12227	----	Child's First Picture Book [Illustration: Book Cover] [Illustration] CHILD'S FIRST PICTURE BOOK [Illustration] * * * * * [Illustration] THE FIRE HORSES stand ready in their stalls, and at the sound of the alarm gong the stall chains are let down and each horse goes quickly to his place at the engine, and the big iron collars are clamped around their necks and off they go to the fire, with the engine, at break-neck speed. * * * * * [Illustration: The Alarm] * * * * * [Illustration] THE AUTOMOBILE FIRE ENGINE can go to the fires very swiftly. Many times the saving of a few minutes by the firemen in reaching a fire means stopping the blaze before it becomes too great. * * * * * [Illustration: A Dangerous Fire] * * * * * [Illustration] THE BRAVE FIREMAN rescues many people who are caught in burning buildings, in this way risking his life that others may be saved from the smoke and flames. Many people owe their lives to the bravery of the firemen. * * * * * [Illustration] THE HOSE NOZZLE has been taken up to the roof of a building next the one afire and the firemen are sending the water into the upper floors of the burning building. The hose nozzle is very difficult for the firemen to hold. * * * * * [Illustration: Hook and Ladder Truck Going to the Fire] * * * * * [Illustration] THE FIRE ALARM is sounded by a big gong in the station from street alarm boxes near where the fire occurs. The firemen know these alarm stations so well that they seldom look for the address, but dash off quickly to the correct place. * * * * * [Illustration: A Water Tower] * * * * * [Illustration] THE FIREMEN'S DOG goes to every fire, running beside the horses, barking a command to hurry. He gets to the fire hydrant first and sits there panting until the Firemen come up to attach the hose and turn on the water. * * * * * [Illustration] THE ROUND HOUSE is the place where the railroad engines are kept when they are not working. The engines are turned around on a big turn table so each can be run on the different tracks which all lead to the turn-table in the center. * * * * * [Illustration: Passing a Signal Tower] * * * * * [Illustration] THE WATER TANK is seen frequently along the route of the railroads and plenty of water must be taken on and carried in the engine tender to make steam which is the power used to drive the big engines. * * * * * [Illustration] AN OBSERVATION TRAIN is often made up to follow the great college boat races, where the railroad runs along the river bank. Flat cars are used with seats fixed on them for the spectators. * * * * * [Illustration: The Circus is Coming to Town] * * * * * [Illustration] THE TRAIN FERRY carries entire trains across rivers where there are no bridges. Some of the largest train boats have several tracks and carry a train on each. The boats are tied in slips at the shore so that the tracks meet exactly those on the land. * * * * * [Illustration] THE STAGE COACH is used in the country where towns are few. The stages meet trains at the stations and take on passengers to be carried to their homes away from the railroad. Some of the stage routes are several hundred miles long. * * * * * [Illustration: Engineer and Fireman] * * * * * [Illustration] THE TUNNELS are passages for trains under mountains, hills and rivers. The tunnels are dark but the trains are well lighted. Electric motors are often used, this avoids the smoke of steam engines which is very unpleasant in the tunnels. * * * * * [Illustration: Field Artillery] * * * * * [Illustration: Whippet Tank] * * * * * [Illustration: Raising Gun Up Mountainside] * * * * * [Illustration: Dirigible Balloon] * * * * * [Illustration: A Swift-going Motor Cycle With Machine Gun] * * * * * [Illustration: A Battle Motor Car] * * * * * [Illustration: Anti-aircraft Gun] * * * * * [Illustration: Army Band] * * * * * [Illustration: Aeroplane] * * * * * [Illustration: Blanket Tossing] * * * * * [Illustration: Sailor Band] * * * * * [Illustration: Battleship And Giant Submarine] * * * * * [Illustration: A Sea Sled] * * * * * [Illustration: Laying Mines] * * * * * [Illustration: Troopship Homeward Bound] THE FLAGS OF THE ALLIES United in defense of Freedom in the great war in Europe. May we honor them forever, and always prove worthy of our flag which we love best. * * * * * [Illustration: Wooden Battleships Of Olden Days] THE FLAGS OF THE ALLIES These are truly the Flags of Freedom. The countries represented through bravery and sacrifice have made the world a safe place to live in. * * * * * [Illustration: A Fast-going Patrol Motor Boat] * * * * * [Illustration: Cutter Drill] * * * * * [Illustration: Seaplane Destroying Submarine] 
30820	----	[ Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation; changes (corrections of spelling and punctuation) made to the original text are listed at the end of this file. ] United States. Department of Labor Children's Bureau Publications no. 303-308 Washington, D. C. 1944 If your baby must travel in wartime [Illustration] IF YOUR BABY MUST TRAVEL IN WARTIME Have you been on a train lately? The railroads have a hard job to do these days, one they are doing well. But before you decide on a trip with a baby, you should realize what a wartime train is like. So let's look into one. This train is crowded. At every stop more people get on--more and still more. Soldiers and sailors on furloughs, men on business trips, women--young and not so young--and babies, lots of them, mostly small. The seats are full. People stand and jostle one another in the aisle. Mothers sit crowded into single seats with toddlers or with babies in their laps. Three sailors occupy space meant for two. A soldier sits on his tipped-up suitcase. A marine leans against the back of the seat. Some people stand in line for 2 hours waiting to get into the diner, some munch sandwiches obtained from the porter or taken out of a paper bag, some go hungry. And those who get to the diner have had to push their way through five or six moving cars. You will want to think twice before taking your baby into such a crowded, uncomfortable place as a train. And having thought twice, you'd better decide to stay home unless your trip is absolutely necessary. But suppose you and your baby _must_ travel. Well then, you will have to plan for the dozens of small but essential things incidental to traveling with a baby and equip yourself to handle them. Going by Train? Unless you appreciate the fact that babies and toddlers are very special people with very special requirements, you are in for a lot of trouble if you attempt a train trip with them. Planning should be done well in advance. [Illustration: Take only what you must] You will need to make your train reservations early. Select the first or middle of the week for traveling. Stay off trains on week ends or holidays. Travel then is like a bargain-counter rush. Travel arrangements of any kind are hard to make nowadays. Railroads are geared to military needs and civilians take what is left over. If you are going on a very long trip, try by all means to arrange for a stop-over or two with relatives or friends. It will give you a chance to rest and get things in order again. When you travel by coach. If you are traveling by coach, let us hope you are in one of the up-to-date coaches with comfortable reclining seats rather than in one of the not-so-modern coaches found on other trains. If it is