CHAPTER XXXII.

CANAL TRAFFIC: ITS CHARACTER AND ITS DENSITY. There is a very prevalent impression that railways and canals have each their proper and natural function in the transport of merchandise—the railways in the carrying of goods of considerable intrinsic value, or of a perishable character, in which speed is an element of value; and the canals in conveying heavy merchandise, such as coal, iron ore, pig iron, building stone, timber, and other traffic, of relatively low intrinsic value, and incapable of being deteriorated by delay. In accordance with this idea, the canal traffic of most European countries has usually taken the form of coal, iron, and other heavy merchandise, while the railways have carried goods that were charged a high rate of freight, on the grounds that they were damageable, and of high intrinsic value. This, however, is by no means a universal rule. On many waterways, and especially in countries which have limited railway facilities, like Russia, canals are found as well adapted as railways to all purposes of transport. On the canals of the United States, the canals compete with the railways in carrying wheat and other agricultural produce. On the Aire and Calder canal, the canal boats are adapted to carry, and as a matter of fact do carry, considerable quantities of general merchandise, as well as minerals. The French Government and Chambers, guided by the well-informed engineers of the Ponts et Chaussées, have controverted the idea that there is necessarily any real rivalry between railways and canals. “Each of these two ways of communication,” reported M. de Berigny to the Chamber of Deputies in 1833, “has its distinct and special domain.” “Nothing,” says another French writer, “is to-day more true. Almost everywhere that navigable routes and railways run side by side, the development of industry and commerce has been such that after a brief crisis the traffic of the older line of communication has notably increased. Far from being enemies, railways and canals aid one another in the performance of their natural duties. The former transport passengers, costly merchandise, manufactured products—all that cannot endure long delay. The latter, on the other hand, transport raw materials of small value, for the transport of which speed is of secondary importance, which cannot bear high rates of charge, and which in consequence do not form a remunerative traffic for railways.”[293] “The delay of a week or a fortnight in the delivery of these articles,” reported the Commission named by the Chamber of Deputies in 1878 to examine the project for improving the inland navigation of France, “is a matter of little importance, while the difference of freight for long distances between the lowest rate at which a railway can carry and that which is attainable on a canal is equal to half the price of the goods.” “Coal,” the Commission stated, “cannot be carried on railways, even for long distances, at a less cost than from 0·54_d._ to 0·62_d._ per ton per mile, but can be transported by canal for 0·22_d._ per ton per mile.” “In France, in Germany, in Belgium, and in England,” says another writer,[294] “the round price of one-third of a penny per ton per mile will pay for transport on canals of adequate section and volume of traffic, and this price includes, not only a fair interest on the capital, but also provision for sinking fund, which within a determinable time will render these inland waterways the property of the nation, to be used free of charge, except the trifling amount necessary for maintenance of the works and attendance on the locks. On a traffic of 600,000 tons per annum this charge does not exceed 0·022_d._ per ton per mile.” The cost of towing, to be borne by the users of these national waterways, has been found to be as low as from 0·065 to 0·079 per ton per mile for horse towing in Belgium, including the return of empty boats. There is no record of the traffic that is carried on the canals of the United Kingdom at the present time. On the Birmingham Canal, which has a mileage of 162 miles, and some hundreds of private basins, the tonnage carried in 1887 was not less than 7,000,000 tons. This is an average of about 43,200 tons per mile, and if the whole of the canals constructed in the United Kingdom had been equally useful and successful, the total quantity of traffic carried on the 3000 miles of canals constructed would have been close on 130,000,000 of tons, or more than one-half of the total tonnage carried on the railways of the United Kingdom in 1887. Of course, however, the Birmingham Canal traffic is altogether exceptional, as is also that of the Bridgwater Canal, and the Aire and Calder Navigations. These three canal systems compete very successfully with the railways for the heavy traffic of the districts through which they pass, and have been able for years to earn large dividends, with comparatively low rates of freight.