CANALS. 103 



feldspars imported that is wanting- in those of France. The answer, I believe, 

 is simply this. The mountains of Norway are, from the point of view of 

 cost of transport, nearer to the manufactory upon the banks of the Canal 

 Briare than are the mountains of Limousin, in France, where feldspar abounds, 

 although these are only distant from the Department Loiret 90 or 100 miles. 

 But there is no water communication between these two points. The physi- 

 cal difficulties raised by the intervening spurs of the central mountain mass 

 and the courses of such torrential streams as are the Vienne, Creuse, Indre, 

 and Cher in their higher beds, prevent the development of canal construction 

 in those regions. And such a raw material does not well support transport 

 charges by rail. 



"The other instance I will give is that of the importation of kaolin. No fewer 

 than 43 British ships arrived here [i.e. at Rouen] last year laden with this 

 product. Kaolin, I need hardly say, is a clay derived from the decomposition 

 of granite, or more particularly from the decomposition of one of the chief 

 constituents of granite, feldspar, from which the soluble constituents have 

 been carried off in chemical combination with the carbonic acid of rain-water, 

 and the insoluble, silica and alumina, have remained, and, washed down, form 

 the clay known by that name. It is, therefore, chiefly found in the neighbour- 

 hood of granite mountains, and 38 of the British ships that came here with 

 cargoes of it last year arrived from Cornish ports, to which it is sent from 

 the quarries in the granite hills of that country. The remaining five came 

 from Poole, which provides also from the eocene beds in its neighbourhood a 

 kaolin of slightly less pure quality. A very large proportion of these car- 

 goes was sent right across France into Alsace by the canal that joins th? 

 basin of the Seine to that of the Rhine, crossing the valleys of the Meuse and 

 Mozelle, a distance of over 700 kiloms. by water. Here again we have a 

 mineral product that is not a stranger to France. The fact alone that an 

 import duty of 3 fr. 50 c. a ton is levied upon it shows clearly enough that 

 there is an industry in its extraction which has to be protected. A small 

 quantity is extracted in the neighbouring Department of the Somme, but it is 

 chiefly quarried at St. Yrieix, in the Haute Vienne. The porcelain industries 

 of Limousin owe their existence to the extensive deposits of kaolin, due to 

 the decomposed granites and pegnatites of that neighbourhood, and more 

 than 20,000 tons are extracted there annually. The same cause has, however, 

 operated here as in the case of imports of feldspar. The excellence of the 

 water routes in the Seine basin has brought the quarries of Cornwall within 

 easier communication of the manufactories in Alsace than are the districts 

 within France where this product is most plentiful." 



It is unnecessary to quote any further evidence from other countries as to 

 the renewed interest and activity on the part of foreign governments in 

 regard to securing for waterways their due position and influence in a 

 national system of transportation. Belgium and the United States, in par- 

 ticular, have displayed a wise prevision in the matter. It is quite possible, 

 of course, to overdo the argument from foreign analogies, and even to mis- 

 conceive the lessons of statistics of other countries. I must not be under- 

 stood as implying that (even apart altogether from the vital difference of 

 State-ownership of railways and canals), conditions at home and abroad are 

 so similar as to admit of the direct and immediate application of a suc- 

 cessful experiment in France or Germany to the necessities of our own in- 

 dustrial position. 



It is, at the same time, impossible to reflect on the potential value of our 

 own neglected waterways, and the vital need Ireland has, and will more 



