If Belgium and Holland, especially, had had no
chance of getting more than local, as distinct from
through or transit traffic — if, in other words, they
had been islands like our own, with the same geo-
graphical limitations as ourselves, and with no trans-
Continental traffic to handle, is there the slightest
probability that they would have spent anything
like the same amount of money on the development
of their waterways as they have actually done? In
the particular circum 'Stances of their position they
have acted wisely ; but it does not necessarily follow
that we, in wholly different circumstances, have acted
foolishly in not following their example.

It might further be noted, in this connection, that
while in the case of Belgium all the waterways in,
or leading into, the country converge to the one
great port of Antwerp, in England we have great
ports, competing more or less the one with the other,
all round our coasts, and the conferring of special
advantages on one by the State would probably
be followed by like demands on the part of all the
others. As for communication between our different
ports, this is maintained so effectively by coasting
vessels (the competition of which already powerfully
influences railway rates) that heavy expenditure on
canal improvement could hardly be justified on this
account. However effectively the Thames might be
joined to the Mersey, or the Humber to the Severn,
by canal, the vast bulk of port-to-port traffic would
probably still go by sea.

Then there are great differences between the physical
conditions of Great Britain and those parts of the
Continent of Europe where the improvement of
waterways has undergone the greatest expansion.
Portions of Holland — as everybody knows — are

VII.] PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES 97

below the level of the sea, and the remainder are
not much above it. A large part of Belgium is
flat ; so is most of Northern Germany. In fact
there is practically a level plain right away from
the shores of the North Sea to the steppes of Russia.
Canal construction in these conditions is a com-
paratively simple and a comparatively inexpensive
matter ; though where such conditions do not exist
to the same extent — as in the south of Germany,
for example — the building of canals becomes a very
different problem. This fact is well recognised by
Herr Franz Ulrich in his book on ^ ^ Staffeltarife und
Wasserstrassen," where he argues that the building
of canals is practicable only in districts favoured by
Nature, and that hilly and backward country is thus
unavoidably handicapped.

Much, again, of the work done on the Continent
has been a matter either of linking up great rivers
or of canalising these for navigation purposes. We
have in England no such rivers as the Rhine, the
Weser, the Elbe, and the Oder, but the very essence
of the German scheme of waterways is to connect
these and other rivers by canals, a through route by
water being thus provided from the North Sea to
the borders of Russia. Further south there is already
a small canal, the Ludwigs Canal, connecting the
Rhine and the Danube, and this canal — as distinct
from those in the northern plains — certainly does rise
to an elevation of 600 feet from the River Main to
its summit level. A scheme has now been projected
for establishing a better connection between the
Rhine and the Danube by a ship canal following
the route either of the Main or of the Neckar. In
describing these two powerful streams Professor
Meiklejohn says, in his *' New Geography": —

N

98 CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS [chap.

^*The two greatest rivers of Europe — greatest from
almost every point of view — are the Danube and the
Rhine. The Danube is the largest river in Europe
in respect of its volume of water ; it is the only large
European river that iflows due east ; and it is therefore
the great highway to the East for South Germany,
for Austria, for Hungary, and for the younger nations
in its valley. It flows through more lands, races, and
languages than any other European river. The Rhine
is the great water-highway for Western Europe ; and
it carries the traffic and ^he travellers of many countries
and peoples. Both streams give life to the whole
Continent ; they join many countries and the most
varied interests ; while the streams of France exist
only for France itself. The Danube runs parallel
with the mighty ranges of the Alps ; the Rhine
saws its way through the secondary highlands which
lie between the Alps and the Netherlands."

The construction of this proposed link would give
direct water communication between the North Sea
and the Black Sea, a distance, as the crow flies, and
not counting river windings, of about 1,300 miles.
Such an achievement as this would put entirely in
the shade even the present possible voyage, by canal
and river, of 300 miles from Antwerp to Strasburg.

What are our conditions in Great Britain, as against
all these?

In place of the ^' great lowland plain" in which
most of the Continental canal work we hear so much
about has been done, we possess an undulating
country whose physical conditions are well indicated
by the canal sections given opposite this page. Such
differences of level as those that are there shown
must be overcome by locks, lifts, or inclined planes,
together with occasional tunnels or viaducts. In the
result the construction of canals is necessarily much

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VII.] WATER-HIGHWAYS 99

more costly in Great Britain than on the aforesaid
^* great lowland plain" of Continental Europe, and
dimensions readily obtainable there become practi-
cally impossible here on account alike of the pro-
hibitive cost of construction and the difficulties that
would arise in respect to water supply. A canal
connecting the Rhine, the Weser, and the Elbe, in
Germany, is hardly likely to run short of water,
and the same may be said of the canals in Holland,
and of those in the lowlands of Belgium. This is
a very different matter from having to pump water
from low levels to high levels, to fill reservoirs for
canal purposes, as must be done on the Birmingham
and other canals, or from taking a fortnight to accom-
plish the journey from Hull to Nottingham as once
happened owing to insufficiency of water.

There is, also, that very important consideration,
from a transport standpoint, of the ^'length of haul."
Assuming, for the sake of argument (i) that the
commercial conditions were the same in Great
Britain as they are on the Continent ; (2) that
our country, also, consisted of a ''great lowland
plain " ; and (3) that we, as well, had great natural
waterways, like the Rhine, yielding an abundant
water supply ; — assuming all this, it would still be
impossible, in the circumscribed dimensions of our
isles, to get a '' length of haul " in any way approach-
ing the barge-journeys that are regularly made
between, say, North Sea ports and various centres
in Germany.

The geographical differences in general between
Great Britain and Continental countries were thus
summed up by Mr W. H. Wheeler in the discussion
on Mr Saner's paper at the Institution of Civil
Engineers : —

loo CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS [chap.

** There really did not seem to be any justifica-
tion for Government interference with the canals.
England was in an entirely different situation from
Continental countries. She was a sea-girt nation,
with no less than eight first-class ports on a coast-
line of 1,820 miles. Communication between these
by coasting steamers was, therefore, easy, and could
be accomplished in much less time and at less cost
than by canal. There was no large manufacturing
town in England that was more than about 80 miles
in a direct line from a first-class seaport ; and taking
the country south of the Firth of Forth, there were
only 42^ square miles to each mile of coast. France,
on the other hand, had only two first-class ports, one
in the north and the other in the extreme south, over
a coast-line of 1,360 miles. Its capital was 100 miles
from the nearest seaport, and the towns in the centre
of the country were 250 to 300 miles from either
Havre or Marseilles. For every mile of coast-line
there were 162 square miles of country. Belgium
had one large seaport and only 50 miles of coast-
line, with 227 square miles of country to every square
mile. Germany had only two first-class ports, both
situated on its northern coast ; Frankfort and Berlin
were distant from those ports about 250 miles, and
for every mile of coast-line there were 231 square
miles of country. The necessity of an extended
system of inland waterways for the distribution of
produce and materials was, therefore, far more im-
portant in those countries than it was in England."

Passing from commercial and geographical to
political conditions, we find that in Germany the
State owns or controls alike railways and waterways.
Prussia bought up most of the former, partly with
the idea of safeguarding the protective policy of the
country (endangered by the low rates charged on
imports by independent railway companies), and
partly in order that the Government could secure,

VII.] POSITION IN GERMANY loi

in the profits on railway operation, a source of
income independent of Parliamentary votes. So
well has the latter aim been achieved that a con-
tribution to the Exchequer of from ;^io,ooo,ooo to
;^ 1 5,000,000 a year has been obtained, and, rather
than allow this source of income to be checked by
heavy expenditure, the Prussian Government have
refrained from carrying out such widenings and
improvements of their State system of railways as
a British or an American railway company would
certainly have adopted in like circumstances, and
have left the traders to find relief in the waterways
instead. The increased traffic the waterways of
Germany are actually getting is mainly traffic which
has either been diverted from the railways, or would
have been handled by the railways in other countries
in the natural course of their expansion. Whatever
may be the case with the waterways, the railways
of Prussia, especially, are comparatively unprogres-
sive, and, instead of developing through traffic at
competitive rates, they are reverting more and more
to the original position of railways as feeders to the
waterways. They get a short haul from place of
origin to the waterway, and another short haul,
perhaps, from waterway again to final destination ;
but the greater part of the journey is done by water.
These conditions represent one very material
factor in the substantial expansion of water-borne
traffic in Germany — and most of that traffic, be it
remembered, has been on great rivers rather than
on artificial canals. The latter are certainly being
increased in number, especially, as I have said,
where they connect the rivers ; and the Government
are the more inclined that the waterways should be
developed because then there will be less need for

I02 CONTINENTAL. CONDITIONS [chap.

spending money on the railways, and for any
interference with the ^'revenue-producing machine"
which those railways represent.

In France the railways owned and operated by the
State are only a comparatively small section of the
whole ; but successive Governments have advanced
immense sums for railway construction, and the
State guarantees the dividends of the companies ;
while in France as in Germany railway rates are
controlled absolutely by the State. In neither
country is there free competition between rail and
water transport. If there were, the railways would
probably secure a much greater proportion of the
traffic than they do. Still another consideration to
be borne in mind is that although each country
has spent great sums of money — at the cost of the
general taxpayer — on the provision of canals or the
improvement of waterways, no tolls are, with few
exceptions, imposed on the traders. The canal
charges include nothing but actual cost of carriage,
-whereas British railway rates may cover various
other services, in addition, and have to be fixed on
a scale that will allow of a great variety of charges
and obligations being met. Not only, both in
Germany and France, may the waterway be con-
structed and improved by the State, but the State
also meets the annual expenditure on dredging,
lighting, superintendence and the maintenance of
inland harbours. Here we have further reasons
for the growth of the water-borne traffic on the
Continent.

Where the State, as railway owner or railway
subsidiser, spends money also on canals, it competes
only, to a certain extent, with itself; but this would
be a very different position from State-owned or

VII.] NO REAL COMPARISON 103

State-supported canals in this country competing
with privately-owned railways.^

If then, as I maintain is the case, there is
absolutely no basis for fair comparison between
Continental and British conditions — whether com-
mercial, geographical, or political — we are left to
conclude that the question of reviving British canals
must be judged and decided strictly from a British
standpoint, and subject to the limitations of British
policy, circumstances, and possibilities.

^ Fuller information respecting traffic conditions in Continental
countries will be found in my book on " Railways and Their Rates."

CHAPTER VIII

WATERWAYS IN THE UNITED STATES

In some respects conditions in the United States
compare with those of Continental Europe, for they
suggest alike powerful streams, artificial canals
constructed on (as a rule) flat or comparatively flat
surfaces, and the possibilities of traffic in large
quantities for transport over long distances before
they can reach a seaport. In other respects the
comparison is less with Continental than with
British conditions, inasmuch as, for the last half
century at least, the American railways have been
free to compete with the waterways, and fair play
has been given to the exercise of economic forces,
with the result that, in the United States as in the
United Kingdom, the railways have fully established
their position as the factors in inland transport
best suited to the varied requirements of trade
and commerce of to-day, while the rivers and
canals (I do not here deal with the Great Lakes,
which represent an entirely different proposition)
have played a role of steadily diminishing
importance.

