instance, a practical bar to the
extension of the canal system, and, eventually, a too successful
competitor with the canals already made. Frequently the route that had
been selected by the canal engineer was found (as was to be expected)
a favorable one for the competing railway, and the result was, the
towns that had been served by the canal were served by the railway,
which was thus in a position to take away even the local traffic of
the canal. For some time it looked as though canal and canalized river
navigations must come to an end; for although heavy goods could be
carried very cheaply on canals, and with respect to the many works and
factories erected on the canal banks, or on bases connected therewith,
there was with canal navigation no item of expense corresponding to
the cost of cartage to the railway stations, yet the smallness of the
railway rates for heavy goods, and the greater speed of transit, were
found to be more than countervailing advantages. But when private
individuals have embarked their capital in an undertaking, they do not
calmly see that capital made unproductive, nor do they refrain from
efforts to preserve their dividends, and thus canal companies set
themselves to work to add to their position of mere owners of water
highways, entitled to take toll for the use of those highways, the
function of common carriers, thus putting themselves on a par with the
railway companies, who, as no doubt is within the recollection of our
older members, were in the outset legalized only as mere owners of
iron highways, and as the receivers of toll from any persons who might
choose to run engines and trains thereon, a condition of things
which was altered as soon as it was pointed out that it was utterly
incompatible either with punctuality or with safe working. This
addition to the legal powers of the canal companies, made by the acts
of 1845 and 1847, has had a very beneficial effect upon the value
of their property, and has assisted to preserve a mode of transport
competing with that afforded by the railways. Further, the canal
proprietors have from time to time endeavored to improve the rate of
transport, and with this object have introduced steam in lieu of horse
haulage, and by structural improvements have diminished the number of
lockages. Many years before the period we are considering, there was
employed, to save time in the lockages and to economize water, the
system of inclined planes, where, eit