a de luxe coach and if your child is 2 or 3 years of age, you may be able to get a seat reservation for him. Otherwise you will have to hold him on your lap. Remember, too, if you have trouble, that the Travelers Aid is always willing to help. Its workers can help you locate friends or relatives. They can help you if you lose your tickets or your money, or if any similar emergencies occur while you are en route. They can get a doctor for you if you or your baby become ill. They can tell you of good restaurants to eat in or of places where you can rest or feed your baby. You can even arrange by telegram with the Travelers Aid to have someone meet you at the station from which you are leaving or at which you are arriving to help you. If you are a serviceman's wife, the USO can help you, too. _Plan well and travel light._--After you have made all your travel arrangements, gather your forces at home. Write out in detail your youngster's schedule and list the food, clothes, and other supplies needed. Travel light, so far as your own personal belongings are concerned, lighter than you've ever imagined you could. Your aim is to take on the train enough for essential comfort and not one item more. Limit yourself to one dark dress or suit. Many mothers have found an apron a convenience, one that could be slipped over their dresses when they were caring for their babies. Additional clothing for yourself can be checked and sent on ahead. _Clothes, diapers, and such._--Carry an abundance of changes for the baby or toddler. But plan to dress him simply in clothes that are easy to put on and take off. Remember weather may change and many trains are air-cooled. So take along a warm outer garment, preferably a sweater, and a blanket for the baby. Unless your baby has completely mastered the art of keeping dry, use disposable diapers if you can possibly get them. If you cannot get them, then the next best bet is a supply of standard diaper linings--specially treated papers about the size of ordinary cleaning tissues, used with cloth diapers. Many mothers prefer to use cloth diapers at night. Some babies become badly chafed if only paper diapers are used. Used cloth diapers can be wrapped in wax paper and repacked in your suitcase or put into a waterproof bag. If your baby is sufficiently trained to use his own toilet seat, by all means take it along. He is less likely to be frightened if there is this one familiar thing in his strange surroundings. Some toilet seats come with a carrying case. If the one you have did not, then use a canvas laundry case or a shopping bag for this purpose. Pack the baby's clothes, diapers, and blankets into a special suitcase or bag. Keep it unlocked and easily accessible on the train. _Milk for the baby._--If your baby is breast-fed, feeding him is relatively easy. Food for babies who are not breast-fed presents a difficult problem. [Illustration: Week ends are worst] [Illustration: Trouble ahead!] For traveling, the simplest formula is one of evaporated milk. Milk can be obtained in small cans, and an individual feeding can be made up when feeding time comes. Then no refrigeration is needed. For such a feeding you will need to carry the following equipment, all of which should be assembled in one container, such as a heavy shopping bag or a medium-sized duffle bag: _Bottles and caps_--boiled and ready for use. Take enough for all feedings during the trip, plus some extras for water. Wrap each bottle separately. _Nipples_--boiled and put in a boiled jar with a lid. _Can opener_ (or some other instrument to open small cans of evaporated milk). _Milk in small cans._ The cans should be washed off before you leave home. _Vacuum bottle containing boiled water._ Sugar or syrup may be added to the water if desired. _Funnel_--to put water into bottles. This should be boiled and wrapped in clean paper. If your baby has not been on evaporated milk, and your doctor agrees that it is satisfactory for him, you should introduce him to it, several days or even a week before you start on your trip if he gets used to new things slowly. Before you leave home, you can prepare the mixture of hot boiled water, with or without sugar or syrup, and carry it in a vacuum jug on the train. Then mix this mixture and the evaporated milk as you need it. Your doctor will tell you the correct proportions. Usually the hot water in the vacuum bottle, when added to the milk, will make the feeding the right temperature for the baby. Carry small cans of milk, using whatever is needed for one feeding only. Perhaps you can drink what is left in the can yourself or give it to a fellow traveler. Do not save it to use later. The one thing you cannot do is to run the risk of giving your baby contaminated or sour milk. _Never attempt to carry the milk warm in a vacuum jug._ If you do, the bacteria that are present in milk will multiply many times, with the result that when the milk is fed to the baby, it will make him sick. You can carry boiled nipples in a jar, as already suggested, or you can use nursing bottles with caps that make it possible to reverse the nipples into the bottle and thus keep them sterile. _Water for the baby._--For baby's protection, it is very important that you do not give him water that has not been boiled. Usually it is better to take several bottles of boiled water from home even though you may find it possible to obtain boiled water on the train. Or plan to use the boiled water from the vacuum jug. _Other food for the baby._--Orange juice and cod-liver oil usually cannot be carried conveniently. There is no harm in letting your baby go without these during the time when you will be traveling. Unless your baby is on a special diet, don't load yourself down with canned foods under present traveling conditions. Your baby can get along for a few days on his milk. Plan to use as little food as you think you can get by with. If your baby is a hearty eater and you fear that he will miss his cereal, then carry dry ready-prepared baby cereal, to which you can add hot water from the vacuum bottle. You will need to take a dish and a spoon in the shopping or duffle bag. Foods that require heating will have to be omitted. Some children do not object to cold food. If yours does not, and if he has a big appetite, you can take canned vegetables or fruits, which he can eat from the can. Take rusks or crackers along for emergency use. In planning these solid foods, remember that nothing can be heated except by the addition of hot water from your vacuum jug, and that no utensils can be washed on the train. [Illustration: Boys in the bleachers] _Food for young children._--Meals for toddlers are not so much of a problem as meals for babies are. Packing a lunch of customary foods will not be difficult for the short trip. This may include bread-and-butter sandwiches, wrapped in wax paper; cookies or crackers; canned tomato or fruit juice; and canned evaporated milk. (Several large paper bags to be used as "waste baskets" are a convenience.) But for a long trip you may have to rely on getting your meals in the diner even though this is more expensive. Some railroads, however, don't serve meals to civilians until after servicemen are fed, so you may need to take along some food even though you are planning to use the diner. Be sure to go to meals early. Most little children are thrilled at the idea of eating on the