This canal seems to have been wrongly planned, for throughout its whole course it is nearly parallel to, and not very distant from, the Grand Canal. There are consequently two large canals where there ought not to be more than one. It is probable that one canal of comparatively small dimensions would have been quite enough for all the business of the district, though it were much greater than it is, or is likely to become.
Besides the above there are some other canals, as well as various river excavations in Ireland, but hardly one of them yields a reasonable return for the capital expended upon it. They have almost all been liberally assisted by grants of public money, and their history, and that of the two canals now adverted to, has been said to strikingly corroborate the caustic remark of Arthur Young, that “a history of public works in Ireland would be a history of jobs.”
FOOTNOTE
CHAPTER V
[58] ‘The Engineer,’ Oct. 11, 1878.
[CHAPTER VI.]
PROJECTED CANALS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
“Where of late the kids had cropt the grass, The monsters of the deep now take their place.” —Ovid.
Sketch of the Proposed National Canal.