Waterways and Water Transport in Different Countries by J. Stephen Jeans

constituting such vested interests in Parliament, and through the shareholders over the country generally, is too strong to allow the Government to take over the canals. A recent writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ declares that “the mode in which the railway companies of the United Kingdom have been allowed to ruin the canal property is a mark of the indifference of Parliament to an important feature of public policy. It would have been as justifiable, on the score of public welfare, to allow the railway companies to buy up the turnpike bonds, and to charge what tolls they pleased on the turnpike roads, as it was to wink at the purchase and stoppage of the canals. The danger of allowing such a change of mastership is admitted by the clauses inserted in several Acts of Parliament regulating the maximum tolls—clauses which have been allowed to remain a dead letter. The Board of Trade declared that it had neither advice nor assistance to offer to complainants in the matter. Mr. (now Sir Thomas) Farrer, then Secretary to the Board of Trade, expressed his opinion, in 1872, that the actual state of canal property, which was held by the railway companies just so far as to enable them to destroy the traffic, was the worst possible, as regarded the public interest. It is now too late to attempt to remedy the evil. Nothing but the conviction on the part of the railway companies that they are financially wrong in forcing the slow heavy traffic on to the metals, will render possible the rehabilitation of the canal system, however fully all other persons may be convinced of the national importance of our internal navigation.” Among the many current questions relative to transport, none is more urgent than that of how far the waterways of a country can be profitably and conveniently utilised in competition with railways. This is a question that has come up again and again in all the leading countries of the world, and one which is still unsolved. In Continental countries—and especially in France, Germany, Belgium, and Holland—the greatest possible importance is attached to having the command of cheap and adequate water transport, and it seems to have been allowed that there is a natural function for each system of transport—that of the railways being the conveyance of passengers and traffic that will bear a high rate of freight, while that of the waterways is to convey heavy luggage or traffic, of low intrinsic value, from point to point at a low rate of speed. Unfortunately, however, there is no common agreement as to the average cost of service in each case. The fact is, as we have seen, that the cost of water transport, under the most suitable conditions, is almost ridiculously low. It has been proved in Belgium, in France, and in Germany, to be under one-tenth of a penny per ton per mile, whereas the cost of railway transport is seldom less than double that amount. But, of course, much necessarily depends upon the local conditions, and upon the means of transport employed. The State should take care, by enactment or acquisition, that the country does not lose the immense economic advantage that accrues from the cheapness of water transport. Hitherto, this advantage has been almost absolutely lost to the people of these islands: first, by the neglect into which the canal system has been allowed to fall: and, secondly, by the authority given to the railway companies to acquire canal properties which they have allowed to become derelict or converted into railway lines. Nor have the canal proprietors themselves been free from serious blame. In their palmy days they paid immense dividends by keeping up high tolls and charges, and thereby materially assisted the development of the railway system and their own partial or complete extinction.[310] Parliament behaved to the canal companies much as it has since done to the railway corporations. It granted them monopolies and excessive powers, which were used, in a very great majority of cases, in much the same way—to extort the utmost possible sums from freighters—both against traders and against themselves. One of the most remarkable privileges granted by Parliament to the earlier canal companies was a right to levy bar and compensation tolls on the traffic of the newly-constructed canals, in order to protect their monopolies. In some cases, within a few years, canal companies received more than the amount of their original capital by way of compensation for injury to their traffic. On this point Mr. E. J. Lloyd has observed that, “the fact that all these new lines of canal could only succeed by bringing tributary traffic not otherwise attainable to the older canals seems to have been completely lost sight of by the Legislature, and no excuse appears to have been too absurd as a reason for granting these oppressive and unjustifiable exactions on the trading public. Many instances might be mentioned, but it may be stated by way of example that in one case 11½_d._ per ton was granted where the traffic did not pass within four miles of the existing canal, and in another 6_d._ per ton where the distance exceeded five miles. To these may be added bridge tolls, which were exactions payable by goods, which having been landed, or were intended to be carried, on one canal, passed over the bridges of another and older company.[311] Whilst the canals had practically a monopoly of all the traffic of the kingdom, it was not so serious a matter to their interests that these heavy burdens were placed upon their traffic. No doubt the public were the sufferers, but the weight of traffic passed was, in most cases, such as to enable the canals to earn dividends satisfactory to their shareholders, and they were therefore, more or less careless of the public interests, and viewed restriction of trade very differently from what they can now afford to do, when they have to keep up a constant competition with railway companies for their traffic.” Mr. Lloyds contends that the total abolition of all bar and compensation tolls, and the establishment of free trade by the introduction of through mileage tolls, is imperatively demanded if cheap canal transport is to be attained in the public interests. It would easily be possible to greatly extend the consideration of the subject of this chapter. But that does not appear to be called for. Time will show how far the practice of England, which is at variance with that of nearly every other European country, is justified by results. So far, it must be confessed, that the justification is far from obvious. The waterways have been grievously neglected, while the railways have been authorised to impose very heavy rates and tolls. These are hardly likely to become much lighter as time goes on, while the controlling interest acquired by the railways in transportation arrangements will almost certainly make it difficult to recur to canal transport on a large scale. FOOTNOTES: [309] Paper on the present condition of inland navigation in the United Kingdom, with suggestions for its improvement, ‘Journal of the Society of Arts,’ 1888. [310] In 1833, when railways were beginning to be generally projected, the dividends of seven of the principal canal companies in Great Britain, ranged between 25 and 124 per cent. per annum, while it is probable that others yielded a still higher return. [311] Two Warwickshire canals, with a capital of 250,000_l._ have in this way paid in compensation tolls, to three other canal companies, more than a million sterling. APPENDIX. I. CHRONOLOGY OF RIVER IMPROVEMENT AND CANAL NAVIGATION IN ENGLAND UP TO 1852. _Fifteenth Century._