THE MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL.

IT

T has been notorious for a long time past that great dissatisfaction existed in South Lancashire, and especially in Manchester, concerning the conditions under which traffic to and from Liverpool, and through the port of Liverpool to and from foreign parts, is effected. The manufacturers of Manchester and of many inland towns have been seriously revolving projects for new and improved means of transit, and have a length succeeded in getting a Bill for making a ship canal from Liverpool to Manchester read a second time in the House of Commons.

As this movement touches national as well as local interests, and as the problem "How can traffic be best facilitated and cheapened?" is one worthy to engage the attention of the whole country, it has been thought that some account of the condition of things in the neighbourhood of the Mersey may be acceptable here. Accordingly an attempt will be made in this paper to show how the complaints above alluded to have arisen, and what they are; also to give some account of the proposed remedies. And an endeavour will be made to prove that the case of South Lancashire should suggest considerations of importance to other districts, and to the country generally.

The port of Liverpool being at present the great inlet and outlet for the merchandize of Lancashire, and being by Nature the convenient, and by art and by sagacity the established and well-docked resort of the district, has for long been a source of pride for its energy and commercial achievement, and of wonder at its great and rapid growth. Yet, having attained to immense utility, and to much renown, it finds itself, in the latter half of this nineteenth century, spoken against and threatened with a rival. Perhaps Liverpool is only

undergoing the experience at which all greatness must sooner or later arrive. After being lauded and admired as a queen, she is to be complained of as an obstructive, or something like it. After ministering to and mainly helping to create the vast trade of Lancashire, she has come to be regarded by some as an incubus weighing down and stifling that trade. As it will be necessary in the course of this paper to repeat some of the depreciatory sayings which are going about to-day in regard to her, let us first, by stating a few facts as to her wonderful growth and the magnitude to which she, as a port, has attained, show that we are quite sensible of the merit through which, for a century, she has sat on the waters as a queen.

The official table, published in 1882, of the Liverpool dock duties received in each year, does not go farther back than 1752, which epoch, from the modest amount of the receipts, we may assume to mark the dawn of the town's celebrity. It is shown in Picton's "Memorials of Liverpool," however, that although there had not been much resort to art in harbour works previous to 1752, yet the idea of improving the natural advantages of the estuary, and of providing safe accommodation for shipping, had stirred the minds of the leading men of the port at an earlier date, and induced them to take some action in that direction. Picton tells us that in 1565 the number of ships belonging to the port was fifteen, averaging eighteen tons, and that these were manned by eighty seamen. The largest of these vessels was of forty tons burden.

A dock was projected in 1708, and opened in 1715. The results were sufficiently encouraging to beget a desire for dock-works of a more pretentious character; and, after a long interval, during which counsel and invention were continually at work, another dock was opened in 1753. This, it may be perceived, was the year following that which was above noted as marking the dawn of the town's prosperity.

In 1752 the dock duties were £1,776: ten years after they were £2,526. In 1772 they were £4,552, and in 1782 they were £4,249. A hundred years after, in 1882, they were £929,643.

Before 1812 the duties seem to have been paid on the tonnage of the ships; from 1812 to 1857 inclusive, on the tonnage of the ships and on the goods; in and after 1858 there have been duties on tonnage, duties on goods, and town dues on goods. It will be convenient to note here the changes in the imposts, because those changes have to do with the complaints now heard from the manufacturing districts of Lancashire.

In 1757, duties were paid on 1,371 vessels; in 1800, on 4,746; in 1840, on 15,998; in 1882, on 20,966.

While this rapid and great growth of the number of ships frequenting the port was in progress, exertions-many of which may

be called gigantic-were continued to keep up the dock accommodation, so that it might be equal to the requirements of the expanding trade. Dock after dock was constructed at great cost, until, from the one dock, opened, as was seen, in 1715, there are, or soon will be, on the Liverpool bank of the Mersey, about six linear miles of docks; while on the Cheshire side there is a smaller but yet an ample provision. The Cheshire (Birkenhead) docks form now part of the Liverpool Dock Estate. The Cheshire and Lancashire Dock Estates were not always united; and there are records of their separate existence and rivalry which are locally of much interest. Here, however, it is not intended to touch upon emulations or reconciliations farther than may be necessary to explain the amount of the charges levied on shipping.

To come now to the management of the Liverpool Dock Estate. It has always been in the hands of the Corporation of Liverpool, or of a Dock Committee, consisting of members of the Town Council and of members elected by the ratepayers. Thus it appears that the estate has always been a Trust for the public, and not a property out of which a company ever sought to make profit. The members of the committee performed, and still perform, their duties gratuitously. The Committee or Trust was empowered by many consecutive Acts of Parliament to borrow such moneys as might suffice for providing from time to time the shelter and accommodation necessary for the shipping as it increased. Payments for work done, for supervision of work and collection of dues, and in the form of interest to lenders, were all that the system of finance strictly required. But there are old privileges of the town, conferred on it long before docks began to be built, which have to be satisfied by charges on the shipping or the freights. There have been purchases made of foreshore on both banks of the river, and of water space, and even of finished docks at Birkenhead, which have not always proved profitable. Add to this that the Committee has deemed it wise to lay by, as a reserve fund, the sum of £1,412,000, and it will be seen that, to meet the annual demand upon the Trust, the dues must be somewhat heavy.

