Considering that, in spite of the unreasonableness, the exactions and the
large profits of many of the canal companies in the later days of their
prosperous monopoly, the canals themselves had rendered such invaluable
service to the trade, commerce and industry of the country, the question
may well have arisen why they were not allowed, or enabled to a greater
extent than was actually the case, to continue their career of usefulness.
There has, indeed, for some years been in the United Kingdom a
canal-revival party which favours the idea that either the State or the
local authorities should acquire and improve the canals with a view to
enabling them better to compete with the railways--which, as the story of
the Liverpool and Manchester line shows, were at one time expressly
designed as competitors of and alternatives to the canals.
So far has this resuscitation idea been carried that in December, 1909, the
Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways reported in favour of the State
acquiring, widening and otherwise bringing up to date a series of canals
radiating from the Birmingham district, and establishing cross-country
connections between the Thames, the Mersey, the Severn and the Humber. The
reasons for the decline of the canals and the practicability, or otherwise,
of reviving them may thus be regarded as questions of more than merely
historical or academic interest for (1) the traders who might benefit from
the said revival; (2) the traders who certainly would not benefit, but who,
in conjunction with (3) the general taxpayer, might have to contribute to
the cost if the State did acquire the canals and failed to make them pay.
The "real commercial prosperity of England" has well been dated from the
period of early canal development, when artificial waterways began to
supplement the deficiencies {295}of navigable streams limited to certain
districts and liable to floods, droughts and other disadvantages, and of
ill-made roads which even the turnpike system had failed to adapt to the
requirements of heavy traffic. In these conditions the movement either of
raw materials or of manufactured articles other than those which could be
carried on packhorses had, as we have seen, been rendered all but
impossible in many parts of the country on account either of the
difficulties or of the excessive cost of transport. Canals, constituting a
great improvement on any other existing conditions, came to the rescue, and
supplied the first impetus to that industrial revolution which the railways
were to complete.
This was a great work for the canals to have accomplished, and it was a
work that was essentially done by private enterprise. Clifford says that
"Parliament, by its legislation in furtherance of canals and of
agriculture, probably contributed more largely to the national prosperity
than by any group of public measures passed towards the close of the last
[eighteenth] century." There is here not a word of recognition for
Brindley, the Duke of Bridgewater and the other pioneers of the canal
movement, or for the private investors who provided the £14,000,000 spent
on the actual "furtherance" of canals. Parliament did not inspire,
originate or in any way improve the canals; it found none of the money
which they cost, nor did it even seek to direct their construction on any
such well-organised system of through and uniform lines of communication as
would have made them far more useful, and assured them, probably, a longer
lease of life. Yet Mr Clifford has no hesitation in giving all the praise
to Parliament because it _allowed_ the canal promoters and proprietors to
carry out the work on their own initiative, and at their own risk, as the
improvers of rivers and the providers of turnpike roads had done before
them.
"Canals in this country," says the Final Report of the Royal Commission on
Canals and Waterways, "were constructed upon no general scheme or system.
As soon as it was seen that they were a profitable investment, independent
companies were formed in every district, and, according to their influence
or their means, obtained from Parliament Acts conceding powers to make
canals of the most varying length and character." If, in conceding these
powers, Parliament {296}had established some central authority with a view
to securing such uniformity in construction and such connected routes as
were practicable, it would have rendered a greater service than by simply
approving schemes put forward in what the Final Report itself describes as
a "piecemeal" fashion. This, however, was not done; nor, in fact, was
action taken to prevent the canal companies, after they had shown their
enterprise and risked their millions, from becoming in the pre-railway days
grasping monopolists whose one idea was to exploit the trader to their own
advantage, leading him to welcome the railways, as an alternative to the
canals, still more cordially than he had previously welcomed the canals as
an alternative to the roads and rivers.
