234 History of Inland Transport 



poly and extortion," the only remedy the public had left 

 was to go to Parliament and ask for permission to establish 

 a new line of conveyance and one, also, that possessed 

 decided advantages over canal or river transport. 



But here there arose a consideration which had a material 

 bearing on the problem immediately concerned, and was to 

 affect the further development of the railway system in 

 general. 



Numerous as were the lines already existing at this time, 

 none of them directly competed with the waterways. They 

 were feeders rather than rivals of the canals. Even the 

 Surrey Iron Rail-way and the Stockton and Darlington line, 

 though operating independently of the canal companies, 

 had not come into conflict with them. In the one instance 

 that of the Merthyr and Cardiff dram-road in which a rail- 

 way had hitherto been projected in direct competition with a 

 canal the scheme had been either killed or bought off by the 

 canal interests. But the proposed Liverpool and Manchester 

 Railway was avowedly and expressly designed to compete 

 with the existing water services. It was not simply to supple- 

 ment the waterways. It threatened to supplant them. 



So the waterway companies, representing very powerful 

 interests inasmuch as by 1824 the amount invested in canal 

 and navigation schemes was about ^14, 000,000 might well 

 think it necessary to take action in defence of their own posi- 

 tion. Down to this time they had regarded the railway as 

 either a friend or a non-competitor, and they had either ex- 

 tended to it a sympathetic support or had, at least, regarded 

 it with a feeling of equanimity. Henceforward they had to 

 look upon it as an opponent. 



The project for a Liverpool and Manchester Railway would 

 seem to have first begun to assume definite shape in or about 

 1822, when William James, a London engineer, who had 

 already proposed a " Central Junction Rail- way or Tram- 

 road " from Stratford-on-Avon to London, made surveys 

 between Liverpool and Manchester, and prepared a set of 

 plans. The certain prospect, however, of vigorous opposition 

 from the waterway interests led some of the traders to think 

 they had better make terms with the men in possession, if 

 they could ; and in that same year the corn merchants of 

 Liverpool memorialised the Bridgewater trustees, asking both 