train and tell about the experience for many days afterward. For a toddler's diet the railroads even now can usually supply cooked cereals, baked potatoes, green vegetables, well-cooked meats, fruits, and milk. Some dining cars provide half portions for children, but if they don't, no one will object if you order a meal for yourself and give part of it to Junior. But in case you are unable to get into the diner, it is wise to take some simple things for your toddler and yourself to eat. [Illustration: Fun in the diner] _Keeping baby clean._--Mothers sometimes attempt to bathe babies on a train in the washroom basins. Don't do it. It isn't sanitary. It is better to let your baby go unbathed during the trip than to run the risk of infection. Clean his face and hands off with cold cream and cleansing tissues and let it go at that. [Illustration: Solid food and solid comfort] When changing diapers, use oil and cotton and cleansing tissue. Change the baby where he lies instead of trying to take him back to the dressing room. Keep handy at all times a small emergency diaper kit in a rubber-lined bag, so you can stop anywhere and take care of the baby if necessary. _Keeping baby comfortable._--Adjustable canvas seats are available, chiefly for use in automobiles, but they are very helpful for train travel, too. They are light and can be folded and put in a suitcase. Some come in their own carrying cases. They give the child a restful change from the car seat. _Sleeping in the coach._--If you travel by coach, the chances are you are going to have to sleep with your baby cradled in your arms. You may be able to rent a pillow, which will make the night more comfortable for you and your baby. In most coaches lights are turned down at night and often babies sleep undisturbed. The night trip will be harder on you than it is on the baby. When you travel by Pullman. There is far more space and better service in Pullman accommodations, and if there is any way that you can manage to have them, you should do it for your own and your baby's sake. Accommodations on the Pullman are worth the extra cash, if you have the cash. Even though you may be unable to reserve a lower berth in advance, it may be possible to arrange with the Pullman conductor to exchange your upper for a lower. The greater convenience of a lower berth is worth the extra cost. If your baby is very tiny (under 3 months), he can travel by basket if you go by Pullman. For your baby's food, it is wise to use an evaporated-milk formula as described on pages 6 and 9. For any type of travel this formula is probably the safest and the easiest. For a short daytime trip or an overnight trip, you may be able to arrange ahead of time to keep the bottles in the refrigerator of the dining car. If you do so, you must be very sure, though, that the dining car is not to be taken off the train at any point before you reach your destination. If you can safely use the refrigerator of the diner, you can prepare your feedings before you leave. Chill them thoroughly, carry the bottles containing the milk mixture in your sterilizer, and as you board the train, hand it to the porter to put into the refrigerator. When baby is ready for food, the porter will heat a bottle and bring it to you. Don't forget to include a few bottles of boiled water in your quota of bottles. If you are traveling in the Pullman, you can put the baby or young child to bed at his regular time and expect him to sleep soundly until morning. [Illustration: Don't do it! It isn't sanitary!] [Illustration: It's harder on you] If your baby is very young, you may use the basket for sleeping purposes. Berths are wide and long and you can keep the baby, basket and all, with you at night. Change and feed the baby in the berth each morning before getting him up. Put the older child in the half of the berth next to the window, carefully padding the window sill and window with a pillow to prevent head bumping and in winter to keep the youngster warm. Carry along a waterproof sheet to give the porter when he makes up the berth. If the child is under 4, this is a wise precaution even though he may be perfectly trained at home. Entertaining the young child. Little children get tired on a long trip, and who can blame them? You can keep them entertained if you take along a few carefully selected toys: Colored crayons, pencils, tablets, a favorite doll, and story books. A familiar toy should be included, as new ones are not so comforting. Children like books under such circumstances, and you should have several small ones with you. Books about trains and engines will be good fun. Keep a small toy or two in your purse for odd moments--when you are waiting for your meal in the diner, for example, or when you are waiting for a train. It is a good plan to have a pencil handy and paper for you to draw on to amuse your youngster, or for him to scribble on if he is old enough. Another good thing to have with you is a small cloth picture book that can be rolled up into a compact cylinder. Fellow travelers. Most people like children, so don't get too upset if Jimmy talks with his fellow passengers. Many grown-ups find an alert, friendly child a delightful diversion on a long and tiresome trip. Almost always when you tell the person to whom the child is talking, "Send Jimmy back if he annoys you," you get the assurance, "He's perfectly all right. I enjoy talking to him." Accept such statements at their face value. Don't cramp Jimmy's style "in winning friends and influencing people." There are times, although they will be rare, when you may need to curb Jimmy's friendliness--when he shows too much interest in an obviously undesirable or uninterested person. Bring him back to your seat to hear a story or to eat an apple and then keep him busy until he forgets about the stranger. [Illustration: Too much is enough] [Illustration: A time to make friends] You will need to keep your eyes glued on overfriendly grown-ups who in a burst of enthusiasm may give your youngster candy or other undesirable food. Many adults are thoughtless about food for children, and if you are unfortunate enough to meet one of these individuals, you will need to be tactful but firm. You can't afford to run the risk of having a sick child. Many times people will offer to carry your suitcase, to watch one child while you attend to another, to carry your toddler into the dining car, or to keep an eye on your sleeping baby while you go to the rest room. [Illustration: Journey's end] Use good judgment about accepting such offers to help you. They are usually made in good faith and with the best intentions in the world. And you'll certainly need some help if you're traveling with a youngster in these days of overworked train crews and few redcaps. But don't ever leave your baby with a stranger in a railroad station, and do hesitate to leave him with a total stranger on the train. Don't leave him for very long with anyone; he may be frightened when you go away. Don't trust your baby to anyone who has a cold or any other visible illness that the baby might catch. Going by Bus? As a rule busses are even more crowded than trains, and there is far less space. And traveling by bus with a baby or young child requires even better planning than travel by train. There are a few things you will need to know about bus travel before you start out. Busses make 15-minute