CHAPTER I.

THE TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM. “Of all inventions, the alphabet and the printing press alone excepted, those inventions which abridge distance have done most for civilisation.” —_Macaulay._ The history of transportation is largely, and of necessity, the history of material progress. It is hardly possible to conceive of the prosperity of a people to whom the most precious possessions that the arts and sciences have bestowed upon mankind for the purposes of commerce were unknown. Such a people could, no doubt, exist, and perhaps maintain a considerable amount of rude health. But, like the aborigines of an unsettled and uncultivated territory, they would find themselves shut out from participation in the advantages which civilisation confers upon mankind. They would be exclusive, uncultivated, ignorant, incapable of great effort, limited in their capacity for enjoyment, subject to the constant danger of famine, and without the command of those amenities which have created such a gulf between the “rude forefathers of the hamlet” and the happy possessors of all that civilisation can bestow. Only a very perfunctory acquaintance with the physical configuration of our planet is required, in order to show that the natural arrangement of land and water is not the most convenient that could be devised for the purposes of commerce and travel. The oceans and seas do not afford in all cases the most direct and desirable routes between one part of the world and another. Rivers of otherwise gigantic dimensions are now and again found to be possessed of rocky and shallow beds that are unsuited to navigation except by the tiniest craft. Promontories are projected into “the waste of waters,” compelling the navigator to sail for hundreds or thousands of miles further than “the crow flies” in order to reach his destination. Every here and there an isthmus is found to divide waters that appear as if they were intended by Nature to be joined together. The same remarkable absence of facilities for promoting the requirements of commerce is apparent on land as on water. The surface of the earth, and the divisions of land and water, appear to have been left by Nature in such a condition as to tax the highest powers and capacities of man. The knowledge of roads, of bridges, of canals, has been laboriously acquired and slowly applied. The aboriginal inhabitants of a country usually care for none of these things. Beasts of burden are seldom used in the most primitive conditions of existence, and, without these, roads are not so much of a necessity. Man, however, found out, in course of time, that it suited his interests and his convenience to establish a system of interchange of commodities. The simple and self-contained habits of the trapper and the hunter gave place to a more composite order of being. Then it was that the primeval forest, the jungle, the morass, and the prairie became rectangulated with roadways over which traffic could be rudely transported on the backs of mules, horses, or other beasts of burden. As exchange and barter extended, the pack-horse was found inefficient. He could only perform a very limited day’s work, whether measured by quantity or by distance. For transport over great distances he was virtually useless. In the absence of any other system of transport, districts near the sea, or placed on navigable rivers with easy access to the ocean, became developed at the expense of other districts that had equal, and perhaps greater, facilities otherwise except those of transport. A notable case in point is that of the coal trade. For many years the export coal trade of this country was limited to an area within 12 miles of convenient ports, because coal could not be transported beyond that distance except at a virtually prohibitory cost. A hundred and thirty years ago, England was in a very different position to that which she occupies to-day. So, also, was the rest of the world. The woollen trade was the greatest of our national industries. The cotton industry was just beginning to take a firm root The quantity of coal produced in Great Britain was estimated at five or six millions of tons per annum. The quantity of iron produced was believed to be about 100,000 tons. The only coalfield that had been developed to any extent was that of Durham and Northumberland. The working of coal far from the seaboard was impossible on a large scale, because there were no means of transportation that would allow of anything being carried more than a few miles, unless it were of the highest value. The cotton, woollen, silk, and other textiles were made by hand-looms, and for the most part in the private dwellings of the workers. The modern factory system had not come into being. The condition of the roads, even so late as the middle of the eighteenth century, was in a very large number of cases a matter for just and serious complaint. Lord Hervey wrote from Kensington in 1736 that the road between that village (at that time) and London had become so bad that “we live here in the same solitude as we would do if cast on a rock in the middle of the ocean, and all the Londoners tell us that there is between them and us an impassable gulf of mud.” In London itself the pedestrians who made use of the public thoroughfares had to walk on the ordinary round paving-stones which are still employed in some towns for the centre of the road, pavements being unknown. The streets were lit with oil-lamps sufficiently to make darkness visible, gas not having been introduced. The common highway was also the common sewer. The ruts in the thoroughfares, even