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PREFACE
Scottish Canals have in certain respects
distinctive features which render them essentially different from
English canals, while for various reasons constituting either points of
interest or matters of controversy they are specially deserving of study
and attention at the present time.
Of the five existing canals here coming under consideration, three,
namely, the Caledonian, the Forth and Clyde and the Crinan, are one and
all sea-to-sea canals, of a type non-existent in England as distinct
from Scotland; and of the two others, the Monkland and the Edinburgh and
Glasgow Union, the former is a branch, and the latter a connection, of
the Forth and Clyde Navigation.
Two of the five, the Caledonian and the Crinan, are both of them owned
and operated by the State, presenting conditions once more unknown south
of the Tweed ; and their history constitutes a remarkable and
instructive object lesson from the point of view of the demands made
from time to time for the nationalisation and transfer to State or
municipal control of British canals and waterways in general.
The three other canals—the Forth and Clyde, the Monkland and the
Edinburgh and Glasgow Union—are all owned by railway companies ; and
here the points of special importance are the differences presented
between State control and private enterprise and the question as to why
it is that canals which have been well maintained and run through
industrial districts offering, apparently, every prospect of success,
have had to face a constantly diminishing traffic in spite of all that
their owners, if only in their own interests, have found it possible or
practicable to do in order to secure from them a maximum of attainable
revenue towards, at least, the cost of upkeep. The reasons for such
decline in traffic go to the very root of the British Canal Problem of
to-day ; and nowhere, perhaps, can the main solution of this problem be
found with greater clearness and conviction than in the experiences, as
here detailed, of the three canals in question.
The account given of each of the canals dealt with has necessarily
involved a considerable amount of research. In the case of the Forth and
Clyde Navigation, the "Junction of the Eastern and Western Seas,” as it
was called at the time, was effected on July 28th, 1790. The Monkland
Canal was opened throughout in 1792. The Crinan Canal dates from 1801,
and the two others are both attaining their centenary this year, the
Edinburgh and Glasgow having been opened for traffic on May 12th, 1822,
and the Caledonian on October 24th, 1822. In each instance it has been
found expedient to trace the course of events leading up to the
initiation of the undertaking and to offer an outline of its subsequent
history down to present date, so that the situation as a whole may be
understood.
With three of the canals, also, there are now associated, directly or
indirectly, ship canal schemes which, in the aggregate, would involve
the expenditure of a vast sum of money, the estimated cost of one alone
of the series being £57,573,000. The schemes relating to the Caledonian
are for a more or less complete reconstruction of the existing waterway.
The Crinan Ship Canal would be a new undertaking, save for the
absorption of a portion of the present smaller canal. For a ship canal
connecting the Forth and the Clyde two routes have been proposed, known
respectively as the Loch Lomond Route and the “ Direct Route,” the
latter being almost parallel to that of the existing Forth and Clyde
barge canal, though entirely independent thereof.
So far as regards the Crinan Ship Canal, the questions concerned form a
comparatively simple proposition, and one that stands alone except in so
far that any modernising of the transport facilities on the Crinan would
also improve the prospects of the Caledonian. As regards the other ship
canal schemes—all antagonistic, more or less, the one to the others—the
situation is complex in the extreme. Strategical, commercial and
financial considerations ; the rivalries, the hopes, the fears and the
aspirations of particular cities, ports and places ; the varied
interests of engineers, shipowners, traders, landowners and tax-payers,
together with those of Scotland and of the nation ; the questions as to
whether (on the Caledonian as well as on the Crinan) expenditure on
improvements would not be preferable to expenditure merely on repairs,
and as to what is expedient in the public interests—if not as a matter
of national reconstruction—and what is in no way really essential at a
time when all possible regard must be shown for economy; the putting
forward, on the one hand, in regard to new undertakings, of predictions
of possible traffic which, on the other hand, are declared to be wholly
delusive—in all these things there are elements of controversy and
direct contradiction which may reduce almost to despair the unaided
citizen who feels that, whatever is done, it is the tax-payers of the
country who will run the risk of having to pay the bill!