So long as the locomotive remained in a comparatively undeveloped stage,
the canal companies refrained from regarding railways as serious rivals,
and continued to look upon them in the light, rather, of contributors of
traffic to the waterways; but in proportion as the locomotive was improved
and the rivalry of the railways became more and more pronounced the canal
companies grew alarmed for the prospects of their own concerns. They
entered on no new undertakings--the last inland canal, as distinct from
ship canals, was completed about 1834--and they got anxious as to the
future of those they had on their hands. They had first scoffed at the
railways as "nothing but insane schemes," or as costly "bubbles," and they
had then worked up a powerful opposition against them. Having failed in
each of these directions, they next took steps which they would have done
well to take earlier--they reduced their tolls, and they also began to
consider how they could improve their canals.
In 1835 there was a general reduction of rates on the Old Quay Navigation
between Liverpool and Manchester, but this belated policy of seeking to
make terms with the traders did not prejudice the fortunes of the new
railway between those places. As regards the improvements sought to be
introduced on the canals, Nicholas Wood, in the third edition (1838) of his
"Practical Treatise on Rail-Roads," says:--
"Canals, ever since their adoption, have undergone little or no change;
some trivial improvements may have been effected in the manner of passing
boats from one level to another, and light boats have been applied for the
conveyance {297}of passengers; but in their general economy they may be
said to have remained stationary. Their nature almost prohibits the
application of mechanical power to advantage in the conveyance of goods and
passengers upon them; and they have not, therefore, partaken of the
benefits which other arts have derived from mechanical science.
"The reverse of this is the case with railroads; their nature admits of
almost unrestricted application of mechanical power upon them, and their
utility has been correspondingly increased....
"At the time of the publication of the first[47] and second[48] editions of
this work scarcely any experiments had been made on a large scale to
elucidate the capabilities of canal navigation--none, certainly,
satisfactory; since then the competition of railways has aroused the
dormant spirit of the canal proprietors, and various experiments have been
made to ascertain the amount of resistance of boats dragged at different
velocities; attempts have been likewise made to adapt the power of steam to
propel the boats upon them, and other experiments have been adopted to
increase their activity as a mode of traffic, and especially for the
conveyance of passengers."
These various experiments had little practical result, and the navigation
companies found it more to their advantage, in many instances, to make good
use of their position and influence, while they were still a power in the
land, and force the railway companies either to buy them out entirely or to
guarantee them against loss. Such results were generally secured either by
first threatening opposition to the railway Bills, and then stating the
price for withdrawing therefrom, or, alternatively, by projecting schemes
for the competitive lines of railway specially favoured by the State policy
of the day, and likely, therefore, to be readily conceded.
When, in 1845, the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway
Company--afterwards amalgamated with the Great Western Railway
Company--were seeking powers of incorporation, they were opposed by the
Severn Commissioners, who represented that they had spent £180,000 in
improving the waterway, in anticipation of securing a revenue of £14,000 a
year. In order to overcome this opposition and get their Bill, the railway
company agreed to make up to the Severn {298}Commissioners any deficit
between the amount of their tolls and £14,000 a year. Under this obligation
the railway company paid £6000 a year for many years; but in 1890 the
obligation was commuted by a payment by the Great Western Railway Company
of £100,000, and by the giving up to them of certain mortgages to which
they had become entitled in consideration of the Commissioners discharging
them from the liability under their guarantee. In stating these facts in
evidence before the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways, Mr T. H.
Rendell, chief goods manager of the Great Western Railway Company, added
(Question 23,834): "It is desirable to mention that, because it is rather
suggested that State aid should be given to enable this very waterway to
come into fresh competition with the railway. Of course, if that were so,
it would be only fair that the Severn Commissioners should re-imburse the
railway company the compensation they have received."
The acquiring of the Stratford-on-Avon Canal by the Oxford, Worcester and
Wolverhampton Railway was another of many instances of purchase by a
railway company being the price of withdrawal of canal opposition to
railway Bills.
