Production and Consumption . 
7 
any other geographical division of the globe. The combined 
length of the Chinese canals is said to exceed 12,000 miles, which 
solves the problem of cheap production, cheap transportation, free 
consumption and massive population. 
Canals were first introduced in the Netherlands, about the 12th 
•century, and their perfect adaptation to the low, level lands of 
Holland, gave them great prominence as a means to stimulate 
production by reason of cheap and easy transportation , the same law 
favoring consumption, and augmenting population. As Holland 
contains a population of about 575 to the square mile, it proves 
that the same rule of suiting the law of supply to the law of de¬ 
mand is as powerful in Holland as China. The canals in Holland 
have been so universally extended, that scarcely a village that is 
not connected with these “ water roads,” as they are called, from 
the fact that they are as commonly used as land thoroughfares. 
The city of Amesterdam owes is great commercial prominence to 
its ship canal, 51 miles in length, that connects the river Y with 
the German ocean. The great width and depth of this canal per¬ 
mit the largest frigates to pass each other. It is one of the larg¬ 
est works of the kind in Europe, and was completed in 1825, at a 
cost of £850,000 sterling. 
The invention of the canal lock is ascribed to Italy, in the 
fourteenth century, though the French historian, Belidor, gives 
the credit to the Dutch, while some writers say that Leonard de 
Vinci first employed locks on the Milanese canals, in 1497, and 
soon thereafter introduced them into France. 
Nearly all the countries of Europe had constructed canals be¬ 
fore they were introduced into England. But Great Britain seeing 
the Dutch and Italians diffusing the bounties of production by 
•commercial arts among their people, and were rapidly appropriat¬ 
ing the honors and profits of supremacy, not only had resort to 
her Cromwellian navigation laws, but under the agitation of the 
construction of canals by the Duke of Bridgewater, took steps in 
1755, to connect her inland towns bv canal. Manchester and 
Worsley were first brought in commercial rapport , the fever of 
improvement raging until nearly every town in the realm, partic¬ 
ularly the southern part, were connected by canals, aggregating 
