82 CANALS. 



CANALS AND WATERWAYS OF IRELAND,* 



(a.) Preliminary Observations. 



In his presidential address to the members of the Fourth International 

 Congress on Inland Navigation, which met in i8go in Manchester, Sir 

 Michael Hicks-Beach was obliged to admit that the United Kingdom was 

 very much behind other countries in its supply of statistical information on 

 inland waterways and their traffic. However, the Board of Trade, in pur- 

 suance of powers conferred on them by the Railway and Canal Act of 1888, 

 have, since the passing of that Act, issued two Blue Books [C. 6083 — 1890 : 

 Cd. 19 — 1899] containing fairly complete and accuratet statistics of canals 

 and inland navigations in the United Kingdom. 



It becomes more and more evident that it is an important preliminary to 

 all lasting economic reform to have an instructed public opinion in this 

 country concerning itself with our industrial interests. The amount of 

 accurate information on public problems of importance to the material pro- 

 gress of the country is, from whatever cause, disappointingly small, even 

 amongst those who ought to be interested in such matters. In looking up 

 the materials on which the appended remarks are largely based, I expe- 

 rienced considerable difficulty, not merely in getting information, but even 

 in getting at some of the sources of information. I take this as evidence 

 that it is a work of some value to bring together in a succinct and con- 

 nected form facts which, while accessible to any painstaking inquirer, are 

 so scattered and hidden away in half-forgotten reports as to be beyond the 

 easy reach of the general public. The time is not inopportune, moreover, 

 for calling public attention to the status quo and the possibilities of our 

 fine network of canals and river systems. There is (as I shall show pre- 

 sently) a revival of interest in every progressive country in the too long 

 neglected question of inland waterways. Ireland — no country more so — 

 is vitally concerned in the problem of cheap transport generally, and par- 

 ticularly in the cheap transport of such heavy goods of relatively small 

 value as coal, stone, slates, brick, timber, lime, turf, manure, roots, etc., 

 which are the characteristic items of water carriage. Again, a system of 

 cheap and efficient water communication throughout the country would be 

 of immense help to small industrial centres and to nascent rural industries 

 such as, it may be hoped, will result in time from the new operations of 

 State aid as applied to agriculture and industry. It must not be forgotten, 

 m this connection, that, apart from new industries, there is in Ireland, as in 

 many other countries, a large amount of potential traffic waiting on low 

 transit rates. Sir Arthur Cotton rightly told the Commission on Canals of 



* I am indebted to Mr. F. de Vismes Kane, of Drumreaske House, Co. Monaghan, late 

 Chairman of the Grand Canal Company, for many valuable suggestions in the preparation of 

 this statement, and for the loan of some interesting documents and MSS. on the history of Irish 

 canals, on which subject his knowledge is exceedingly full, 



t See, however, for a criticism of the Report of 1890, a paper on " Canals," by Lionel B. 

 Wells, M. Inst. C.E., Report of Conf. on Inland Navigation, Birmingham, 1895, p. 28. 