rest stops every 2 hours and 40-minute to 1-hour stops three times a day for meals. Any child who occupies a seat is required to have a half-fare ticket even though he is under 5. By all means plan your trip for the first or the middle of the week, avoiding the week-end travel peak if at all possible. If you are going on a long trip, plan stop-overs that will break your journey. Everything that was said about clothes, supplies, and equipment for traveling by train coach will be needed when you travel by bus. If anything, your things will need to be packed even more compactly. If your baby is breast-fed, traveling will be easier than if he is not. You will need to plan with your doctor about putting your baby on an evaporated-milk formula if he is bottle-fed. Remember, too, that you will have to count on preparing his feedings during rest and meal stops. Emergency supplies of food for yourself and your young child will be necessary even though you hope to buy your meals on the way. Restaurants in bus depots are overcrowded and you may not be able to get food in the time you have. For a short trip you had better plan on carrying food for yourself and your youngster. Going by Car? Families going to strange cities to establish new homes are still able to obtain gasoline with which to travel by car. A few tips on automobile travel may therefore be of value. Proper care of your baby when traveling by car can be summed up in this way: Clean milk, clean water, clean food, and as little change as possible from the regular schedule to which he is accustomed. Most young children enjoy riding in an automobile although they do get tired and bored on long trips. There are many things that you can do to make traveling by car easier. When your baby is small, take him in his carrying basket, if you have one, and put him on the back seat in a coach or sedan or on the back ledge of a coupe, if it is wide enough. Small canvas hammocks that fasten onto the back of the front seat may still be available and are a real boon to the baby who must travel. If your baby's crib fits into the back of the car, you will have it ready for him to sleep in when he reaches his new home. When your baby can sit up, there are canvas seats available that hook over the top of the car seat. These will keep the child comfortable and erect and allow him to look out the window without stretching his neck. The young child can take his afternoon nap stretched out on the back seat and covered with a light robe or coat. Plan your packing of luggage with this in mind. The baby's food must loom large in your plans if he is not breast-fed. You will either have to find a place each night where you can prepare his feedings and devise a way for keeping them on ice and heating them while you travel, or you will have to put the baby on the evaporated-milk formula described on pages 6 and 9. If you plan to prepare his usual feedings you must take along all the equipment to do it. Small portable stoves using canned heat can be used to heat the feeding, or you can stop in restaurants and ask a waitress to have the bottle heated for you. The important thing is to have a feasible plan worked out for doing it. Cereal, canned food, and oranges may be obtained along the way. When stopping for meals, be sure to select good places where well-cooked food can be obtained for young children. Be certain that the milk served the youngsters is pasteurized. And insist that the milk be served directly from the bottle (opened at the table). Order sensibly for the children, getting them the same type of meal you would supply them at home. By all means carry your own water, and for the baby or young child it should be boiled. Give the youngsters a drink from your own supply before stopping for food. Don't let them drink water from drinking fountains, hotels, or tourist homes. This does not mean that the water may not be all right; it is merely a precautionary measure against digestive upsets. If you are traveling by car, you will be able to take along the baby's own toilet equipment, and remember to carry it with you into rest rooms, hotels, or tourist homes. Don't attempt to drive too many miles in one day when a baby is a passenger. Babies require many stops, and rest periods for a toddler should be frequent. Plan to stop each night by 5:30 or 6 o'clock. This will give you time to select a hotel or tourist room and get the baby or toddler comfortably to sleep by his usual bedtime. If toddlers are part of your carload, you will have amusement problems. Gather together a number of small toys and place them in a box of their own. If yours is a two-seated automobile, allow the youngster to change his seat often. Sometimes he will enjoy riding in the front seat; at other times he will want to play with his toys or take a nap in the back seat. It will help to keep him amused if you can think up stories to tell him about the things he sees along the way--the children, the cattle, the trains, and the factories. Songs you know by heart will be used many times over, too. * * * * * A job this traveling with babies in wartime! Certainly not something to attempt lightly. But if you must travel with your baby, you'll be doing a real war service if you make it as painless as you can to the transportation system, your baby, and yourself. The Bureau gratefully acknowledges the work of Mr. Gluyas Williams, who illustrated this booklet as a contribution to the war effort. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR FRANCES PERKINS, _Secretary_ CHILDREN'S BUREAU KATHARINE F. LENROOT, _Chief_ Children in Wartime No. 6 Bureau Publication 307 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office Washington 25, D. C. Price 5 cents [ Transcriber's Note: The following is a list of corrections made to the original. The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one. days or even a week before you start on your trip if he get used to new days or even a week before you start on your trip if he gets used to new ] 
25075	----	None 
44720	----	Transcriber's Note: Words printed in italics are noted with underscores: _italics_. Words printed in small-caps have been converted to ALL-CAPS. PACKING AND PORTAGING PACKING AND PORTAGING BY DILLON WALLACE Author of "The Lure of the Labrador Wild," "The Long Labrador Trail," "Saddle and Camp in the Rockies," "Across the Mexican Sierras," etc. [Illustration: OUTING HANDBOOKS] [Illustration] NEW YORK OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY MCMXII COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY All rights reserved CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. PACKING AND THE OUTFIT 9 II. THE CANOE AND ITS EQUIPMENT 12 III. CAMP EQUIPMENT FOR THE CANOE TRIP 15 IV. PERSONAL EQUIPMENT 23 V. FOOD 31 VI. THE PORTAGE 38 VII. TRAVEL WITH SADDLE AND PACK ANIMALS 51 VIII. SADDLE AND PACK EQUIPMENT 56 IX. PERSONAL OUTFIT FOR THE SADDLE 64 X. ADJUSTING THE PACK 71 XI. SOME PRACTICAL HITCHES 77 XII. TRAVELING WITHOUT A PACK HORSE 101 XIII. AFOOT IN SUMMER 106 XIV. WITH SNOWSHOES AND TOBOGGAN 110 XV. WITH DOGS AND KOMATIK 123 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Method of Slinging Load on Aparejo 58, 59 Sling for Racking on Crosstree Saddle 74 Squaw or Crosstree Hitch 79, 80 The Crosstree Diamond Hitch 82, 83 United States Army Diamond Hitch 85, 86 Lifting Hitch 93, 94 Stirrup Hitch 96 Saddle Hitch 