British Canals: Is their resuscitation practicable? — Story, Setting & Ideas

opoly of the transport business--except as regards road traffic--and in various instances they helped their proprietors to make huge profits. But great changes were impending, and these were brought about, at last, with the advent of the locomotive.

The general situation at this period is well shown by the following extracts from an article on "Canals and Rail-roads," published in the _Quarterly Review_ of March 1825:--

"It is true that we, who, in this age, are accustomed to roll along our hard and even roads at the rate of 8 or 9 miles an hour, can hardly imagine the inconveniences which beset our great-grandfathers when they had to undertake a journey--forcing their way through deep miry lanes; fording swollen rivers; obliged to halt for days together when 'the waters were out'; and then crawling along at a pace of 2 or 3 miles an hour, in constant fear of being set down fast in some deep quagmire, of being overturned, breaking down, or swept away by a sudden inundation.

"Such was the travelling condition of our ancestors, until the several turnpike Acts effected a gradual and most favourable change, not only in the state of the roads, but the whole appearance of the country; by increasing the facility of communication, and the transport of many weighty and bulky articles which, before that period, no effort could move from one part of the country to another. The pack-horse was now yoked to the waggon, and stage coaches and post-chaises usurped the place of saddle-horses. Imperfectly as most of these turnpike roads were constructed, and greatly as their repairs were neglected, they were still a prodigious improvement; yet, for the conveyance of heavy merchandise the progress of waggons was slow and their capacity limited. This defect was at length remedied by the opening of canals, an improvement which became, with regard to turnpike roads and waggons, what these had been to deep lanes and pack-horses.[1] But we may apply to projectors the observation of Sheridan, 'Give these fellows a good thing and they never know when to have done with it,' for so vehement became the rage for canal-making that, in a few years, the whole surface of the country was intersected by these inland navigations, and frequently in parts of the island where there was little or no traffic to be conveyed. The consequence was, that a large proportion of them scarcely paid an interest of one per cent., and many nothing at all; while others, judiciously conducted over populous, commercial, and manufacturing districts, have not only amply remunerated the parties concerned, but have contributed in no small degree to the wealth and prosperity of the nation.

"Yet these expensive establishments for facilitating the conveyance of the commercial, manufacturing and agricultural products of the country to their several destinations, excellent and useful as all must acknowledge them to be, are now likely, in their turn, to give way to the old invention of Rail-roads. Nothing now is heard of but rail-roads; the daily papers teem with notices of new lines of them in every direction, and pamphlets and paragraphs are thrown before the public eye, recommending nothing short of making them general throughout the kingdom. Yet, till within these few months past, this old invention, in use a full century before canals, has been suffered, with few exceptions, to act the part only of an auxiliary to canals, in the conveyance of goods to and from the wharfs, and of iron, coals, limestone, and other products of the mines to the nearest place of shipment....

"The powers of the steam-engine, and a growing conviction that our present modes of conveyance, excellent as they are, both require and admit of great improvements, are, no doubt, among the chief reasons that have set the current of speculation in this particular direction."

Dealing with the question of "vested rights," the article warns "the projectors of the intended railroads ... of the necessity of being prepared to meet the most strenuous opposition from the canal proprietors," and proceeds:--