CHAPTER XXII 



DECLINE OF CANALS 



CONSIDERING that, in spite of the unreasonableness, the 

 exactions and the large profits of many of the canal companies 

 in the later days of their prosperous monopoly, the canals 

 themselves had rendered such invaluable service to the trade, 

 commerce and industry of the country, the question may well 

 have arisen why they were not allowed, or enabled to a greater 

 extent than was actually the case, to continue their career 

 of usefulness. 



There has, indeed, for some years been in the United King- 

 dom a canal-revival party which favours the idea that either 

 the State or the local authorities should acquire and improve 

 the canals with a view to enabling them better to compete 

 with the railways which, as the story of the Liverpool and 

 Manchester line shows, were at one time expressly designed as 

 competitors of and alternatives to the canals. 



So far has this resuscitation idea been carried that in 

 December, 1909, the Royal Commission on Canals and Water- 

 ways reported in favour of the State acquiring, widening and 

 otherwise bringing up to date a series of canals radiating 

 from the Birmingham district, and establishing cross-country 

 connections between the Thames, the Mersey, the Severn and 

 the Humber. The reasons for the decline of the canals and 

 the practicability, or otherwise, of reviving them may thus 

 be regarded as questions of more than merely historical or 

 academic interest for (i) the traders who might benefit from 

 the said revival ; (2) the traders who certainly would not 

 benefit, but who, in conjunction with (3) the general taxpayer, 

 might have to contribute to the cost if the State did acquire 

 the canals and failed to make them pay. 



The " real commercial prosperity of England " has well 

 been dated from the period of early canal development, when 

 artificial waterways began to supplement the deficiencies 



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