Читать книгу British Canals: Is their resuscitation practicable? - Edwin A. Pratt - Страница 7

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It is not a little curious to find that, whereas the proposed resuscitation of canals is now being actively supported in various quarters as a means of effecting increased competition with the railways, the railway system itself originally had a most cordial welcome from the traders of this country as a means of relieving them from what had become the intolerable monopoly of the canals and waterways!

It will have been seen that in the article published in the Quarterly Review of March 1825, from which I gave extracts in the last Chapter, reference was made to a "Letter on the Subject of the Projected Rail-road between Liverpool and Manchester," by Mr Joseph Sandars, and published that same year. I have looked up the original "Letter," and found in it some instructive reading. Mr Sandars showed that although, under the Act of Parliament obtained by the Duke of Bridgewater, the tolls to be charged on his canal between Liverpool and Manchester were not to exceed 2s. 6d. per ton, his trustees had, by various exactions, increased them to 5s. 2d. per ton on all goods carried along the canal. They had also got possession of all the available land and warehouses along the canal banks at Manchester, thus monopolising the accommodation, or nearly so, and forcing the traders to keep to the trustees, and not patronise independent carriers. It was, Mr Sandars declared, "the most oppressive and unjust monopoly known to the trade of this country—a monopoly which there is every reason to believe compels the public to pay, in one shape or another, £100,000 more per annum than they ought to pay." The Bridgewater trustees and the proprietors of the Mersey and Irwell Navigation were, he continued, "deaf to all remonstrances, to all entreaties"; they were "actuated solely by a spirit of monopoly and extension," and "the only remedy the public has left is to go to Parliament and ask for a new line of conveyance." But this new line, he said, would have to be a railway. It could not take the form of another canal, as the two existing routes had absorbed all the available water-supply.

In discussing the advantages of a railway over a canal, Mr Sandars continued:—

"It is computed that goods could be carried for considerably less than is now charged, and for one-half of what has been charged, and that they would be conveyed in one-sixth of the time. Canals in summer are often short of water, and in winter are obstructed by frost; a Railway would not have to encounter these impediments."

Mr Sandars further wrote:—

"The distance between Liverpool and Manchester, by the three lines of Water conveyance, is upwards of 50 miles—by a Rail-road it would only be 33. Goods conveyed by the Duke and Old Quay [Mersey and Irwell Navigation] are exposed to storms, the delays from adverse winds, and the risk of damage, during a passage of 18 miles in the tide-way of the Mersey. For days together it frequently happens that when the wind blows very strong, either south or north, their vessels cannot move against it. It is very true that when the winds and tides are favourable they can occasionally effect a passage in fourteen hours; but the average is certainly thirty. However, notwithstanding all the accommodation they can offer, the delays are such that the spinners and dealers are frequently obliged to cart cotton on the public high-road, a distance of 36 miles, for which they pay four times the price which would be charged by a Rail-road, and they are three times as long in getting it to hand. The same observation applies to manufactured goods which are sent by land-carriage daily, and for which the rate paid is five times that which they would be subject to by the Rail-road. This enormous sacrifice is made for two reasons—sometimes because conveyance by water cannot be promptly obtained, but more frequently because speed and certainty as to delivery are of the first importance. Packages of goods sent from Manchester, for immediate shipment at Liverpool, often pay two or three pounds per ton; and yet there are those who assert that the difference of a few hours in speed can be no object. The merchants know better."

In the same year that Mr Sandars issued his "Letter," the merchants of the port of Liverpool addressed a memorial to the Mayor and Common Council of the borough, praying them to support the scheme for the building of a railway, and stating:—

"The merchants of this port have for a long time past experienced very great difficulties and obstructions in the prosecution of their business, in consequence of the high charges on the freight of goods between this town and Manchester, and of the frequent impossibility of obtaining vessels for days together."

It is clear from all this that, however great the benefit which canal transport had conferred, as compared with prior conditions, the canal companies had abused their monopoly in order to secure what were often enormous profits; that the canals themselves, apart from the excessive tolls and charges imposed, failed entirely to meet the requirements of traders; and that the most effective means of obtaining relief was looked for in the provision of railways.

The value to which canal shares had risen at this time is well shown by the following figures, which I take from the Gentleman's Magazine for December, 1824:—

Canal.	Shares.	Price.
	£	s.	d.		£
Trent and Mersey	75	0	0		2,200
Loughborough	197	0	0		4,600
Coventry	44	0	0	(and bonus)	1,300
Oxford (short shares)	32	0	0	" "	850
Grand Junction	10	0	0	" "	290
Old Union	4	0	0		103
Neath	15	0	0		400
Swansea	11	0	0		250
Monmouthshire	10	0	0		245
Brecknock and Abergavenny	8	0	0		175
Staffordshire & Worcestershire	40	0	0		960
Birmingham	12	10	0		350
Worcester and Birmingham	1	10	0		56
Shropshire	8	10	0		175
Ellesmere	3	10	0		102
Rochdale	4	0	0		140
Barnsley	12	0	0		330
Lancaster	1	0	0		45
Kennet and Avon	1	0	0		29

