The Railway Era 231 



Supplementing these physical disadvantages of the naviga- 

 tion was the attitude of the waterway interests towards 

 the traders whom they held at their mercy. Theoretically 

 there was competition between the rivers and the canal ; 

 but the agents of both extorted from the traders the highest 

 possible charges for a most inefficient service. 



Joseph Sandars, who was to take a leading part in the 

 movement for a railway between Liverpool and Manchester, 

 has some strong things to say about the " exorbitant and 

 unjust charges of the water carriers " in a " Letter " on the 

 subject of the proposed railway which he published in 1824. 

 He alleged that, whereas the Duke of Bridgewater had been 

 authorised by his Acts to charge not more than two shillings 

 and sixpence per ton for canal dues, his agents had, by various 

 devices, which Sandars details, exacted five shillings and two- 

 pence per ton. The trustees had, also, obtained possession 

 of all the warehouses alongside the canal at Manchester, 

 and they were thus able to exact whatever terms they pleased 

 from the bye-carriers and traders. If the canal trustees 

 carried the goods in their own vessels they were entitled to 

 charge six shillings per ton ; and their aim seems to have 

 been to render it impossible for the independent carriers to 

 do their business at a lower rate than this. When the carriers, 

 using boats of their own, would not pay the same rate as if 

 the trustees had themselves done the carrying, they were 

 not allowed to land the goods. 



Then, by acquiring all the warehouses and all the avail- 

 able land at Preston Brook and Runcorn, the trustees had 

 likewise got control over navigation on the Trent and Mersey 

 Canal, which joins the Bridgewater Canal at Preston Brook. 

 Sandars speaks of Mr Bradshaw, to whom the Duke of 

 Bridgewater had, by his will, given absolute control of his 

 undertakings, as a dictator of canal transport. " No man," 

 he says, in giving examples of the wide extent of the interests 

 that Bradshaw controlled or sought to influence, " can bring 

 a Bill forward for a canal in any part of the Kingdom but 

 Mr Bradshaw interferes as a sort of canal Neptune, directing 

 where, how, and at what price it shall run. He has tortured 

 the trade of the country to become tributory to him in all 

 directions. Every man, every corporate body, seems spell- 

 bound the moment Mr Bradshaw interposes his authority." 



