CHAP. X. THE CANAL MONOPOLY. 179 



gons were tried, but proved altogether insufficient. 

 Sometimes manufacturing operations had to be sus-j 

 pended altogether, and during a frost, when the canals) 

 were frozen up, the communication was entirely stopped./ 

 The consequences were often disastrous, alike to opera- 

 tives, merchants, and manufacturers. The same diffi- 

 culty was experienced in the conveyance of manu- 

 factured goods from Manchester to Liverpool for export. 

 Mr. Huskisson, in the House of Commons, referring to 

 these ruinous delays, observed that "cotton was sometimes 

 detained a fortnight at Liverpool, while the Manchester 

 manufacturers were obliged to suspend their labours; 

 and goods manufactured at Manchester for foreign 

 markets could not be transmitted in time, in conse- 

 quence of the tardy conveyance." 



Expostulation with the Canal Companies was of no 

 use. They were overcrowded with business at their 

 own prices, and disposed to be very dictatorial. When 

 the Duke first constructed his canal, it will be remem- 

 bered that he had to encounter the fierce opposition of 

 the Irwell and Mersey Navigation, whose monopoly his 

 new line of water conveyance threatened to interfere 

 with. 1 But the innovation of one generation often be- 

 comes the obstruction of the next. The Duke's agents 

 would scarcely listen to the expostulations of the Liver- 

 pool merchants and Manchester manufacturers, and the 

 Bridgewater Canal was accordingly, in its turn, de- 

 nounced as a monopoly. 



Lender these circumstances any new mode of transit 

 between the two towns which offered a reasonable 

 prospect of relief was certain to receive a cordial wel- 

 come. The scheme of a tramroad was, however, so 

 new and comparatively untried, that it is not surprising 

 that the parties interested should have hesitated before 

 committing themselves to it. Mr. Sandars, an influential I 



1 Lives of the Engineers, vol. i. p. 371. 



