At the close of the debate which followed, Mr Morrison withdrew his resolution, owing to the announcement that the matter to which he had called attention would be dealt with in a Bill then being framed. It is none the less interesting thus to find that Parliamentary revisions of railway rates were, in the first instance, directly inspired by the extortions practised on the traders by canal companies in the interest of dividends far in excess of any that the railway companies have themselves attempted to pay.
Reverting to the story of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway—the projection of which, as Mr Sandars' "Letter" shows, represented a revolt against "the exorbitant and unjust charges of the water-carriers"—the Bill promoted in its favour was opposed so vigorously by the canal and other interests that £70,000 was spent in the Parliamentary proceedings in getting it through. But it was carried in 1826, and the new line, opened in 1830, was so great a success that it soon began to inspire many similar projects in other directions, while with its opening the building of fresh canals for ordinary inland navigation (as distinct from ship canals) practically ceased.
There is not the slightest doubt that, but for the extreme dissatisfaction of the trading interests in regard alike to the heavy charges and to the shortcomings of the canal system, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway—that precursor of the "railway mania"—would not have been actually constructed until at least several years later. But there were other directions, also, in which the revolt against the then existing conditions was to bring about important developments. In the pack-horse period the collieries of Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire respectively supplied local needs only, the cost of transport by road making it practically impossible to send coal out of the county in which it was raised. With the advent of canals the coal could be taken longer distances, and the canals themselves gained so much from the business that at one time shares in the Loughborough Canal, on which £142 had been paid, rose, as already shown, to £4,600, and were looked upon as being as safe as Consols. But the collapse of a canal from the Leicestershire coal-fields to the town of Leicester placed the coalowners of that county at a disadvantage, and this they overcame, in 1832, by opening the Leicester and Swinnington line of railway. Thereupon the disadvantage was thrown upon the Nottinghamshire coalowners, who could no longer compete with Leicestershire. In fact, the immediate outlook before them was that they would be excluded from their chief markets, that their collieries might have to be closed, and that the mining population would be thrown out of employment.
In their dilemma they appealed to the canal companies, and asked for such a reduction in rates as would enable them to meet the new situation; but the canal companies—wedded to their big dividends—would make only such concessions as were thought by the other side to be totally inadequate. Following on this the Nottinghamshire coalowners met in the parlour of a village inn at Eastwood, in the autumn of 1832, and formally declared that "there remained no other plan for their adoption than to attempt to lay a railway from their collieries to the town of Leicester." The proposal was confirmed by a subsequent meeting, which resolved that "a railway from Pinxton to Leicester is essential to the interests of the coal-trade of this district." Communications were opened with George Stephenson, the services of his son Robert were secured, the "Midland Counties Railway" was duly constructed, and the final outcome of the action thus taken—as the direct result of the attitude of the canal companies—is to be seen in the splendid system known to-day as the Midland Railway.
Once more, I might refer to Mr Charles H. Grinling's "History of the Great Northern Railway," in which, speaking of early conditions, he says:—
"During the winter of 1843-44 a strong desire arose among the landowners and farmers of the eastern counties to secure some of the benefits which other districts were enjoying from the new method of locomotion. One great want of this part of England was that of cheaper fuel, for though there were collieries open at this time in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire, the nearest pits with which the eastern counties had practicable transport communication were those of South Yorkshire and Durham, and this was of so circuitous a character that even in places situated on navigable rivers, unserved by a canal, the price of coal often rose as high as 40s. or even 50s. a ton. In remoter places, to which it had to be carted 10, 20, or even 30 miles along bad cross-roads, coal even for house-firing was a positive luxury, quite unattainable by the poorer classes. Moreover, in the most severe weather, when the canals were frozen, the whole system of supply became paralysed, and even the wealthy had not seldom to retreat shivering to bed for lack of fuel."
In this particular instance it was George Hudson, the "Railway King," who was approached, and the first lines were laid of what is now the Great Northern Railway.
So it happened that, when the new form of transport came into vogue, in succession to the canals, it was essentially a case of "Railways to the Rescue."