Canal company

“ Considerable progress had been made in this canal previous to 1783, and the £8,000 which the company were empowered to raise under the act already recited, was expended, when they were under the necessity of again applying to parliament for a second, entitled, 'An Act to enable the Company of Proprietors of the Borrowstowness navigable Cut or Canal more effectually to complete and maintain the same.' By this act, the proprietors are empowered to raise among themselves the additional sum of £12,000, to be divided into shares of £50 each, and a further sum of £4,000 should it be deemed necessary ”

“ Since their acquisition of the canal, the Caledonian Railway Company have spent large sums annually in maintaining it in a state of efficiency, and its general condition to-day is better than when it was taken over. Much of the traffic handled is brought into or sent out from Grangemouth, and here the Caledonian Railway Company have more than doubled the accommodation, with the result that the imports and exports have enormously increased. ”

“ For reasons which will be indicated later on, it is impossible to improve the Black Country canals on any large scale; but, in addition to what I have already related, the London and North-Western Railway Company are constantly spending money on small improvements, such as dredging, widening waterway under-bridges, taking off corners, and putting in side walls in place of slopes, so as to give more space for the boats. In the latter respect many miles have been so treated, to the distinct betterment of the canal. ”

“ The Erie Railroad Company, New York to Chicago, last year carried 32,000,000 tons of revenue freights. It would take a pretty good canal to handle that amount of traffic; and the Erie is only one of many lines between New York and Chicago.
"A canal, paralleling great railroads, to some extent injures them on through traffic. The tendency of all railroads is in the line of progress. As the tonnage increases the equipment becomes larger, and the general tendency of railroad rates is downwards ”

“ Sturgis, Charles F. Adams, A.A. Lawrence, and Abbott Lawrence; but no business ability could long avert the catastrophe. Stock fell to $150, and finally the canal was discontinued, according to Amory's Life of Sullivan, in 1846. [106] It would seem, however, that a revival of business was deemed within the range of possibilities, for in conveyances made in 1852 the company reserved the right to use the land "for canalling purposes"; and the directors annually went through with the form of electing an agent and collector as late as 1853. ”

“ CHAPTER VII THE COST OF THE CANAL OF the existing canals for ocean-going ships, that of Suez was built by a company as a commercial undertaking to earn dividends by tolls. It cost $90,000,000.
The Manchester Ship Canal was partly commercial, partly industrial, i.e., the large contribution of the city of Manchester was made not as a financial speculation, but in order to promote an undertaking likely to develop the industries of the city. This canal, partly commercial, partly industrial, cost $75,000,000. ”

“ With regard to the construction of canals, that must be regulated by the quantity of trade to be passed, and the charges that it will bear; but, within certain limits, the larger the canal the better. In the case of ship canals for seaborne vessels, it is advisable to construct them wherever they can be made at a reasonable cost, and there is traffic enough to pay a fair interest upon the capital. ”

“ Much of it has to be carried from the ship in barges, and thence transferred to the railway. All this means loss of time, loss of money, and deterioration of quality, which adequate water facilities should do much to obviate.
There is no class of property that has undergone a more remarkable range of vicissitudes than canal ownership. In the early years of the present century, the value of canal companies’ shares was much higher than that of any railway property has been since that time. The price of some canal shares rose to a hundred times their nominal or par value. ”

“ Longer canals have been made both in Europe and in the United States, but no canal hitherto completed has been built of the same large dimensions, nor has any other canal cost so considerable a sum of money. It is not too much to say that no other waterway has been more important to commerce, nor has any other been attended with the same momentous and permanent political consequences. It is satisfactory to be able to add that few waterways of modern times have been so successful from a financial point of view. ”

“ But upon the proposal as just stated there are two important remarks to be made—the first, that the suggested expenditure of 12,000l. per mile would only give us canals adapted for the navigation of large barges or vessels of not more than 150 to 200 tons, whereas what is chiefly required is internal water communication that would enable an ordinary merchant steamer to sail right up to Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford, and other large towns; the second, that no such maritime ship canal has hitherto been constructed for less than 120,000l. per mile, including all contingencies. ”

“ Course of the River Thames from Oxford to the Sea.
Whatever its necessity, the canal would not be undertaken if capitalists were not assured that it was to be a “good thing” financially, unless, indeed—which is very unlikely—the Government put a hand somewhat deep into the public purse. The revenue of the canal would be derived from several different sources: from tolls, which would probably take the form of a through rate; from haulage, by means of tug-boats; from warehousing; and from delivery of goods ex ship at the different quays on the route. ”

“ Deep-water quay walls of considerable length have been built; warehouses for general merchandise, with an excellent system of hydraulic cranes, have been provided; a large grain depôt, fully equipped with grain elevators and other appliances, has been constructed at a cost of £80,000 to facilitate, more especially, the considerable grain transport by canal that is done between the River Mersey and the Chester district; and at the present time the dock area is being enlarged, chiefly for the purpose of accommodating deeper barges, drawing about 7 feet of water. ”

“ While several new canal projects are in process of incubation the existing canal property of the United Kingdom, which has cost not less than sixty millions sterling, has been allowed to go to rack and ruin by reason of defects and neglect that are quite inexcusable, and which seriously prejudice not only the canals themselves, but the trade and commerce of the country as a whole. ”

“ Individual Enterprise. But although there has been no general or Government scheme for Canal improvement, yet the enterprise of a few individual Companies, such as the Aire and Calder and Weaver Navigations, has shewn that an up-to-date system will command success. Such success is shewn by the Board of Trade returns for 1890, when these navigations, constituting 114 out of a total of 3,935 miles of English waterways, together carried over 10% of the total freight on English Canals, or 3,750,000 tons out of a total of 34,325,000 tons transported on our Canals. ”

