Page:The Canal System of England.djvu/38

 this necessarily mean that the Railway will be the loser, for improved canals will develop traffic for themselves.

The improvements made in these canals have not only brought about an increase of traffic, but also in the case of the first named a diminution in the rates charged for carriage, and it is notable that the cheapest rates in England for coal, are found on the Aire and Calder.

Messrs. Fellows, Morton & Co., the great canal carriers, once stated at a meeting in Nottingham, that with a 6 ft. deep waterway from Nottingham to the Humber, they could carry goods over that route for 4/- per ton, as against the present rate of 8/- to 10/- per ton, according to the classification. Nothing could better illustrate the fact that the cheap carriage of goods on canals depends upon the dimensions of the waterway itself.

Mr. Saner, engineer to the trustees of the Weaver Navigation, speaking before the Liverpool Engineering Society in 1893, advocated the adoption of an English Canal Standard as follows:—

This would take a boat 76 feet long, by 18 feet wide, by 7 feet deep with 210 tons displacement.