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 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 1-1/4 mile of navigation. The sum total of the locks on British
canals is 2,377, 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 Huddersfield 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 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 (1)
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 (1)
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 correspondent was able to
declare:--"In the new power may be found a solution of the problem
of canal traction." He arrived at this conclusion notwithstanding 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 22-1/2 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 14-1/2 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 question of expense.
The cost of construction of the Anderton lift was £50,000, and the cost
of maintenance is £500 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 navigations, 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 from forward to aft of the
boat, or else by the "legging" 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 Ellesmere 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 £47,000. Another canal
aqueduct worthy of mention is that which was constructed by Rennie in
1796, at a cost of £48,000, 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 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
competitor 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 equitable 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 purchasable at two-thirds of their original cost of
construction, say £2,350 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 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 underneath the waterways in
districts such as Staffordshire 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 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 waterway. 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_ mineral 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, alternatively, 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 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 Commission," 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![11]
[Illustration: WATER SUPPLY FOR CANALS.
(Belvide Reservoir, Staffordshire, Shropshire Union Canal.)
[_To face page 128._
]
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 consume about 50,000 cubic feet of water, and the two
large crafts which Mr Saner proposed to accommodate in the lock[12]
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 Shropshire 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 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 Waterways" 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 3-1/2 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 3-1/2 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
approximate 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,
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 comparison 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 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 navigation. The goods depôts 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, while representing no adequate return to the railway company
for the heavy capital outlay in providing the depôts, 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 consignment 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 conditions 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 reconstructing 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 assume that no
really sensible person, knowing anything at all of actual facts and
conditions, would attempt to revive the entire canal system of the
country.[13] 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 their
individual leanings, and regardless of all considerations 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 resuscitation would be a very costly business indeed. Estimates
of which I have read in print range from £20,000,000 to £50,000,000;
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 similar in size to those employed on
the waterways of Germany, or craft which, starting from an inland
manufacturing town in the Midlands, could go on a coasting trip, or
make a journey across to the Continent. Here the capital expenditure
would be so great that the cost would be absolutely prohibitive.
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, independently 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 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
reasonable 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 depôt, 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.
The revival movement, however, is based on the supposition that no
increase in the canal tolls now charged would be necessary.[14] Canal
transport, it is said, is already much higher in this country than
it is on the Continent--and that may well be so, considering (1)
that canals such as ours, with their numerous locks, etc., cost more
to construct, operate and maintain than canals on the flat lands of
Continental 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 probability of this? Bearing
in mind the complete transition 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
problematical where extra cartage has to be done) on the tedious
delivery of wholesale quantities by canal?
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 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 construction 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
improvements 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."