in the streets of London, made it dangerous to employ vehicles, which, indeed, except in the form of sedan-chairs, had not yet come to be largely employed. But these dangers and troubles, manifest and inconvenient though they were, by no means exhausted the list. In the absence of a proper system of police, and with streets enveloped in darkness, there was serious danger incurred in stirring abroad after nightfall. The public thoroughfares were infested by bands of footpads and robbers. The main streets of London were the worst off, and so serious was the danger of going out at night that it was the rarest thing to find any one stirring after dark. So far was this system carried that robberies took place in broad daylight. Even such public places as Piccadilly and Oxford Street were not exempted from the common danger. Horace Walpole relates that he was robbed in this way, with Lord Eglinton, Lady Albemarle, and others. Those who had to travel to the adjacent villages of Paddington and Kensington were afraid to proceed alone. It was therefore customary to wait until a sufficiently numerous band had been collected to enable the pedestrians to resist any possible attack of footpads. The Vauxhall and Ranelagh Gardens, then the chief places of amusement in the vicinage of the metropolis, had to employ patrols to keep the way clear to London. As in the metropolis, so in the provinces. The roads, both in the towns and outside them, were in many cases as bad as bad could be. Their not unusual condition was that of “a narrow hollow way, little wider than a ditch, barely allowing of the passage of a vehicle drawn by horses in a single line.” This deep, narrow road was flanked by an elevated causeway, covered with flags or boulder stones, along which the traffic of the locality was carried on the backs of single horses, so that “it is difficult to imagine the delay, the toil, and the perils by which the conduct of the traffic was attended.” Under these circumstances, “there were towns, even in the same county, more widely separated for all practical purposes than London and Glasgow in the present day.”[9] Business was done slowly, and involved so great an expenditure of time and trouble that prices were necessarily high. News travelled more slowly still, and it was sometimes months before the people who lived at the extremities of the island knew what had happened in the metropolis. The reader who desires to obtain a graphic and eloquent account of the circumstances of England previous to the canal era could not do better than consult Macaulay, who, in the famous third chapter of his ‘History,’ has devoted a considerable amount of space to the consideration of the social and economic changes that had come over the country since 1685. The description given of the condition of the people in that year might almost be literally applied to their condition in the middle of the eighteenth century. The population had increased, it is true, and commerce had been developed in the interval. But the facilities for rapid and economical transportation had not been materially altered for the better. The great mass of the people were as ignorant, as superstitious, as shiftless as in the seventeenth century. Their sanitary surroundings were as unwholesome, their industrial pursuits as improvident, their habits as deplorable, their hardships as irksome, their discomforts and inconveniences as tiresome. From this remarkable record of the days of our forefathers we quote the following passages as being specially germane to the subject under consideration:— “It was by the highways that both travellers and goods generally passed from place to place; and those highways appear to have been far worse than might have been expected from the degree of wealth and civilisation which the nation had even then attained. On the best lines of communication the ruts were deep, the descents precipitous, and the way often such as it was hardly possible to distinguish, in the dusk, from the unenclosed heath and fen which lay on both sides. Ralph Thoresby, the antiquary, was in danger of losing his way on the great North Road between Barnsley Moor and Tuxford, and actually lost his way between Doncaster and York. Pepys and his wife, travelling in their own coach, lost their way between Newbury and Reading. In the course of the same tour they lost their way near Salisbury, and were in danger of having to pass the night on the Plain. It was only in fine weather that the whole breadth of the road was available for wheeled vehicles. Often the mud lay deep on the right and the left, and only a narrow track of firm ground rose above the quagmire. At such times obstructions and quarrels were frequent, and the path was sometimes blocked up during a long time by carriers, neither of whom would break the way. It happened, almost every day, that coaches stuck fast, until a team of cattle could be procured from some neighbouring farm to tug them out of the slough. But in bad seasons the traveller had to encounter inconveniences still more serious. Thoresby, who was in the habit of travelling between Leeds and the capital, has recorded in his Diary such a series of perils and disasters as might suffice for a journey to the Frozen Ocean or to the Desert of Sahara.