As bearing on the facts here narrated, I might mention that, in the course of a discussion at the Institution of Civil Engineers, in November 1905, on a paper read by Mr John Arthur Saner, "Waterways in Great Britain" (reported in the official "Proceedings" of the Institution), Mr James Inglis, General Manager of the Great Western Railway Company, said that "his company owned about 216 miles of canal, not a mile of which had been acquired voluntarily. Many of those canals had been forced on the railway as the price of securing Acts, and some had been obtained by negotiations with the canal companies. The others had been acquired in incidental ways, arising from the fact that the traffic had absolutely disappeared." Mr Inglis further told the story of the Kennet and Avon Canal, which his company maintain at a loss of about £4,000 per annum. The canal, it seems, was constructed in 1794 at a cost of £1,000,000, and at one time paid 5 per cent. The traffic fell off steadily with the extension of the railway system, and in 1846 the canal company, seeing their position was hopeless, applied to Parliament for powers to construct a railway parallel with the canal. Sanction was refused, though the company were authorised to act as common carriers. In 1851 the canal owners approached the Great Western Railway Company, and told them of their intention to seek again for powers to build an opposition railway. The upshot of the matter was that the railway company took over the canal, and agreed to pay the canal company £7,773 a year. This they have done, with a loss to themselves ever since. The rates charged on the canal were successively reduced by the Board of Trade (on appeal being made to that body) to 1¼d., then to 1d., and finally ½d. per ton-mile; but there had never been a sign, Mr Inglis added, that the reduction had any effect in attracting additional traffic.[5]
To ascertain for myself some further details as to the past and present of the Kennet and Avon Navigation, I paid a visit of inspection to the canal in the neighbourhood of Bath, where it enters the River Avon, and also at Devizes, where I saw the remarkable series of locks by means of which the canal reaches the town of Devizes, at an elevation of 425 feet above sea level. In conversation, too, with various authorities, including Mr H. J. Saunders, the Canals Engineer of the Great Western Railway Company, I obtained some interesting facts which throw light on the reasons for the falling off of the traffic along the canal.
Dealing with this last mentioned point first, I learned that much of the former prosperity of the Kennet and Avon Navigation was due to a substantial business then done in the transport of coal from a considerable colliery district in Somersetshire, comprising the Radstock, Camerton, Dunkerton, and Timsbury collieries. This coal was first put on the Somerset Coal Canal, which connected with the Kennet and Avon at Dundas—a point between Bath and Bradford-on-Avon—and, on reaching this junction, it was taken either to towns directly served by the Kennet and Avon (including Bath, Bristol, Bradford, Trowbridge, Devizes, Kintbury, Hungerford, Newbury and Reading) or, leaving the Kennet and Avon at Semmington, it passed over the Wilts and Berks Canal to various places as far as Abingdon. In proportion, however, as the railways developed their superiority as an agent for the effective distribution of coal, the traffic by canal declined more and more, until at last it became non-existent. Of the three canals affected, the Somerset Coal Canal, owned by an independent company, was abandoned, by authority of Parliament, two years ago; the Wilts and Berks, also owned by an independent company, is practically derelict, and the one that to-day survives and is in good working order is the Kennet and Avon, owned by a railway company.
Another branch of local traffic that has left the Kennet and Avon Canal for the railway is represented by the familiar freestone, of which large quantities are despatched from the Bath district. The stone goes away in blocks averaging 5 tons in weight, and ranging up to 10 tons, and at first sight it would appear to be a commodity specially adapted for transport by water. But once more the greater facilities afforded by the railway have led to an almost complete neglect of the canal. Even where the quarries are immediately alongside the waterway (though this is not always the case) horses must be employed to get the blocks down to the canal boat; whereas the blocks can be put straight on to the railway trucks on the sidings which go right into the quarry, no horses being then required. In calculating, therefore, the difference between the canal rate and the railway rate, the purchase and maintenance of horses at the points of embarkation must be added to the former. Then the stone could travel only a certain distance by water, and further cost might have to be incurred in cartage, if not in transferring it from boat to railway truck, after all, for transport to final destination; whereas, once put on a railway truck at the quarry, it could be taken thence, without further trouble, to any town in Great Britain where it was wanted. In this way, again, the Kennet and Avon (except in the case of consignments to Bristol) has practically lost a once important source of revenue.
A certain amount of foreign timber still goes by water from Avonmouth or Bristol to the neighbourhood of Pewsey, and some English-grown timber is taken from Devizes and other points on the canal to Bristol, Reading, and intermediate places; grain is carried from Reading to mills within convenient reach of the canal, and there is also a small traffic in mineral oils and general merchandise, including groceries for shopkeepers in towns along the canal route; but, whereas, in former days a grocer would order 30 tons of sugar from Bristol to be delivered to him by boat at one time, he now orders by post, telegraph, or telephone, very much smaller quantities as he wants them, and these smaller quantities are consigned mainly by train, so that there is less for the canal to carry, even where the sugar still goes by water at all.
Speaking generally, the actual traffic on the Kennet and Avon at the western end would not exceed more than about three or four boats a day, and on the higher levels at the eastern end it would not average one a day. Yet, after walking for some miles along the canal banks at two of its most important points, it was obvious to me that the decline in the traffic could not be attributable to any shortcomings in the canal itself. Not only does the Kennet and Avon deserve to rank as one of the best maintained of any canal in the country, but it still affords all reasonable facilities for such traffic as is available, or seems likely to be offered. Instead of being neglected by the Great Western Railway Company, it is kept in a state of efficiency that could not well be improved upon short of a complete reconstruction, at a very great cost, in the hope of getting an altogether problematical increase of patronage in respect to classes of traffic different from what was contemplated when the canal was originally built.
LOCKS ON THE KENNET AND AVON CANAL AT DEVIZES.
(A difference in level of 239 feet in 2½ miles is overcome by 29 locks. Of these, 17 immediately follow one another in direct line, "pounds" being provided to ensure sufficiency of reserve water to work boats through.)