97 PACKING AND PORTAGING CHAPTER I PACKING AND THE OUTFIT Ordinarily the verb _to pack_ means to stow articles snugly into receptacles, but in the parlance of the trail it often means to carry or transport the articles from place to place. The _pack_ in the language of the trail is the load a man or horse carries. Likewise, a _portage_ on a canoe route is a break between navigable waters, over which canoe and outfit must be carried; or the word may be used as a verb, and one may say, "I will portage the canoe," meaning "I will carry the canoe." In the course of the following pages these terms will doubtless all be used in their various significations. Save for the few who are able to employ a retinue of professional guides and packers to attend to the details of transportation, the one chief problem that confronts the wilderness traveler is that of how to reduce the weight of his outfit to the minimum with the least possible sacrifice of comfort. It is only the veriest tenderfoot that deliberately endures hardships or discomforts where hardships and discomforts are unnecessary. Experienced wilderness travelers always make themselves as comfortable as conditions will permit, and there is no reason why one who hits the trail for sport, recreation or health should do otherwise. In a description, then, of the methods of packing and transporting outfits the tenderfoot and even the man whose feet are becoming calloused may welcome some hints as to the selection of compact, light, but, at the same time, efficient outfits. These hints on outfitting, therefore, I shall give, leaving out of consideration the details of camp making, camp cookery and those phases of woodcraft that have no direct bearing upon the prime question of packing and transportation on the trail. Let us classify the various methods of wilderness travel under the following heads: 1. By Canoe; 2. With Saddle and Pack Animals; 3. Afoot in Summer; 4. On Snowshoes; 5. With Dogs and Sledge. Taking these in order, and giving our attention first to canoe travel, it will be found convenient further to subdivide this branch of the subject and discuss in order: (a) The Canoe and its Equipment; (b) Camp Equipment for a Canoe Trip; (c) Personal Equipment; (d) Food; (e) The Portage. CHAPTER II THE CANOE AND ITS EQUIPMENT A sixteen-foot canoe with a width of at least 33 inches and a depth of at least 12 inches will accommodate two men, an adequate camping outfit and a full ten weeks' provisions very nicely, and at the same time not lie too deep in the water. A fifteen-foot canoe, unless it has a beam of at least 35 inches and a depth of 12 inches or more, is unsuitable. Three men with their outfit and provisions will require an eighteen-foot canoe with a width of 35 inches or more and a depth of no less than 13 inches, or a seventeen-foot canoe with a width of 37 inches and 13 inches deep. The latter size is lighter by from ten to fifteen pounds than the former, while the displacement is about equal. The best all-around canoe for cruising and hard usage is the canvas-covered cedar canoe. Both ribs and planking should be of cedar, and only full length planks should enter into the construction. Where short planking is used the canoe will sooner or later become hogged--that is, the ends will sag downward from the middle. In Canada the "Peterborough" canoe is more largely used than the canvas-covered. These are to be had in both basswood and cedar. Cedar is brittle, while basswood is tough, but the latter absorbs water more readily than the former and in time will become more or less waterlogged. Cruising canoes should be supplied with a middle thwart for convenient portaging. Any canoe larger than sixteen feet should have three thwarts. To lighten weight on the portage, and provide more room for storing outfit, it is advisable to remove the cane seats with which canvas canoes are usually provided. This can be readily done by unscrewing the nuts beneath the gunwale which hold the seats in position. Good strong paddles--sufficiently strong to withstand the heavy strain to which cruising paddles are put--should be selected. On the portage they must bear the full weight of the canoe; they will frequently be utilized in poling up stream against stiff currents; and in running rapids they will be subjected to rough usage. On extended cruises it is advisable to carry one spare paddle to take the place of one that may be rendered useless. Experienced canoemen pole up minor rapids. Poles for this purpose can usually be cut at the point where they are needed, but pole "shoes"--that is, spikes fitted with ferrules--to fit on the ends of poles are a necessary adjunct to the outfit where poling is to be done. Without shoes to hold the pole firmly on the bottom of the stream the pole may slip and pitch the canoeman overboard. The ferrules should be punctured with at least two nail holes, by which they may be secured to the poles, and a few nails should be carried for this purpose. A hundred feet or so of half-inch rope should also be provided, to be used as a tracking line and the various other uses for which rope may be required. CHAPTER III CAMP EQUIPMENT FOR A CANOE TRIP Personal likes and prejudices have much to do with the form of tent chosen. My own preference is for either the "A" or wedge tent, with the Hudson's Bay model as second choice, for general utility. Either of these is particularly adapted also to winter travel where the tent must often be pitched upon the snow. If, however, the tent is only to be used in summer, and particularly in canoe travel where a light, easily erected model is desired, the Frazer tent is both ideal for comfort and is an exceedingly light weight model for portaging. Duck or drill tents are altogether too heavy and quite out of date. They soak water and are an abomination on the portage. The best tent is one of balloon silk, _tanalite_, or of extra light green waterproofed tent cloth. The balloon silk tent is very slightly heavier than either of the others, but is exceedingly durable. For instance, a 7-1/3 × 7-1/3 foot "A" tent of either tanalite or extra light green waterproof tent cloth, fitted with sod cloth, complete, weighs eight pounds, while a similar tent of waterproof balloon silk weighs nine pounds. A Hudson's Bay model, 6 × 9 feet, weighs respectively seven and seven and one-half pounds. These three cloths are not only waterproof and practically rot proof, but do not soak water, which is a feature for consideration where much portaging is to be done and camp is moved almost daily. Some dealers recommend that customers going into a fly or mosquito country have the tent door fitted with bobbinet. The idea is good, but cheese cloth is much cheaper and incomparably better than bobbinet. The cheese-cloth door should be made rather full, and divided at the center from tent peak to ground, with numerous tie strings to bring the edges tight together when in use, and other strings or tapes on either side, where it is attached to the tent, to reef or roll and tie it back out of the way when not needed. When purchasing a light-weight tent, see that the dealer supplies a bag of proper size in which to pack it. A pack cloth 6 × 7 feet in size, of brown waterproof canvas weighing about 3-1/2 pounds, makes an excellent covering for the tent floor at night. On the portage blankets and odds and ends will be packed and carried on