Manchester Ship Canal.
With the attitude of Liverpool in regard to the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal I was very prominently identified. I had to conduct the opposition to the Canal Bill through three sessions of Parliament, six enquiries in all. The Dock Board took the labouring oar, but it fell to me to work up the commercial case, to prove from a commercial point of view that the canal was not wanted, and would never pay. I prepared a great mass of figures, and was under examination during the six enquiries altogether about thirty hours. Mr. Pember, Q.C., who led the case for the promoters, paid me the compliment of saying I was the only witness he had ever had who had compelled him to get up early in the morning to prepare his cross-examination.
We defeated the bill in the first two enquiries. At the close of the second enquiry Mr. Lyster, the engineer to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, completely gave the Dock Board case away. Mr. Pember remarked: "Mr. Lyster, you have told us that if we make our canal through the centre of the estuary of the Mersey we shall cause the estuary to silt up and destroy the bar. What would you do if you had to make a canal to Manchester?" Mr. Lyster jumped at the bait, and replied, "I should enter at Eastham and carry the canal along the shore until I reached Runcorn, and then I would strike inland." Next year the Manchester Corporation brought in a new bill carrying out Mr. Lyster's suggestion, and as Liverpool had no answer they succeeded in getting their bill.
There can be no doubt that the railways had for long years greatly overcharged their Liverpool traffic. The rate of 12s 6d per ton for Manchester goods for the thirty-two miles' carriage from Manchester to Liverpool was a gross overcharge. I had headed deputation after deputation to the London and North-Western Railway to represent this; Mr. Moon (afterwards Sir Richard Moon) always received us with much civility, but nothing was done. The Dock Board had the remedy in their own hands; they could have bought the Bridgewater Canal, and made a competitive route; but the prosperity of Liverpool was great, and they altogether failed to see that Manchester, with its Ship Canal, might one day be a serious competitor to Liverpool.
The promoters of the Ship Canal secured an option over the Bridgewater Canal, and this was really the backbone of their scheme. At the close of the first parliamentary enquiry, when the Canal Bill was thrown out, Mr. Wakefield Cropper, the chairman of the Bridgewater Canal, came to me and said, "The option given to the Ship Canal people has expired; can you not persuade the Dock Board to buy up the Bridgewater Canal, and this will put an end to the Ship Canal project?" I walked across the Green Park with Mr. T. D. Hornby, the chairman of the Dock Board, and Mr. Squarey, the solicitor, and told them of this conversation, and they both agreed with me that the Dock Board ought to make the purchase, but, unfortunately, nothing was done. In the following year the Ship Canal Bill was again thrown out, and Mr. Cropper again urged that we should secure the Bridgewater Canal. I called at the Liverpool Dock office in London and saw Mr. Hornby and Mr. Squarey; they both agreed that the purchase of the Bridgewater Canal ought to be made, but again no step was taken, and the Ship Canal made their third application to Parliament, and succeeded. I have always felt that the Dock Board thus missed a great opportunity, which in years to come may prove to have been the golden chance of securing the prosperity of the port.