[10] “The markets were often inaccessible during several months. It is said that the fruits of the earth were allowed to rot in one place, while in another place, distant only a few miles, the supply fell far short of the demand. The wheeled carriages were in this district generally pulled by oxen. When Prince George of Denmark visited the stately mansion of Petworth, in wet weather, he was six hours in going nine miles, and it was necessary that a body of sturdy hinds should be on each side of his coach in order to prop it. Of the carriages which contained his retinue several were upset and injured. A letter from one of the party has been preserved, in which the unfortunate courtier complains that, during fourteen hours, he never once alighted, except when his coach was overturned and stuck fast in the mud.” A story is told of an old stage-coach driver who, finding that his occupation had been seriously interfered with by the modern innovation of railways, thought he would strike a blow for the old system by attacking the railway in a vulnerable part. “Consider,” he argued, “what happens in case of a collision. If two stage coaches come into collision, and there is an upset, why, there you are. But in a railway collision, where are you?” In those days stage coaches did not enjoy the immunity from disaster that they do in these, when macadamised roads enable them to roll along almost as if they were on a billiard table.[11] When the canal system was being fairly started in England, only one stage coach ran between London and Edinburgh, starting once a month from each city, and taking ten days for the journey in summer, and twelve days in winter. It took fourteen days to travel between London and Glasgow. In 1760 it took three days to travel from Sheffield to London, and in 1774 Burke travelled from London to Bath with what was described as “incredible speed” in twenty-four hours. Much of the discomfort, the high range of prices, the general existence of poverty, the limited extent of commercial operations, in the early part of the eighteenth century was no doubt due to the imperfect development of the modern processes of manufacture and distribution—to the production of textiles by the old hand-loom, of iron by the old-fashioned type of blast-furnace, of steel by the costly cementation process, of clothing without the aid of the sewing-machine, and of agricultural crops without any of the mechanical aids to husbandry that are now so general and so conducive to economical working. But the high cost of transport had also much to answer for. Before the period of Macadam, it cost 2_s._ 6_d._ per mile to transport coal by the old pack-horse on an ordinary road. At this rate, it would have cost from 10_l._ to 15_l._ to transport a ton of coals from the Midland coalfield to London, a service which is now performed for 6_s._ to 7_s._ per ton. With only the old pack-horse facilities it would have cost an almost incredible sum to have performed the same service which the railways now render to the people of the United Kingdom in the transport of minerals and merchandise. While the knowledge of the arts, and especially of the arts that relate to transportation, were in so backward a state, it was inevitable that the prices of commodities should be high, and their interchange limited. Having to pay so much for the articles that they did not grow or produce themselves, the people of England, in the middle of the eighteenth century, were extremely poor, as a rule, and had very little chance to increase their wealth. The wages of the working classes were very low. A shilling a day was deemed to be excellent earnings. In Scotland the wages of a day labourer were only 5_d._ per day in summer and 6_d._ in winter. The price of bread was ordinarily much higher than it is at the present time.[12] The prices of clothing and of the usual requisites for domestic comfort and convenience were very much more than at the present day. The rates of wages were hardly enough to enable the great mass of the people to keep body and soul together. Butchers’ meat was all but unknown, even among those who were tolerably well off.[13] Plain homespun was almost the only description of clothing that was worn. Shops were hardly known in the smaller towns or villages, and the country people were mainly supplied with such requirements as they were able to indulge in, outside of their own productions, by hawkers, who carried packs everywhere, as they sometimes do in remote country places in our own day. In localities where coal was not produced, it was not to be purchased for love or money, unless at seaport towns, and the fuel ordinarily used was either turf or wood. From this condition of things England was largely rescued in the latter part of the eighteenth century by the introduction and development of internal waterways. This movement gave a remarkable stimulus to commercial and industrial progress. It enabled raw materials to be transported at about one-tenth of what they had formerly cost, and facilitated the interchange of commodities between the different parts of the kingdom to an extent previously undreamt of. It is remarkable what a large crop of important discoveries and inventions were made about the time that canals began to be generally used as waterways. Robinson’s project for working steam locomotives on common roads was put forward the year after Brindley commenced the Bridgwater Canal. In the same year the manufacture of thread and gauze was commenced at Paisley, and Jedediah Strutt made his first improvement on the stocking loom. Two years later Arkwright obtained his first patent for the spinning-frame, and Watt made his first experiments on the power of steam with Papin’s digester. It was in 1762 that the production of Wedgwood ware was first begun, and the same year witnessed a notable development of the linen manufacture of Ireland, while in 1763 Hargreaves the weaver produced his spinning-jenny in his house adjoining the print works of