it. If one end and the two sides of the pack cloth are fitted with snap buttons it may be converted into a snug sleeping bag with a pair of blankets folded lengthwise, the bottom and sides of the blanket secured with blanket safety pins as a lining for the bag. My standby for summer camping is a fine all-wool gray blanket 72 × 78 inches in size and weighing 5-1/2 pounds. This I have found sufficient even in frosty autumn weather--always, in fact, until the weather grows cold enough to freeze streams and close them to canoe navigation. Used as a lining for the improvised pack cloth sleeping bag, this blanket is quite bedding enough and makes an exceedingly comfortable bed, too. A three-quarter axe with a 24- or 28-inch handle makes a mighty good camp axe. A full axe is heavy and inconvenient to portage and the lighter axe will serve every purpose in any country at any time. Personally I favor the Hudson's Bay axe. This may be had fitted either with a 24-inch or 18-inch handle. In the two-party outfit which we are discussing there should be two axes, one of which may be fitted with the shorter handle, but the other should have at least a 24- and preferably a 28-inch handle. Every axe should have a leather sheath or scabbard for convenient packing. The so-called pocket axes are too small to be of practical use. The camper does not wish to miss the luxury of the big evening camp-fire, and he can never provide for it with a small hatchet or toy pocket axe. Cooking utensils of aluminum alloy are the lightest and best for the trail. Tin and iron will rust, enamel ware will chip, and unalloyed aluminum is too soft and bends out of shape. The best sporting goods dealers carry complete outfits of aluminum alloy. I have used them in the frigid North and in the tropics, in canoe, sledging, tramping and horseback journeys, and can recommend them unequivocally, save perhaps the frying pan. The two-man cooking and dining outfit should contain the following utensils: 1 Pot with cover 7 × 6-1/2 inches, capacity three quarts. 1 Coffee pot 6 × 6-1/8 inches, capacity two quarts. 1 Steel frying pan 9-7/8 × 2 inches, with folding handle. 1 Pan 9 × 3 inches, with folding handle, for mixing- and dish-pan. 2 Plates 8-7/8 inches diameter. 2 Cups. 2 Aluminum alloy forks. 2 Dessert spoons. 1 Large cooking spoon. 1 Dish mop. 2 Dish towels. The regular aluminum alloy cup is too small for practical camp use. There is an aluminum bowl, however, holding one pint, but without a handle. This is about the right size for a practical cup, and I have a handle riveted on it and use it as a cup. The top only of the handle should be attached, that the cups may set one inside the other. The heat conducting quality of aluminum makes it a question whether or not enamel cups are not preferable. To pack the outfit snugly, set the mixing pan into the frying pan, the handles of both pans folded, place the plates, one on top of the other, in the mixing pan, the cooking pot on top of these, and the coffee pot inside the cooking pot. The cups will fit in the coffee pot. The weight of this outfit complete is 5-1/2 pounds. A waterproof canvas bag of proper size should be provided in which to pack the utensils. Forks and spoons, wrapped in a dish towel, will fit nicely in the canvas bag alongside the pots. _Waterproof_ canvas is suggested for the bag, not to protect the utensils but because anything but waterproofed material will absorb moisture and become watersoaked in rainy weather, adding materially to the weight of the outfit. One of the handiest aids to baking is the aluminum reflecting baker. An aluminum baker 16 × 18 inches when open, folds to a package 12 × 18 inches and about two inches thick, and fitted into a waterproof canvas case weighs, case and all, about four pounds. Broilers, fire irons, fire blowers or inspirators, as they are sometimes called, and many other things that are convenient enough but quite unnecessary, should never burden the outfit. Even though the weight of some of them may be insignificant, each additional claptrap makes one more thing to look after. There are a thousand and one claptraps, indeed, that outfitters offer, but which do not possess sufficient advantage to pay for the care and labor of transportation, and my advice is, leave them out, one and all. Outfitters supply small packing bags of proper size to fit, one on top of another, into larger waterproof canvas bags. These small bags are made preferably of balloon silk. By using them the whole outfit may be snugly and safely packed for the portage. In one of these small bags keep the general supply of matches, though each canoeist should carry a separate supply for emergency in his individual kit. In like manner two or three cakes of soap should be packed in another small bag. Floating soap is less likely to be lost than soap that sinks. A dozen candles will be quite enough. These if packed in a tin box of proper size will not be broken. Repair kits should be provided. A file for sharpening axes and a whetstone for general use are of the first importance. Include also a pair of pincers, a ball of stout twine and a few feet of copper wire. A tool haft or handle with a variety of small tools inside is convenient. Either a stick of canoe cement, a small supply of marine glue, or a canoe repair outfit such as canoe manufacturers put up and which contain canvas, white lead, copper tacks, calor and varnish will be found a valuable adjunct to the outfit should the canoe become damaged. This tool and repair equipment should be packed in a strong canvas bag small enough to drop into the larger nine-inch waterproof bag. A small leather medicine case with vials containing, in tabloid form, a cathartic, an astringent (lead and opium pills are good) and bichloride of mercury, suffices for the drug supply. Surgical necessities are: Some antiseptic bandages, a package of linen gauze, a spool of adhesive plaster and one-eighth pound of absorbent cotton, wrapped in oiled silk. In addition most campers find it convenient to have in their personal outfit a pair of small scissors. These are absolutely necessary if one is to put on a bandage properly. The regular surgical scissors, the two blades of which hook together at the center, are the most convenient sort, both to use and to carry, and have the keenest edge. A pair of tweezers takes up but little room and is useful for extracting splinters or for holding a wad of absorbent cotton in swabbing out a wound, as cotton will, of course, become septic if held in the fingers. A small scalpel is better than the knife blade for opening up an infection, as it is more convenient to handle and will make a deep short incision when desired. These will all be packed in one of the small balloon silk bags. CHAPTER IV PERSONAL EQUIPMENT Each canoeist should have a personal kit or duffle bag of waterproof canvas. These may be purchased from outfitters and are usually 36 inches deep and of 12, 15, 18 or 21 inches diameter. The 12-inch bag, however, is amply large to accommodate all one needs in the way of clothing and other personal gear. This, as well as every other waterproof canvas packing bag mentioned, excepting the cooking kit bag, should be supplied with a handle on the bottom and one on the side. These bags not only keep the contents dry, but, as previously stated, do not absorb moisture to add to the weight, a very essential