[75] Not including sea tonnage.
[76] Exclusive of arrivals and departures by rail from Dresden and Breslau.
[77] Exclusive of arrivals and departures by rail from Dresden and Breslau.
[78] Report of Messrs. Meyer and Werneigh.
[CHAPTER IX.]
THE WATERWAYS OF BELGIUM.
The little kingdom of Belgium enjoys the advantage of having both a complete railway system and an excellent system of canal transport. There is, indeed, no country in Europe where the conditions of economical transportation have been more closely and more effectually studied. To this fact is largely to be attributed the unique position which Belgium holds among the industrial nations of the world. With limited coal resources, which are much behind those of some other European countries, alike as regards their quality and the economical conditions under which they can be mined; with iron ore supplies that are almost exhausted, and which only meet her own consumption to a very limited extent; with hardly any other mineral resources worth speaking of, excepting only certain deposits of zinc ores, Belgium has relatively a larger industrial population than any other country in Europe, and enjoys a degree of prosperity that is rare even in countries more liberally endowed with Nature’s gifts.
Belgium possesses twenty-nine different canals or canalised waterways, of which three—the Escaut, the Lys, and the Meuse—are each over 100 kilometres in length. The total length of the waterways of Belgium in 1885 was 1634 kilometres, or 1013 miles. The total number of tons of traffic carried on the Belgian waterways was 31,362,000, and the total number of tons transported one kilometre was 726,359,000, so that the average length of transport per ton was 23·2 kilometres.[79] There are, however, cases in which the average length of lead is much under this figure, as for example that of the “Raccordement à Gand,” where it is only 1·8 kilometre. For a number of years past the canal traffic has been tolerably steady, but between 1879 and 1884 there was a decrease of absolute quantity, although not of the kilometric tonnage.
The Belgian Ship Canals.—Belgium has two excellent ship canals—one from Terneuzen to Ghent, and the other from Ostend to Bruges. The improvement of the ship canal from Ghent to Terneuzen was begun in 1874, and concluded in 1879. Originally the canal had many bends, which rendered navigation difficult, and it was also of too limited dimensions to admit the large size of craft that was desired. The depth of the canal up to 1873 was 14 feet 4 inches, and its width was 98 feet 6 inches at the water-level. The improvement works then undertaken were designed to increase the depth to 21 feet 3 inches, and the width to 103 feet 9 inches on the water-level.