A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



because they looked on the canal as a competitor, and further difficulties lay 

 in the development of the canal because the ' commercial machinery of a 

 seaport did not exist in Manchester.'*" The great object of the canal was 

 the direct shipment of cotton, and the Liverpool Cotton Association struck a 

 blow at this prospective traffic by refusing to ' recognize cotton stored in 

 Manchester as tenderable in fulfilment of contracts.'*" Other difficulties 

 were presented, notably the hindrances to trade with Canada for want of 

 cattle ' lairages.' No Australian trade could be obtained because Manchester 

 possessed no cold-air store for the reception of frozen meat. These and 

 countless other obstacles had to be overcome. Like other things that had 

 been fought for in Lancashire the struggle was long and costly, but courage 

 and intelligence have triumphed. That success has finally been obtained is 

 largely due to the formation of a Manchester Cotton Association, promoted 

 to balance the Liverpool ' boycott,' to assist the direct shipment of cotton, and 

 to form a ' spot ' cotton market there. 



The transit and wharf facilities afforded by the purchase of Traffiord 

 Park, the building and deepening of new docks, the erection of a grain 

 elevator, and the starting of a special company of Manchester liners trading 

 to Canada have wonderfully increased the utility of the canal, which now 

 promises to be the great and successful achievement that was planned at the 

 outset. Reviewing the situation at the close of the first decade the writer in 

 the Manchester Guardian Supplement previously quoted sums up in the following 

 words : — 



Looking back over the ten years that have elapsed since the Canal was opened, one cannot 

 but be impressed by the magnificent services which it has rendered to Manchester and 

 Lancashire, and by the wonderful success which has been achieved in the transformation of 

 an inland city into a great ocean port competing, and competing not in vain, with the greatest 

 ports of the country. For the port of Manchester has been pitted not as Glasgow was, 

 against some small old-fashioned rival ; she has had to measure herself against Liverpool — 

 a \ critable giant among the seaports of the world. For every kind of traffic which she 

 sought Manchester has had to offer facilities as great or greater than those of Liverpool. 

 ... So high a standard set up, so great a measure of accomplishment in a single decade, 

 cannot fail to strike the imagination.*" 



So marvellous indeed was the advance that by the year 1900 Manchester, by 

 virtue of her trade values, ' took the sixth place among the ports of the 

 United Kingdom, being only inferior to London, Liverpool, Hull, Glasgow, 

 and Southampton, and not far below the last named.' *^' 



The great advantage the Ship Canal promoters looked to obtain over 

 rival routes was the saving of freight charges. This hope has been justified 

 in actual fact, as the following tables prove : — 



" The Port of Manch. A Ten Tears' Retrospect. Supplement to the Manch. Guardian, Thursday 

 J I Dec. 1903. "Mbid. "'Ibid. 8. *"Ibid. 7. 



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