By threatening to apply to Parliament for powers to build an opposition
railway, the Kennet and Avon Canal Company, in 1851, also induced the Great
Western to buy them out, the railway company agreeing to pay £7773 a year
for the canal, which has been a loss to them ever since.
In the same way the London and Birmingham Railway Company, now the London
and North-Western, originally acquired control over the Birmingham Canal
Navigations as the result of a declared intention on the part of the canal
company, in 1845, to seek for powers to build a competing line of railway
through the Stour valley. The railway company only overcame the threatened
opposition by guaranteeing the canal company £4 per share on their capital,
obtaining, in return, certain rights and privileges, in regard to control
and operation, in the event of their having to make good any deficiency in
the revenue. This they have had to do every year since 1874, with the
single exception of 1875; and down to 1910 the total amount paid by the
London and North-Western Railway Company to the proprietors of the
Birmingham Canal Navigations, under this guarantee, had been {299}no less
than £874,652. The payments for the years 1906-10 were as follows: 1906,
£37,017 14s. 9d.; 1907, £22,262 2s. 7d.; 1908, £44,690 3s. 11d.; 1909,
£45,697 10s. 3d.; 1910, £39,720 3s. 9d.
There has been much talk in the past of railway companies having obtained
possession of canals in order to "strangle" the traffic on them. It is
difficult to see why, except under pressure, railway directors, who count
among the shrewdest of business men, should have incurred such substantial
obligations towards canals which, at the time, everyone regarded as doomed
to extinction before a superior means of transport. It is equally difficult
to believe that, having incurred these costly obligations, the companies
deliberately "strangled" the traffic on the canals, instead of allowing
them to earn--if they could--at least sufficient to cover the cost of their
upkeep.
Whatever the precise conditions under which they acquired control, the
railway companies were compelled by Parliament to incur obligations in
regard to maintenance which have had the effect of continuing the existence
of many a little-used waterway that would long ago have become hopelessly
derelict if it had remained under the control of an independent canal
company, instead of being kept going out of the purse of a powerful railway
company in accordance with the statutory obligations imposed by Parliament.
These obligations were, of course, based on the principle of ensuring
competition even though canals and railways passed under the same control,
the former being supported and kept more or less efficient out of the
revenues of the latter. This policy, however, was regarded as only an
alternative to another, to which Parliament gave the preference--that,
namely, of maintaining, if possible, a still more effective competition by
strengthening the position of the canals, now the weaker of the combatants
in the economic struggle, and enabling them to continue their independent
existence, in preference to seeking absorption by the railways.
In 1845 an Act (8 & 9 Vic. c. 28) was passed, the preamble of which, after
alluding to the provision in the Railway Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845,
giving power to railway companies to vary their rates, declared that
"greater competition, for the public advantage, would be obtained" if canal
{300}companies, etc., were to have like powers granted to them in respect
of their canals, etc.; and the Act therefore conferred upon them the
necessary powers for varying their tolls.
The preamble of another Act passed in the same Session (8 & 9 Vict. c. 42)
recited the powers given to railway companies as carriers of goods on their
own lines, and stated that "greater competition, for the public advantage,
would be obtained if similar powers were granted to canal and navigation
companies." The Act accordingly extended to them the same powers. With a
like object, and again adopting the principle sanctioned in the case of
railway companies, the Act further authorised canal companies to make
working arrangements between themselves, and, also, to lease their canals
to other canal companies, with a view to a better provision of through
water routes, and, consequently, a more active competition with the
railways. Two years later another Act (10 & 11 Vict. c. 94) was passed,
giving the canal companies power to borrow money for the purposes here
specified.
In his presidential address to the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1885,
Sir Frederick Bramwell, dealing with various matters relating to the
transport conditions of the country, said: "This addition to the legal
powers of the canal companies made by the Acts of 1845 and 1847 has had a
very beneficial effect upon the value of their property, and has assisted
to preserve a mode of transport competing with that afforded by the
railways."