The earliest canal built in the United States was

104

CHAP. VIII.] THE ERIE CANAL 105

that known as the Erie Canal. It was first pro-
jected in 1768, with the idea of establishing a
through route by water between Lake Erie and the
River Hudson at Albany, whence the boats or
barges employed would be able to reach the port
of New York. The Act for its construction was
not passed, however, by the Provincial Legislature
of the State of New York until 181 7. The canal
itself was opened for traffic in 1825. It had a total
length from Cleveland to Albany of 364 miles,
included therein being some notable engineering
work in the way of aqueducts, etc.

At the date in question there were four North
Atlantic seaports, namely, Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, and Baltimore, all of about equal
importance. Boston, however, had appeared likely
to take the lead, by reason both of her com-
paratively dense population and of her substantial
development of manufactures. Philadelphia was
also then somewhat in advance of New York in
trade and population. The effect of the Erie
Canal, however, was to concentrate all the advan-
tages, for the time being, on New York. Thanks
to the canal. New York secured the domestic trade
of a widespread territory in the middle west, while
her rivals could not possess themselves of like
facilities, because of the impracticability of con-
structing canals to cross the ranges of mountains
separating them from the valley of the Mississippi
and the basin of the Great Lakes — ranges broken
only by the Hudson and the Mohawk valleys, of
which the constructors of the Erie Canal had
already taken advantage. So New York, with its
splendid harbour, made great progress alike in
trade, wealth, and population, completely out-

O

io6 IN THE UNITED STATES [chap.

distancing her rivals, and becoming, as a
State, ^'the Empire State," and, as a city, ^^the
financial and commercial centre of the Western
Hemisphere."

While, again, the Erie Canal was *^one of the
most efficient factors" in bringing about these
results, it was also developing the north-west by-
giving an outlet to the commerce of the Great
Lakes, and during the second quarter of the
nineteenth century it represented what has been
well described as ''the most potent influence of
American progress and civilisation." Not only did
the traffic it carried increase from 1,250,000 tons,
in 1837, to 3,000,000 tons in 1847, but it
further inspired the building of canals in other
sections of the United States. In course of time
the artificial waterways of that country represented
a total length of 5,000 miles.

With the advent of the railways there came
revolutionary changes which were by no means
generally appreciated at first. The cost of the
various canals had been defrayed mostly by the
different States, and, though financial considera-
tions had thus been more readily met, the policy
pursued had committed the States concerned to the
support of the canals against possible competition.
When, therefore, ''private enterprise" introduced
railways, in which the doom of the canals was fore-
seen, there was a wild outburst of indignant protest.
The money of the taxpayers, it was said, had been
sunk in building the canals, and, if the welfare of
these should be prejudiced by the railways, every
taxpayer in the State would suffer. When it was
seen that the railways had come to stay, the demand
arose that, while passengers might travel by rail,

VIII.] STATE-CONSTRUCTED CANALS 107

the canals should have the exclusive right to
convey merchandise.

The question was even discussed by the Legislature
of the State of New York, in 1857, whether the rail-
ways should not be prevented from carrying goods
at all, or, alternatively, whether heavy taxes should
not be imposed on goods traffic carried by rail in
order to check the considerable tendency then being
shown for merchandise to go by rail instead of by
canal, irrespective of any difference in rates. The
railway companies were further accused of conspiring
to ^* break down those great public works upon which
the State has spent forty years of labour," and so
active was the campaign against them — while it
lasted — that one New York paper wrote: — ^'The
whole community is aroused as it never was
before."

Some of the laws which had been actually passed
to protect the State-constructed canals against the
railways were, however, repealed in 1851, and the
agitation itself was not continued beyond 1857, from
which year the railways had free scope and oppor-
tunity to show what they could do. The contest was
vigorous and prolonged, but the railways steadily
won.

In the first instance the Erie Canal had a depth
of 4 feet, and could be navigated only by 30-ton boats.
In 1862 it was deepened to 7 feet, in order that boats
of 240 tons, with a capacity of 8,000 tons of wheat,
could pass, the cost of construction being thus
increased from $7,000,000 to $50,000,000. Then, in
1882, all tolls were abolished, and the canal has
since been maintained out of the State treasury.
But how the traffic on the New York canals as
a whole (including the Erie, the Oswego, the

io8

IN THE UNITED STATES

[chap.

Champlain, etc.) has declined, in competition with
the railroads, is well shown by the following
table :— i

Year.

Total Traffic on New York

Percentage on

Canals and Railroads.

Canals only.

Tons.

Per cent.

i860

7,155,803

65

1870

17,488,469

35

1880

-9,943,633

21

1890

56,327,661

9-3

1900

84,942,988

4.1

1903

93,248,299

3-9

The falling off in the canal traffic has been greatest
in just those heavy or bulky commodities that are
generally assumed to be specially adapted for convey-
ance by water. Of the flour and grain, for instance,
received at New York, less than 10 per cent, in 1899,
and less than 8 per cent, in 1900, came by the Erie
Canal.

The experiences of the New York canals have been
fully shared by other canals in other States. Of the
sum total of 5,000 miles of canals constructed, 2,000
had been abandoned by 1890 on the ground that the
traffic was insufficient to cover working expenses.
Since then most of the remainder have shared the
same fate, one of the last of the survivors, the
Delaware and Hudson, being converted into a
railway a year or two ago. In fact the only canals

^ The figures for the years i860 to 1890 are taken from the
" Report of the Committee on Canals of New York State," 1900,
General Francis V. Greene, chairman ; and those for 1900 and
1903 from the "Annual Report of Superintendent of Public Works,
New York State," 1903.

VIII.] NEW YORK PREJUDICED 109

in the United States to-day, besides those in the
State of New York, whose business is sufficiently
regular to warrant the inclusion of their traffic in the
monthly reports of the Government are the Chesa-
peake and Delaware (connecting Chesapeake and
Delaware Bays, and having an annual traffic of
about 700,000 tons, largely lumber) ; and the
Chesapeake and Ohio (from Cumberland to George-
town, owned by the State of Maryland, and trans-
porting coal almost exclusively, the amount depend-
ing on the state of congestion of traffic on the
railroads).

It is New York that has been most affected by
this decline in American canals. When the rail-
ways began to compete severely with the Erie
Canal, New York's previous supremacy over rival
ports in the Eastern States was seriously threatened.
Philadelphia and Baltimore, and various smaller ports
also, started to make tremendous advance. Then the
Gulf ports — notably New Orleans and Galveston —
were able to capture a good deal of ocean traffic
that might otherwise have passed through New
York. Not only do the railway lines to those ports
have the advantage of easy grades, so that exception-
ally heavy train -loads can be handled with ease,
and not only is there no fear of snow or ice blocks
in winter, but the improvements effected in the ports
themselves — as I had the opportunity of seeing and
judging, in the winter of 1902-3, during a visit to
the United States — have made these southern ports
still more formidable competitors of New York.
While, therefore, the trade of the United States has
undergone great expansion of late years, that pro-
portion of it which passes through the port of New
York has seriously declined. ''In less than ten

no IN THE UNITED STATES [chap.

years," says a pamphlet on ^'The Canal System of
New York State," issued by the Canal Improve-
ment State Committee, City of New York,
^'Pennsylvania or some other State may be the
Empire State, which title New York has held
since the time of the Erie Canal."

So a movement has been actively promoted in New
York State for the resuscitation of the Erie and other
canals there, with a view to assuring the continuance
of New York's commercial supremacy, and giving
her a better chance — if possible — of competing with
rivals now flourishing at her expense. At first a
ship canal between New York and Lake Erie was
proposed ; but this idea has been rejected as imprac-
ticable. Finally, the Legislature of the State of New
York decided on spending $101,000,000 on enlarging
the Erie and other canals in the State, so as to
give them a depth of 12 feet, and allow of the
passage of i,ooo-ton barges, arrangements being
also made for propulsion by electric or steam
traction.

In addition to this particular scheme, '* there
are," says Mr F. H. Dixon, Professor of Economics,
Dartmouth College, in an address on '^ Competition
between Water and Railway Transportation Lines in
the United States," read by him before the St Louis
Railway Club, and reported in the Engineering News
(New York) of March 22, 1906, ''many other pro-
posals for canals in different sections of the country,
extending all the way from projects that have some
economic justification to the crazy and impracticable
schemes of visionaries." But the general position in
regard to canal resuscitation in the United States
does not seem to be very hopeful, judging from a
statement made by Mr Carnegie — once an advocate

So

\

VIII.] THE MISSISSIPPI III

of the proposed Pittsburg-Lake Erie Canal — before
the Pittsburg Chamber of Commerce in 1898.

*^Such has been the progress of railway develop-
ment," he said, ^'that if we had a canal to-day from
Lake Erie through the Ohio Valley to Beaver, free
of toll, we could not afford to put boats on it. It is
cheaper to-day to transfer the ore to 50-ton cars, and
bring it to our works at Pittsburg over our railway,
than it would be to bring it by canal."

Turning from artificial to natural waterways in the
United States, I find the story of the Mississippi no
less instructive.

This magnificent stream has, in itself, a length of
2,485 miles. But the Missouri is really only an
upper prolongation of the same river under another
name, and the total length of the two, from mouth
to source, is 4,190 miles, of which the greater distance
is navigable. The Mississippi and its various tribu-
taries drain, altogether, an area of 1,240,000 square
miles, or nearly one-third of the territory of the
United States. If any great river in the world had
a chance at all of holding its own against the rail-
roads as a highway of traffic it should, surely, be the
Mississippi, to which British theorists ought to be
able to point as a powerful argument in support of
their general proposition concerning the advantages
of water over rail-transport. But the actual facts all
point in the other direction.

The earliest conditions of navigation on the
Mississippi are well shown in the following extract
from an article published in the Quarterly Review of
March 1830, under the heading, ''Railroads and
Locomotive Steam-carriages " : —

**As an example of the difficulties of internal

112 IN THE UNITED STATES [chap.

navigation, it may be mentioned that on the great river
Mississippi, which flows at the rate of 5 or 6 miles
an hour, it was the practice of a certain class of boat-
men, who brought down the produce of the interior
to New Orleans, to break up their boats, sell the
timber, and afterwards return home slowly by land ;
and a voyage up the river from New Orleans to
Pittsburg, a distance of about 2,000 miles, could
hardly be accomplished, with the most laborious
efforts, within a period of four months. But the
uncertain and limited influence, both of the wind
and the tide, is now superseded by a new agent,
which in power far surpassing the raging torrent,
is yet perfectly manageable, and acts with equal
eflicacy in any direction. . . . Steamboats of every
description, and on the most approved models, ply
on all the great rivers of the United States ; the
voyage from New Orleans to Pittsburg, which
formerly occupied four months, is accomplished with
ease in fifteen or twenty days, and at the rate of not
less than 5 miles an hour."

Since this article in the Quarterly Review was
published, enormous sums of money have been
spent on the Mississippi — partly with a view to the
prevention of floods, but partly, also, to improve the
river for the purposes of navigation. Placed in
charge of a Mississippi Commission and of the Chief
of Engineers in the United States Army, the river
has been systematically surveyed ; special studies
and reports have been drawn up on every possible
aspect of its normal or abnormal conditions and
circumstances ; the largest river dredges in the world
have been employed to ensure an adequate depth of
the river bed ; engineering works in general on the
most complete scale have been carried out — in fact,
nothing that science, skill, or money could accomplish
has been left undone.

