INLAND WATERWAYS—CHISHOLM. 367 
feet, in the Stanedge tunnel 3 miles long. In the Harecastle tunnel, 
4 miles northwest of Stoke, the Trent and Mersey Canal attains a 
height of 460 feet. Birmingham is connected with the Thames by a 
waterway which starts at 380 feet above sea level, sinks to 180 feet in 
the valley of the Avon, and rises again to 390 feet where it passes 
through the Chilterns; and with the Severn by one starting at 425 
feet above sea level, and making a rapid descent of about 250 feet in 
3 miles after passing through the Tardebigge tunnel. 
It has also to be noted that, in addition to railway competition, 
the inland waterways of this country have to encounter that of the 
coasting trade, and when all the drawbacks of English waterways 
are considered, it 1s not too much to say that, in proportion to their 
capacity as regards volume and speed, the work done by them com- 
pares very favorably with that done by the waterways of other coun- 
tries with which it is reasonable to make a comparison. In the 
absence of ton-mile statistics no satisfactory comparison can indeed 
be made under this head; still, it may be not altogether useless to 
mention that the tonnage carried by the waterways of England and 
Wales, according to the returns for 1898,* was larger than that car- 
ried by the waterways of France, Belgium, Germany, or Russia, for 
the nearest year for which I happen to have the data (in no case 
more than three years from 1898). England and Wales, moreover, 
have no waterway like the Ruhr, capable of carrying 165-ton boats 
and passing through a coal field, yet carrying next to nothing. The 
113,000 tons carried in 1898 by the Kennet and Avon Canal and 
river Avon (railway controlled, be it observed) compares very favor- 
ably with the small traffic of the Danube-Main or Ludwig’s canal. 
The first question, therefore, to ask is, How is it that our poor 
waterways accomplish so much? and unquestionably the answer is, 
Because this country has such large quantities of bulky goods origi- 
nating or collected at some point on a waterway and requiring to be 
transported to some other point on the same or a connected waterway. 
We may next ask how this traffic is divided between the indepen- 
dent and railway-controlled waterways. In making this comparison, 
I leave out the sea-borne traffic of the Manchester Ship Canal, which 
is obviously not on the same footing as ordinary inland water traffic, 
and I omit the Manchester Ship Canal proper in stating the total 
length of the canals. On this basis we find that the 2,016 miles of 
independent canals carrried in 1898, in round numbers, 22.5 million 
tons, the 1,118 miles of railway-controlled canals roughly 13.5 mil- 
lions. These figures would seem to tell rather in favor of railway 
control, but, of course, it would be absurd to draw such a conclusion. 
“Returns in Respect of Canals and Navigations in the United Kingdom for 
1898. [Cd. 19], 1899. 