It is true that the powers to act as carriers were taken advantage of by
leading canal companies, who worked up a good business as carriers,
although, to a certain extent, with a result directly at variance with the
widely accepted view that canals should carry heavy and bulky commodities,
and railways the lighter and more compact goods. What actually happened was
that the canal companies, as carriers, competed with the railways in the
transport of domestic supplies, while the railways still carried most of
the coal, iron-stone, etc., for which many people supposed that canal
transport is specially adapted.
While, however, as the result of these particular powers, some of the canal
companies improved their financial position, and were enabled to maintain a
better competition with the railways, very little use was made of the
authority given to {301}them to combine among themselves and establish
through routes, converting series of small canals into connected waterways
under one and the same control, if not actually owned by one and the same
company, as was being so actively done with the railways.
Some action had certainly been taken in this direction. The Birmingham
Canal system of to-day is composed of three canal companies which had
amalgamated prior to 1846, supplemented by a fourth which joined them in
that year. The Shropshire Union, also, is formed of four canal companies
originally independent. But these are only exceptions to the rule, for
though the Joint Select Committee of 1872, following up what had already
been done at an earlier period, recommended that the utmost facilities
should be given for amalgamations between canal companies, few of such
amalgamations have, as the Final Report of the Royal Commission on Canals
and Waterways points out, taken place since the full establishment of
railways. Goods sent to-day by canal from Birmingham, for instance, to
London, to Liverpool or to Hull will pass over waterways controlled by from
six to eight different authorities, according to the route followed.
One must, however, recognise the fact that the securing of uniformity of
gauge and the establishment of through routes presented far greater
difficulties in the case of artificial waterways than in that of railways.
The physical geography of England is wholly unfavourable to efficient
cross-country water transport, and this fact, in itself, is sufficient to
render impracticable any such scheme of canal resuscitation as that which
has been put forward by the recent Royal Commission.
The physical condition of England in relation to the building of canals is
well shown in the article on "Canals" published in "Rees' Cyclopædia"
(1819) where it is said, in this connection:--
"Great Britain ... has a range of high land passing nearly its whole
length, which divides the springs and rain waters that fall to the opposite
coasts: we shall call this range dividing the eastern and western rivers of
Britain the _grand ridge_.... No less than 22 of our canals now do or are
intended to pass this grand ridge, forming as many navigable connections
between the rivers of the east and west seas!... The Dudley canal crosses
this grand ridge twice, the two ends {302}being on the eastern side, and
the middle part on the western side thereof; the Kennet and Avon crosses
the eastern and western branches, into which it divides on the Chalk Hills,
west of Marlborough, by which parts of this canal are in the drainage of
the west, the south and the east seas! The Coventry Canal, also, by means
of its Bedworth branch, crosses the grand ridge twice. The populous and
remarkable town of Birmingham is situate on high ground, near to the grand
ridge, and has six canals branching off in different directions, either
immediately therefrom or at no great distance, and, what is singular, owing
to a loop, or sudden bend of the ridge at this place, no less than five of
them traverse the grand ridge, either by means of tunnels or deep-cutting."
While the grand ridge here in question presents no difficulty to powerful
locomotives, the position is altogether different with canals fed by
streams of water that will not flow up-hill. In the case of the Birmingham
Canal, specially referred to in the extract just given, there are three
separate "levels." The lowest is 209 feet, and the highest 511 feet above
sea level. Boats doing the cross-country journey, or passing between
Birmingham and the coast, would have to overcome such heights as these by
means of locks, lifts or inclined planes.
Here we have a very different proposition from that which is presented by
canals on the flat surfaces of Holland, Belgium and North Germany--with,
also, their abundant water supplies, from great rivers or
otherwise--whereas the upper levels of the Birmingham Canal are kept filled
with water only by means of costly and powerful pumping machinery,
supplemented by reservoirs.