VIII.] RAIL F. RIVER 113

The difficulties were certainly considerable. There
has always been a tendency for the river bed to get
choked up by the sediment the stream failed to carry
on ; the banks are weak ; while the variation in water
level is sometimes as much as 10 feet in a single
month. None the less, the Mississippi played for a
time as important a role in the west and the south as
the Erie Canal played in the north. Steamboats on
the western rivers increased in number from 20, in
18 1 8, to 1,200, in 1848, and there was a like develop-
ment in flat boat tonnage. With the expansion of
the river traffic came a growth of large cities and
towns alongside. Louisville increased in population
from 4,000, in 1820, to 43,000, in 1850, and St Louis
from 4,900 to 77,000 in the same period.

With the arrival of the railroads began the decline
of the river, though some years were to elapse before
the decline was seriously felt. It was the absolute
perfection of the railway system that eventually made
its competition irresistible. The lines paralleled the
river ; they had, as I have said, easy grades ; they
responded to that consideration in regard to speedy
delivery of consignments which is as pronounced in
the United States as it is in Great Britain ; they were
as free from stoppages due to variations in water level
as they were from stoppages on account of ice or
snow ; and they could be provided with branch lines
as '^ feeders," going far inland, so thai the trader did
not have either to build his factory on the river bank
or to pay cost of cartage between factory and river.
The railway companies, again, were able to provide
much more efficient terminal facilities, especially in
ths erection of large wharves, piers, and depots which
allow of the railway waggons coming right alongside
the steamers. At Galveston I saw cargo being

p

114 IN THE UNITED STATES [chap.

discharged from the ocean-going steamers by being
placed on trucks which were raised from the vessel by
endless moving-platforms to the level of the goods
station, where stood, along parallel series of lines,
the railway waggons which would take them direct
to Chicago, San Francisco, or elsewhere. With
facilities such as these no inland waterway can
possibly compete. The railways, again, were able,
in competition with the river, to reduce their charges
to *^what the traffic v^ould bear," depending on a
higher proportion of profit elsewhere. The steamboats
could adopt no such policy as this, and the traders
found that, by the time they had paid, not only the
charges for actual river transport, but insurance and
extra cartage, as well, they had paid as much as
transport by rail would have cost, while getting a
much slower and more inconvenient service.

The final outcome of all these conditions is indi-
cated by some remarks made by Mr Stuyvesant Fish,
President of the Illinois Central Railroad Company
(the chief railway competitors of the Mississippi
steamboats), in the address he delivered as President
of the Seventh Session of the International Railway
Congress at Washington, in May 1905 : —

*' It is within my knowledge that twenty years ago
there were annually carried by steamboats from
Memphis to New Orleans over 100,000 bales of cotton,
and that in almost every year since the railroads
between Memphis and New Orleans passed under
one management, not a single bale has been carried
down the Mississippi River from Memphis by boat,
and in no one year have 500 bales been thus carried ;
the reason being that, including the charges for
marine and fire insurance, the rates by water are
higher than by rail."

SUCCESSFUL RIVALS OF MISSLSSIPPI CARGO BOATS.

(i) Illinois Central Freight Train ; 43 cars ; 2,100 tons.

(2) ,, ,, Banana Express, New Orleans to Chicago ; 34 cars ; 433 tons

of bananas.

[ To face page 114.

VIII.] RESULTS OF FREE COMPETITION 115

To this statement Mr Fish added some figures
which may be tabulated as follows : —

TONNAGE OF FREIGHT RECEIVED AT OR
DESPATCHED FROM NEW ORLEANS.

1890

1900

By the Mississippi River (all sources)
By rail ......

2,306,290
3,557,742

450,498
6,852,064

Decline of river traffic in ten years
Increase of rail

n

1)855,792 tons
3,294,322 ,,

These figures bear striking testimony to the results
that may be brought about in a country where railways
are allowed a fair chance of competing with even the
greatest of natural waterways — a chance, as I have
said, denied them in Germany and France. Looking,
too, at these figures, I understand better the signifi-
cance of what I saw at Memphis, where a solitary
Mississippi steamboat — one of the survivals of those
huge floating warehouses now mostly rusting out
their existence at New Orleans — was having her cargo
discharged on the river banks by a few negroes, while
the powerful locomotives of the Illinois Central were
rushing along on the adjoining railway with the
biggest train-loads it was possible for them to haul.

On the general position in the United States I
might quote the following from a communication
with which I have been favoured by Mr Luis
Jackson, an Englishman by birth, who, after an
early training on British railways, went to the
United States, created there the role of ''industrial

ii6 IN THE UNITED STATES [chap.

commissioner " in connection with American railways,
and now fills that position on the Erie Railroad : —

^* When I was in the West the question of water
transportation down the Mississippi was frequently-
remarked upon. The Mississippi is navigable from
St Paul to New Orleans. In the early days the towns
along the Mississippi, especially those from St Paul
to St Louis, depended upon, and had their growth
through, the river traffic. It was a common remark
among our railroad people that * we could lick the
river.' The traffic down the Mississippi, especially
from St Paul to St Louis (I can only speak of the
territory with which I am well acquainted) perceptibly
declined in competition with the railroads, and the
river towns have been revived by, and now depend
more for their growth on, the railroads than on the
river. . . Figures do not prove anything. If the Erie
Canal and the Mississippi River traffic had increased,
doubled, trebled, or quadrupled in the past years,
instead of actually dwindling by tonnage figures, it
would prove nothing as against the tremendous
tonnage hauled by the trunk line railroads. The
Erie Railroad Company, New York to Chicago,
last year carried 32,000,000 tons of revenue freights.
It would take a pretty good canal to handle that
amount of traffic ; and the Erie is only one of
many lines between New York and Chicago.

*^ A canal, paralleling great railroads, to some extent
injures them on through traffic. The tendency of all
railroads is in the line of progress. As the tonnage
increases the equipment becomes larger, and the
general tendency of railroad rates is downwards ; in
other words, the public in the end gets from the
railroad all that can be expected from a canal, and
much more. The railroad can expand right and left,
and reach industries by side tracks ; with canals every
manufacturer must locate on the banks of the canal.
Canals for internal commerce, in my mind, are out
of date ; they belong to the ^ slow.' Nor do I believe

VIII.] AMERICAN AUTHORITIES' VIEWS 117

that the traffic management of canals by the State has
the same conception of traffic measures which is
adopted by the modern managers of railroads.

^'Canals affect rates on heavy commodities, and
play a part mostly injurious, to my mind, to the
proper development of railroads, especially on the
Continent of Europe. They may do local business,
but the railroad is the real handmaid of commerce."

By way of concluding this brief sketch of American
conditions, I cannot do better than adopt the final
sentences in Professor Dixon's paper at the St Louis
Railway Club to which I have already referred : —

*^Two considerations should, above all others, be
kept in mind in determination of the feasibility of
any project : first, the very positive limitations to
the efficiency of rivers and canals as transportation
agencies because of their lack of flexibility and the
natural disabilities under which they suffer ; and
secondly, that water transportation is not necessarily
cheap simply because the Government constructs and
maintains the channels. Nothing could be more
delusive than the assertion so frequently made, which
is found in the opening pages of the report of the
New York Committee on Canals of 1899, that water
transportation is inherently cheaper than rail trans-
portation. Such an assertion is true only of ocean
transportation, and possibly also of large bodies of
water like the lakes, although this last is doubtful.

'' By all means let us have our waterways developed
when such development is economically justifiable.
What is justifiable must be a matter of judgment, and
possibly to some extent of experimentation, but the
burden of proof rests on its advocates. Such projects
should be carried out by the localities interested and
the burden should be borne by those who are to
derive the benefit. Only in large undertakings of
national concern should the General Government be
called upon for aid.

ii8 IN THE UNITED STATES [chap. vm.

'^ But I protest most vigorously against the deluge
of schemes poured in upon Congress at every session
by reckless advocates who, disregarding altogether
the cost of their crazy measures in the increased
burden of general taxation, argue for the inherent
cheapness of water transportation, and urge the con-
struction at public expense of works whose traffic
will never cover the cost of maintenance."

CHAPTER IX

ENGLISH CONDITIONS

I HAVE already spoken in Chapter VII. of some of
the chief differences between Continental and English
conditions, but I revert to the latter because it is
essential that, before approving of any scheme of
canal restoration here, the British public should
thoroughly understand the nature of the task that
would thus be undertaken.

The sections of actual canal routes, given opposite
page 98, will convey some idea of the difficulties
which faced the original builders of our artificial
waterways. The wonder is that, since water has not
yet been induced to flow up-hill, canals were ever
constructed over such surfaces at all. Most probably
the majority of them would not have been attempted
if railways had come into vogue half a century earlier
than they did. Looking at these diagrams, one can
imagine how the locomotive — which does not disdain
hill -• climbing, and can easily be provided with
cuttings, bridges, viaducts, and tunnels — could
follow the canal ; but one can hardly imagine that
in England, at least, the canal would have followed
the railway.

The whole proposition in regard to canal revival
would be changed if only the surfaces in Great
Britain were the same as they are, say, between

119

I20 ENGLISH CONDITIONS [chap.

Hamburg and Berlin, where in 230 miles of waterway-
there are only three locks. In this country there is
an average of one lock for every ij mile of naviga-
tion. The sum total of the locks on British canals is
2j377) each representing, on an average, a capitalised
cost of ;^ 1, 360. Instead of a ''great central plain,"
as on the Continent of Europe, we have a ''great
central ridge," extending the greater length of
England. In the 16 miles between Worcester and
Tardebigge on the Worcester and Birmingham
Canal, there are fifty-eight locks to be passed
through by a canal boat going from the Severn
to Birmingham. At Tardebigge there is a difference
in level of about 250 feet in 3 miles or so. This
is overcome by a "flight" of thirty locks, which a
25-ton boat may hope to get through in four hours.
Between Huddersfield and Ashton, on the Hudders-
field Narrow Canal, there are seventy-four locks
in 20 miles ; between Manchester and Sowerby
Bridge, on the Rochdale Canal, there are ninety-two
locks in 32 miles, to enable the boats to pass over
an elevation 600 feet above sea level ; and at Bingley,
on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, five "staircase"
locks give a total lift of 59 feet 2 inches.

Between London and Liverpool there are three
canal routes, each passing through either ten or
eleven separate navigations, and covering distances
of from 244 to 267 miles. By one of these routes
a boat has to pass through such series of locks as
ninety in 100 miles on the Grand Junction Canal,
between Paddington and Braunston ; forty-three in
17 miles on the Birmingham Canal, between
Birmingham and Aldersley ; and forty-six in 66
miles on the Shropshire Union Canal, between
Autherley and Ellesmere Port. Proceeding by an

IX.] LOCKS ON THROUGH ROUTES 121

alternative route, the boat would pass through fifty-
nine locks in 67 miles on the Trent and Mersey ;
while a third route would give two hundred and
eighty-two locks in a total of 267 miles. The number
of separate navigations is ten by Routes I. and II.,
and eleven by Route III.

