British Canals 5

	British Canals 5

The experiences of the New York canals have been fully shared by other canals in other States. Of the sum total of 5,000 miles of canals constructed, 2,000 had been abandoned by 1890 on the ground that the traffic was insufficient to cover working expenses. Since then most of the remainder have shared the same fate, one of the last of the survivors, the Delaware and Hudson, being converted into a railway a year or two ago. In fact the only canals in the United States to-day, besides those in the State of New York, whose business is sufficiently regular to warrant the inclusion of their traffic in the monthly reports of the Government are the Chesapeake and Delaware (connecting Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, and having an annual traffic of about 700,000 tons, largely lumber); and the Chesapeake and Ohio (from Cumberland to Georgetown, owned by the State of Maryland, and transporting coal almost exclusively, the amount depending on the state of congestion of traffic on the railroads). It is New York that has been most affected by this decline in American canals. When the railways began to compete severely with the Erie Canal, New York's previous supremacy over rival ports in the Eastern States was seriously threatened. Philadelphia and Baltimore, and various smaller ports also, started to make tremendous advance. Then the Gulf ports--notably New Orleans and Galveston--were able to capture a good deal of ocean traffic that might otherwise have passed through New York. Not only do the railway lines to those ports have the advantage of easy grades, so that exceptionally heavy train-loads can be handled with ease, and not only is there no fear of snow or ice blocks in winter, but the improvements effected in the ports themselves--as I had the opportunity of seeing and judging, in the winter of 1902-3, during a visit to the United States--have made these southern ports still more formidable competitors of New York. While, therefore, the trade of the United States has undergone great expansion of late years, that proportion of it which passes through the port of New York has seriously declined. "In less than ten years," says a pamphlet on "The Canal System of New York State," issued by the Canal Improvement State Committee, City of New York, "Pennsylvania or some other State may be the Empire State, which title New York has held since the time of the Erie Canal." So a movement has been actively promoted in New York State for the resuscitation of the Erie and other canals there, with a view to assuring the continuance of New York's commercial supremacy, and giving her a better chance--if possible--of competing with rivals now flourishing at her expense. At first a ship canal between New York and Lake Erie was proposed; but this idea has been rejected as impracticable. Finally, the Legislature of the State of New York decided on spending $101,000,000 on enlarging the Erie and other canals in the State, so as to give them a depth of 12 feet, and allow of the passage of 1,000-ton barges, arrangements being also made for propulsion by electric or steam traction. In addition to this particular scheme, "there are," says Mr F. H. Dixon, Professor of Economics, Dartmouth College, in an address on "Competition between Water and Railway Transportation Lines in the United States," read by him before the St Louis Railway Club, and reported in the _Engineering News_ (New York) of March 22, 1906, "many other proposals for canals in different sections of the country, extending all the way from projects that have some economic justification to the crazy and impracticable schemes of visionaries." But the general position in regard to canal resuscitation in the United States does not seem to be very hopeful, judging from a statement made by Mr Carnegie--once an advocate of the proposed Pittsburg-Lake Erie Canal--before the Pittsburg Chamber of Commerce in 1898. "Such has been the progress of railway development," he said, "that if we had a canal to-day from Lake Erie through the Ohio Valley to Beaver, free of toll, we could not afford to put boats on it. It is cheaper to-day to transfer the ore to 50-ton cars, and bring it to our works at Pittsburg over our railway, than it would be to bring it by canal." Turning from artificial to natural waterways in the United States, I find the story of the Mississippi no less instructive. [Illustration: A CARGO BOAT ON THE MISSISSIPPI.       [_To face page_ 110. ] This magnificent stream has, in itself, a length of 2,485 miles. But the Missouri is really only an upper prolongation of the same river under another name, and the total length of the two, from mouth to source, is 4,190 miles, of which the greater distance is navigable. The Mississippi and its various tributaries drain, altogether, an area of 1,240,000 square miles, or nearly one-third of the territory of the United States. If any great river in the world had a chance at all of holding its own against the railroads as a highway of traffic it should, surely, be the Mississippi, to which British theorists ought to be able to point as a powerful argument in support of their general proposition concerning the advantages of water over rail-transport. But the actual facts all point in the other direction. The earliest conditions of navigation on the Mississippi are well shown in the following extract from an article published in the _Quarterly Review_ of March 1830, under the heading, "Railroads and Locomotive Steam-carriages":-- "As an example of the difficulties of internal navigation, it may be mentioned that on the great river Mississippi, which flows at the rate of 5 or 6 miles an hour, it was the practice of a certain class of boatmen, who brought down the produce of the interior to New Orleans, to break up their boats, sell the timber, and afterwards return home slowly by land; and a voyage up the river from New Orleans to Pittsburg, a distance of about 2,000 miles, could hardly be accomplished, with the most laborious efforts, within a period of four months. But the uncertain and limited influence, both of the wind and the tide, is now superseded by a new agent, which in power far surpassing the raging torrent, is yet perfectly manageable, and acts with equal efficacy in any direction.... Steamboats of every description, and on the most approved models, ply on all the great rivers of the United States; the voyage from New Orleans to Pittsburg, which formerly occupied four months, is accomplished with ease in fifteen