[295] There is a widespread belief that railway transport represents a very considerable proportion of the total ultimate cost of the heavy traffic carried in this country. Of some descriptions of heavy traffic this is no doubt true. It is not, however, equally true of mineral traffic. The average receipts earned by the railway companies per ton of minerals transported in 1888, irrespective of distance, was 1·6_s._ On the great bulk of the coal and iron ore carried, it must have been very much less, seeing that a large quantity of coal—as for example the supply of London, which is alone an item of over seven millions of tons a year—is carried for over a hundred and fifty miles at 6_s._ to 7_s._ per ton freight.[296] There is no similar record of traffic for other countries. In the United States the census returns show that in 1880, 89½ millions of tons of coal were carried on all the railways then open. The gross income earned thereby is not, however, separately stated, although it may be possible to arrive approximately at the figure we want by taking the statistics that are given for the group of States of which New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio are the chief. In this group 192 millions of tons were carried in 1880, of which 76 millions of tons were coal. The revenue derived therefrom was 208 millions of dollars, so that the average amount paid to the railways per ton carried was 4·3_s._, or nearly three times as much as in Great Britain.[297] The chief canal in the Russian empire is that of Vishni Volotchok, which connects the Baltic and the Caspian Seas, and thereby affords communication with Siberia and China. In the early years of the century the principal part of the internal trade of the empire was conveyed along this canal. In 1777, the number of barges that passed through this canal was stated to be 2641. Twenty years later, the number of vessels that navigated its waters was returned at 6264,[298] conveying merchandise of the weight of over 8 millions of poods, and yielding tolls of the amount of 34,192 roubles (6840_l._). The tendency of late years has been to divert the lighter and more expensive traffic from the canals to the railways where the latter were available; but to this day, all descriptions of traffic make use of the canals of Russia, and usually at remarkably low rates of freight. As we have elsewhere pointed out, however, the preference for one form of transport over another is not always a mere matter of rates. If proof were needed of this fact, it would be furnished to the fullest extent by studying the history of the struggle that has been waged for many years past between the New York State Canals and the various railway systems that connect that city with Chicago, for the wheat supplies intended for export to Europe and consumption in the Eastern States. The rates of freight have all along been much lower on the lakes and the Erie Canal than on the railways. Usually, indeed, the water transport has not cost more than one-half what has been charged by rail. And yet the amount of traffic forwarded by lake, river, and canal has diminished, while that carried by railway has enormously increased. In other words, freighters have been for some years past content to pay 12 or 14 cents per bushel to the railway companies when the canal companies offered to perform the same service for 6 or 7 cents. The question naturally arises—Why should the canals not absorb the whole traffic? The answer is that the inconvenience and uncertainty due to interrupted navigation, and the inevitable slower rate of speed, have been sufficient to induce the American wheat grower to pay double the sum in order that he might secure quick and certain despatch. The same phenomena may be witnessed elsewhere. But much, of course, depends upon the traffic. Wheat may afford to pay a few cents more under the circumstance stated, when coal and lumber could not. It is manifestly more important that wheat should be carried to its ultimate destination in good condition, and without preventable delay. _The Density of Traffic on Waterways._—One of the most interesting problems connected with the working of either railways or waterways, is that of the density of the traffic transported, or, in other words, the quantity carried, relatively to the length of the line. The law of averages, which is very often inapplicable, and likely to lead to erroneous conclusions, is, in the case of the density of traffic, capable