the first Sir Robert Peel. These are but a few of the concurrent and collateral movements of the period. Of the measure in which they were aided by internal transport we shall have more to say by and by. An examination of the geography of European countries will disclose the fact that the United Kingdom is almost unique in regard to its possession of a magnificent coast-line, studded with harbours and docks, and approached by a large number of navigable rivers, which afford easy communication with the sea. If we compare our facilities with those of Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland, Italy, or indeed any other European country, we cannot fail to be struck with their enormous superiority. Scarcely any part of the United Kingdom is more than a hundred miles distant from a good harbour. In many European countries there are important towns that are very much further, while some countries, like Switzerland, have no seaboard at all, and others, like Austria, besides having very few ports worthy of the name, are landlocked on more sides than one. Again, let us look at the recent history of European politics. Do we not find that a more extensive seaboard is the ruling passion of such nations as Germany and Russia, whose outlets are few and inconvenient? The half-suspected designs of Germany upon Holland, and of Russia upon Turkish and Chinese territory, have been mainly ascribed to this ambition. To obtain such an outlet for the Asiatic part of her dominions, Russia is at the present moment laying down a railway across Siberia, which will give her a closer connection with China than the Chinese seem to care for, and is likely, in the opinion of some shrewd politicians, to eventuate in her obtaining possession of a large slice of the Celestial Empire. The neutralisation of certain prominent waterways is, moreover, regarded as a matter of so much importance, that costly and protracted wars have been undertaken with a view to that end, nor would it be difficult to trace a connection between the passion for more ports and the costly armaments which have now for many years threatened the peace and impoverished the resources of Europe. Nevertheless, with a command of the sea that makes us at once the envy and the despair of rival nations, and has placed our shipping supremacy on such a pinnacle of power and prosperity as the world has never before been acquainted with,[14] we still require to pay more for reaching our ports, relatively to the distance traversed, than any other nation in Europe, and very much more than either the United States of North America, or our own possessions of India and Canada. It is not too much to say that if we possessed the same transportation rates as some of these countries, our trade with the rest of the world would be much greater than it is; while if we had the same distances to traverse as in these countries, at the existing railway rates of our own, competition in neutral markets with the low-rate countries of the Continent would be impossible. In making these statements we impute no blame and make no reflections. We are only concerned to state the simple truth. It may be that the railway companies in this country cannot afford to carry goods at cheaper rates. That is their look-out. They have undoubtedly incurred vast expense in providing the most ample and the most admirable facilities of transport, short of the all-important item of its cost. In no other country do we find such a splendid service. No other country has better roads nor more capable administration, nor quicker and more reliable dispatch, nor greater conveniences for traffic of all kinds. Unfortunately, also, in no other country have the railways been so costly; so that for the same volume of traffic English railways require to have higher rates, in order that the charges on capital may be met.[15] But why should trade suffer, and freighters find themselves _in extremis_, because British railways have made cheap rates all but impossible? There is sure to arrive, sooner or later, a point—which in England is seldom far distant—when railway rates become prohibitive. That point has almost been reached when traffic can be delivered in England from the heart of Belgium at 5_s._ per ton, as compared with 10_s._ and 12_s._ per ton for railway transport between the Midlands and the metropolis. The real question now is—Can nothing be done to remedy this state of things, not in a spirit of hostility to the railways, which may have done their best, but with a view to the preservation and increased development of British trade and industry? The nation is either hopelessly at the mercy of railway boards, or it is not. Our trade and manufactures are either compelled to pay every year an undue proportion of their hard earned receipts to railway shareholders, or they are not. If they are not—if there is a way of escape from this bondage—it is well that the nation should know what it is, and how best to take advantage of it. This is mainly the purpose of some of the chapters which follow. Up to the period of the first Canal Acts, English waterways were under the control of the State, or of authorities appointed by the State for the conservancy of navigation; and that such an arrangement was, on the whole, not without its advantages, is proved by the fact already referred to, viz.: that in the middle of the eighteenth century the advantages with regard to water carriage enjoyed by England enabled her to outstrip other countries in the development of her manufactures. With the construction of the first canal began the era of private enterprise in respect of inland