or twenty days, and at the rate of not less than 5 miles an hour." Since this article in the _Quarterly Review_ was published, enormous sums of money have been spent on the Mississippi--partly with a view to the prevention of floods, but partly, also, to improve the river for the purposes of navigation. Placed in charge of a Mississippi Commission and of the Chief of Engineers in the United States Army, the river has been systematically surveyed; special studies and reports have been drawn up on every possible aspect of its normal or abnormal conditions and circumstances; the largest river dredges in the world have been employed to ensure an adequate depth of the river bed; engineering works in general on the most complete scale have been carried out--in fact, nothing that science, skill, or money could accomplish has been left undone. The difficulties were certainly considerable. There has always been a tendency for the river bed to get choked up by the sediment the stream failed to carry on; the banks are weak; while the variation in water level is sometimes as much as 10 feet in a single month. None the less, the Mississippi played for a time as important a role in the west and the south as the Erie Canal played in the north. Steamboats on the western rivers increased in number from 20, in 1818, to 1,200, in 1848, and there was a like development in flat boat tonnage. With the expansion of the river traffic came a growth of large cities and towns alongside. Louisville increased in population from 4,000, in 1820, to 43,000, in 1850, and St Louis from 4,900 to 77,000 in the same period. With the arrival of the railroads began the decline of the river, though some years were to elapse before the decline was seriously felt. It was the absolute perfection of the railway system that eventually made its competition irresistible. The lines paralleled the river; they had, as I have said, easy grades; they responded to that consideration in regard to speedy delivery of consignments which is as pronounced in the United States as it is in Great Britain; they were as free from stoppages due to variations in water level as they were from stoppages on account of ice or snow; and they could be provided with branch lines as "feeders," going far inland, so that the trader did not have either to build his factory on the river bank or to pay cost of cartage between factory and river. The railway companies, again, were able to provide much more efficient terminal facilities, especially in the erection of large wharves, piers, and depots which allow of the railway waggons coming right alongside the steamers. At Galveston I saw cargo being discharged from the ocean-going steamers by being placed on trucks which were raised from the vessel by endless moving-platforms to the level of the goods station, where stood, along parallel series of lines, the railway waggons which would take them direct to Chicago, San Francisco, or elsewhere. With facilities such as these no inland waterway can possibly compete. The railways, again, were able, in competition with the river, to reduce their charges to "what the traffic would bear," depending on a higher proportion of profit elsewhere. The steamboats could adopt no such policy as this, and the traders found that, by the time they had paid, not only the charges for actual river transport, but insurance and extra cartage, as well, they had paid as much as transport by rail would have cost, while getting a much slower and more inconvenient service. [Illustration: SUCCESSFUL RIVALS OF MISSISSIPPI CARGO BOATS.   (1) Illinois Central Freight Train; 43 cars; 2,100 tons.   (2)    "       "     Banana Express, New Orleans to Chicago; 34 cars;       433 tons of bananas.       [_To face page 114._ ] The final outcome of all these conditions is indicated by some remarks made by Mr Stuyvesant Fish, President of the Illinois Central Railroad Company (the chief railway competitors of the Mississippi steamboats), in the address he delivered as President of the Seventh Session of the International Railway Congress at Washington, in May 1905:-- "It is within my knowledge that twenty years ago there were annually carried by steamboats from Memphis to New Orleans over 100,000 bales of cotton, and that in almost every year since the railroads between Memphis and New Orleans passed under one management, not a single bale has been carried down the Mississippi River from Memphis by boat, and in no one year have 500 bales been thus carried; the reason being that, including the charges for marine and fire insurance, the rates by water are higher than by rail." To this statement Mr Fish added some figures which may be tabulated as follows:-- TONNAGE OF FREIGHT RECEIVED AT OR DESPATCHED FROM NEW ORLEANS.   +----------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+   |                                        |     1890    |     1900    |   +----------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+   | By the Mississippi River (all sources) |  2,306,290  |    450,498  |   | By rail                                |  3,557,742  |  6,852,064  |   +----------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+   Decline of river traffic in ten years        1,855,792 tons   Increase of rail    "      "      "          3,294,322  " These figures bear striking testimony to the results that may be brought about in a country where railways are allowed a fair chance of competing with even the greatest of natural waterways--a chance, as I have said, denied them in Germany and France. Looking, too, at these figures, I understand better the significance of what I saw at Memphis, where a solitary Mississippi steamboat--one of the survivals of those huge floating warehouses now mostly rusting out their existence at New Orleans--was having her cargo discharged on the river banks by a few negroes, while the powerful locomotives of the Illinois Central were rushing along on the adjoining railway with the biggest train-loads it was possible for them to haul. On the general position in the United States I might quote the following from a communication with which I have been favoured by Mr Luis Jackson, an Englishman by birth, who, after an early training on British railways, went to the United States, created there the role of "industrial commissioner" in connection with American railways, and now fills that position on the Erie Railroad:-- "When I was in the West the question of water transportation down the Mississippi was frequently remarked upon. The Mississippi is