The assertions here made are constantly being reproduced in one form or another by newspaper writers, public speakers, and others, who have gone to no trouble to investigate the facts for themselves, who have never read, or, if they have read, have disregarded, the important evidence of Sir James Allport, at the same enquiry, in reference to the London coal trade (I shall revert to this subject later on), and who probably have either not seen a map of British canals and waterways at all, or else have failed to notice the routes that still remain independent, and are in no way controlled by railway companies.

INDEPENDENT CANALS AND INLAND NAVIGATIONS IN ENGLAND

Which are not controlled by railway companies

[To face page 54.

  1. River Ouse Navigation (Yorkshire).
  2. River Wharfe Navigation.
  3. Aire and Calder Navigation.
  4. Market Weighton Navigation.
  5. Driffield Navigation.
  6. Beverley Beck Navigation.
  7. Leven Navigation.
  8. Leeds and Liverpool Canal.
  9. Manchester Ship Canal.
  10. Bridgewater portion of Manchester Ship Canal.
  11. Rochdale Canal.
  12. Calder and Hebble Navigation.
  13. Weaver Navigation.
  14. Idle Navigation.
  15. Trent Navigation Co.
  16. Aucholme Navigation.
  17. Caistor Canal.
  18. Louth Canal (Lincolnshire).
  19. Derby Canal.
  20. Nutbrook Canal.
  21. Erewash Canal.
  22. Loughborough Navigation.
  23. Leicester Navigation.
  24. Leicestershire Union Canal.
  25. Witham Navigation.
  26. Witham Navigation.
  27. Glen Navigation.
  28. Welland Navigation.
  29. Nen Navigation.
  30. Wisbech Canal.
  31. Nar Navigation.
  32. Ouse and Tributaries (Bedfordshire).
  33. North Walsham Canal.
  34. Bure Navigation.
  35. Blyth Navigation.
  36. Ipswich and Stowmarket Navigation.
  37. Stour Navigation.
  38. Colne Navigation.
  39. Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation.
  40. Roding Navigation.
  41. Stort Navigation.
  42. Lea Navigation.
  43. Grand Junction Canal.
  44. Grand Union Canal.
  45. Oxford Canal.
  46. Coventry Canal.
  47. Warwick and Napton Canal.
  48. Warwick and Birmingham Canal.
  49. Birmingham and Warwick Junction Canal.
  50. Worcester and Birmingham Canal.
  51. Stafford and Worcester Canal.
  52. Severn (Lower) Navigation.
  53. Gloucester and Berkeley Ship Canal.
  54. Lower Avon Navigation.
  55. Stroudwater Canal.
  56. Wye Navigation.
  57. Axe Navigation.
  58. Parrett Navigation.
  59. Tone Navigation.
  60. Wilts and Berks Canal.
  61. Thames Navigation.
  62. London and Hampshire Canal.
  63. Wey Navigation.
  64. Medway Navigation.
  65. Canterbury Navigation.
  66. Ouse Navigation (Sussex).
  67. Adur Navigation.
  68. Arun and Wey Canal.
  69. Portsmouth and Arunder Canal.
  70. Itchen Navigation.

I give, facing p. 54, a sketch which shows the nature and extent of these particular waterways, and the reader will see from it that they include entirely free and independent communication (a) between Birmingham and the Thames; (b) from the coal-fields of the Midlands and the North to London; and (c) between the west and east coasts, viâ Liverpool, Leeds, and Goole. To say, therefore, in these circumstances, that "the whole of the inland water traffic" has been strangled by the railway companies because the canals or sections of which they "obtained command" were "so adroitly selected," is simply to say what is not true.

The point here raised is not one that merely concerns the integrity of the railway companies—though in common justice to them it is only right that the truth should be made known. It really affects the whole question at issue, because, so long as public opinion is concentrated more or less on this strangulation fiction, due attention will not be given to the real causes for the decay of the canals, and undue importance will be attached to the suggestions freely made that if only the one-third of the canal mileage owned or controlled by the railway companies could be got out of their hands, the revival schemes would have a fair chance of success.

Certain it is, therefore, as the map I give shows beyond all possible doubt, that the causes for the failure of the British canal system must be sought for elsewhere than in the fact of a partial railway-ownership or control. Some of these alternative causes I propose to discuss in the Chapters that follow my story of the Birmingham Canal, for which (inasmuch as Birmingham and district, by reason of their commercial importance and geographical position, have first claim to consideration in any scheme of canal resuscitation) I would beg the special attention of the reader.