106 CANALS. 



several useful and necessary works," which works could not be made and 

 finished without further supplies. It is probable that these useful and neces- 

 sary works were roads and bridges, and possibly drainage operations, or 

 embankments; but were not, with the exception of the Newry and Tyrone 

 canals, for the purpose of navigation. 



. By the 25th of George II., chapter 10, the Commissioners were erected into 

 a body corporate, with a perpetual succession and common seal by the name 

 of the " Corporation for promoting and carrying on an Inland Navigation in 

 Ireland," and thenceforward they were generally known and described as 

 " The Commissioners of Inland Navigation." This Corporation continued in 

 existence until 1787, when it was dissolved by the 27th George III., chap. 30, 

 and the tillage duties by which it had been supported disappropriated. 

 During that time it commenced the Grand Canal from Dublin to Ballinasloe, 

 with branches to various places, the Lagan navigation which connects Belfast 

 with Lough Neagh, the Barrow navigation from Athy to Scars, the Boyne 

 navigation from Carrickdexter to Drogheda, and the Shannon navigation 

 from Limerick to the Collieries on Lough Allen. 



All these navigations, except the Grand Canal, which had been handed over 

 to a company incorporated in 1772, and the Lagan which had become the 

 property of a company in 1779, were, with the works, locks, houses, and 

 everything connected with them, vested in local corporations, which were 

 created by the same Act which abolished the Commissioners of Inland Navi- 

 gation. All the navigations in Ireland, therefore, were in 1787, and for some 

 time afterwards, in the hands of local corporations or private companies. 



With respect to the proceedings of the Commissioners of Inland Navigation, 

 the Committee of the Irish House of Commons already referred to reported 

 as follows in the year 1800 : — 



" Your Committee find that the period from which the bounty of Par- 

 liament for promoting inland navigation became conspicuous was that at 

 which there appeared to be a surplus in the Treasury to the amount of 

 nearly half a million, viz., about the year 1755. The avidity with which 

 public grants were from that time sought after for inland navigations, as 

 well as for other purposes, appears from the journals of the House, the 

 objects of those grants being as various as the interests and inclinations 

 of the petitioners. 



" But the Superintendence of a body so numerous as the corporation, and 

 so little enabled to form a just estimate of the merits of the plans sub- 

 mitted to their consideration, was ill calculated to promote with effect 

 the objects of their trusts, and the expenditure of the sums granted not 

 being sufficiently connected with the permanent private interest or capital 

 of individuals, it is much to be regretted that great sums of public money 

 have from time to time been lavished without being attended by corres- 

 ponding advantage to the public. A system of granting public monies at 

 once so profuse and abortive was at length exploded, and in the year 

 1787 the Corporation for promoting Inland Navigation was dissolved, 

 the tillage duties were disappropriated, and a system was adopted of 

 granting aids to private undertakers proportionate to their private sub- 

 scriptions." 



Under the system of granting aids from the public exchequer to private 

 p , g n 1. undertakers in proportion to their own contributions, 



tanais managea by ^^^ inland navigations were supported and continued 

 Local torporations f^om 1787 to 1800. Between those dates the following 



and Private Com- enterprises were begun : - 



panies, 1787-1800. jhe Royal Canal,^by the Royal Canal Company, from 



