Note 13 — Chapter IX · ENGLISH CONDITIONS

At the Society of Arts' Conference on Canals, in 1888, Mr L. F. Vernon-Harcourt said:—"The statistics show that great caution must be exercised in the selection of canal routes for improvement, if they are to prove a commercial success, and that the scope for such schemes is strictly limited. Any attempt at a general revival and improvement of the canal system throughout England cannot prove financially successful, as local canals, through thinly populated agricultural districts, could not compete with railways. These routes alone should be selected for enlargement of waterway which lead direct from the sea to large and increasing towns like the proposed canal from the Bristol Channel to Birmingham, or which, like the Aire and Calder Navigation and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, are suitably set for the conveyance of coal and general bulky goods to populous districts. One or two through routes to London from manufacturing centres, or from coal-mining districts, might have a prospect of success, provided the existing canals along the route could be acquired at a small cost, and the necessary improvement works were not heavy."