When the original builders of canals had to cross the grand ridge, or any
other elevation over which they required to pass, they sought to economise
water consumption and to keep down both cost of construction and working
expenses by making the locks on the top levels only just large enough to
pass boats of a small size. The dimensions of any boat making a through
journey are thus controlled by those of the smallest lock through which it
would require to pass. On lower levels where the water problem did not
arise--or not to the same degree--the locks could well be made larger, to
accommodate larger boats engaged only in local traffic.
{303}The material differences in cost of construction and operation between
waterways on a low and uniform level and those crossing considerable
eminences, by means of locks, were well recognised by Parliament when
approving the lists of tolls to be paid on different waterways. On the Aire
and Calder the minimum toll, if a boat passed through a lock, was fixed at
five shillings. On the Rochdale Canal the minimum toll for a boat crossing
the summit level was ten shillings.[49] The reason for this difference is
that whereas the Aire and Calder navigation is but little above sea level
throughout, the summit of the Rochdale Canal is at a height of 600 feet
above sea level, and is crossed by means of ninety-two locks in thirty-two
miles.
The reader will see, therefore, that the want of a common gauge in the
construction of artificial waterways, mainly designed, at the outset, to
supply the needs of particular districts, may often have been due to more
practical reasons than simply a lack of combination or a difference of view
on the part of canal constructors, the problem of gauge on canals built at
varying elevations, and all depending on water supply, being entirely
different from any question as to the gauge or the running of railways on
the same or similar routes.
"The necessity of a uniform gauge on canals as on railways," says Clifford,
"is now clear enough. We need not wonder that, in the eighteenth century,
Parliament was no wiser than the engineers, and had not learned this
lesson." It was, however, not entirely a matter of wisdom. There were,
also, these inherent defects of the canal system itself to be considered.
It is very doubtful if even Parliament, had it possessed the greatest
foresight, could have forced, or have persuaded, the canal companies to
construct locks of precisely the same dimensions at elevations of 400, 500
or 600 feet, where water was difficult to get or costly to pump, as on
canals more or less on the sea level, and deriving an abundant water supply
from mountain streams or navigable rivers.
Forbes and Ashford, in "Our Waterways," also think it is much to be
regretted that in this country no standard dimension was ever fixed for
canals, "as has been done in France." But the superficial area of the
United Kingdom, {304}with its mountains and valleys, and hills and dales,
presents a wholly different problem, in the matter of canal construction,
from that offered by the flat surfaces of France, of Holland, of Belgium or
of North Germany. In 230 miles of waterway between Hamburg and Berlin there
are three locks. In this country there is an average of one lock for every
mile and a quarter of canal navigation. The total number of locks is 2,377,
and for each of these there must be allowed a capitalised cost of, on an
average, £1360.
The fate that overtook the once prosperous canals of South Wales when the
railways could no longer be suppressed by the canal companies, and were
allowed to compete fairly with them, has been materially due to their own
physical disadvantages in respect of the large number of locks they require
to overcome the steep inclines of the mountainous district in which they
were made. These facts are brought out in the Fourth (Final) Report of the
Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways, where it is said:--
"The Glamorganshire and Aberdare Canals were bought by the Marquis of Bute
in 1885. They form a continuous narrow waterway with a total length of
about 32 miles. In this distance there are 53 locks.... The waterway is
used at the Cardiff end by small coasting vessels, but above this point the
traffic has fallen off considerably. The total tonnage carried on the
canals amounted in 1888 to 660,364 tons; in 1905 to 249,760 tons. Two
railways run parallel to the canals and carry almost all the coal brought
down from the collieries near the canals. The gradients from these
collieries to the port are considerable. This makes the haulage of full
railway trucks easy, and, on the other hand, in the case of the canal makes
necessary a great number of locks relatively to the mileage, with
consequent slowness of transport.
"The Swansea Canal belongs to the Great Western Railway Company. It is a
narrow canal, 16½ miles in length, and has 36 locks. The traffic has
diminished ... for reasons similar to those given with respect to the
Glamorganshire Canal."
