84 CANALS. 



suburban district of London : " An inhabitant of Hasham, in Sussex, lately 

 living, remembered when a boy to have heard from a person whose father 

 carried on the business of a butcher in that town, that in his time the ordy 

 means of reaching the metropolis was either by going on foot or riding on 

 horseback, the latter of which undertakings was not practicable at all 

 periods of the year, nor in every state of the weather ; that the roads were 

 not, at any time, in such a condition as to admit of sheep or cattle being 

 driven upon them to the London markets, and that for this reason the 

 farmers were prevented sending thither the produce of their land, the im- 

 mediate neighbourhood being, in fact, their only market. Under these 

 circumstances a quarter of a fat ox commonly sold for about 15 s., and the 

 price of mutton throughout the year was only five farthings the pound." 

 To-day London is partially fed from Canada, Victoria, the Argentine, and 

 even Siberia. As to cheapness of transport, a well-known illustration of an 

 American economist may be quoted : — " The wages for one day's work of 

 an average mechanic in the far East (i.e., of the United States) will pay for 

 moving a year's subsistence of bread and meat a thousand miles or more 

 from the distant West." These are but vivid illustrations of an economic 

 revolution with the effects of which we are all familiar, and which has been 

 brought home keenly to all Irish agriculturists. I bring them forward now 

 to emphasise the importance of using every available means to improve 

 facilities of communication, and to concentrate attention on a phase of the 

 transport problem which, though it has at no time been ignored, and has 

 recently been a good deal discussed,* deserves, I think, a fuller study, on 

 the part of the general public, than it has yet received. One of Ireland's 

 outstanding economic advantages is her nearness to several of the greatest 

 food-consuming centres in the world ; but this advantage is being daily 

 lessened by the improvements in efficient transport service of our competi- 

 tors, and by scientific progress in regard to cold storage, sterilising chambers, 

 and the use of preservatives for food products. It behoves us then to see 

 that nothing is left undone to secure the effective working of our railways, 

 rivers, canals, and even our roads, and to make them directly subserve the 

 industrial needs of the country. There is, indeed, a wide field for work for 

 the improvement of Irish agricultural and other products ; there is very 

 much still to be learnt in the matter of preparing these products for market 

 so as to suit the requirements of the consumer ; but at least of equal 

 moment it is to bring our means of communication in regard to speed, 

 freight-charges, and general efficiency up to the level of those European 

 countries which at present challenge our supremacy in the British markets. 



Within the past ten or fifteen years there has been a distinct and most 



„.,„,, , significant revival of interest in every European coun- 



ReYival of Interest ,^ n .u tt -4. i C4. <^ • ^-u ^ c 



. try, as v/ell as m the United States, m the question or 



m miana canals and inland waterways generally. It has come 



Waterways. ^q be realised that a vital mistake was made, especi- 



ally in these countries, at the time of the advent of the railway, in not main- 

 taining the canal systems as independent competitive routes, which, as it 

 now appears, can carry more economically certain classes of traffic than the 



* Notably by Mr. James M'Cann, M.P., the present Chairman of the Grand Canal Company, 

 n his "Address to the Shareholders of the Grand Canal Company, 1900"; speech in the 

 House of Commons (April 30th, igoo) on " Irish Railways and Canals," and in a brochure 

 entitled " Trade and Transit." 