Between London and Hull there are two routes,
one 282 miles with one hundred and sixty-four locks,
and the other 305 miles with one hundred and forty-
eight locks. On the journey from London to the
Severn, a boat would pass through one hundred and
thirty locks in 177 miles in going to the Avonmouth
Docks (this total including one hundred and six
locks in 86 miles between Reading and Hanham,
on the Kennet and Avon Canal) ; and either one
hundred and two locks in 191 miles, or two hundred
and thirty in 219 miles, if the destination were
Sharpness Docks. Between Liverpool and Hull
there are one hundred and four locks in 187 miles
by one route; one hundred and forty-nine in 159
miles by a second route ; and one hundred and fifty-
two in 149 miles by a third. In the case of a canal
boat despatched from Birmingham, the position
would be — to London, one hundred and fifty-five
locks in 147 miles; to Liverpool (i) ninety-nine locks
in 114 miles, (2) sixty-nine locks in 94 miles; to
Hull, sixty-six locks in 164 miles ; to the Severn,
Sharpness Docks (i) sixty-one locks in 75 miles,
(2) forty-nine locks in 89 miles.

Early in 1906 a correspondent of The Standard
made an experimental canal journey from the Thames,
at Brentford, to Birmingham, to test the qualities of
a certain '^suction-producer gas motor barge." The
barge itself stood the test so well that the corre-
spondent was able to declare: — ''In the new power

Q

122 ENGLISH CONDITIONS [chap.

may be found a solution of the problem of canal
traction." He arrived at this conclusion notwith-
standing the fact that the motor barge was stopped
at one of the locks by a drowned cat being caught
between the barge and the incoming *' butty" boat.
The journey from London to Birmingham occupied,
*^ roughly," six and a half days — a journey, that is,
which London and North - Western express trains
accomplish regularly in two hours. The 22J miles
of the Warwick and Birmingham Canal, which has
thirty-four locks, alone took ten hours and a half.
From Birmingham the correspondent made other
journeys in the same barge, covering, altogether,
370 miles. In that distance he passed through three
hundred and twenty-seven locks, various summits
^'several hundred feet" in height being crossed by
this means.

At Anderton, on the Trent and Mersey Canal,
there is a vertical hydraulic lift which raises or lowers
two narrow boats 50 feet to enable them to pass
between the canal and the River Mersey, the operation
being done by means of troughs 75 feet by 144 feet.
Inclined planes have also been made use of to avoid
a multiplicity of locks. It is assumed that in the
event of any general scheme of resuscitation being
undertaken, the present flights of locks would, in
many instances, be done away with, hydraulic lifts
being substituted for them. Where this could be
done it would certainly effect a saving in time, though
the provision of a lift between series of locks would
not save water, as this would still be required for the
lock below. Hydraulic lifts, however, could not be
used in mining districts, such as the Black Country,
on account of possible subsidences. Where that
drawback did not occur there would still be the

IX.] LIFTS AND TUNNELS 123

question of expense. The cost of construction of
the Anderton lift was ;i^5o,ooo, and the cost of
maintenance is ;^5oo a year. Would the traffic on
a particular route be always equal to the outlay?
In regard to inclined planes, it was proposed some
eight or ten years ago to construct one on the
Birmingham Canal in order to do away with a series
of locks at a certain point and save one hour on the
through journey. Plans were prepared, and a Bill
was deposited in Parliament ; but just at that time
a Board of Trade enquiry into canal tolls and charges
led to such reductions being enforced that there no
longer appeared to be any security for a return on the
proposed expenditure, and the Bill was withdrawn.

In many instances the difference in level has
been overcome by the construction of tunnels. There
are in England and Wales no fewer than forty-five
canal tunnels each upwards of 100 yards in length,
and of these twelve are over 2,000 yards in length,
namely, Standidge Tunnel, on the Huddersfield
Narrow Canal, 5,456 yards ; Sapperton, Thames and
Severn, 3,808 ; Lappal, Birmingham Canal naviga-
tions, 3,785; Dudley, Birmingham Canal, 3,672;
Norwood, Chesterfield Canal, 3,102; Butterley,
Cromford, 3,063 ; Blisworth, Grand Junction, 3,056 ;
Netherton, Birmingham Canal, 3,027 ; Harecastle
(new), Trent and Mersey, 2,926 ; Harecastle (old),
Trent and Mersey, 2,897 ; West Hill, Worcester
and Birmingham, 2,750; and Braunston, Grand
Junction, 2,042.

The earliest of these tunnels were made so narrow
(in the interests of economy) that no space was left
for a towing path alongside, and the boats were
passed through by the boatmen either pushing a pole
or shaft against the roof or sides, and then walking

124 ENGLISH CONDITIONS [chap.

from forward to aft of the boat, or else by the
*Megging" process in which they lay flat on their
backs in the boat, and pushed with their feet against
the sides of the tunnel. At one time even women
engaged in work of this kind. Later tunnels were
provided with towing paths, while in some of them
steam tugs have been substituted for shafting and
legging.

Resort has also been had to aqueducts, and these
represent some of the best work that British canal
engineers have done. The first in England was
the one built at Barton by James Brindley to carry
the Bridgewater Canal over the Irwell. It was
superseded by a swing aqueduct in 1893, to meet
the requirements of the Manchester Ship Canal.
But the finest examples are those presented by the
aqueducts of Chirk and Pontcysyllte on the Elles-
mere Canal in North Wales, now forming part of
the Shropshire Union Canal. Each was the work of
Telford, and the two have been aptly described as
*^ among the boldest efforts of human invention
of modern times." The Chirk aqueduct (710 feet
long) carries the canal over the River Ceriog. It
was completed in 1801 and cost ;^20,898. The
Pontcysyllte aqueduct, of which a photograph is
given as a frontispiece, carries the canal in a cast-
iron trough a distance of 1,007 feet across the valley
of the River Dee. It was opened for traffic in 1803,
and involved an outlay of ;^47,ooo. Another canal
aqueduct worthy of mention is that which was con-
structed by Rennie in 1796, at a cost of ;^48,ooo,
to carry the Lancaster Canal over the River Lune.

These facts must surely convince everyone who
is in any way open to conviction of the enormous
difference between canal construction as carried on

IX.] THE COST OF REVIVAL 125

in bygone days in Great Britain — involving as it
did all these costly, elaborate, and even formidable
engineering works — and the building of canals, or the
canalisation of rivers, on the flat surfaces of Holland,
Belgium, and Northern Germany. Reviewing — even
thus inadequately — the work that had been already
done, one ceases to wonder that, when the railways
began to establish themselves in this country, the
canal companies of that day regarded with despair
the idea of practically doing the greater part of
their work over again, in order to carry on an
apparently hopeless struggle with a powerful com-
petitor who had evidently come not only to stay
but to win. It is not surprising, after all, that many
of them thought it better to exploit the enemy by
inducing or forcing him to buy them out !

The average reader who may not hitherto have
studied the question so completely as I am here
seeking to do, will also begin by this time to
understand what the resuscitation of the British
canal system might involve in the way of expense.
The initial purchase — presumably on fair and equit-
able terms — would in itself cost much more
than is supposed even by the average expert.

^'Assuming," says one authority, Mr Thwaite,
"that 3,500 miles of the canal system were purchas-
able at two -thirds of their original cost of con-
struction, say ;^2,35o per mile of length, then the
capital required would be ;^8, 225,000."

This looks very simple. But is the original cost
of construction of canals passing through tunnels,
over viaducts, and up and down elevations of from
400 to 600 feet, calculated here on the same basis
as canals on the flat-lands? Is allowance made for

126 ENGLISH CONDITIONS [chap.

costly pumping apparatus — such as that provided
for the Birmingham Canal — for the docks and
warehouses recently constructed at Ellesmere Port,
and for other capital expenditure for improvements,
or are these omitted from the calculation of so
much ''per mile of length"? Items of this kind
might swell even "cost of construction" to larger
proportions than those assumed by Mr Thwaite.
That gentleman, also, evidently leaves out of account
the very substantial sums paid by the present owners
or controllers of canals for the mining rights under-
neath the waterways in districts such as Stafford-
shire or Lancashire.

This last-mentioned point is one of considerable
importance, though very few people seem to know
that it enters into the canal question at all. When
canals were originally constructed it was assumed
that the companies were entitled to the land they had
bought from the surface to the centre of the earth.
But the law decided they could claim little more than
a right of way, and that the original landowners might
still work the minerals underneath. This was done,
with the result that there were serious subsidences
of the canals, involving both much loss of water
and heavy expenditure in repairs. The stability of
railways was also affected, but the position of the
canals was much worse on account of the water.

To maintain the efficiency of the canals (and of
railways in addition) those responsible for them —
whether independent companies or railway companies
— have had to spend enormous sums of money in the
said mining districts on buying up the right to work
the minerals underneath. In some instances the
landowner has given notice of his intention to work
the minerals himself, and, although he may in reality

IX.] PURCHASE— AND AFTER 127

have had no such intention, the canal company or
the railway company have been compelled to come
to terms with him, to prevent the possibility of the
damage that might otherwise be done to the water-
way. The very heavy expenditure thus incurred
would hardly count as ^'cost of construction," and
it would represent money sunk with no prospect of
return. Yet, if the State takes over the canals, it will
be absolutely bound to reckon with these mineral
rights as well — if it wants to keep the canals intact
after improving them — and, in so doing, it must
allow for a considerably larger sum for initial outlay
than is generally assumed.

But the actual purchase of canals and m'lnersil rights
would be only the beginning of the trouble. There
would come next the question of increasing the
capacity of the canals by widening, and what this
might involve I have already shown. Then there are
the innumerable locks by which the great differences
in level are overcome. A large proportion of these
would have to be reconstructed (unless lifts or inclined
planes were provided instead) to admit either the
larger type of boat of which one hears so much, or,
alternatively, two or four of the existing narrow
boats. Assuming this to be done, then, when a single
narrow boat came up to each lock in the course of
the journey it was making, either it would have to
wait until one or three others arrived, or, alterna-
tively, the water in a large capacity lock would be
used for the passage of one small boat. The adoption
of the former course would involve delay ; and either
would necessitate the provision of a much larger
water supply, together with, for the highest levels,
still more costly pumping machinery.

The water problem would, indeed, speedily become

128 ENGLISH CONDITIONS [chap.

one of the most serious in the whole situation — and
that, too, not alone in regard to the extremely scanty-
supplies in the high levels. The whole question has
been complicated, since canals were first built, by
the growing needs of the community, towns large
and small having tapped sources of water supply
which otherwise might have been available for the
canals.

