Decline of Canals 295 



of navigable streams limited to certain districts and liable 

 to floods, droughts and other disadvantages, and of ill-made 

 roads which even the turnpike system had failed to adapt 

 to the requirements of heavy traffic. In these conditions the 

 movement either of raw materials or of manufactured articles 

 other than those which could be carried on packhorses had, 

 as we have seen, been rendered all but impossible in many 

 parts of the country on account either of the difficulties or of 

 the excessive cost of transport. Canals, constituting a great 

 improvement on any other existing conditions, came to the 

 rescue, and supplied the first impetus to that industrial 

 revolution which the railways were to complete. 



This was a great work for the canals to have accomplished, 

 and it was a work that was essentially done by private enter- 

 prise. Clifford says that " Parliament, by its legislation in 

 furtherance of canals and of agriculture, probably contributed 

 more largely to the national prosperity than by any group of 

 public measures passed towards the close of the last [eighteenth] 

 century." There is here not a word of recognition for Brindley, 

 the Duke of Bridgewater and the other pioneers of the canal 

 movement, or for the private investors who provided the 

 14,000,000 spent on the actual " furtherance " of canals. 

 Parliament did not inspire, originate or in any way improve 

 the canals ; it found none of the money which they cost, nor 

 did it even seek to direct their construction on any such well- 

 organised system of through and uniform lines of communi- 

 cation as would have made them far more useful, and assured 

 them, probably, a longer lease of life. Yet Mr Clifford has no 

 hesitation in giving all the praise to Parliament because it 

 allowed the canal promoters and proprietors to carry out the 

 work on their own initiative, and at their own risk, as the 

 improvers of rivers and the providers of turnpike roads had 

 done before them. 



" Canals in this country," says the Final Report of the 

 Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways, " were con- 

 structed upon no general scheme or system. As soon as it was 

 seen that they were a profitable investment, independent com- 

 panies were formed in every district, and, according to their 

 influence or their means, obtained from Parliament Acts 

 conceding powers to make canals of the most varying length 

 and character." If, in conceding these powers, Parliament 