Much more, however, than the provision of locks was necessitated by the
physical conditions of a country naturally unsuited for artificial
waterways. In some instances the canals were taken across broad valleys by
means of viaducts designed to allow of the waterway being maintained at the
same {305}level; and certain of the works thus carried out were, in their
day, deservedly regarded as of considerable engineering importance. The
Chirk aqueduct, which carries the Ellesmere Canal across a 700-feet stretch
in the Ceriog valley, and at a height of 70 feet above the level of the
river, and the Pontcysyllte aqueduct, 1007 feet long, which takes the same
canal over the river Dee, are spoken of by Phillips, in his "General
History of Inland Navigation" (1803), as "among the boldest efforts of
human invention in modern times." Elsewhere the canals had to pass along
high embankments or through deep cuttings. Canal tunnels of up to three
miles in length were not infrequent, though some of these were made so
narrow--in the interests of economy--that they had no towing-path, the
boats being taken through by men who lay on their backs on the cargo, and
pushed against the sides of the tunnel with their feet. Alternatively, it
was sometimes possible to avoid rising ground or deep valleys,
necessitating locks, by making wide detours in preference to taking the
shortest route, as a railway would do. Thus the distance by canal between
Liverpool and Wigan is thirty-four miles, as compared with a distance of
only nineteen by rail. From Liverpool to Leeds is 128 miles by canal and
eighty by rail. These windings made the canal compare still more
unfavourably with the railway when it was considered that the speed of
transport on the former was only about two and a half miles an hour,
without counting delays at the locks; and of these there are, between
Liverpool and Leeds, no fewer than ninety-three.
But just because these engineering works had been so bold and so costly, or
left so much to be desired in regard to length of route, and just because
so many physical difficulties had had to be overcome, it may well have
happened that when what was universally considered a better means of
transport was presented, general doubts arose as to the wisdom and
practicability of reconstructing, in effect, the whole canal system to
enable it to compete better with the railways in catering for that through
traffic for which the canals themselves were so ill adapted.
Supplementing these considerations as to the physical configuration of the
country is the further fact that in the colliery districts the keeping of
the canals in working order involves great trouble, incessant watchfulness
and very {306}considerable expenditure on account of subsidences due to
coal-mining. In my book on "Canals and Traders" (P. S. King & Son) I have
told how "throughout practically the whole of the Black Country, the
Birmingham Canal, for a total distance of about eighty miles, has been
undermined by colliery workings, and is mainly on the top of embankments
which have been raised from time to time, in varying stages, to maintain
the waterway above the level of the ground that has sunk because of the
coal mines underneath." Many of these embankments, as I have had the
opportunity of seeing for myself, are now at a height of from twenty to
thirty feet above the present surface of the land, and in one instance, at
least, the subsidences have been so serious that an embankment twenty feet
high and half a mile long has taken the place of what was formerly a
cutting. If the Birmingham Canal had not been controlled by the London and
North-Western Railway Company, who are under a statutory obligation to keep
it in good and effective working condition, it would inevitably have
collapsed long ago. No independent canal company, deriving its revenue from
canal tolls and charges alone, could have stood the heavy and continuous
drain upon its resources which, in these circumstances, the canal would
have involved; and like conditions apply to various other railway-owned
canals in the north, in Wales, and elsewhere.
Concerning the Glamorganshire Canal, it is said in "Transport Facilities in
South Wales and Monmouthshire," by Clarence S. Howells:[50] "The present
owners have spent £25,000 on the canal since 1885 in an ineffectual attempt
to revive its waning fortunes. One of its many difficulties is the
subsidence caused by colliery workings."
Dealing with the general position in regard to canal transport in the
United Kingdom, J. S. Jeans remarks in "Waterways and Water Transport"
(1890):--
"The railway companies have been accused of acquiring canal property in
order that they might destroy it, and thereby get rid of a dangerous rival.
