Page:The Canal System of England.djvu/65

 ascertained that the canal cannot be amalgamated with or worked by adjacent canals, or by a trust owning an adjacent inland navigation.

The following example which was given in evidence before the Select Committee of 1883 serves to show the way in which the possession of important links of the Canal System by Railway Companies affects the toll of the through route. The Birmingham Canal Company, guaranteed by the North- Western Railway Company, owns 12 out of 160 miles, the total length of the route, and they have heretofore taken 33 per cent, of the whole recoverable toll on the entire route for 7 per cent, of its length.

With regard to the carriage of bricks a still more glaring instance was given. The Birmingham Canal Company's charge upon bricks on a length of 7 miles was 11d. per ton, whilst the adjoining canal—the Warwick—for a distance of 37 miles charged 6½d, and the Grand Junction for 101 miles only charged 1s. 4d.

An easy remedy for this defect in our Canal System would be the amalgamation of the Companies on through routes. In 1894 the Grand Junction Canal Company purchased the Grand Union, the Leicestershire and Northamptonshire Union Canals; and this was the first real step taken for the union of independent links of a through route.

The subject of administration raises the question as to whether Canal Companies should act as carriers or only