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 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 navigations, and a boat-owner making the journey had to deal separately with each.

The railway companies soon began to rid themselves 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 satisfactory 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 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":—

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 newcomers 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 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 advantages 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.

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 railway 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 voluntarily acquired by, or forced upon, the railway companies. It is obvious, however, that the responsibility 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 competitors, who were generally considered to be on the point of dying a natural death, were, at times, 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.

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. 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, "Waterways in Great Britain" (reported in the official "Proceedings" 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 £4,000 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 the canal company, seeing their position was hopeless, 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 £7,773 a 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 1¼d., then to 1d., and finally ½d. per ton-mile; but there had never been a sign, Mr Inglis added, that the reduction had any effect in attracting additional traffic.[5]

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 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 substantial 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 reaching this junction, it was taken either to towns directly served by the Kennet and Avon (including Bath, Bristol, Bradford, Trowbridge, Devizes, Kintbury, Hungerford, 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 distribution 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, owned by a railway company.

Another branch of local traffic that has left the Kennet and Avon Canal for the railway is represented by the familiar freestone, of which large quantities are despatched from the Bath district. The stone goes away in blocks averaging 5 tons 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 consignments 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 neighbourhood 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 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 reasonable 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 contemplated when the canal was originally built.

Within the last year or two the railway company have spent £3,000 or £4,000 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 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 2½ 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 39½ 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 difficulties are experienced, inasmuch as the geological formation of the bed of the canal between Bath and Bradford-on-Avon renders steam dredging inadvisable, so that the more expensive and less expeditious system of "dragging" has to be relied on instead.

Altogether it costs the Great Western Railway Company about £1 to earn each 10s. 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 maintenance 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:—

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY CANALS,

for half-year ending 31st December 1905.

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

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 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):—

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 Ellesmere Port on the river Mersey, passing through Market Drayton, Nantwich and Chester, with branches to Shrewsbury, Newtown (Montgomeryshire), Llangollen, 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 Ellesmere 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: (1) from the Chester and Crewe Branch of the Grand Junction Railway at Calveley to Wolverhampton; (2) from Shrewsbury to Stafford, with a branch to Stone; and (3) from Newtown (Montgomeryshire) 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 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 £814,207. Under these adverse conditions, "it has been agreed," the Act goes on to say, "between the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company and the London and North-Western Railway 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 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 depÔt, 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 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 innumerable 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 Navigation, controlled by the Caledonian Railway Company.

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 1814. 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 vi 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 Monkland 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 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 Navigation, who were also proprietors of the harbour of Grangemouth, and acquired the whole undertaking in 1867, guaranteeing to the original company a dividend of 6¼ per cent.

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 network 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 Company, 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 Railway, 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 sidings, 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 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 "railway 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—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 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 Allport, 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.

1. River Ouse Navigation (Yorkshire).
2. River Wharfe Navigation.
3. Aire and Calder Navigation.
4. Market Weighton Navigation.
5. Driffield Navigation.
6. Beverley Beck Navigation.
7. Leven Navigation.
8. Leeds and Liverpool Canal.
9. Manchester Ship Canal.
10. Bridgewater portion of Manchester Ship Canal.
11. Rochdale Canal.
12. Calder and Hebble Navigation.
13. Weaver Navigation.
14. Idle Navigation.
15. Trent Navigation Co.
16. Aucholme Navigation.
17. Caistor Canal.
18. Louth Canal (Lincolnshire).
19. Derby Canal.
20. Nutbrook Canal.
21. Erewash Canal.
22. Loughborough Navigation.
23. Leicester Navigation.
24. Leicestershire Union Canal.
25. Witham Navigation.
26. Witham Navigation.
27. Glen Navigation.
28. Welland Navigation.
29. Nen Navigation.
30. Wisbech Canal.
31. Nar Navigation.
32. Ouse and Tributaries (Bedfordshire).
33. North Walsham Canal.
34. Bure Navigation.
35. Blyth Navigation.
36. Ipswich and Stowmarket Navigation.
37. Stour Navigation.
38. Colne Navigation.
39. Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation.
40. Roding Navigation.
41. Stort Navigation.
42. Lea Navigation.
43. Grand Junction Canal.
44. Grand Union Canal.
45. Oxford Canal.
46. Coventry Canal.
47. Warwick and Napton Canal.
48. Warwick and Birmingham Canal.
49. Birmingham and Warwick Junction Canal.
50. Worcester and Birmingham Canal.
51. Stafford and Worcester Canal.
52. Severn (Lower) Navigation.
53. Gloucester and Berkeley Ship Canal.
54. Lower Avon Navigation.
55. Stroudwater Canal.
56. Wye Navigation.
57. Axe Navigation.
58. Parrett Navigation.
59. Tone Navigation.
60. Wilts and Berks Canal.
61. Thames Navigation.
62. London and Hampshire Canal.
63. Wey Navigation.
64. Medway Navigation.
65. Canterbury Navigation.
66. Ouse Navigation (Sussex).
67. Adur Navigation.
68. Arun and Wey Canal.
69. Portsmouth and Arunder Canal.
70. Itchen Navigation.

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, vi Liverpool, Leeds, and Goole. To say, therefore, in these circumstances, that "the whole of the 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 geographical position, have first claim to consideration in any scheme of canal resuscitation) I would beg the special attention of the reader.