Within recent years, the advocates of water transport in Great Britain and other countries, have been accustomed to point to France as a notable example of the advantages of improving and extending the internal navigations of a country. It is true that no nation has done more with this end in view. From first to last, France has expended a larger sum on canal navigation than any other nation. Her system of water transport is also in some respects more complete than that of any other country, having been designed and carried out upon a systematic plan, which permits of the ways of water communication being connected with each other, and with the chief centres of population and industry. The waterways of France, are, moreover, mainly owned by, or under the control of the State, which has instituted elaborate inquiries from time to time into the subject of their development and utilisation. It cannot, nevertheless, be claimed for the canals of France, as a rule, that they present any unusual economic or engineering features, although they provide for a low cost of transport, of which we shall have more to say when we come to deal especially with that branch of our subject.
A glance at a canal and river map of France, is sufficient to show that in the more important parts of the country, there is a very excellent system of communication by water. Between Dunkerque, Gravelines, and Paris, there is a large traffic carried to the latter city, through an elaborate system of main and lateral canals. The river Seine connects Paris with the ports of Havre and Rouen. From the Belgian frontier, quite a network of canals connect with Paris; and on the German frontier, near Nancy, the Canal de la Marne au de Rhin gives access to the capital, both by the Marne river to the Seine, and by the Oise, through the Aisne canal.
On the Mediterranean seaboard, the Canal du Midi connects with the Canal des Etangs and the Canal de Beaucaire, and thence by the Rhone and Saône, the Canal du Centre, the Canal de Briare, the Canal de Loing, and the Seine to Paris, taking Lyons, Chalons, Dijon, Nivers, and other important towns en route. In the south of France, the only important canal is that of the Midi, which connects Bordeaux with Cette; and on the west, the ports of Brest and St. Nazaire are connected with the main line of communication already described—the former by the Canal de Nantes à Brest, and the latter by the Loire river, the Canal Noyers du Berry, and the Canal d’Orleans. It is, however, on the north that the canal system has its greatest development, and especially on the Belgian frontier. The system has been contrived to meet the requirements of all the populous places on the line of route, so that it is very far from having been arranged to save time and distance. This, however, is no disadvantage in cases where density of traffic was the point to be kept in view. Some of the canals have at one end no outlet or through communication. The Canal du Berry, for example, terminates abruptly at Montluçon, the Canal de Roanne à Dijon at Roanne, and the Canal de l’Ourcq at Port-aux-Perches, but this is very exceptional. The system is generally designed to enable one waterway to give immediate access to another, so that through routes are the most characteristic and valuable feature which it presents.
The very elaborate statistics which the French people make it their business to collect relative to all their mundane affairs enable us to obtain information as to the character of the traffic on French waterways, and the conditions of its movement, that are not accessible for most other countries. In order that some light may be thrown upon the problem of “how they manage these things in France,” we have been at some pains to get together the most important data bearing on the subject.
Imprimis, then, it appears that the total tonnage carried on the canals of France in 1887—there are no returns yet issued for a later year—was 21,050,180 tons. As this traffic was carried for a total distance of 1762 millions of miles, it follows that the average distance over which each ton was carried was 84 miles.
It is interesting to compare these returns with the corresponding returns for the French railways, which carried 80,360,000 tons for a total distance of 6801 millions of miles, giving an average transport or lead of 84½ miles per ton.
There are no detailed returns at command of the amount of expenditure at which the traffic on the waterways of France has been carried on. In the nature of the case, indeed, there could hardly be such information, seeing that the rivers, and to a large extent the canals as well, are free of tolls, and the expenses of haulage will vary in every case, according to the means employed, and other determining circumstances. On the French railway system, however, the average rate charged for the transport of goods per ton per mile amounted in 1887 to less than 0·9d., taking the eight great companies as a whole.[60]
Roughly, therefore, the average distance over which each ton was transported on the waterways and railways of France was almost exactly the same, but the railways carried almost four times as much traffic as the waterways. This difference applied almost as much to heavy as to light traffic. The total quantity of coal and coke carried on the waterways was 5,964,000 tons, while on the railways it amounted to 22,395,000 tons, being again nearly four times as much.
The total length of the canals of France in 1887 was 4759 kilometres, or 2998 miles. The average number of tons carried for each mile of canal constructed was, therefore, 4005. The railways of France had, at the same time, a length of 28,922 kilometres, or 18,095 miles, and the average number of tons carried per mile was about 4400. The French waterways, therefore, had a somewhat less density of traffic than the railways.
Many of the canals of France, however, have almost ceased to be used, and their traffic has become so small that it is hardly worth reckoning.