British Canals: Is their resuscitation practicable?

by Edwin A. Pratt

After all the money that has been spent on the Manchester Ship Canal it is still found necessary to lay out a great deal more on warehouses which are absolutely essential to the full and complete development of the enterprise. The same principle would apply to any scheme of revived inland navigation. The goods depôts constructed by railway companies in all large towns and industrial centres have alone sufficed to bring about a complete revolution in trade and commerce since the days when canals were prosperous. There are many thousands of traders to-day who not only order comparatively small quantities of supplies at a time from the manufacturer, but leave even these quantities to be stored locally by the railway company, having delivered to them from day to day, or week by week, just as much as they can do with. A certain "free" period is allowed for warehousing, and, if they remove the goods during that period, they pay nothing to the railway company beyond the railway rate. After the free period a small "rent" is charged—a rent which, while representing no adequate return to the railway company for the heavy capital outlay in providing the depôts, is much less than it would cost the trader if he had to build store-rooms for himself, or pay for accommodation elsewhere. Other traders, as mentioned in the chapter on "The Transition in Trade," send goods to the railway warehouses as soon as they are ready, to wait there until an order is completed, and the whole consignment can be despatched; while others again, agents and commission men, carry on a considerable business from a small office, leaving all the handling of the commodities in which they deal to be done by the railway companies. In fact, the situation might be summed up by saying that, under the trading conditions of to-day, railway companies are not only common carriers, but general warehousemen in addition.

If inland canals are to take over any part of the transport at present conducted by the railways, they will have to provide the traders with like facilities. So, in addition to buying up and reconstructing the canals; in addition to widenings, and alterations of the gradients of roads and railways passed under; and in addition to the maintenance of towing paths, locks, bridges, tunnels, aqueducts, culverts, weirs, sluices, cranes, wharves, docks, and quay walls, reservoirs, pumping machinery, and so on, there would still be all the subsidiary considerations in regard to warehousing, etc., which would arise when it became a question with the trader whether or not he should avail himself of the improved water transport thus placed at his disposal.

For the purposes of reasonable argument I will assume that no really sensible person, knowing anything at all of actual facts and conditions, would attempt to revive the entire canal system of the country.[13] I have shown on p. 19, that even in the year 1825 it was recognised that some of the canals had been built by speculators simply as a means of abstracting money from the pockets of foolish investors, victims of the "canal mania," and that no useful purpose could be served by them even at a time when there were no competing railways. Yet to-day sentimental individuals who, in wandering about the country, come across some of these absolutely useless, though still, perhaps, picturesque survivals, write off to the newspapers to lament over "our neglected waterways," to cast the customary reflections on the railway companies, and to join their voice to the demand for immediate nationalisation or municipalisation, according to their individual leanings, and regardless of all considerations of cost or practicability.

Derelicts of the type here referred to are not worth considering at all. It is a pity they were not drained and filled in long ago, and given, as it were, a decent burial, if only out of consideration for the feelings of sentimentalists. Much more deserving of study are those particular systems which either still carry a certain amount of traffic, or are situated on routes along which traffic might be reasonably expected to flow. But, taking even canals of this type, the reader must see from the considerations I have already presented that resuscitation would be a very costly business indeed. Estimates of which I have read in print range from £20,000,000 to £50,000,000; but even these omit various important items (mining rights, etc.), which would certainly have to be added, while the probability is that, however high the original estimate in regard to work of this kind, a good deal more would have to be expended before it was finished.

The remarks I have here made are based on the supposition that all that is aimed at is such an improvement as would allow of the use of a larger type of canal boat than that now in vogue. But, obviously, the expenditure would be still heavier if there were any idea of adapting the canals to the use of barges similar in size to those employed on the waterways of Germany, or craft which, starting from an inland manufacturing town in the Midlands, could go on a coasting trip, or make a journey across to the Continent. Here the capital expenditure would be so great that the cost would be absolutely prohibitive.

Whatever the precise number of millions the resuscitation scheme might cost, the inevitable question would present itself—How is the money to be raised?

The answer thereto would be very simple if the entire expense were borne by the country—that is to say, thrown upon the taxpayers or ratepayers. The problem would then be solved at once. The great drawback to this solution is that most of the said taxpayers or ratepayers would probably object. Besides, there is the matter of detail I mentioned in the first Chapter: if the State or the municipalities buy up the canals on fair terms, including the canals owned or controlled by the railways, and, in operating them in competition with the railways, make heavy losses which must eventually fall on the taxpayers or ratepayers, then it would be only fair that the railway companies should be excused from such direct increase in taxation as might result from the said losses. In that case the burden would fall still more heavily on the general body of the tax or ratepayers, independently of the railway companies.

It would fall, too, with especial severity on those traders who were themselves unable to make use of the canals, but might have to pay increased local rates in order that possible competitors located within convenient reach of the improved waterways could have cheaper transport. It might also happen that when the former class of traders, bound to keep to the railways, applied to the railway companies for some concession to themselves, the reply given would be—"What you suggest is fair and reasonable, and under ordinary circumstances we should be prepared to meet your wishes; but the falling off in our receipts, owing to the competition of State-aided canals, makes it impossible for us to grant any further reductions." An additional disadvantage would thus have to be met by the trader who kept to the railway, while his rival, using the canals, would practically enjoy the benefit of a State subsidy.