of being applied with some amount of success. But even in apparently so simple a matter as this, it must be applied with caution, and with certain rather important reservations. It must be borne in mind, for example, that as railways are performing the double function of transporting both passengers and goods, their traffic per mile, measured in terms of merchandise, cannot be fairly compared with that of canals, which carry goods traffic alone. Nor can the traffic of a canal, where the speed is necessarily slow, be rightly compared with that of a river like the Thames or the Rhine, where there is almost no limit to the speed that may be safely applied, except the limits imposed by mechanical laws. The density of traffic on waterways has a very wide range of variation. On the Thames, where the annual tonnage of the entrances and clearances of vessels amounts to about 18,000,000 of tons a year, it may be put at something like 1,000,000 tons per mile, if we take the average distance between the mouth of the river and the docks as about 18 miles. This, however, is a case that stands alone. No other waterway has anything like the same amount of traffic, and for purposes of comparison the Thames may be disregarded entirely. The same remark applies to the Mersey. The complete statistics of the inland navigations of France and Belgium enable comparisons to be made of the different waterways, which are very interesting. We find that some canals have a very considerable traffic, while others have only a traffic of limited dimensions. From recent returns relative to the canals of France, we have abstracted particulars which illustrate these differences, and which are given in the tables that follow. The following French canals have an exceptional density of traffic:— DENSITY OF TRAFFIC ON SOME SHORT CANALS IN FRANCE IN 1886. ─────────────────────────────────┬────────┬──────────┬───────── │ │ Tons of │ Average │ Length │ Traffic │ Traffic Name of Canal. │ in │ Carried │ per Km. │ Kms. │ in 1886. │ in Tons. ─────────────────────────────────┼────────┼──────────┼───────── Aire (Baudin to Aire) │ 28 │ 2,255,000│ 80,535 Bourbourg (Guindal to Dunkerque) │ 13 │ 1,042,000│ 80,123 St. Denis (Paris to La Briche) │ 4 │ 1,722,000│ 430,500 Deûle, Haute │ 38 │ 3,652,000│ 96,105 Mons to Condé │ 3 │ 705,000│ 235,000 Neuffossé (Aire to St. Omer) │ 11 │ 1,198,000│ 108,999 Oise (Janville to Chauny) │ 21 │ 2,804,000│ 133,523 St. Quentin (Cambrai to Chauny) │ 58 │ 3,606,000│ 62,172 Seusée (Etrun to Courchelettes) │ 16 │ 1,955,000│ 112,187 ├────────┼──────────┼───────── Totals and average │ 192 │18,939,000│ 98,129 ─────────────────────────────────┴────────┴──────────┴───────── These are, for the most part, short waterways connecting important centres of industry or population. The larger canals, however, are by no means so well provided with traffic, and on some of them the traffic is almost ludicrously small. On 1125 miles of these longer canals, the average density of traffic per kilometre was only 2724 tons, as compared with 98,129 tons per kilometre on the 192 kilometres of shorter waterways contained in the above table. The particulars are appended:— STATEMENT SHOWING THE DENSITY OF TRAFFIC ON SOME OF THE LONGEST CANALS IN FRANCE IN 1886. ───────────────────────────────────────┬────────┬──────────┬──────── │ │ Tons of │ Average │ Length │ Traffic │ Traffic Name of Canal. │ in │ Carried │ per Km. │ Kms. │ in 1886. │ in Tons. ───────────────────────────────────────┼────────┼──────────┼──────── Berry (Fontblisse to Noyers) │ 88 │ 384,181 │ 4,365 Burgogne (Laroche to St. Jean de Losne)│ 151 │ 424,559 │ 2,811 Est (Belgian frontier to Troussey) │ 170 │ 648,471 │ 3,820 Est (from Messlin to the Saône) │ 75 │ 276,065 │ 3,680 Garonne (Toulouse to Castel) │ 134 │ 243,815 │ 1,819 Midi (Toulouse to Thau) │ 152 │ 167,985 │ 1,105 Nantes and Brest │ 167 │ 111,558 │ 668 Ourcq (Port-au-Perches to Paris) │ 68 │ 528,048 │ 7,765 Rhone au Rhin (to German frontier) │ 120 │ 279,957 │ 2,332 ├────────┼──────────┼──────── Totals and average │ 1,125 │3,064,639 │ 2,724 ───────────────────────────────────────┴────────┴──────────┴──────── FOOTNOTES: [293] M. Picard in ‘Les Chemins de Fer de France,’ in 1884. [294] ‘Edinburgh Review,’ for October, 1882. [295] Paper by Mr. G. R. Jebb, on “The Maintenance of Canals, with special reference to Mining Districts,” ‘Journal of Society of Arts,’ 1888. [296] The London coal supply is largely carried, in competition with the sea, at the remarkably low rate of ·5_d._ per ton per mile, and even less. [297] ‘Report of the Tenth Census,’ vol. iv. p. 133. [298] Of this number there were 3958 barques, 382 half barques, 248 boats, 1676 floats; 6264 in all.