Page:The Canal System of England.djvu/66

 as toll-takers. Of the fifteen canals in England and Wales acting as carriers, seven are independent, and the remaining eight owned by railways.

This same question was formerly raised with reference to Railway Companies, for at their first construction railways were regarded as "land canals," and by Act Parliament any person who paid the tolls was allowed to run his trains over the lines.

The Companies themselves declared that it was against their wish and their interests to carry goods and passengers and that they desired to be toll-takers only. Even up to 1840, private carriers were still found competing with the Companies on the Gt. Western and Grand Junction Lines.

According to the returns made to the Board of Trade in 1890, though the mileage of the seven independent canals acting as carriers in England and Wales is 200 miles less than that of the eight owned by Railway Companies, yet the revenue earned as carriers by the former was more than double that earned by the latter, namely £433,006 as against £199,042.

An examination of the individual earnings of the canals in the two classes shows that while the revenue earned by the Railway-owned canals as toll-takers is, with only two exceptions, considerably above that earned by them as carriers, exactly the reverse is the case, with one exception, with the independent canals. Thus the Aire and