Even as these lines are being written, I see from
The Times of March 17, 1906, that, because the
London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Company
are sinking a well on land of their own adjoining
the railway near the Carshalton springs of the River
Wandle, with a view to getting water for use in their
Victoria Station in London, all the public authorities
in that part of Surrey, together with the mill-owners
and others interested in the River Wandle, are
petitioning Parliament in support of a Bill to restrain
them, although it is admitted that ''the railway
company do not appear to be exceeding their legal
rights." This does not look as if there were too
much water to spare for canal purposes in Great
Britain ; and yet so level-headed a journal as The
Economist^ in its issue of March 3, 1906, gravely
tells us, in an article on '' The New Canal Com-
mission," that ''the experience of Canada is worth
studying." What possible comparison can there be,
in regard to canals, between a land of lakes and
great rivers and a country where a railway company
may not even sink a well on their own property
without causing all the local authorities in the
neighbourhood to take alarm, and petition Parliament
to stop them ! ^

1 " The St Lawrence River and the Great Lakes whose waters
flow through it into the Atlantic form a continuous waterway

1

IX.] WATER SUPPLY

129

On this question of water supply, I may add,
Mr John Glass, manager of the Regents Canal,
said at the meeting of the Institution of Civil
Engineers in November 1905 : —

^*In his opinion Mr Saner had treated the water
question, upon which the whole matter depended,
in too airy a manner. Considering, for instance,
the route to Birmingham, it would be seen that to
reach Birmingham the waterway was carried over
one summit of 400 feet, and another of 380 feet,
descended 200 feet, and eventually arrived at
Birmingham, which was about 350 feet above sea
level. The proposed standard lock, with a small
allowance for the usual leakage in filling, would con-
sume about 50,000 cubic feet of water, and the two
large crafts which Mr Saner proposed to accommodate

extending from the Fond du Lac, at the head of Lake Superior, to
the Straits of Belle Isle, a distance of 2,384 miles. . . . Emptying
into the St Lawrence . . . are the Ottawa and Richlieu Rivers, the
former bringing it into communication with the immense timber
forests of Ontario, and the latter connecting it with Lake Champion
in the United States. These rivers were the thoroughfares in
peace and the base lines in war for the Indiar tribes long before
the white man appeared in the Western Hemisphere. . . . The
early colonists found them the convenient and almost the only
channels of intercourse among themselves and with the home
country. . . . The St Lawrence was navigable for sea-going
vessels as far as Montreal, but between Montreal and the foot
of Lake Ontario there was a succession of rapids separated by
navigable reaches. . . . The head of navigation on the Ottawa
River is the city of Ottawa. . . . Between this city and the mouth
of the river there are several impassable rapids. The Richlieu
was also so much obstructed at various points as to be unavailable
for navigation. . . . The canal system of Canada . . . has been
established to overcome these obstructions by artificial channels at
various points to render freely navigable the national routes of
transportation." — " Highways of Commerce^'' issued by the Bureau
of Statistics^ Department of State^ Washington.

R

I30 ENGLISH CONDITIONS [chap-

in the lock^ would carry together, he calculated,
about 500 tons. Supposing it were possible to
regulate the supply and demand so as to spread
that traffic economically over the year, and to permit
of twenty-five pairs of boats passing from Birmingham
to the Thames, or in the opposite direction, on 300
days in the year, the empty boats going into the
same locks as the laden boats, it would be necessary
to provide 1,250,000 cubic feet of water daily, at
altitudes of 300 to 400 feet ; and in addition it would
be necessary to have water-storage for at least 120
days in the year, which would amount to about
150,000,000 cubic feet. When it was remembered
that the districts in which the summit-levels referred to
were situated were ill-supplied with water, he thought
it was quite impossible that anything like that quantity
of water could be obtained for the purpose. Canal-
managers found that the insufficiency of water in all
districts supplied by canals increased every year,
and the difficulty of acquiring proper water-storage
became enhanced."

Not only the ordinary waterway and the locks,
but the tunnels and viaducts, also, might require
widening. Then the adoption of some system of
mechanical haulage is spoken of as indispensable.
But a resort to tugs, however propelled, is in no way
encouraged by the experiments made on the Shrop-
shire Union, as told on p. 50. An overhead electrical
installation, with power houses and electric lighting,
so that navigation could go on at night, would be
an especially costly undertaking. But the increased

^ The use of a larger type of canal boat is generally regarded as
an essential part of the resuscitation scheme. But of the narrow
boats now in active service in the canals of the United Kingdom
there are from 10,000 to 11,000. What is to be done with these?
If they are scrap-heaped, and fresh boats substituted, we increase
still further the sum total of the outlay the scheme will involve.

IX.] THE QUESTION OF SPEED 131

speed which it is hoped to gain from mechanical
haulage on the level would also necessitate a general
strengthening of the canal banks to avoid damage
by the wash, and even then the possible speed would
be limited by the breadth of the waterway. On this
particular point I cannot do better than quote the
following from an article on ^'Canals and Water-
ways " published in The Field of March 10, 1906 : —

^* Among the arguments in favour of revival has
been that of anticipated rapid steam traffic on such
re-opened waterways. Any one who understands
the elementary principles of building and propulsion
of boats will realise that volume of water of itself
fixes limits for speed of vessels in it. Any vessel of
certain given proportions has its limit of speed (no
matter what horse-power may be employed to move
it) according to the relative limit (if any) of the
volume of water in which it floats. Our canals are
built to allow easy passage of the normal canal
barge at an average of 3 to 3J miles an hour. A
barge velocity of even 5 miles, still more of 6 or 7,
would tend to wash banks, and so to wreck (to public
danger) embankments where canals are carried higher
than surrounding land. A canal does not lie in a
valley from end to end like a river. It would require
greater horse-power to tow one loaded barge 6 miles
an hour on normal canal water than to tow a string
of three or even four such craft hawsered 50 or more
feet apart at the pace of 3J miles. The reason would
be that the channel is not large enough to allow the
wave of displacement forward to find its way aft past
the advancing vessel, so as to maintain an approxi-
mate level of water astern to that ahead, unless either
the channel is more than doubled or else the speed
limited to something less than 4 miles. It therefore
comes to this, that increased speed on our canals, to
any tangible extent, does not seem to be attainable,

132 ENGLISH CONDITIONS [chap.

even if all barges shall be screw steamers, unless
the entire channel can be reconstructed to far greater
depth and also width."

What the actual cost of reconstruction would be
— as distinct from cost of purchase — I will not
myself undertake to estimate ; and merely general
statements, based on the most favourable sections
of the canals, may be altogether misleading. Thus,
a writer in the Daily Chronicle of March 21, 1906,
who has contributed to that journal a series of
articles on the canal question, *'from an expert
point of view," says: —

^^ If the Aire and Calder navigation, which is much
improved in recent years, be taken as a model, it has
been calculated that ^1,000,000 per 100 miles would
fit the trunk system for traffic such as is dealt with
on the Yorkshire navigation."

How can the Aire and Calder possibly be taken
as a model — from the point of view of calculating
cost of improvements or reconstruction? Let the
reader turn once more to the diagrams given
opposite p. 98. He will see that the Aire and
Calder is constructed on land that is almost flat,
whereas the Rochdale section on the same trunk
route between the Mersey and the Humber reaches
an elevation of 600 feet. How can any just com-
parison be made between these two waterways? If
the cost of ^^ improving" a canal of the '^ model"
type of the Aire and Calder be put at the rate of
;^ 1, 000, 000 per 100 miles, what would it come to
in the case of the Rochdale Canal, the Tardebigge
section of the Worcester and Birmingham Canal, or
the series of independent canals between Birmingham

IX.] ADJUNCTS TO HAULAGE 133

and London? That is a practical question which I
will leave — to the experts !

Supposing, however, that the canals have been
purchased, taken possession of, and duly improved
(whatever the precise cost) by State, municipalities,
or public trust, as the case may be. There will
then be the almost exact equivalent of a house
without furniture, or a factory without machinery.
Before even the restored canals could be adapted
to the requirements of trade and commerce there
would have to be a very considerable expenditure,
also, on warehouses, docks, appliances, and other
indispensable adjuncts to mere haulage.

After all the money that has been spent on the
Manchester Ship Canal it is still found necessary
to lay out a great deal more on warehouses which
are absolutely essential to the full and complete
development of the enterprise. The same principle
would apply to any scheme of revived inland navi-
gation. The goods depots constructed by railway
companies in all large towns and industrial centres
have alone sufficed to bring about a complete
revolution in trade and commerce since the days
when canals were prosperous. There are many
thousands of traders to-day who not only order
comparatively small quantities of supplies at a
time from the manufacturer, but leave even these
quantities to be stored locally by the railway
company, having delivered to them from day to
day, or week by week, just as much as they can
do with. A certain *^free" period is allowed for
warehousing, and, if they remove the goods during
that period, they pay nothing to the railway
company beyond the railway rate. After the free
period a small '^rent" is charged — a rent which,

134 ENGLISH CONDITIONS [chap.

while representing no adequate return to the rail-
way company for the heavy capital outlay in
providing the depots, is much less than it would
cost the trader if he had to build store-rooms for
himself, or pay for accommodation elsewhere. Other
traders, as mentioned in the chapter on *^The
Transition in Trade," send goods to the railway
warehouses as soon as they are ready, to wait there
until an order is completed, and the whole consign-
ment can be despatched ; while others again, agents
and commission men, carry on a considerable business
from a small office, leaving all the handling of the
commodities in which they deal to be done by the
railway companies. In fact, the situation might be
summed up by saying that, under the trading con-
ditions of to-day, railway companies are not only
common carriers, but general warehousemen in
addition.

If inland canals are to take over any part of the
transport at present conducted by the railways,
they will have to provide the traders with like
facilities. So, in addition to buying up and recon-
structing the canals ; in addition to widenings, and
alterations of the gradients of roads and railways
passed under ; and in addition to the maintenance
of towing paths, locks, bridges, tunnels, aqueducts,
culverts, weirs, sluices, cranes, wharves, docks,
and quay walls, reservoirs, pumping machinery,
and so on, there would still be all the subsidiary
considerations in regard to warehousing, etc., which
would arise when it became a question with the
trader whether or not he should avail himself of
the improved water transport thus placed at his
disposal.

For the purposes of reasonable argument I will

IX.] SURVIVALS OF THE UNFIT 135

assume that no really sensible person, knowing any-
thing at all of actual facts and conditions, would
attempt to revive the entire canal system of the
country.^ I have shown on p. 19, that even in the
year 1825 it was recognised that some of the canals
had been built by speculators simply as a means of
abstracting money from the pockets of foolish
investors, victims of the ^^ canal mania," and that
no useful purpose could be served by them even at
a time when there were no competing railways. Yet
to-day sentimental individuals who, in wandering
about the country, come across some of these
absolutely useless, though still, perhaps, picturesque
survivals, write off to the newspapers to lament
over *^our neglected waterways," to cast the
customary reflections on the railway companies,
and to join their voice to the demand for immediate
nationalisation or municipalisation, according to

1 At the Society of Arts' Conference on Canals, in 1888, Mr L. F.
Vernon-Harcourt said : — " The statistics show that great caution
must be exercised in the selection of canal routes for improve-
ment, if they are to prove a commercial success, and that the
scope for such schemes is strictly limited. Any attempt at a
general revival and improvement of the canal system through-
out England cannot prove financially successful, as local canals,
through thinly populated agricultural districts, could not compete
with railways. These routes alone should be selected for enlarge-
ment of waterway which lead direct from the sea to large and
increasing towns like the proposed canal from the Bristol Channel
to Birmingham, or which, like the Aix-e and Calder Navigation
and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, are suitably set for the con-
veyance of coal and general bulky goods to populous districts.
One or two through routes to London from manufacturing
centres, or from coal-mining districts, might have a prospect of
success, provided the existing canals along the route could be
acquired at a small cost, and the necessary improvement works
were not heavy."

136 ENGLISH CONDITIONS [chap.

their individual leanings, and regardless of all con-
siderations of cost or practicability.

