The real strength of the opposition thus being worked up against not only the Liverpool and Manchester Railway but public railways in general will be better understood if I supplement the references I have already made to the shares of canal and navigation companies by a few further figures, showing the financial position to which the waterways had attained, and the extent of the vested interests they represented at the particular period now in question.

In a pamphlet published in 1824, under the title of "A Statement of the Claim of the Subscribers to the Birmingham and Liverpool Rail-road to an Act of Parliament; in reply to the Opposition of the Canal Companies" (quoted in the fifth, or 1825, edition of Thomas Gray's "Observations on a General Iron Rail-way"), it is stated that the amount of capital originally subscribed for the old Birmingham Canal Company was about £55,000, in shares of £100, subject to a stipulation that no one person should hold more than ten shares. The pamphlet proceeds:—

"By various subsequent Acts and collateral cuts, this canal, which has now changed its name to the style of the 'Birmingham Canal Navigation Company,' is extended to a distance of about 60 miles of water, containing 99 locks or thereabouts, 10 fire engines to raise water, number of bridges not known to the present writer.

"The original shares are computed to have cost the proprietors £140 each. In 1782 they were marketably worth £370, and in 1792, £1110. In 1811 an Act increased the shares 500 to 1000, or, in other words, for marketable convenience divided them. In 1813 the half share was sold as high as £585. In 1818 power was given to the company of proprietors further to subdivide the shares as they should deem advisable, on due public notice, etc. The shares are now in eighths. Thus at the present time, and at the last quoted prices in Wetenhall's list, there are 4000 shares of eighths, marketably worth £360 per eighth, each receiving an annual dividend of £12-10-0. Thus the original cost, compared with the present value of the 500 shares, is as £70,000 to £1,444,000, the original share having risen from £140 sterling (or thereabouts) to the sum of £2840."

Shares in the Loughborough Navigation cost the first holders £142-17-0 each. In the "European Magazine" for June, 1821, they are quoted at £2600 a share, and the dividend then being paid is given as 170 per cent. In the issue of the same magazine for November, 1824, the price per share is £4700, and the dividend is shown to have risen to 200 per cent.

Among other canal shares quoted in the "European Magazine" for the dates mentioned are the following:—

18211824
COMPANY.SHARE.PRICE.DIVIDEND.PRICE.DIVIDEND.
£££££
Coventry10097044135044 and 61
Erewash100100056—58
Leeds and Liverpool1002801057015
Oxford10063032900*32*
Staffordshire and
Worcestershire		1007004095040
Trent and Mersey2001750752250*75*
* And bonus.

The following further quotations are from "Wetenhall's Commercial List" for December 10, 1824:—

COMPANY.SHARE.PRICE.DIVIDEND.
£00s.00d.£00s.00d.£00s.00d.
Ashton and Oldham09701800031000000005000000
Barnsley16000000034000000012000000
Grand Junction10000000029600000010000000
Glamorganshire17201300428000000013012008
Grantham15000000019000000010000000
Leicester14000000039000000014000000
Monmouthshire10000000024500000010000000
Melton Mowbray10000000025500000011000000
Mersey and Irwell—100000000035000000
Neath10000000040000000015000000
Shrewsbury12500000020600000010000000
Stourbridge14500000022000000010010000
Stroudwater15000000045000000031010000
Trent and Mersey (half share)100000000230000000075000000*
Warwick and Birmingham10000000032000000011000000
Warwick and Knapton10000000028000000011000000
* And bonus.

These figures, it will be seen, are given for years when the "canal mania"—at its height between 1791 and 1794—had long been over, and they suggest, therefore, bona fide market values based on business done and dividends paid. High as they are, it is doubtful if they tell the whole story. I have mentioned on page [218] that in their petition to the House of Commons against the proposed railway, or tramway, between Merthyr and Cardiff, the Glamorganshire Canal Company represented that they were restrained by their Act from paying more than a "moderate" dividend. The dividend they were authorised to pay was one of eight per cent; but there is a tradition in South Wales that the company, after checking effectively the threatened railway competition, attained to phenomenal prosperity, and resorted to an ingenious expedient as a means of deriving further pecuniary advantage from the waterway without exceeding the statutory limitation in regard to the dividend to be paid. This expedient took the form of a suspension of all tolls for a large part of every year, the use of the canal being free to the public for the period so arranged. In some years, it is said, no tolls were paid for six months at a time. This practice was found preferable, for certain members of the managing committee—ironmasters or large traders in the district—to a reduction of tolls to be in force throughout the year, their practice being to keep back their own consignments, whenever possible, till the free period, which they could fix to suit their convenience. When the principal shareholders were traders using the canal, it did not matter to them whether their profits came wholly in dividends or partly in dividends and partly in free carriage. Traders, however, who could not wait for their supplies or store their manufactured goods until the free period came round had to pay the full rates of tolls for, at least, the period during which these were enforced.