navigation, which owes its existence, as it is hardly necessary to remark here, to the genius of Brindley, and to the unflagging determination of the Duke of Bridgwater—whose efforts in the cause of progress were, like those of Stephenson, and the pioneers of railway enterprise after them, at first strenuously opposed by the public, and almost entirely neglected by the State. The turning point of public opinion, as regards both canals and railways, was the discovery that money might be made out of them. Brindley’s grand project of uniting the four great ports of Liverpool, Hull, Bristol, and London by a system of main waterways from which subsidiary branches might be carried to the contiguous towns, had been, to a large extent, successfully accomplished at the end of the first quarter of the present century, and when canals began to pay dividends, the nation began to admit their public utility. In a very few years after Brindley’s death in 1772, an immense number of navigation Acts received the sanction of Parliament, canals began to be freely quoted “on ’Change,” and, in 1790, “the canal mania” began.[16] The _Gazette_ of August, 1792, contained notices of eighteen new canals, and the premiums of single shares in companies had reached such figures as 155_l._ (Leicester), 350_l._ (Grand Trunk and Coventry), and 1170_l._ (Birmingham). Canals began to be used for passenger traffic; and we read in the _Times_ of 19th December, 1806, of troops being despatched from London to Liverpool by the Paddington Canal, _en route_ for Ireland, a mode of transport which the writer pointed out would enable them to reach Liverpool “in only seven days!” In the four years ending 1794, some 81 canal and navigation Acts were obtained, of which 45 were passed in the latter two years, authorising an expenditure of over 5,000,000_l._ No less than 1,200,000_l._ was spent upon the construction of the 130 miles of waterway connecting Liverpool, by way of Skipton, with the Aire and Calder at Leeds (a work begun in 1770, but not completed till 41 years afterwards); and when the last canals in England were completed, in 1830, the total amount that had been expended upon our waterways was about 14,000,000_l._ Out of some 210 rivers in England and Wales, 44 in England have hitherto been made navigable.[17] The Thames, the Severn, and the Mersey are connected by 648 miles of river and canal, the Thames and Humber by 537 miles, the Severn and Mersey by 832 miles, and the Mersey and Humber by 680 miles; the Fen waters have an extent of 431 miles, and the remaining canals of England and Wales amount to 1204 miles.[18] This fine system of waterways, with a total length of 4332 miles, furnishes no less than 21 through routes for traffic between London and the manufacturing districts, but, as it is scarcely necessary to observe, a very large portion of it has ceased to be of any practical value, while the utility of that which is still available to the public is constantly diminishing, through the neglect due to the impoverished condition of many of the canal companies and other causes. In the eyes of engineers, the defects of natural geography were made to be corrected by their skill, experience, and ingenuity. Peninsulas and isthmuses, whether large or small, appear to be designed only for the purpose of being pierced with artificial waterways. Hydraulic engineers are the high priests of science, whose mission it is to publish the banns of marriage between seas and oceans, and complete the nuptials in a way that no man may put asunder. By their sacerdotal functions, the Mediterranean has been married to the Red Sea, the Caspian to the Black Sea, the North Sea to the Atlantic, the Adriatic to the Archipelago, and the Atlantic almost to the Pacific, while we have seen many unions of less distinguished members of the great maritime family. The importance of these alliances to the trade, the wealth, the intercourse, the facility of intercommunication, and the general convenience of the world, not to speak of strategical and political considerations, affecting individual nations, can hardly be over-estimated. But much still remains to be done. The high contracting parties are in some cases coy and bashful, requiring more effective wooing before they can be won. The prospective matchmakers must not forget that “It’s not so much the lover who woos As the gallant’s way of wooing.” There is a personal history belonging to the development of canal navigation of a much more engrossing interest than can usually be claimed for so unromantic a type of institutions. The annals of that history extend over many centuries. They reach back even to the times of ancient Egypt, the cradle of the sciences, and were contemporaneous with the building of the Pyramids. Menes, who lived 2320 years before the Christian era, constructed water-courses, which were simply canals, for carrying off the superfluous waters that reduced the greater part of Egypt in his time to the condition of an extensive marsh.[19] Sesostris, 1659 B.C., undertook the cutting and embanking of canals on a more extensive scale, carrying them at right angles with the Nile, as far as from Memphis to the sea, for the quick conveyance of corn and merchandise.[20] Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus) completed a canal, which had been commenced and continued by several previous sovereigns, and which is said[21] to have afforded a connection with the sea;[22] while even at this early date, gates or sluices were constructed, which opened to afford a passage through the Egyptian canal to the sea.