Derelicts of the type here referred to are not
worth considering at all. It is a pity they were not
drained and filled in long ago, and given, as it
were, a decent burial, if only out of consideration
for the feelings of sentimentalists. Much more
deserving of study are those particular systems
which either still carry a certain amount of traffic,
or are situated on routes along which traffic might
be reasonably expected to flow. But, taking even
canals of this type, the reader must see from the
considerations I have already presented that resus-
citation would be a very costly business indeed.
Estimates of which I have read in print range from
;^20,ooo,ooo to ;^5o,ooo,ooo ; but even these omit
various important items (mining rights, etc.),
which would certainly have to be added, while
the probability is that, however high the original
estimate in regard to work of this kind, a good
deal more would have to be expended before it was
finished.

The remarks I have here made are based on the
supposition that all that is aimed at is such an
improvement as would allow of the use of a larger
type of canal boat than that now in vogue. But,
obviously, the expenditure would be still heavier
if there were any idea of adapting the canals to the
use of barges similiar in size to those employed on
the waterways of Germany, or craft which, starting
from an inland manufacturing town in the Mid-
lands, could go on a coasting trip, or make a journey
across to the Continent. Here the capital ex-
penditure would be so great that the cost would
be absolutely prohibitive.

IX.] COST AND LOSSES 137

Whatever the precise number of millions the
resuscitation scheme might cost, the inevitable
question would present itself — How is the money
to be raised?

The answer thereto would be very simple if the
entire expense were borne by the country — that is to
say, thrown upon the taxpayers or ratepayers. The
problem would then be solved at once. The great
drawback to this solution is that most of the said
taxpayers or ratepayers would probably object.
Besides, there is the matter of detail I mentioned
in the first Chapter : if the State or the municipalities
buy up the canals on fair terms, including the canals
owned or controlled by the railways, and, in operating
them in competition with the railways, make heavy
losses which must eventually fall on the taxpayers or
ratepayers, then it would be only fair that the railway
companies should be excused from such direct increase
in taxation as might result from the said losses. In
that case the burden would fall still more heavily on
the general body of the tax or ratepayers, inde-
pendently of the railway companies.

It would fall, too, with especial severity on those
traders who were themselves unable to make use of
the canals, but might have to pay increased local
rates in order that possible competitors located within
convenient reach of the improved waterways could
have cheaper transport. It might also happen that
when the former class of traders, bound to keep to
the railways, applied to the railway companies for
some concession to themselves, the reply given would
be — *' What you suggest is fair and reasonable, and
under ordinary circumstances we should be prepared
to meet your wishes ; but the falling off in our
receipts, owing to the competition of State-aided

S

138 ENGLISH CONDITIONS [chap.

canals, makes it impossible for us to grant any-
further reductions." An additional disadvantage
would thus have to be met by the trader who kept
to the railway, while his rival, using the canals,
would practically enjoy the benefit of a State subsidy.
The alternative to letting the country bear the
burden would be to leave the resuscitated canal
system to pay for itself. But is there any reason-
able probability that it could? The essence of the
present day movement is that the traders who would
be enabled to use the canals under the improved
conditions should have cheaper transport ; but if the
twenty, fifty, or any other number of millions sterling
spent on the purchase and improvement of the canals,
and on the provision of indispensable accessories
thereto, are to be covered out of the tolls and
charges imposed on those using the canals, there
is every probability that (if the canals are to pay for
themselves) the tolls and charges would have to be
raised to such a figure that any existing difference
between them and the present railway rates would
disappear altogether. That difference is already very
often slight enough, and it may be even less than
appears to be the case, because the railway rate might
include various services, apart from mere haulage —
collection, delivery, warehousing, use of coal depot,
etc. — which are not covered by the canal tolls and
charges, and the cost of which would have to be
added thereto. A very small addition, therefore, to
the canal tolls, in order to meet interest on heavy
capital expenditure on purchase and reconstruction,
would bring waterways and railways so far on a level
in regard to rates that the railways, with the superior
advantages they offer in many ways, would, inevitably,
still get the preference.

IX.] TOLLS AND TRAFFIC 139

The revival movement, however, is based on the
supposition that no increase in the canal tolls now
charged would be necessary.^ Canal transport, it is
said, is already much higher in this country than it
is on the Continent — and that may well be so, con-
sidering (i) that canals such as ours, with their
numerous locks, etc., cost more to construct, operate
and maintain than canals on the flat lands of Con-
tinental Europe ; (2) that British canals are still
supposed to maintain themselves ; and (3) that canal
traffic as well as railway traffic is assessed in the
most merciless way for the purposes of local taxation.
In the circumstances it is assumed that the canal
traffic in England could not pay higher tolls and
charges than those already imposed, and that the
interest on the aforesaid millions, spent on purchase
and improvements, would all be met out of the
expanded traffic which the restored canals would
attract.

Again I may ask — Is there any reasonable proba-
bility of this? Bearing in mind the complete transi-
tion in trade of which I have already spoken — a
transition which, on the one hand, has enormously
increased the number of individual traders, and, on
the other, has brought about a steady and continuous
decrease in the weight of individual consignments —
is there the slightest probability that the conditions
of trade are going to be changed, and that merchants,
manufacturers, and other traders will forego the express
delivery of convenient quantities by rail, in order to
effect a problematical saving (and especially problem-
atical where extra cartage has to be done) on the
tedious delivery of wholesale quantities by canal?

* There are even those who argue that the resuscitated canals
should be toll free.

I40 ENGLISH CONDITIONS [chap.

Nothing short of a very large increase indeed in
the water-borne traffic would enable the canals to
meet the heavy expenditure foreshadowed, and, even
if such increase were secured, the greater part of it
would not be new traffic, but simply traffic diverted
from the railways. More probably, however, the
very large increase would not be secured, and no
great diversion from the railways would take place.
The paramount and ever - increasing importance
attached by the vast majority of British traders to
quick delivery (an importance so great that on
some lines there are express goods trains capable
of running from 40 to 60 miles an hour) will keep
them to the greater efficiency of the railway as a
carrier of goods ; while, if a serious diversion of
traffic were really threatened, the British railways
would not be handicapped as those of France and
Germany are in any resort to rates and charges
which would allow of a fair competition with the
waterways.

In practice, therefore, the theory that the canals
would become self-supporting, as soon as the aforesaid
millions had been spent, must inevitably break down,
with the result that the burden of the whole enterprise
would then necessarily fall upon the community ; and
why the trader who consigns his goods by rail, or the
professional man who has no goods to consign at all,
should be taxed to allow of cheaper transport being
conferred on the minority of persons or firms likely to
use the canals even when resuscitated, is more than
I can imagine, or than they, probably, will be able to
realise.

The whole position was very well described in some
remarks made by Mr Harold Cox, M.P., in the course
of a discussion at the Society of Arts in February

IX.] THOSE WHO WANT SHOULD PAY 141

1906, on a paper read by Mr R. B. Buckley, on
**The Navigable Waterways of India."

^^ There was," he said, ^^a sort of feeling current
at the present time in favour of spending large
amounts of the taxpayer's money in order to provide
waterways which the public did not want, or at any
rate which the public did not want sufficiently to
pay for them, which after all was the test. He
noticed that everybody who advocated the construc-
tion of canals always wanted them constructed with
the taxpayer's money, and always wanted them to
be worked without a toll. Why should not the same
principle be applied to railways also? A railway was
even more useful to the public than a canal ; therefore,
construct it with the taxpayer's money, and allow
everybody to use it free. It was always possible to
get plenty of money subscribed with which to build
a railway, but nobody would subscribe a penny
towards the building of canals. An appeal was
always made to the government. People had pointed
to France and Germany, which spent large sums
of money on their canals. In France that was done
because the French Parliamentary system was such
that it was to the interest of the electorate and the
elected to spend the public money on local improve-
ments or non-improvements. . . . He had been asked,
Why make any roads ? The difference between roads
and canals was that on a canal a toll could be levied
on the people who used it, but on a road that was
absolutely impossible. Tolls on roads were found
so inconvenient that they had to be given up. There
was no practical inconvenience in collecting tolls on
canals ; and, therefore, the principle that was applied
to everything else should apply to canals — namely,
that those who wanted them should pay for them."

CHAPTER X

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Taking into consideration all the facts and arguments
here presented, I may summarise as follows the con-
clusions at which I have arrived : —

(i) That, alike from a geographical, physical, and
economic point of view, there is no basis for fair
comparison between British and Continental con-
ditions ; consequently our own position must be
judged on its own merits or demerits.

(2) That, owing to the great changes in British
trade, manufacture, and commerce, giving rise to
widespread and still increasing demands for speedy
delivery of comparatively small consignments for a
great number of traders of every possible type, canal
transport in Great Britain is no longer suited to the
general circumstances of the day.

(3) That although a comparatively small number
of traders, located in the immediate neighbourhood
of the canals, might benefit from a canal-resuscitation
scheme, the carrying out of such scheme at the risk,
if not at the cost, of the taxpayers, would virtually
amount to subsidising one section of the community
to the pecuniary disadvantage of other sections.

(4) That the nationalisation or the municipalisation
of British canals would introduce a new principle
inconsistent with the ^^ private enterprise" hitherto

142

CHAP. X.] REASONS FOR DISSENT 143

recognised in the case of railways, in which such
large sums have been sunk by investors, but with
which State-aided canals would compete.

(5) That, in view both of the physical conditions
of our land (necessitating an extensive resort to
locks, etc., to overcome great differences in level)
and of the fact that many of the most important of
the canals are now hemmed in by works, houses,
or buildings, any general scheme of purchase and
improvement, in regard even to main routes (apart
from hopeless derelicts), would be extremely costly,
and, in most instances, entirely outside the scope of
practicability.

(6) That such a scheme, involving an expenditure
of many millions, could not fail to affect our national
finances.

(7) That there is no ground for expecting so large
an outlay could be recouped by increased receipts
from the canals, and that the cost would thus inevit-
ably fall upon the community.

(8) That the allegation as to the chief canals of the
country, or sections thereof, having been ^* captured''
and ^'strangled" by the railway companies, in the
interests of their own traffic, is entirely unsupported
by evidence, the facts being, rather, that in most
cases the canals were more or less forced upon the
railway companies, who have spent money liberally
on such of them as offered reasonable prospect of
traffic, and, in that way, have kept alive and in
active working condition canals that would inevitably
have been added to the number of derelicts had they
remained in the hands of canal companies possessed
of inadequate capital for the purposes of their
efficient maintenance.

(9) That certain of these canals (as, for example,

144 CONCLUSIONS [chap.

the Birmingham and the Shropshire Union Canals)
are still offering to traders all reasonable facilities
within the limitations of their surroundings and
physical possibilities ; and that if such canals were
required to bear the expense of extremely costly
widenings, of lock reconstruction, of increased water
supply, and of general improvements, the tolls and
charges would have to be raised to such a point
that the use of the canals would become prohibitive
even to those local traders who now fully appreciate
the convenience they btill afford.

(lo) That, in effect, whatever may be done in the
case of navigable rivers, any scheme which aimed
at a general resuscitation of canals in this country,
at the risk, if not at the expense, of the community,
is altogether impracticable ; and that, inasmuch as
the only desire of the traders, in this connection, is
to secure cheaper transport, it is desirable to see
whether the same results could not be more effectively,
more generally, and more economically obtained in
other directions.