As to the reserve, it is objected that, as the Dock Trust is not a dividend-paying company, and as it can raise money for its requirements at 4 or 4 per cent. per annum, the reserve is unnecessary. Moreover, if it were used as capital instead of being laid by, it would enable the board to make a sensible reduction in the dues. All the works of the Trust are executed with capital which it is empowered by Act of Parliament to borrow. Its credit is excellent; therefore it is not clear why it should keep up the rate of its dues for the purpose of amassing a reserve of such doubtful utility.

The agitation for new docks inland will, one may be sure, lead

the Dock Trust to an anxious reconsideration of their finance. There is a contest coming in which they may be victors or vanquished, according to their ability to perform port duties effectually, but at a lower cost than they have lately demanded. Many economical changes may be found practicable, and possibly some advantages, the results of long monopoly, may be surrendered. Liverpool dues, however, do not stand alone as the incentive to making the ship canal. There is another important interest which is said to make strongly against trade-that, namely, of the Railways.

When railways came into use, and facilities for carrying goods were, by means of them, very generally obtained, the business of Lancashire, of course, increased in a much greater ratio than before; it went forward by leaps and bounds. And as long as competition between the Lancashire railways existed, the trading public of the county might congratulate itself not only on having obtained a rapidity and power of transit exceeding the most sanguine imaginations, but also on having such rivalry between the carrying companies as sufficed to keep down charges on freights to moderate figures. But this state of things, so prosperous for the traders, was not destined to last down to the present time. It is complained now that the different railways, although their separate interests must naturally conflict, have been able, after long experience of their affairs, to arrive at an agreement concerning rates which does away with emulation, and enables each and all of them to obtain a good remuneration for the work done by them. But somebody must pay for the easy time which this understanding gives to the railways, and the merchants and manufacturers think that they are the victims. The harmony of the railways is at the expense of the traders' prosperity, as they say; it is a conspiracy against trade rather than a friendly agreement to live and let live.

It requires no argument to convince a reader of the present day that where railway traffic is once established, traffic by other means soon ceases to be available. Thus the railways, if they can combine, enjoy a monopoly. But this is writing a little too fast it is perceived.* There is a competitor which might be formidable even to railways,—namely, water-carriage. Canals and navigable rivers are cheaper to maintain than railways; and may, when they are independent, exercise a considerable influence in keeping down charges.

Now, there has been for long a water service between Liverpool and Manchester, along the streams of the Mersey and Irwell, and the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal has been another water-way. These alternative means of transit should be able to control railway charges,

Fifteen years ago it would scarcely have been disputed that canals must give way to railways. The teaching of to-day is, however, quite different. There is a wide-spread belief that inland water carriage may compete successfully with railways, and a very general desire to bring the former mode of transport into more extended use.

even though the different railway boards should have conspired to keep up railway rates. But those who complain of existing arrangements inform us that the water-ways are no longer independent, but have been bought up by the railway boards, or by persons who have the interests of the railways at heart, and that the charges for water carriage have been, to suit railway views, made as high as those for land carriage. Thus, practically, there is no restriction on railway monopoly.

There is a fact worth noting, while the suppression of water-ways as a means of competition is being considered, and it is this:—It seems to be admitted that the Mersey and the Irwell navigation (for the Irwell has been canalized) was suffered to get out of order, and to fall into disuse, before it was drafted into the great vortex of railway interests. Now, how was this? For, by the admission of every one whose opinion on the subject has been made public, the water carriage could be maintained at a far less cost than any railway, and it could make profit out of rates which would not have been remunerative to a railway! Water carriage is comparatively slow, but then speed, it is affirmed, is not an important object in respect to many classes of goods. So that the navigation, while it was yet independent, should have found competition with the railways highly favourable to it. Yet it fell into disrepair, and became little used. This decline in the navigation should not be overlooked; possibly it may be necessary again to refer to it before we close.

To return to the exposition which has been left for a moment. The railways of Lancashire monopolize the carriage of goods between Liverpool and Manchester. They lay on very heavy charges for the services which they render to trade. And, between the railways, the dock dues at Liverpool, and the cost of the short transfers between warehouse and railway, and between railway and ship, the profit which should arise from the import and export of gcods is well nigh swallowed up.

So heavily do the charges press on business, that the traders of the city of Manchester, and of many of the inland towns of Lancashire, have entertained apprehensions that business would be driven away from them to stations on the coast from whence, at small cost, cargoes may be despatched to distant ports. And they are not without examples which may well be laid to heart. The author of a pamphlet* which deals with the heavy burdens on the trade of Lancashire, and the possible remedies for them, states that the production of Bessemer steel rails has been almost extinguished in some parts of this country owing to the cost of carriage; and that the rail mills must be along

"Facts and Figures in favour of the proposed Manchester Ship Canal: showing how to Solve the Cheap Transport Problem for the Great Import and Export Trade of Lancashire and the West Riding." By Mancuniensis. John Heywood, Manchester. VOL. XLIII.

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