[23] In Roman times, again, Julius Cæsar, Caligula, and Nero were canal-makers, having each in his day attempted to unite the Ionian Sea with the Archipelago, through the isthmus of Corinth—an undertaking which is only in our own day being consummated. The emperor Trajan was also greatly interested in canals, as his correspondence with Pliny proves, while all the principal Roman consuls and generals appear to have possessed some knowledge of hydraulics, and applied that knowledge to useful purpose. Charlemagne attempted to unite the Rhine with the Danube, and to establish water communication between the German Ocean and the Black Sea. Leonardo da Vinci was equally great as a canal-maker and a painter, having constructed some of the earliest canals in Italy. The Doges of Venice, “the City in the Sea,” naturally paid much attention to the same subject, which was, indeed, essential to their convenience, security, and prosperity. It is to the credit of many of the sovereigns of France that they have sought to promote the security and welfare of their country by similar means. Henry II. employed Adam de Crapone, about 1555, to cut the Canal of Charolais; and Henry IV. continued the work. Louis XIV. engaged an Italian to construct one of the greatest of the French canals—that of Languedoc, which is elsewhere referred to. In more recent times Napoleon Buonaparte and Napoleon III. have interested themselves actively on behalf of canal navigation; and it appears to have been by a mere chance that the latter did not become a canal administrator in Central America, where he took a keen interest in the proposed ship canal across the isthmus of Nicaragua. If we cast our eyes over the rest of the European Continent we shall find that wherever artificial waterways have been provided, Royal or Imperial encouragement has assisted in the operation. Peter the Great and Catherine attached the utmost importance to the development of Russia by this means. In Sweden, Gustavus Vasa and his successors were equally solicitous, in a country full of natural waterways, that these should be utilised and connected by artificial means. A system that has been instrumental in giving to Europe such towns as Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Venice, which has facilitated the progress of commerce in a hundred different directions, which was practically the only means of transport for nearly a century in all the chief countries of the world, and which still makes provision for the interchange of commodities at a cheaper rate than any other; which has involved the expenditure of hundreds of millions, and has found employment for vast numbers of well-remunerated _employés_; which abridges distance and time, and brings into closer contact different districts and countries, seas and oceans; which has engaged the attention of the greatest potentates and princes of recorded history, and has in all times been deemed a fit subject for the exercise of kingcraft; which, in our more prosaic age, brings us cheap food, cheap coal, and cheap commodities generally—such a system is one that can hardly be lightly esteemed, even now, notwithstanding that its waning light has been eclipsed by the brilliance of that other system which has been so marked a development of our nineteenth century civilisation. Canal engineering, besides, has a very remarkable record, and has achieved many notable triumphs. These have hardly received the attention to which their importance entitles them. It is true that no canal has been carried, like the Callao, Lima, and Oroya railroad, in Peru, to the height of nearly sixteen thousand feet above the level of the sea.[24] It has, however, on the Languedoc and other canals been found easily feasible to carry a canal to a height of 600 to 1000 ft. above the sea. Canal engineers have not, perhaps, pierced the Alps with a tunnel ten miles in length, as on the Saint-Gothard Railway; but they have carried a tide-water canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, and they have essayed to perform the same feat through the Cordillera. Hydraulic engineering has, next to railway engineering, been the most remarkable manifestation of the applied science of modern times, and in canal construction it has attained some of its most successful results. Sufficient credit, moreover, has hardly been given to the canal system for the important part which it has taken in opening up the resources of different countries, and thereby bringing about the remarkable development of commerce and industry which has been so marked a feature of our own times. The Act for the construction of the Bridgwater Canal was obtained in 1759, previous to which time the internal commerce of the country, as we have seen, was carried on by pack-horses or waggons, on common turnpike-roads. Mr. Wood has calculated[25] that the average cost of conveying heavy goods on macadamised turnpike-roads by this system was 8_d._ per mile, while light goods cost 1_s._ per ton per mile. As that calculation applies to a time when wages, fodder, and other items involved in the expense of such transport, were lower than now, it is a fair assumption that it will be at least as much to-day, and for facility of reckoning we may take the average at the convenient and fairly likely figure of 10_d._ per ton per mile over all. Now, the total quantity of merchandise carried on the railways of the United Kingdom in 1887 was about 269 millions of tons. No evidence exists as to the total mileage over which this vast tonnage was carried, or, as it is expressed in railway phraseology, of the ton-mile traffic. But if we assume that the average charge for traffic carried by railway in 