navigable from St Paul to New Orleans. In the early days the towns along the Mississippi, especially those from St Paul to St Louis, depended upon, and had their growth through, the river traffic. It was a common remark among our railroad people that 'we could lick the river.' The traffic down the Mississippi, especially from St Paul to St Louis (I can only speak of the territory with which I am well acquainted) perceptibly declined in competition with the railroads, and the river towns have been revived by, and now depend more for their growth on, the railroads than on the river.... Figures do not prove anything. If the Erie Canal and the Mississippi River traffic had increased, doubled, trebled, or quadrupled in the past years, instead of actually dwindling by tonnage figures, it would prove nothing as against the tremendous tonnage hauled by the trunk line railroads. The Erie Railroad Company, New York to Chicago, last year carried 32,000,000 tons of revenue freights. It would take a pretty good canal to handle that amount of traffic; and the Erie is only one of many lines between New York and Chicago. "A canal, paralleling great railroads, to some extent injures them on through traffic. The tendency of all railroads is in the line of progress. As the tonnage increases the equipment becomes larger, and the general tendency of railroad rates is downwards; in other words, the public in the end gets from the railroad all that can be expected from a canal, and much more. The railroad can expand right and left, and reach industries by side tracks; with canals every manufacturer must locate on the banks of the canal. Canals for internal commerce, in my mind, are out of date; they belong to the 'slow.' Nor do I believe that the traffic management of canals by the State has the same conception of traffic measures which is adopted by the modern managers of railroads. "Canals affect rates on heavy commodities, and play a part mostly injurious, to my mind, to the proper development of railroads, especially on the Continent of Europe. They may do local business, but the railroad is the real handmaid of commerce." By way of concluding this brief sketch of American conditions, I cannot do better than adopt the final sentences in Professor Dixon's paper at the St Louis Railway Club to which I have already referred:-- "Two considerations should, above all others, be kept in mind in determination of the feasibility of any project: first, the very positive limitations to the efficiency of rivers and canals as transportation agencies because of their lack of flexibility and the natural disabilities under which they suffer; and secondly, that water transportation is not necessarily cheap simply because the Government constructs and maintains the channels. Nothing could be more delusive than the assertion so frequently made, which is found in the opening pages of the report of the New York Committee on Canals of 1899, that water transportation is inherently cheaper than rail transportation. Such an assertion is true only of ocean transportation, and possibly also of large bodies of water like the lakes, although this last is doubtful. "By all means let us have our waterways developed when such development is economically justifiable. What is justifiable must be a matter of judgment, and possibly to some extent of experimentation, but the burden of proof rests on its advocates. Such projects should be carried out by the localities interested and the burden should be borne by those who are to derive the benefit. Only in large undertakings of national concern should the General Government be called upon for aid. "But I protest most vigorously against the deluge of schemes poured in upon Congress at every session by reckless advocates who, disregarding altogether the cost of their crazy measures in the increased burden of general taxation, argue for the inherent cheapness of water transportation, and urge the construction at public expense of works whose traffic will never cover the cost of maintenance." CHAPTER IX ENGLISH CONDITIONS I have already spoken in Chapter VII. of some of the chief differences between Continental and English conditions, but I revert to the latter because it is essential that, before approving of any scheme of canal restoration here, the British public should thoroughly understand the nature of the task that would thus be undertaken. The sections of actual canal routes, given opposite page 98, will convey some idea of the difficulties which faced the original builders of our artificial waterways. The wonder is that, since water has not yet been induced to flow up-hill, canals were ever constructed over such surfaces at all. Most probably the majority of them would not have been attempted if railways had come into vogue half a century earlier than they did. Looking at these diagrams, one can imagine how the locomotive--which does not disdain hill-climbing, and can easily be provided with cuttings, bridges, viaducts, and tunnels--could follow the canal; but one can hardly imagine that in England, at least, the canal would have followed the railway. The whole proposition in regard to canal revival would be changed if only the surfaces in Great Britain were the same as they are, say, between 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 depots constructed by railway companies in all large towns and industrial centres have alone sufficed to bring about a complete revolution in trade and commerce since the days when canals were prosperous. There are many thousands of traders to-day who not only order comparatively small quantities of supplies at a time from the manufacturer, but leave even these quantities to be stored locally by the railway company, having delivered to them from day to day, or week by week, just as much as they can do with. A certain "free" period is allowed for warehousing, and, if they remove the goods during that period, they pay nothing to the railway company beyond the railway rate. After the free period a small "rent" is charged--a rent which, while representing no adequate return to the railway company for the heavy capital outlay in providing the depots, is much less than it would cost the trader if he had to build store-rooms for himself, or pay for accommodation elsewhere. Other traders, as mentioned in the chapter on "The Transition in Trade," send goods to the railway warehouses as soon as they are ready, to wait there until an order is completed, and the whole 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.