This looks very simple. But is the original cost of construction of canals passing through tunnels, over viaducts, and up and down elevations of from 400 to 600 feet, calculated here on the same basis as canals on the flat-lands? Is allowance made for costly pumping apparatus—such as that provided for the Birmingham Canal—for the docks and warehouses recently constructed at Ellesmere Port, and for other capital expenditure for improvements, or are these omitted from the calculation of so much "per mile of length"? Items of this kind might swell even "cost of construction" to larger proportions than those assumed by Mr Thwaite. That gentleman, also, evidently leaves out of account the very substantial sums paid by the present owners or controllers of canals for the mining rights underneath the waterways in districts such as Staffordshire or Lancashire.
This last-mentioned point is one of considerable importance, though very few people seem to know that it enters into the canal question at all. When canals were originally constructed it was assumed that the companies were entitled to the land they had bought from the surface to the centre of the earth. But the law decided they could claim little more than a right of way, and that the original landowners might still work the minerals underneath. This was done, with the result that there were serious subsidences of the canals, involving both much loss of water and heavy expenditure in repairs. The stability of railways was also affected, but the position of the canals was much worse on account of the water.
To maintain the efficiency of the canals (and of railways in addition) those responsible for them—whether independent companies or railway companies—have had to spend enormous sums of money in the said mining districts on buying up the right to work the minerals underneath. In some instances the landowner has given notice of his intention to work the minerals himself, and, although he may in reality have had no such intention, the canal company or the railway company have been compelled to come to terms with him, to prevent the possibility of the damage that might otherwise be done to the waterway. The very heavy expenditure thus incurred would hardly count as "cost of construction," and it would represent money sunk with no prospect of return. Yet, if the State takes over the canals, it will be absolutely bound to reckon with these mineral rights as well—if it wants to keep the canals intact after improving them—and, in so doing, it must allow for a considerably larger sum for initial outlay than is generally assumed.
But the actual purchase of canals and mineral rights would be only the beginning of the trouble. There would come next the question of increasing the capacity of the canals by widening, and what this might involve I have already shown. Then there are the innumerable locks by which the great differences in level are overcome. A large proportion of these would have to be reconstructed (unless lifts or inclined planes were provided instead) to admit either the larger type of boat of which one hears so much, or, alternatively, two or four of the existing narrow boats. Assuming this to be done, then, when a single narrow boat came up to each lock in the course of the journey it was making, either it would have to wait until one or three others arrived, or, alternatively, the water in a large capacity lock would be used for the passage of one small boat. The adoption of the former course would involve delay; and either would necessitate the provision of a much larger water supply, together with, for the highest levels, still more costly pumping machinery.
The water problem would, indeed, speedily become one of the most serious in the whole situation—and that, too, not alone in regard to the extremely scanty supplies in the high levels. The whole question has been complicated, since canals were first built, by the growing needs of the community, towns large and small having tapped sources of water supply which otherwise might have been available for the canals.
Even as these lines are being written, I see from The Times of March 17, 1906, that, because the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Company are sinking a well on land of their own adjoining the railway near the Carshalton springs of the River Wandle, with a view to getting water for use in their Victoria Station in London, all the public authorities in that part of Surrey, together with the mill-owners and others interested in the River Wandle, are petitioning Parliament in support of a Bill to restrain them, although it is admitted that "the railway company do not appear to be exceeding their legal rights." This does not look as if there were too much water to spare for canal purposes in Great Britain; and yet so level-headed a journal as The Economist, in its issue of March 3, 1906, gravely tells us, in an article on "The New Canal Commission," that "the experience of Canada is worth studying." What possible comparison can there be, in regard to canals, between a land of lakes and great rivers and a country where a railway company may not even sink a well on their own property without causing all the local authorities in the neighbourhood to take alarm, and petition Parliament to stop them![11]
WATER SUPPLY FOR CANALS.
(Belvide Reservoir, Staffordshire, Shropshire Union Canal.)