British Canals: Is their resuscitation practicable?

by Edwin A. Pratt

This navigation really consists of two sections—the Forth and Clyde Navigation, and the Monkland Navigation. The former, authorised in 1768, and opened in 1790, commences at Grangemouth on the Firth of Forth, crosses the country by Falkirk and Kirkintilloch, and terminates at Bowling on the Clyde. It has thirty-nine locks, and at one point has been constructed through 3 miles of hard rock. The original depth of 8 feet was increased to 10 feet in 1814. In addition to the canal proper, the navigation included the harbours of Grangemouth and Bowling, and also the Grangemouth Branch Railway, and the Drumpeller Branch Railway, near Coatbridge. The Monkland Canal, also opened in 1790, was built from Glasgow viâ Coatbridge to Woodhall in Lanarkshire, mainly for the transport of coal from the Lanarkshire coal-fields to Glasgow and elsewhere. Here the depth was 6 feet. The undertakings of the Forth and Clyde and the Monkland Navigations were amalgamated in 1846.

Prior to 1865, the Caledonian Railway did not extend further north than Greenhill, about 5 miles south of Falkirk, where it joined the Scottish Central Railway. This undertaking was absorbed by the Caledonian in 1865, and the Caledonian system was thus extended as far north as Perth and Dundee. The further absorption of the Scottish North-Eastern Railway Company, in 1866, led to the extension of the Caledonian system to Aberdeen.

At this time the Caledonian Railway Company owned no port or harbour in Scotland, except the small and rather shallow tidal harbour of South Alloa. Having got possession of the railway lines in Central Scotland, they thought it necessary to obtain control of some port on the east coast, in the interests of traffic to or from the Continent, and especially to facilitate the shipment to the Continent of coal from the Lanarkshire coal-fields, chiefly served by them. The port of Grangemouth being adapted to their requirements, they entered into negotiations with the proprietors of the Forth and Clyde Navigation, who were also proprietors of the harbour of Grangemouth, and acquired the whole undertaking in 1867, guaranteeing to the original company a dividend of 6¼ per cent.

Since their acquisition of the canal, the Caledonian Railway Company have spent large sums annually in maintaining it in a state of efficiency, and its general condition to-day is better than when it was taken over. Much of the traffic handled is brought into or sent out from Grangemouth, and here the Caledonian Railway Company have more than doubled the accommodation, with the result that the imports and exports have enormously increased. All the same, there has been a steady decrease in the actual canal traffic, due to various causes, such as (a) the exhaustion of several of the coal-fields in the Monkland district; (b) the extension of railways; and (c) changes in the sources from which certain classes of traffic formerly carried on the canal are derived.

In regard to the coal-fields, the closing of pits adjoining the canal has been followed by the opening of others at such a distance from the canal that it was cheaper to consign by rail.

In the matter of railway extensions, when the Caledonian took over the canal in 1867, there were practically no railways in the district through which it runs, and the coal and other traffic had, perforce, to go by water. But, year by year, a complete network of railways was spread through the district by independent railway companies, notwithstanding the efforts made by the Caledonian to protect the interests of the canal-efforts that led, in some instances, to Parliament refusing assent to the proposed lines. Those that were constructed (over a dozen lines and branches altogether), were almost all absorbed by the North British Railway Company, who are strong competitors with the Caledonian Railway Company, and have naturally done all they could to get traffic for the lines in question. This, of course, has been at the expense of the canal and to the detriment of the Caledonian Railway Company, who, in view of their having guaranteed a dividend to the original proprietors, would prefer that the traffic in question should remain on the canal instead of being diverted to an opposition line of railway. Other traffic which formerly went by canal, and is now carried on the Caledonian Railway, is of a character that would certainly go by canal no longer, and for this the Caledonian and the North British Companies compete.

The third factor in the decline of the canal relates to the general consideration that, during the last thirty or forty years, important works have no longer been necessarily built alongside canal banks, but have been constructed wherever convenient, and connected with the railways by branch lines or private sidings, expense of cartage to or from the canal dock or basin thus being saved. On the Forth and Clyde Canal a good deal of coal is still carried, but mainly to adjoining works. Coal is also shipped in vessels on the canal for transport to the West Highlands and Islands, where the railways cannot compete; but even here there is an increasing tendency for the coal to be bought in Glasgow (to which port it is carried by rail), so that the shippers can have a wider range of markets when purchasing. Further changes affecting the Forth and Clyde Canal are illustrated by the fact that whereas, at one time, large quantities of grain were brought into Grangemouth from Russian and other Continental ports, transhipped into lighters, and sent to Glasgow by canal, the grain now received at Glasgow comes mainly from America by direct steamer.

That the Caledonian Railway Company have done their duty towards the Forth and Clyde Canal is beyond all reasonable doubt. It is true that they are not themselves carriers on the canal. They are only toll-takers. Their business has been to maintain the canal in efficient condition, and allow any trader who wishes to make use of it so to do, on paying the tolls. This they have done, and, if the traders have not availed themselves of their opportunities, it must naturally have been for adequate reasons, and especially because of changes in the course of the country's business which it is impossible for a railway company to control, even where, as in this particular case, they are directly interested in seeing the receipts from tolls attain to as high a figure as practicable.

I reserve for another chapter a study of the Birmingham Canal system, which, again, is "railway controlled"; but I may say here that I think the facts already given show it is most unfair to suggest, as is constantly being done in the Press and elsewhere, that the railway companies bought up canals—"of malice aforethought," as it were—for the express purpose of killing such competition as they represented—a form of competition in which, as we have seen, public confidence had already practically disappeared. One of the witnesses at the canal enquiry in 1883 even went so far as to assert:

"The railway companies have been enabled, in some cases by means of very questionable legality, to obtain command of 1,717 miles of canal, so adroitly selected as to strangle the whole of the inland water traffic, which has thus been forced upon the railways, to the great interruption of their legitimate and lucrative trade."