This is probably not the case. The railway companies are fully aware of the
fact that water transport under suitable conditions is more economical than
rail transport. It would therefore have suited them, at the {307}same
rates, to carry by water heavy traffic, in the delivery of which time was
not of so much importance. But the canals as they came into their
possession were naturally unadapted for such traffic without being more or
less remodelled, and this the railway companies have not attempted.
"When we consider the enormous disadvantages under which the majority of
the canals of this country now labour, the great matter for wonder is, not
that they do not secure the lion's share of the traffic, but that they get
any traffic at all."
If, for the sake of argument, we leave out of account all the "enormous
disadvantages" here alluded to, and assume that the physical difficulties
already detailed could be overcome without much trouble or great expense
(though this would, indeed, be a prodigious assumption), we should still
have the fact that the number of traders in the country who could hope to
benefit from any possible system of internal navigation would necessarily
be limited to those in certain districts, whereas the railway can be taken
anywhere, and be made to serve the interests of each and every district or
community in the country.
It is true that when commodities can be sent direct from an ocean-going
vessel to a works situated immediately alongside a canal, the waterway may
have the advantage over the railway; and the same may be the case as
regards manufactured goods forwarded in the opposite direction. Of the
235,000 tons of flints, clay and other potters' materials brought into the
Potteries district of North Staffordshire during 1910, no fewer than
200,000 tons, imported at Runcorn, Ellesmere Port or Weston Port, were
taken by canal to pottery works located on or near to the canal banks. In
these circumstances the North Staffordshire Railway Company, who also
control the Trent and Mersey Navigation, cannot, as railway owners, compete
with themselves as canal owners. In the case of the Aire and Calder, the
physical conditions of which are exceptionally favourable, coal can readily
be sent from the collieries immediately alongside the waterway to the
steamers or the coal ships in the port of Goole. On the Birmingham Canal,
also, the traffic between collieries and works, or between works and
railway transhipping basins, on the same level, is already so considerable
that no great increase could be accommodated without carrying out on the
canal a widening {308}which would be fabulously costly, and, also, wholly
impracticable, on account of the great iron-works and other industrial
establishments which line almost the entire twelve-mile route between
Birmingham and Wolverhampton, forming, with their hundreds of private
basins, the actual boundary of the canal on one side or the other. To
"adapt" the Birmingham Canal to through traffic would produce chaos for the
local traffic.
Mr Jeans thus goes a little too far when he makes the sweeping statement
that "Canals as they were built a century ago have no longer any function
to fulfil that is worthy of serious consideration. Their mission is ended,
their use is an anachronism." Even the title given to the present chapter,
"Decline of Canals," is to be read subject to the exceptions represented by
those of the waterways that still answer these useful local purposes and
should have every encouragement therein. Mr Jeans is, however, fully
warranted in declaring that "it would be the idlest of idle dreams to
expect that the canal system of this or any other country as originally
constructed can be resuscitated, or even temporarily galvanised into
activity, in competition with the railways."
There is a still further consideration.
Whatever the prospective advantages of resuscitation when the point of
despatch and the point of delivery are both on the same canal--and
especially when both are on the same level of the canal, so that passage
through locks is unnecessary--it must be obvious that when commodities are
despatched from, or consigned to, places situate at such a distance from a
canal that supplementary transport is necessary, the cost thereof must be
added to the amount of the canal charges. The sum of the two may then be so
little below the cost of rail transport that the latter--coupled with the
greater speed and the greater convenience in the way, perhaps, of sidings
or of lines of rails coming right into the works--will be preferred.
Academic theories, on paper, as to the comparative costs of hauling given
weights of commodities on water and rail respectively may, in fact, be
rendered futile by (1) the supplementary cost of transport to or from the
waterway and of various services or conveniences included in the railway
rate but not included in the canal charges; and (2) the consideration that
if a large sum of money be spent on {309}improving the canals the interest
thereon must either be met by means of increased canal charges--in which
event the canal-users would have no advantage over the railway-users--or
remain as a permanent burden on the community.