feature where every unnecessary pound must be eliminated. I was once capsized in a rapid and my duffle bag lay half a day in the water before it was recovered. The contents were perfectly dry. One suit of medium weight woolen underclothing in addition to the suit worn is ample for a short trip. Four extra pairs of thick woolen socks should be provided--the home-knit kind. An excellent material for trousers to be worn on the trail is moleskin, though for midsummer wear a good quality khaki is first rate. Moleskin, however, will withstand the hardest usage and to my mind is superior to khaki or any other material where wading is necessary and on cold or rainy days, as it is very nearly windproof. A good leather belt should be worn, even though suspenders support the trousers. The outer shirt should be of light weight gray or brown flannel and provided with pockets. A blue flannel shirt of the best quality is all right. The cheaper qualities of blue crock, and this feature makes them objectionable. If the outer shirt is too heavy it will be found cumbersome under the exertion of the portage. A large, roomy Pontiac shirt to slip over the outer shirt and use as a sweater is much preferable to a sweater on the trail. It is windproof and warm. Do not take a coat--the Pontiac shirt will be both coat and sweater. A coat is always in the way on a canoe trip and makes the pack that much heavier. A pair of low leather or canvas wading shoes for river work and larrigans or shoe pacs for ordinary wear, large enough to admit two pairs of woolen socks, are best suited to canoeing. Heavy, hobnailed mountaineer shoes or boots are not in place here. Heavy German socks, supplied with garter and clasp to hold them in position, are better than canvas leggings, and protect the legs from chill at times when wading is necessary in icy waters. Any kind of an old slouch hat is suitable. Some canoeists take with them a suit of featherweight oilskin. Personally I have never worn rainproof garments when canoeing. Once I carried a so-called waterproof coat, but it was not waterproof. It leaked water like a sieve, and was no protection even from the gentlest shower. I am inclined, however, to favor featherweight oilskins, though not while portaging--they would be found too warm--but when paddling in rainy weather, or to wear on rainy days about camp. If the trip is to extend into a black fly or mosquito region, protection against the insects should be provided. A head net of black bobbinet that will set down upon the shoulders, with strings to tie under the arms, is about the best arrangement for the head. Old loose kid gloves, with the fingers cut off, and farmers' satin elbow sleeves to fit under the wrist bands of the outer shirt will protect the wrists and hands. The armlets should be well and tightly sewn upon the gloves, for black flies are not content to attack where they alight, and will explore for the slightest opening and discover some undefended spot. They are, too, a hundred times more vicious than mosquitoes. There are many receipts for fly dope, but in a half hour after application perspiration will eliminate the virtue of most mixtures and a renewed application must be made. Nessmuk's receipt is perhaps as good as any, and the formula is as follows: Oil of pine tar 3 parts Castor oil 2 parts Oil of pennyroyal 1 part If when you were a child your father held your nose as an inducement for you to open your mouth while your mother poured castor oil down your throat, the odor of the castor oil rising above the odors of the other ingredients will revive sad memories. Indeed it is claimed for this mixture that the dead will rise and flee from its compounded odor as they would flee from eternal torment. It certainly should ward off such little creatures as black flies and mosquitoes. Another effective mixture is: Oil of tar 3 parts Sweet oil 3 parts Oil of pennyroyal 1 part Carbolic acid 3 per cent. An Indian advised me once to carry a fat salt pork rind in my pocket, and now and again rub the greasy side upon face and hands. I tried it and found it nearly as good as the dopes. Unless one penetrates, however, far north In Canada during black fly season these extraordinary precautions will scarcely be necessary. There Is nowhere In the United States a region where black flies are really very bad (though perhaps I am drawing invidious comparisons in making the statement), and even in interior Newfoundland they are, compared with the farther north, tame and rather inoffensive though always troublesome. The choice of fishing tackle, guns and arms depends largely upon personal taste. Steel rods of the best quality will serve better than split bamboo on an extended trip where one, continuously on the portage trail, is often unable to properly dry the tackle. The steady soaking of a split bamboo rod for a week is likely to loosen the sections and injure a fine rod. A waterproof canvas or pantasote case is the right sort for the rod--leather cases are unpractical on a cruising trip. Leather gun cases, too, under like circumstances will become watersoaked, and under any circumstances they are unnecessarily heavy. Use canvas cases therefore in consideration for your back. They are light and in a season of rain immeasurably better than leather. Economize, also, on ammunition. Do your target practice before you hit the trail. A hunter that cannot get his limit of big game with twenty rifle cartridges is an unsafe individual to turn loose in the woods. For spruce grouse, ptarmigan and other small game a ten-inch barrel, 22-caliber single-shot pistol is an excellent arm, provided one has had some previous experience in its use. It is not a burden on the belt, and a handful of cartridges in the pocket are not noticed. Pack your cartridges in a strong canvas bag, your gun grease and accessories in another receptacle. On the belt also carry a broad-pointed four-inch blade skinning knife of the ordinary butcher knife shape. This will be your table knife, as well as cooking and general utility knife. In the pocket carry a stout jackknife, a waterproof matchbox, always kept well filled, and a compass. A film camera is more practical for the trail than a plate camera for many reasons, one of which is weight. Plates are heavy and easily broken. It is well to have each roll of films put up separately in a sealed, water-tight tin. Dealers will supply them thus at five cents extra for each film roll. A waterproof pantasote case, too, is better than leather, for leather in a long-continued rain will become watersoaked, as before stated. If a plate camera is carried the plates may be packed in a small light wooden box--a starch box, for instance. The box will protect them under ordinary circumstances. Film rolls, however, may be carried in a small canvas bag that will slip into one of the larger waterproof bags. My object in outlining outfit is rather to emphasize the possibilities of selecting a light and efficient outfit that may be easily packed and transported on the trail, than to evolve an infallible check list; therefore I shall not attempt to name in detail toilet articles, tobacco and odds and ends. Take nothing, however, save those things you will surely find occasion to use, unless I may suggest an extra pipe, should your pipe be lost. A small balloon silk bag will hold them, together with a sewing case containing needles, thread, patches