“ It is only a matter of time when the subsidary canals will be rebuilt. With the increased value of material and labor, it will cost hundreds of thousands while the original represented thousands. It will not be a question of money. It will be an overmastering impulse to equal the best in canal structure. France, Germany, Belgium, Holland will be the criteria. There appears every prospect that the roads will take their normal place as freight carriers. ”

“ The conclusion is forced upon one that, notwithstanding the useful purposes which a certain number of canals are still serving, any resuscitation of canals in general, or even any provision of improved cross-country canal routes passing over the "grand ridge," at the cost of an indefinite number of millions to the country, can hardly be regarded as coming within the range of sound economics. ”

“ Lloyd thinks that the heavy cost involved in constructing canals of sufficient size to pass craft suitable for coasting and short continental voyages would be fatal to cheap conveyance.
The largest locks hitherto constructed are those on the St. Mary’s Falls Canal, in the United States, and the Welland Canal in Canada. On the former canal the lock opened in 1851 is 515 feet in length and 80 feet wide. The great tidal lock at Eastham, on the Manchester Ship Canal, will be 600 feet long and 80 feet wide. ”

“ It is very doubtful if even Parliament, had it possessed the greatest foresight, could have forced, or have persuaded, the canal companies to construct locks of precisely the same dimensions at elevations of 400, 500 or 600 feet, where water was difficult to get or costly to pump, as on canals more or less on the sea level, and deriving an abundant water supply from mountain streams or navigable rivers. ”

“ And so, whether we shall drag over cold water, or let hot water drag us, is one way of putting the question between canal and steam communication for conveyance of our heavy traffic. The canal-boat uses its water cold without, the steam-engine requires it hot within. Before hot water appeared in its industrial character to hiss off the cold, canals had all the glory to themselves. They are not yet hissed off their old stages and cat-called into contempt by the whistle of the steam-engine, for canal communication still has advantages of its own, and canal shares are powers in the money market. ”

“ It is a strange fact that, at least in this country, the zenith of the canal-building era is found in the decade following the invention of the steam railroad. For many years it was not believed that under ordinary circumstances the iron horse could ever compete with the canal boat in rates. The most sagacious business men had unlimited faith in the destiny of the canal as a prime commercial factor and invested largely in canal stocks. To many these investments proved a disappointment. ”

“ The canal has hitherto been employed almost entirely for the transport of passengers, mails, and such traffic as will bear a high rate of freight, the charge of 7s. to 10s. per ton being prohibitory in respect to much of the commerce that passes from the East to the West. The proposal is one that is entitled to every consideration. There is, however, a high probability, amounting almost to a certainty, that the proprietors would demand a very large sum in excess of their original expenditure. The canal has cost from first to last, including [269] financing, some 20,000,000l. ”

“ There is no reason whatever for doubt that, whereas one section of the traders favouring canal revival would themselves directly benefit therefrom, there [2] is a much larger section who have joined in the movement, not because they have the slightest idea of re-organising their own businesses on a water-transport basis, but simply because they think the existence of improved canals will be a means of compelling the railway companies to grant reductions of their own rates below such point as they now find it necessary to maintain. ”

“ The railway companies have been enabled, in some cases by means of very questionable legality, to obtain command of 1,717 miles of canal, so adroitly selected as to strangle the whole of the inland water traffic, which has thus been forced upon the railways, to the great interruption of their legitimate and lucrative trade. ”

“ The cost of the undertaking (estimated at 25,000,000l. to 30,000,000l.) , although a large sum, is not deemed to be too much for a great artificial river more than 300 miles long, 18 feet deep, 100 feet wide at the bottom, and having locks 450 feet long and 60 feet wide. These dimensions would enable the canal to float the largest vessels that navigate the great lakes from Lake Erie to the deep waters of the Hudson. ”

“ The great advantage of canals is cheapness of operation due to the simplicity of the machinery needed and to the great loads that can be moved with small power. A cent a ton-mile proved to be a paying rate on a small canal. For heavy, slow-moving freight, a railroad can even now barely rival a parallel canal at its best. As canals, however, can be built only along pretty level routes and where the water supply is at high level, their construction is limited to a small portion of the country. ”

“ The exigiencies of their trade calling imperatively for further improvements, the engineers furnished them with the design for a new ship canal, which reduces the navigable distance to 151⁄2 miles, on a course about west from Amsterdam to the North Sea, available for larger vessels than formerly entered the port—and has provided a new harbour on the coast, with an area of 250 acres, bounded by breakwaters formed of concrete blocks set in regular courses, with 853 feet of entrance between the pier heads, and 261⁄4 feet minimum depth of water. ”

“ On many waterways, and especially in countries which have limited railway facilities, like Russia, canals are found as well adapted as railways to all purposes of transport. On the canals of the United States, the canals compete with the railways in carrying wheat and other agricultural produce. On the Aire and Calder canal, the canal boats are adapted to carry, and as a matter of fact do carry, considerable quantities of general merchandise, as well as minerals. ”

“ The state of dis-repair into which the banks have fallen, the want of dredging and consequent shallowness of the water, the small dimensions of locks and of the canals themselves, all combine to forbid the use of mechanical appliances, except upon those routes that have not these disadvantages.
Steam-haulage. The economy of steam haulage, where it is possible, is beyond dispute, but to the actual cost by steamer must also be added an amount for the depreciation and injury done to the banks of the canal when unprotected. ”