How the cost of the supplementary charges and services operates in practice
may be shown by a reference to the London coal trade, coal being a
commodity which is regarded by those who favour State ownership of the
canals as one specially adapted for waterway transport.
Except as regards the consignments of sea-borne coal, the domestic coal
supply of London is carried almost exclusively by rail. The trucks can
generally go right up to the collieries; they convey the coal to special
and extensive railway sidings, there to await orders; and they proceed
thence, as required, to the suburban railway station or depôt nearest to
the premises of the actual consumer, in any part of the country; whereas
coal sent by canal would first have to be taken from the colliery to the
canal, and there be discharged into the boat, then be conveyed, say, to the
Thames, next be transferred from boat to cart, and finally be taken by road
across London to destination, with the subsidiary considerations (1) that
with each fresh handling the coal would deteriorate in value; (2) that the
traders would lose the advantage of railway coal sidings and station
depots; and (3) that the railway truck is a better unit than the canal boat
for the various descriptions or qualities of coal dealt in by the average
coal merchant, whose prejudices in favour of rail transport over canal
transport, when the consumers are not actually located on or quite close to
the waterway, can thus be accounted for by strictly business
considerations.
The conclusion is forced upon one that, notwithstanding the useful purposes
which a certain number of canals are still serving, any resuscitation of
canals in general, or even any provision of improved cross-country canal
routes passing over the "grand ridge," at the cost of an indefinite number
of millions to the country, can hardly be regarded as coming within the
range of sound economics. It certainly is favoured by a larger number of
traders than the comparatively small proportion who would be able, or
willing, to use the canals when they had been improved; but this support is
directly due to a belief that nationalisation--though what is proposed
{310}is only a partial nationalisation--of the canals would tend towards
keeping down railway rates.
In other words, the scheme is but a further development of that policy
which aims at enforcing the principle of competition irrespective of cost,
and without regard for the capital expenditure on which a fair return ought
to be assured. One of the witnesses examined before the Royal Commission on
Canals and Waterways said there was a local feeling against the Wilts and
Berks Canal being taken in hand by the county council "because," he said,
"we are all afraid of the rates; but," he added, "from what I have heard
from traders and others, they would like to see it back again, mainly as a
means of cutting down railway rates." Mr Remnant, one of the Commissioners,
says in his separate report, in alluding to import and export traffic, that
most of the evidence given on this question "seemed to point to a desire on
the traders' part, not so much for the waterways as for lower railway
rates, in order to enable them to face foreign competition"; while Mr
Davison, another of the Commissioners, who also dissents from the
recommendations of the Majority Report, speaks of many of the canals as
being "of little economic value to the trade of the country, apart from
whatever influence they may have in keeping down railway rates," though he
adds: "If this latter result were otherwise secured their continued
existence could not be justified on economic grounds."
Any effect which the carrying out of the Majority Report scheme of canal
improvement _might_ have on railway rates would, all the same, be felt only
in the towns or localities directly concerned. Benefit would result to (1)
those traders who could use the canals, and (2) those who, though not using
the canals, obtained the lower railway rates, if reductions really were
secured through the canal competition; while traders at a distance from the
waterways would not only have to help to pay the cost, though themselves
deriving no benefit therefrom, but might even see two classes of their own
competitors in the favoured districts gain an advantage over them--one set
from State-owned and State-aided canals, and another from the local
reductions in railway rates to which those canals might be expected to
lead.
The proposals of the Royal Commission may well be approved by certain
localities or individual traders on the line {311}of route of the canals
proposed to be taken in hand. They are hardly likely, however, to commend
themselves to the traders and taxpayers of the country in general.
My own view is that if the State is prepared to find money for the purpose
of cheapening the cost of transport, it could do so to better advantage if,
instead of spending millions on an impracticable and partial scheme of
canal resuscitation, it lightened the burden of taxation now falling on the
railway companies, and thus improved their position in regard, not merely
to traders in particular districts, but to the trade and industries of the
United Kingdom as a whole.
{312}CHAPTER XXIII