310 History of Inland Transport 



is only a partial nationalisation of the canals would tend 

 towards keeping down railway rates. 



In other words, the scheme is but a further development ^of 

 that policy which aims at enforcing the principle of competition 

 irrespective of cost, and without regard for the capital ex- 

 penditure on which a fair return ought to be assured. One 

 of the witnesses examined before the Royal Commission on 

 Canals and Waterways said there was a local feeling against 

 the Wilts and Berks Canal being taken in hand by the county 

 council " because," he said, " we are all afraid of the rates ; 

 but," he added, " from what I have heard from traders and 

 others, they would like to see it back again, mainly as a means 

 of cutting down railway rates." Mr Remnant, one of the 

 Commissioners, says in his separate report, in alluding to 

 import and export traffic, that most of the evidence given on 

 this question " seemed to point to a desire on the traders' part, 

 not so much for the waterways as for lower railway rates, in 

 order to enable them to face foreign competition " ; while 

 Mr Davison, another of the Commissioners, who also dissents 

 from the recommendations of the Majority Report, speaks of 

 many of the canals as being " of little economic value to the 

 trade of the country, apart from whatever influence they may 

 have in keeping down railway rates," though he adds : "If 

 this latter result were otherwise secured their continued 

 existence could not be justified on economic grounds." 



Any effect which the carrying out of the Majority Report 

 scheme of canal improvement might have on railway rates 

 would, all the same, be felt only in the towns or localities 

 directly concerned. Benefit would result to (i) those traders 

 who could use the canals, and (2) those who, though not using 

 the canals, obtained the lower railway rates, if reductions really 

 were secured through the canal competition ; while traders 

 at a distance from the waterways would not only have to help 

 to pay the cost, though themselves deriving no benefit there- 

 from, but might even see two classes of their own competitors 

 in the favoured districts gain an advantage over them one 

 set from State-owned and State-aided canals, and another 

 from the local reductions in railway rates to which those 

 canals might be expected to lead. 



The proposals of the Royal Commission may well be ap- 

 proved by certain localities or individual traders on the line 