Following up this last conclusion, I beg to
recommend : —

{a) The desirability of increasing the usefulness of
the railway system, which can go anywhere, serve
everybody, and carry and deliver consignments,
great and small, with that promptness and despatch
which are all-important to the welfare of the vast
majority of industries and enterprises, as conducted
under the trading conditions of to-day. This useful-
ness, some of the traders allege, is marred by rates
and charges which they consider unduly heavy,
especially in the case of certain commodities calling
for exceptionally low freight, and canal transport is
now asked for by them, as against rail transport,

X.] THE BURDENS ON RAILWAYS 145

just as the traders of 1825 wanted the railways as
a relief from the waterways. The rates and charges,
say the railway companies, are not unreasonable in
themselves, considering all the circumstances of the
case and the nature of the various services repre-
sented, while the actual amount thereof is due, to a
certain extent, not so much to any seeking on the
part of the companies to pay dividends of abnormal
proportions, akin to those of the canal companies of
old (the average railway dividend to-day, on over
one thousand millions of actual capital, being only
about 3^ per cent.), but to a combination of causes
which have increased unduly capital outlay and
working expenses, only to be met out of the rates,
fares, and charges that are imposed on traders and
travellers. Among these causes may be mentioned
the heavy price the companies have had to pay
for their land ; the cost of Parliamentary proceed-
ings ; various requirements imposed by Parliament
or by Government departments ; and the heavy
burden of the contribution that railway companies
make to local rates. (See p. 10.) These various
conditions must necessarily influence the rates and
charges to be paid by traders. Some of them — such
as cost of land — belong to the past ; others — like the
payments for local taxation — still continue, and tend
to increase rather than decrease. In any case, the
power of the railway companies to concede to the
traders cheaper transport is obviously handicapped.
But if, to obtain such cheaper transport, the country
is prepared to risk (at least) from ;^ 20, 000, 000 to
;^5o,ooo,ooo on a scheme of canal reconstruction
which, as I have shown, is of doubtful utility and
practicability, would it not be much more sensible,
and much more economical, if the weight of the

T

146 CONCLUSIONS [CHAP.

obligations now cast upon railways were reduced,
thus enabling the companies to make concessions in
the interests of traders in general, and especially in
the interests of those consigning goods to ports
for shipment abroad, for whose benefit the canal
revival is more particularly sought?

{b) My second recommendation is addressed to
the general trader. His policy of ordering frequent
small consignments to meet immediate requirements,
and of having, in very many instances, practically
no warehouse or store-rooms except the railway
goods depots, is one that suits him admirably. It
enables him either to spend less capital or else to
distribute his capital over a larger area. He is also
spared expense in regard to the provision of ware-
house accommodation of his own. But to the railway
companies the general adoption of this policy has
meant greater difficulty in the making up of 'Spaying
loads." To suit the exigencies of present-day trade,
they have reduced their minima to as low, for some
commodities, as 2-ton lots, and it is assumed by
many of the traders that all they need do is to work
up to such minima. But a 2-ton lot for even an
8-ton waggon is hardly a paying load. Still less is
a lo-cwt. consignment a paying load for a similarly
sized waggon. Where, however, no other consign-
ments for the same point are available, the waggon
goes through all the same. In Continental countries
consignments would be kept back, if necessary, for
a certain number of days, in order that the * spaying
load " might be made up. But in Great Britain the
average trader relies absolutely on prompt delivery,
however small the consignment, or whatever the
amount of ** working expenses" incurred by the
railway in handling it. If, however, the trader

X.] WHAT TRADERS CAN DO 147

would show a little more consideration for the
railway companies — whom he expects to display
so much consideration for him — he might often
arrange to send or to receive his consignments in
such quantities (at less frequent intervals, perhaps)
as would offer better loading for the railway
waggons, with a consequent decrease of working
expenses, and a corresponding increase in the ability
of the railway company to make better terms with
him in other directions. Much has been done of
late years by the railway companies to effect various
economies in operation, and excellent results have
been secured, especially through the organisation of
transhipping centres for goods traffic, and through
reductions in train mileage ; but still more could be
done, in the way of keeping down working expenses
and improving the position of the companies in
regard to concessions to traders, if the traders them-
selves would co-operate more with the railways to
avoid the disadvantages of unremunerative ** light-
loading."

(c) My third and last recommendation is to the
agriculturists. I have seen repeated assertions to
the effect that improved canals would be of great
advantage to the British farmer ; and in this con-
nection it may interest the reader if I reproduce the
following extract from the pamphlet, issued in 1824,
by Mr T. G. Gumming, under the title of '^Illustra-
tions of the Origin and Progress of Rail and Tram
Roads and Steam Carriages, " as already mentioned
on p. 21 : —

*'To the farming interests the advantages of a
rail-way will soon become strikingly manifest ; for,
even where the facilities of a canal can be embraced,
it presents but a slow yet expensive mode of

148 CONCLUSIONS [CHAP.

conveyance ; a whole day will be consumed in accom-
plishing a distance of 20 miles, whilst by the rail-way
conveyance, goods will be carried the same distance
in three or four hours, and perhaps to no class of
the community is this increased speed of more con-
sideration and value than to the farmer, who has
occasion to bring his fruit, garden stuff, and poultry
to market, and still more so to such as are in the
habit of supplying those great and populous towns
with milk and butter, whilst with all these additional
advantages afforded by a rail-way, the expense of
conveyance will be fcund considerably cheaper than
by canal.

*' Notwithstanding the vast importance to the farmer
of having the produce of his farm conveyed in a
cheap and expeditious manner to market, it is
almost equally essential to him to have a cheap
conveyance for manure from a large town to a
distant farm ; and here the advantages to be derived
from a rail-way are abundantly apparent, for by a
single loco-motive engine, 50 tons of manure may
be conveyed, at a comparatively trifling expense, to
any farm within the line of the road. In the article
of lime, also, which is one of the first importance
to the farmer, there can be no question but the
facilities afforded by a rail-way will be the means
of diminishing the expense in a very material
degree."

If railways were desirable in 1824 in the interests
of agriculture, they must be still more so in 1906,
and the reversion now to the canal transport of
former days would be a curious commentary on
the views entertained at the earlier date. As regards
perishables, consigned for sale on markets, growers
obviously now want the quickest transport they can
secure, and special fruit and vegetable trains are run
daily in the summer season for their accommodation.

X.] THE INTERESTS OF AGRICULTURE 149

The trader in the North who ordered some straw-
berries from Kent, and got word that they were
being sent on by canal, would probably use language
not fit for even a fruit and vegetable market to hear.
As for non-perishable commodities, consigned to
or by agriculturists, the railway is a much better
distributer than the canal, and, unless a particular
farm were alongside a canal, the extra cost of cartage
therefrom might more than outweigh any saving in
freight. If greater facilities than the ordinary rail-
way are needed by agriculturists, they will be met
far better by light railways, or by railway road-
motors of the kind adopted first by the North-
Eastern Railway Company at Brandsby, than by
any possible extension of canals. These road-motors,
operated between lines of railway and recognised
depots at centres some distance therefrom, are
calculated to confer on agriculturists a degree of
practical advantage, in the matter of cheaper trans-
port, limited only by the present unfortunate inability
of many country roads to bear so heavy a traffic,
and the equally unfortunate inability of the local
residents to bear the expense of adapting the roads
thereto. If, instead of spending a large sum of
money on reconstructing canals, the Government
devoted some of it to grants to County Councils for
the reconstruction of rural highways, they would do
far more good for agriculture, at least. As for
cheaper rail transport for agricultural commodities
in general, I have said so much elsewhere as to
how these results can be obtained by means of
combination that I need not enlarge on that branch
of the subject now, further than to commend it to
the attention of the British farmer, to whom combina-
tion in its various phases will afford a much more

I50 CONCLUSIONS [chap. x.

substantial advantage than any possible resort to
inland navigation.

These are the alternatives I offer to proposals
which I feel bound to regard as more or less
quixotic, and I leave the reader to decide whether,
in view of the actualities of the situation, as set
forth in the present volume, they are not much
more practical than the schemes of canal reconstruc-
tion for which public favour is now being sought.

'■"^^•tei..

APPENDIX

THE DECLINE IN FREIGHT TRAFFIC ON THE
MISSISSIPPI

Whilst this book is passing through the Press, I
have received from Mr Stuyvesant Fish, President
of the Illinois Central Railroad Company — whom I
asked to favour me with some additional details
respecting the decline in freight traffic on the
Mississippi River — the following interesting notes,
drawn up by Mr T. J. Hudson, General Traffic
Manager of the Illinois Central : —

The traffic on the Mississippi River was established
and built up under totally diff"erent conditions from
those now obtaining, and when the only other means
of travel and transportation was on horseback and
by waggon, methods not suitable in view of the great
distances and the general impassibility of the country.
In those days the principal source of supply was
St Louis — and points reached through St Louis —
for grain, grain products, etc., excepting that vehicles,
machinery, and iron were brought down the Ohio
River from Pittsburg and Cincinnati by boat to
Cairo, and trans-shipped there, or to Memphis, and
trans-shipped or re-distributed from that place. The
distributing points on the Lower Mississippi River
were Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, Bayou Sara,
Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Goods were
shipped to these points and re-shipped from there

151

152 APPENDIX

over small railroads to short distances, and also
hauled by waggon and re-shipped on boats plying
in local trade on the Mississippi River and tributary
streams. For example, there were Boat Lines making
small landing points above and below Memphis, and
above and below Vicksburg ; also Boat Lines plying
the Yazoo and Tallahatchie Rivers on the east, and
the White, Arkansas and Red Rivers on the west, etc.

All the goods shipped by steamboat were hauled
by waggon or dray to the steamboat landing, and,
when discharged by the boats at destination, were
again hauled by waggon from the landing to the
stores and warehouses, even in those cases in which
re-shipment was made from points like Memphis,
Vicksburg, etc. When re-shipped by river, the
goods were again hauled to the steamboat landing,
and, when reaching the local landing or point of
final consumption, after being discharged on the
bank, were again hauled by waggon or dray, perhaps
for considerable distances into the interior.

While the cost of water transportation is primarily
low, the frequent handling and re-handling made this
mode of transportation more or less expensive, and
in some instances quite costly. River transportation
again is slow, taking longer time in transit. The
frequent handlings, further, were damaging and
destructive to the packages in the case of many
kinds of goods. Transportation on the rivers was
also at times interrupted or delayed from one cause
or another, such as high water or low water, and
the service was, in consequence, more or less
irregular, thus requiring dealers to carry large
stocks on which the insurance and interest was a
considerable item of expense.

With the development of the railroads through the
country, not only was competition brought into play
to the distributing points along the river, such as
Memphis, Vicksburg, etc., from St Louis, Cincinnati,
and Pittsburg, but also from other initial sources of
supply which were not located on rivers, but were

APPENDIX 153

enabled by reason of the establishment of rail trans-
portation to consign direct ; whereas under the old
conditions it was necessary for them to consign to
some river point and trans-ship. What was still
more important and effective in accomplishing the
results since brought about was the material benefit
conferred by the railroads on most of the communities
situated back from the river. These communities
had previously been obliged to send their consign-
ments perhaps many miles by road to some point on
the river, whence the commodities were carried to
some other point, there to be taken by waggon or
dray to the place of consumption— another journey
of many miles, perhaps, by road. Progress was
slow, and in some instances almost impossible, while
only small boats could be hauled.