These substantial values, and the large dividends that led to them, were due in part, no doubt, to the general improvement in trade which the canals had helped most materially to effect; but they had been greatly swollen by the merciless way in which the traders of those days were exploited by the representatives of the canal interest. As bearing on this point, I might interrupt the course of my narrative to say that in the House of Commons on May 17, 1836, Mr Morrison, member for Ipswich, made a speech in which, as reported by Hansard, he expressed himself "clearly of opinion" that "Parliament should, when it established companies for the formation of canals, railroads, or such like undertakings, invariably reserve to itself the power to make such periodical revisions of the rates and charges as it may, under the then circumstances, deem expedient"; and he proposed a resolution to this effect. He was moved to adopt this course in view of past experiences in connection with the canals, and a desire that there should be no repetition of them in regard to the railways then being very generally promoted. In the course of his speech he said:—

"The history of existing canals, waterways, etc., affords abundant evidence of the evils to which I have been averting. An original share in the Loughborough Canal, for example, which cost £142, 17s. is now selling at about £1,250, and yields a dividend of £90 or £100 a year. The fourth part of a Trent and Mersey Canal share, or £50 of the company's stock, is now fetching £600, and yields a dividend of about £30 a year. And there are various other canals in nearly the same situation."

At the close of the debate which followed, Mr Morrison withdrew his resolution, owing to the announcement that the matter to which he had called attention would be dealt with in a Bill then being framed. It is none the less interesting thus to find that Parliamentary revisions of railway rates were, in the first instance, directly inspired by the extortions practised on the traders by canal companies in the interest of dividends far in excess of any that the railway companies have themselves attempted to pay.

Reverting to the story of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway—the projection of which, as Mr Sandars' "Letter" shows, represented a revolt against "the exorbitant and unjust charges of the water-carriers"—the Bill promoted in its favour was opposed so vigorously by the canal and other interests that £70,000 was spent in the Parliamentary proceedings in getting it through. But it was carried in 1826, and the new line, opened in 1830, was so great a success that it soon began to inspire many similar projects in other directions, while with its opening the building of fresh canals for ordinary inland navigation (as distinct from ship canals) practically ceased.

There is not the slightest doubt that, but for the extreme dissatisfaction of the trading interests in regard alike to the heavy charges and to the shortcomings of the canal system, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway—that precursor of the "railway mania"—would not have been actually constructed until at least several years later. But there were other directions, also, in which the revolt against the then existing conditions was to bring about important developments. In the pack-horse period the collieries of Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire respectively supplied local needs only, the cost of transport by road making it practically impossible to send coal out of the county in which it was raised. With the advent of canals the coal could be taken longer distances, and the canals themselves gained so much from the business that at one time shares in the Loughborough Canal, on which £142 had been paid, rose, as already shown, to £4,600, and were looked upon as being as safe as Consols. But the collapse of a canal from the Leicestershire coal-fields to the town of Leicester placed the coalowners of that county at a disadvantage, and this they overcame, in 1832, by opening the Leicester and Swinnington line of railway. Thereupon the disadvantage was thrown upon the Nottinghamshire coalowners, who could no longer compete with Leicestershire. In fact, the immediate outlook before them was that they would be excluded from their chief markets, that their collieries might have to be closed, and that the mining population would be thrown out of employment.

In their dilemma they appealed to the canal companies, and asked for such a reduction in rates as would enable them to meet the new situation; but the canal companies—wedded to their big dividends—would make only such concessions as were thought by the other side to be totally inadequate. Following on this the Nottinghamshire coalowners met in the parlour of a village inn at Eastwood, in the autumn of 1832, and formally declared that "there remained no other plan for their adoption than to attempt to lay a railway from their collieries to the town of Leicester." The proposal was confirmed by a subsequent meeting, which resolved that "a railway from Pinxton to Leicester is essential to the interests of the coal-trade of this district." Communications were opened with George Stephenson, the services of his son Robert were secured, the "Midland Counties Railway" was duly constructed, and the final outcome of the action thus taken—as the direct result of the attitude of the canal companies—is to be seen in the splendid system known to-day as the Midland Railway.

Once more, I might refer to Mr Charles H. Grinling's "History of the Great Northern Railway," in which, speaking of early conditions, he says:—

"During the winter of 1843-44 a strong desire arose among the landowners and farmers of the eastern counties to secure some of the benefits which other districts were enjoying from the new method of locomotion. One great want of this part of England was that of cheaper fuel, for though there were collieries open at this time in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire, the nearest pits with which the eastern counties had practicable transport communication were those of South Yorkshire and Durham, and this was of so circuitous a character that even in places situated on navigable rivers, unserved by a canal, the price of coal often rose as high as 40s. or even 50s. a ton. In remoter places, to which it had to be carted 10, 20, or even 30 miles along bad cross-roads, coal even for house-firing was a positive luxury, quite unattainable by the poorer classes. Moreover, in the most severe weather, when the canals were frozen, the whole system of supply became paralysed, and even the wealthy had not seldom to retreat shivering to bed for lack of fuel."

In this particular instance it was George Hudson, the "Railway King," who was approached, and the first lines were laid of what is now the Great Northern Railway.

So it happened that, when the new form of transport came into vogue, in succession to the canals, it was essentially a case of "Railways to the Rescue."