1887 was 1_d._ per ton per mile, the total movement would be represented by the enormous figure of 8962 millions of ton-miles. To have carried the same traffic under the system of transport that preceded the canals would have been impossible, but it would have cost the country, if it had been practicable, no less a sum than 373½ millions sterling, which is about one-third of the estimated amount of our national income from all sources. But this, after all, is not the most curious part of the calculation. In order to understand how impossible our present transport system would have been under the old _régime_, we must assume that a horse is capable, under ordinary circumstances, of carrying one ton about ten miles a day. Working for 300 days a year, therefore, he would be able to carry a total weight of about 3000 tons one mile in the course of twelve months. To undertake the same work as that performed by our railways would therefore require close on three million horses, or, practically, the whole of the horses that exist in the United Kingdom at the present time, for every purpose, including agriculture. It was while we were depending exclusively upon this expensive and tedious system of conveyance, when the internal development of the country was rendered all but impossible by the heavy expense of bringing produce to the sea, and when our export trade was consequently of the most restricted dimensions, that canals came to the rescue. They worked a marvellous change in the trade of the country—a change which can, perhaps, be best illustrated by the ordinarily dry, but in this case almost thrilling, returns of our exports and imports. Burke, in one of his greatest speeches,[26] spoke of a total exportation of the value of 14½ millions, and a total importation of 9½ millions sterling, as an index of extraordinary prosperity. In another equally great oration[27] he said, speaking of the fact that we were then exporting rather over six millions a year to our colonies, that “when we speak of the commerce with our colonies, fiction lags after truth; invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.” What would he have said had he lived to see, as we have done, our exports reach the vast total of 250 millions a year, with nearly 90 millions of exports to our colonies? Canals certainly did not complete this revolution, but they had a very important share in giving it a start. Between the time when the canal system was commenced, about 1760, and the end of the first canal period, which may be put at 1838, the export trade of the country advanced from 14 millions to about 50 millions per annum. This is poor progress, compared with what has since been attained, through the development of the steamship, the railway, the telegraph, and other modern adjuncts of commerce, but it was deemed as remarkable for that day as we consider our subsequent progress to be in ours. It is practically impossible to arrive at a correct estimation of the tonnage of goods of different kinds that goes to make up the inland and the external trade of this country. We know that the railways of the United Kingdom annually carry about 280 millions of tons of minerals and merchandise (according to the Board of Trade returns), but a considerable part of this tonnage is duplicated, in consequence of passing over more than one railway. Of the total tonnage carried by railway, the greater part probably goes no farther. It is consumed on the spot, like the coal traffic of London and the minerals supplied to our great ironmaking centres. But a very much larger quantity is carried from inland centres to seaports, and thence shipped for places of consumption at home and abroad. The coastwise carrying trade of the United Kingdom is now represented by 60 million tons a year. The foreign shipping trade amounts to over 70 million tons a year. Only a comparatively small proportion of these quantities is consumed at the ports of shipment. The greater part is carried farther by railway, thus breaking bulk twice—once in moving it from the ship to the railway wagon, and again in removing it from the railway wagon. Much of it has to be carried from the ship in barges, and thence transferred to the railway. All this means loss of time, loss of money, and deterioration of quality, which adequate water facilities should do much to obviate. There is no class of property that has undergone a more remarkable range of vicissitudes than canal ownership. In the early years of the present century, the value of canal companies’ shares was much higher than that of any railway property has been since that time. The price of some canal shares rose to a hundred times their nominal or par value. Enormous dividends were often paid. In other cases, where the navigation had been neglected, the properties were very lightly esteemed, and yielded unsatisfactory results. The Fossdyke Navigation in Lincolnshire was leased about 1840, by the Corporation of Lincoln, to a Mr. Elison for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, at 75_l._ a year! Six years later the executors of the lessee leased it to the Great Northern Railway Company for 9575_l._[28] The Loughborough Canal shares, which were once worth 4500_l._, are now scarcely worth 100_l._; and a still more notable decline is that of the Erewash Canal, whose shares, now quoted at about 50_l._, were once worth fully 3000_l._ There are three great epochs in the modern history of canal navigation, each marked by characteristics peculiar to itself, and sufficiently unlike those of either of the others to enable it to be readily differentiated. They may be thus described:—