Then the construction of railroads led to the
development of important distributing points in the
interior, such as Jackson, (Tennessee), and Jackson,
(Mississippi), not to mention many others. Goods
loaded into railroad cars on tracks alongside the mills,
factories and warehouses could be unloaded at destina-
tion into warehouses and stores which also had their
tracks alongside. By this means drayage was elimin-
ated, and the packages could be delivered in clean
condition. Neither of these conditions was possible
where steamboat transportation was employed.
Interior points are now enabled to buy direct, either
in large or small quantities, from initial sources of
supply, and without the delay and expense incident
to shipment to river-distributing points, and trans-
shipment by rail or steamboat or hauling by waggon.
Rail transportation is also more frequent, regular,
rapid and reliable ; not to mention again the con-
venience which is referred to above.

The transportation by river of package-freight,
such as flour, meal, meat, canned goods, dry goods,
and other commodities, has been almost entirely
superseded by rail transportation, except in regard
to short-haul local landings, where the river is more

U

154 APPENDIX

convenient, and the railroad may not be available.
There is some south-bound shipment of wire, nails,
and other iron goods from the Pittsburg district to
distributing points like Memphis and New Orleans,
but in these cases the consignments are exclusively
in barge-load lots. The only other commodity to
which these conditions apply is coal. This is taken
direct from the mines in the Pittsburg district, and
dropped into barges on the Monongahela River ; and
these are floated down the river, during periods of
high water, in fleets of from fifty to several hundred
barges at a time.

There is no movement of grain in barges from
St Louis to New Orleans, as was the case a great
many years ago. The grain for export via New
Orleans is now largely moved direct in cars from
the country elevators to the elevators at New Orleans,
from which latter the grain is loaded direct into ships.
There is, also, some movement north-bound in barges
of lumber and logs from mills and forests not
accessible to railroads, but very little movement of
these or other commodities from points that are
served by railroad rails. Lumber to be shipped on
the river must be moved in barge-load quantities, and
taken to places like St Louis, where it has to be
hauled from the barge to lumber yards, and then
loaded on railroad cars, if it is going to the interior,
where a considerable proportion of the quantity
handled will be wanted. Mills reached by railroad
tracks can, and do, load in car-load quantities, and
ship to the final point of use, without the delay
incident to river transportation, and the expense
involved by transfer or re-shipment.

It is not to be inferred from the foregoing that all
the distributing points along the river have dried up
since the development of rail transportation. In fact,
the contrary is the case, because the railroads have
opened up larger territories to these distributing
points, and in regard to many kinds of goods these
river points have become, in a way, initial sources

APPENDIX 155

of supply as well as of manufacture. Memphis, for
example, has grain brought to its elevators direct
from the farms, the same as St Louis, and can and
does ship on short notice to the many towns and
communities in the territory surrounding. There
are, also, flour and meal mills, iron foundries, waggon
and furniture factories, etc., at Memphis, and at
other places. Many of the points, however, which
were once simply landings for interior towns
and communities have now become comparatively
insignificant.

To sum up in a few words, I should say that the
railroads have overcome the steamboat competition
on the Mississippi River, not only by affording fair
and reasonable rates, but also because rail trans-
portation is more frequent, rapid, reliable, and
convenient, and is, on the whole, much cheaper.

INDEX

Agriculture and canals, i6, 147-

150
Aire and Calder Navigation, 86,

132, 135

Allport, Sir James, 37, 81

Aqueducts, 124

Association of Chambers of Com-
merce, 4, 5

Barnsley Canal, 26

Belgium, waterways in, 93-96, 97

Birmingham Canal, 26, 37, 57-73,

120, 125
Boats, size of, 32, 69, 130
Brecknock and Abergavenny Canal,

26
Brecon Canal, 45
Bridge water Canal, 13-15, 21, 23-

24, 124
Bridge water, Duke of, 13-15, 23
Bridgwater and Taunton Canal, 45
Brindley, James, 14-15, 16, 124
Brunner, Sir John T., 4
Buckley, Mr R. B., 141

Caledonian Railway Company,

50-54
Canada, waterways in, 128-129
Canals, earliest, in England, 13-22 ;
canal mania, 16; passenger traffic,
18-19; shares and dividends, 21,
26, 27 ; tolls and charges, 23-25,
27-30 ; handicapped, 33 ; attitude
towards railways, 34-38 ; Kennet
and Avon, 38-45 ; Shropshire
Union, 47-50 ; Forth and Clyde,
50-54; "strangulation" theory,
54-55 ; Birmingham Canal, 57-
T^ ; coal traffic, 84-89 ; canals
and waterways on the Continent,
93-103; in the United States,

104-I18; in England, 119-141 ;

in Canada, 128-129; conclusions

and recommendations, 142-150
Capitalists, attitude of, 3
Carnegie, Mr, no
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal,

109
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, 109
Chesterfield Canal, 46, 123
Child, Messrs, 15

Coal, 13, 21, 29-30, 40, 51-53, 81-89
Consignments, sizes of, 78
Continental conditions, 11,93-103,

139, 140, 141
Cost of reconstruction, 132-136
Cotton, raw, 89-91
Coventry Canal, 26
Cox, M.P., Mr Harold, 140
Cromford Canal, 123
Cumming, Mr T. G., 21, 147-148

Dixon, Professor F. H., no, 117
Dredging, 43

Electrical installations, 130
Ellesmere Canal, 26, 47, 124
Engineers and canal question, 2
Erie Canal, the, 105- iii, 116

Fish, Mr Stuyvesant, 114-115
Forth and Clyde Navigation, 50-54
France, waterways in, 100, 102
Frost on canals, 24, 30, 77

Gentleman s Magazine, 26
Geographical conditions, 11, 94-96,

98-100
Germany, waterways in, 94, 97,

100-102
Glass, Mr John, 129
Government guarantee, 4

157

158

INDEX

Grand Junction Canal, 26, 39, 120,

123
Grand Western Canal, 45
Great Northern Railway, 31, 83
Great Western Railway Company,

38-45, 67, 68, 70
Grinling, Mr C. H., 30

Hertslet, Sir E. Cecil, 94
Holland, waterways in, 77, 94, 96,
Huddersfield Narrow Canal, 120,

123
Hudson, George, 30

iNGLis, Mr J. C, 38-39, 45

Jackson, Mr Luis, 115-117
Jebb, Mr G. R., 71
Jekyll, Sir Herbert, 62

Kennet and Avon Canal, 26,
38-45, 121

Lancashire and Yorkshire

Railway Company, 46
Lancaster Canal, 26, 124
Languedoc Canal, 14
Leeds and Liverpool Canal, 120,

Leicester and Swinnington Rail-
way, 29

Lift at Anderton, 122-123

Liverpool and Manchester Railway,
21, 23-26, 28

Liverpool merchants, petition from,
25-26

Local taxation, 9-10, 139, 145-146

Locks, 32, 33, 43, 50, 66, 120-

121, 127

London and North-Western Rail-
way Company, 37, 46, 48-49, 59-

71

London, Brighton and South Coast

Railway Company, 128
London County Council, 5
Loughborough Canal, 26, 27, 29

Macclesfield Canal, 46
Manchester and Bury Canal, 46
Manchester Ship Canal, 133
McAdam, J. L., 12-13
Mechanical haulage, 49-50, 121-

122, I3O-I3I

Meiklejohn, Professor, 97

Mersey and Irwell Navigation, 13,

15, 21, 24
Mersey Harbour Board, 5
Midland Railway, 30, 37, 67, 83
Mining operations and canals, 46,

65-66, 126-127
Mississippi, the, 111-117
Monmouthshire Canal, 26, 45
Morrison, Mr, 27-28
Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln

Railway Company (Great

Central), 46
Municipalisation schemes, 4-8, 135

Nationalisation of canals, 4,

10, 135

Neath Canal, 26

North British Railway, 53

North-Eastern Railway, 149

Old Union Canal, 26
Oxford Canal, 26

Packhorse period, the, 12, 16,

18
Paddington Canal, 18-19
Physical conditions, 11, 96-99, I19
Political conditions, 100-102
Principle, questions of, 9- 11
Private enterprise, 9, 106, 142
Profits on canals, 15, 16, 21, 26,

27
PubHc trusts, 4-6
Pumping machinery, 42-43, 6^

Quarterly review^ 17-22,
III

Railways, position of companies
as ratepayers, 7-8 ; cost of rail-
way construction and operation,
9-10 ; effect on railway rates, 10 ;
advent of, 17-22; Liverpool and
Manchester Railway, 21, 25, 28 ;
Leicester and Swinnington Rail-
way, 29 ; Midland Railway, 30 ;
Great Northern Railway, 31 ;
attitude of canal companies to-
wards, 35-38 ; control of canals,
38-56, 57-73 ; railways in
Germany, 100-102 ; in France,
102; recommendations, 145-146

INDEX

159

Ratepayers, liability of, 7-8, 137
Rates, regulation of, on railways

and canals, 27-28
Regents Canal, 129
Rennie, 124
Road-motors, 149
Rochdale Canal, 26, 120, 132
Ross^ Mr A., 45-47
Royal Commission on Canals and

Waterways, 62

Sandars, Mr Joseph, 21, 23-25,

34, 75
Saner, Mr J. A., 38, ()'^^ 129
Sankey Brook and St Helen's

Canal, 46
Saunders, Mr H. J., 39, 44
Select Committee on Canals (1883),

37
Sheffield and South Yorkshire

Navigation, 46
Shropshire Union Canal, 47-50,

69-72, 120
Somerset Coal Canal, 40
Speed, 122, 131
Staffordshire and Worcestershire

Canal, 26
Stalbridge, Lord, 86
Stephenson, George, 30
Stephenson, Robert, 30
Stourbridge Extension Canal, 45
"Strangulation" theory, 55, 143
Stratford-upon-Avon Canal, 45

Swansea Canal, 26, 45

Taxpayers, how affected, 3, 5, 137

Telford, 124

Thames and Severn Canal, 123

Thames steamboat service, 5

Thomas, Mr G. C, 39

Thwaite, Mr, 125

Trade, changes in, ii, 40-42, 52-

54, 61, 74-92, 133-134
Traders, advice to, 146-147
Trent and Mersey Navigation, 16,

26, 27, 49, 69, 72, 122, 123
Troops, transport of, by canal,

18-19
Tunnels, canal, 123

Ulrich, Herr Franz, 97
United States, waterways in, 104-
118

Vernon - I{arcourt, Mr L. F.,
135

Walker, Colonel, F. N. T., 5
Water-supply for canals, 24, 32,

33, 42-43, 62-64, 66, ^T, 99,

127-130
Wheeler, Mr W. H., 99
Widenings, 66, 70, 71
Wilts and Berks Canal, 40
Worcester and Birmingham Canal,

26, 120, 123, 132

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THE RAILWAYS AND THE TRADERS
A sketch of the railway rates question in theory and

practice •

By W. M. ACWORTH, M.A. (Oxon.),

And of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law.

New Impression. Crown Svo. In Paper Covers, \s. net.

London: JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle Street, VV.

PRINTED AT THE EDINBURGH PRESS,
9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
LIBRARY

Acme Library Card Pocket

Under Pat. " Ref. Index File."
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