170 History of Inland Transport 



Manchester residents were no less in need of improved 

 communication than were the Manchester and Liverpool 

 traders. Smiles, in his " Life of James Brindley," speaks 

 of the difficulty experienced in supplying the increasing 

 population with food, and says : "In winter, when the roads 

 were closed, the place was in the condition of a beleaguered 

 town, and even in summer, the land about Manchester itself 

 being comparatively sterile, the place was badly supplied 

 with fruit, vegetables and potatoes, which, being brought 

 from considerable distances, slung across horses' backs, were 

 so dear as to be beyond the reach of the mass of the popula- 

 tion. The distress caused by this frequent dearth of pro- 

 visions was not effectually remedied until the canal navigation 

 became completely opened up." 



Nevertheless, the opposition offered to the Duke of Bridge- 

 water's new scheme was vigorous in the extreme. His first 

 project for taking the Worsley coals to Manchester by canal 

 had gone through unopposed ; but the second one, which 

 seemed to threaten the very existence of the Mersey and 

 Irwell navigation, put the proprietors thereof on their most 

 active defence. Just as those having vested interests in the 

 Idle and the Trent had opposed the improvement of the 

 Don, so now did the river interests rise in arms against the 

 canal interests, foreshadowing the time when these, in turn, 

 would fight against the railways. " Not even,'' says Clifford, 

 in his " History of Private Bill Legislation," " the battles of 

 the gauges, or any of the great territorial struggles between 

 our most powerful railway companies, were more hotly con- 

 tested than the Duke of Bridgewater's attack in 1761-2 upon 

 the monopoly of the Mersey and Irwell navigation." 



When the Duke applied for powers to construct his canal 

 from Manchester to Runcorn, where it would connect with 

 the Mersey, the proprietors of the Mersey and Irwell naviga- 

 tion petitioned against it on the ground that there was no 

 necessity for the canal as the Mersey and Irwell navigation, 

 with which it would run parallel, could convey more goods 

 than the existing conditions of trade required ; that the 

 canal could confer no real advantage on the public; that 

 the proprietors of the river navigation had spent over ; 18,000 

 thereon ; that " great part of their respective fortunes " 

 was at stake ; that they had expended their money on the 



