This river has been partly canalised, in order to afford a means of communication between Warrington, Manchester, and other large towns, and Liverpool, but it was only adapted for light craft and has consequently fallen largely into disuse. The Mersey and Irwell Navigation was acquired by the Bridgwater Company, and has now, with the rest of the Bridgwater property, passed under the control of the Manchester Ship Canal Company.
The Wear.
This river, which has its rise in the district that unites Durham and Westmoreland, falls into the North Sea at Sunderland after a course of thirty miles. The river is under the jurisdiction of the Wear Commissioners from about nine miles from the bar to the sea. Over this distance very considerable improvements have been carried out during the last half century. These improvements have resulted in making the Wear one of the foremost shipbuilding rivers in the United Kingdom, and have given it the second place in the coal-shipping trade. The revenue of the Wear Trust, which only averaged about 14,000l. a year between 1840 and 1850, has within recent years amounted to about 130,000l. a year. One of the most extensive works undertaken on the river, besides graving docks, wharves, &c., and the deepening of the bed, was the construction of a lock at the sea outlet, designed to obviate the detention of screw-colliers when waiting for the tide. This lock is 481 feet in length by 90 feet in breadth, and has a depth of 29½ feet at ordinary spring tides. The present docks can accommodate 200 ships of large size, drawing up to 24 feet of water. The area of the docks is over 78 acres, and they are fitted with nineteen coal spouts, at which 15,000 tons of coal can be shipped daily.
In this chapter we have dealt with a few only of the more notable examples of river improvement in modern times. The list might be almost indefinitely extended. There is hardly a brawling mountain torrent between Land’s End and John o’ Groat’s that has not been reclaimed, deepened, widened, or otherwise improved upon by the art and the genius of the engineer. Nor has the work been confined to modern times. The Romans are known to have constructed embankments for the control of British rivers during the period of their occupation, although for something like 1000 years afterwards their example was not followed. The engineers and the local authorities of the nineteenth century have done much to redeem this reproach. The improvement and conservancy of rivers have now been reduced to a science, founded mainly upon the following general principles[37]:—
1. That the freer the admission of the tidal water, the better is the river adapted for all purposes, whether of navigation, drainage, or fisheries.
2. That its sectional area and inclination should be made to suit the required carrying power of the river throughout its entire length, both for the ordinary flow of the water and for floods.
3. That the downward flow of the upland water should be equalised as much as possible throughout the entire year; and
4. That all abnormal contaminations should be removed from the streams.
Our tidal rivers are undoubtedly one of the chief sources of our maritime supremacy. For this reason it is of the utmost importance that they should be kept in good repair, free from unnecessary obstructions, and well adapted to the purposes of navigation. As it is, however, this is not always the case. The chief reason for existing maladministration, where it exists, is the absence of a uniform system of control. The Thames, for example, has been hitherto controlled partly by the Thames Conservancy and partly by the Metropolitan Board of Works. The Great Sluice, at Boston, in Lincolnshire, was constructed in 1764 by Smeaton, for the purpose of stopping the flow of the tide in the river Witham, and converting the upper part of the river into a fresh-water canal as far as Lincoln. As, however, the control of the river is divided—one body dealing with the tidal part from the Grand Sluice to the sea, and the other with the canal and drainage of the land above—each opposes the schemes of the other, and the navigation has been ruined.[38]
There is one course whereby this condition of things, where it exists, may be prevented. It has been suggested that a new Government Department should be created, with entire charge of and control over all estuaries and navigable channels, and presided over by a member of the Cabinet. The interests at stake are sufficiently large to justify this.[39] They are as vital to our commerce and industry as any matter now dealt with by the State, affecting our material well-being, and they are every year increasing in extent and importance. As regards the principal rivers—the Mersey, the Tyne, the Tees, the Clyde, and the Wear especially—they are now controlled in accordance with the recommendation made by the Duke of Richmond’s Select Committee, that “each catchment area should be placed under a single body of conservators, who should be responsible for maintaining the river, from its source to its outfall, in an efficient state.” There are other rivers, however, that are administered rather in the interest of the landed proprietors than in that of navigation, and where these two come into conflict the State should have powers that would enable the public interest, which is both national and international, to be effectually protected.