What, therefore, has here been aimed at is to give, in each instance .
and in the simplest and clearest form, the facts of the case, in order
that readers may have some help in arriving at a decision for themselves
on the questions at issue—whether they concur in the Author’s own
conclusions or otherwise.
The said facts, covering all the present and prospective canals and
waterways concerned, would certainly be difficult of ascertainment by
the average person, and it is hoped that the series of short stories
here told, together with the collection of maps and diagrams specially
prepared for this work, will be found, not alone of interest, but of
practical service when, possibly in the not-far-distant future, the
matters dealt with again arise for public discussion.
The present volume will more especially afford to its readers the means
of discriminating between a modest, unpretending and comparatively
inexpensive proposal which, if carried out, should have a powerful
effect in promoting the social and economic welfare of the Western
Highlands and Islands—already for so long awaiting fuller development—
and a much-discussed impracticable scheme likely to yield only very
doubtful results and certain to lead the country into what I have
ventured to call a " bottomless pit ” of public expenditure.
It might, perhaps, be added that the work here offered to the public
should be of still greater utility by reason of the action which,
following on a recommendation by the Geddes Committee, has now been
taken by the Ministry of Transport in inquiring from the Inverness-shire
and Argyll County Councils if they would be prepared to take over the
Caledonian and Crinan Canals respectively.
The matter is dealt with briefly in the concluding paragraphs of the “
Postscript ” (p. 283) ; but it may here be suggested that the immediate
question, if the Councils were prepared to entertain the proposal at
all, would be as to the nature of the terms and conditions on which the
transfer in each instance should be effected.
One may fairly assume that, before the Inverness-shire County Council
took over the Caledonian Canal, they would want a very comprehensive
guarantee from the Government of the cost of repairs, working, and
maintenance ; and what this might possibly mean is suggested by the fact
that the general repair carried out in 1920 involved a special
Government grant of £11,000, while, according to a recent report in the
Scotsman, the House of Commons was to be asked, in the Session of 1922,
for a supplementary vote of £15,000 to meet the working deficit on the
Caledonian for the financial year. The present financial position of the
canal is, in fact, that the expenditure has far exceeded the revenue for
the last nine years, and that, although the tourist traffic in 1922 has
already attained record proportions, the former balances of revenue over
expenditure are not likely to be restored so long as the existing
depression in the fishing industry continues.
Any Government guarantee of the cost of repairs, working, and
maintenance, etc., would, again, make no provision for the carrying out
of one or other of those reconstruction schemes of which an account is
given on pp. 42-5 ; and although, pending the necessary surveys, the
probable cost of those schemes is the merest guess-work, that of “
Scheme A ” might, provisionally, be put at about £8,000,000, and that of
“ Scheme B ” at about £6,000,000.
The Inverness-shire County Council may, therefore, well be expected to
ask where they would stand in all these matters before they accepted
responsibility for the future of the canal.
As for the Crinan Canal, we have the representations which have been
made by or on behalf of the Argyll County Council to the effect that the
expenditure of any substantial sum for repairs and maintenance, without
an increase in transport facilities, on a canal already a century out of
date would be a waste of public money, and there is no reason whatever
for supposing that the Council would agree to take over the waterway
until it had been converted into a modern ship canal on the lines they
have repeatedly declared to be essential both to its efficiency and to
the meeting of present-day requirements.
On the other hand, one must bear in mind that the express purpose of the
Geddes Committee was to effect a reduction in public expenditure, and
the recommendations they made concerning the canals in question were,
presumably, designed to relieve the Government of their financial
obligations in connection therewith. If, therefore, the County Councils
should, as a condition of their acceptance of the proposals now being
brought under their notice by the Ministry of Transport, stipulate for
some such guarantees as those here mentioned, the Government would still
be faced by the main portion of that expenditure which they are now
seeking to avoid, and the Treasury might demur accordingly. It would
then remain for Parliament to say what the future of these two
State-owned canals should really be.
Edwin A. Pratt.
August, 1922.
Scottish Canals and Waterways
Comprising State Canals, Railway-owned Canals and Present-Day Ship Canal
Schemes by Edwin A. Pratt (1922) (pdf) |