and some safety pins. Another will hold the hand towels and hand soap in daily use, while an extra hand towel may be stowed in your duffle bag. In concluding this chapter it may be pertinent to say that the novice on the trail is pretty certain to burden himself with many things he will seldom or never use. Take your outfitter into your confidence. Tell him what sort of a trip you contemplate and he will advise you. First-class outfitters are usually practical out-of-door men and camping experts. They have made an extended study of the subject, for it is part of their business to do so. Therefore, in selecting outfit, it is both safe and wise to rely upon the advice of any responsible outfitter. CHAPTER V FOOD The true wilderness voyager is willing to endure some discomforts on the trail, to work hard and submit to black flies and other pests, but as a reward he usually demands satisfying meals. There is, indeed, no reason for him to deny himself a variety and a plenty, unless his trip is to extend into months. Weight on the portage trail is always the consideration that cuts down the ration. Packing on one's back a ration to be used two or three months hence is discouraging. I have evolved a two-week food supply for two men, based upon the United States army ration, varied as the result of my own experiences have dictated. It offers not only great variety, but is an exceedingly bountiful ration even for hungry men. Personal taste will suggest some eliminations or substitutions that may be made without material loss or change in weight. If there is certainty of catching fish or killing game, or if opportunity offers for purchasing fresh supplies along the trail, reductions in quantity may be made accordingly. For each additional man, or for any period beyond two weeks, a proportionate increase in quantity may be made. Bacon, 6 pounds. Salt fat pork, 2 pounds. Ham or canned meats, 5 pounds. "Truegg" (egg powder), 1 pound (equals 4 dozen eggs.) "Trucream" (milk powder), 1-1/2 pounds. "Crisco," 3 pounds, (2 cans). Fresh bread, 2 pounds. Flour, 12 pounds. Corn meal (yellow), 1 pound. Rolled oats, 1 pound. Rice, 1 pound. Baking powder, 1/2 pound. Potatoes (Dehydrated) riced, 2 pounds (equals 14 lbs. fresh potatoes). Potatoes (Dehydrated) sliced, 1 pound (equals 7 lbs. fresh potatoes). Carrots (Dehydrated), 1/4 pound (equals 3 lbs. fresh carrots). Onions (Dehydrated), 1/4 pound (equals 3-3/4 lbs. fresh onions). Cranberries (Dehydrated), 1/4 pound (equals 2-1/2 qts. fresh fruit). Beans, 2 pounds. Green peas (Dehydrated), 1/4 pound (equals 1-1/4 lbs. fresh peas). Coffee (ground), 2 pounds. Tea, 1/2 pound. Cocoa, 1/2 pound. Sugar (granulated), 5 pounds. Preserves, 1 pound. Lemons, 1/2 dozen. Lime tablets, 1/2 pound. Prunes (stoned), 1 pound. Raisins, 1 pound. Salt, 1 pound. Pepper, 1/4 ounce. This gives each man a nominal ration of 14-1/2 pounds a week, or about two pounds a day. In reality, however, it is more bountiful than the summer garrison ration and far more liberal than the summer marching ration of the army. This is brought about by the pretty general elimination of water, largely through the substitution of dehydrated vegetables and fruits for fresh and canned goods. The dehydrated products designated are in every particular equal to fresh products and far superior to canned goods. Dehydrated vegetables possess all the qualities, in fact, of fresh vegetables, with only the large percentage of water removed. Water is introduced restoring them to original form usually by boiling. No chemical is used as a preservative as is the case with all dried vegetables put up by foreign manufacturers. It will be noticed that butter has been omitted and that "Crisco" has been introduced in the place of lard and to be used in cooking instead of butter. Crisco is a product of edible vegetable oils. It has the appearance of lard but can be heated to a much higher temperature without burning, is fully equal to butter when used as shortening, and dough bread, fish or other articles of food fried in it will not absorb it so readily as they will lard, nor will it transmit the flavor of one food to another. For example, fish may be fried in Crisco, and dough bread or anything else fried in the same Crisco will have not the slightest flavor of fish. It will keep fresh and sweet under conditions that turn lard and butter rancid. Butter quickly becomes strong, and the heat of the sun keeps it in an oily, unpalatable condition, even when packed in air-tight tins. The most lavish user of butter will discover that it is no hardship to go without it when in camp. Crisco, put up in handy, friction-top cans, can be purchased from nearly any grocer. Coffee should be carried in friction-top tins. On extended trips coffee is too bulky to carry save as a special treat. A pound of tea will go as far as many pounds of coffee; therefore on trips extending beyond three or four weeks the proportion of tea should be increased and that of coffee diminished. On short trips, however, such as we are discussing, there is no reason and most Americans usually prefer it even when in camp. Each article of food should have its individual bag, to fit into one of the larger waterproof canvas bags described, though the bacon and fat pork, each piece wrapped in paraffin (waxed) paper, may be packed in one bag. Paraffin paper will protect other packages in the bag from grease. Several articles of small bulk and weight such as dehydrated carrots, onions, cranberries and green peas each in its original package or a small muslin bag suitable in size may be carried in a single balloon silk bag. The small bags containing such articles as are not in daily and frequent use should be stowed in the bottoms of the canvas bags, while those in constant demand should be at the top where they can be had without unpacking the entire bag. Every package or bag should be plainly labeled with the nature of its contents. In labeling them use ink, as pencil marks are too easily obliterated. Where a party is composed of a sufficient number of people to make it worth while the party ration for each day may be weighed out and packed in a separate receptacle, thus making seven food packages for each week. This, however, would be obviously unpractical where there are less than eight or ten members of the party. No glass or crockeryware should be used, not only because of its liability to break, but because of its unnecessary weight. A good way to carry the tin of baking powder is to sink it into the sack of flour. The flour will protect it and preclude the possibility of the cover coming off and the contents spilling out. Do not carry prepared or self-raising flour on the trail. For many reasons it is unpractical for trail use, though perhaps most excellent in the kitchen at home. Throughout I have accentuated the advisability of waterproof covers for everything. Every ounce of water absorbed by tent, bags, or package covers, adds to the tedium of the trail by so much unnecessary weight. When flour carried in an ordinary sack Is exposed to rain a paste will form next the cloth, and presently harden into a crust that will protect the bulk of flour from injury. But the flour used up in the process of crust forming is a decided waste, and the paste, retaining a degree of moisture, increases weight. I have suggested balloon silk for the small food bags to fit into the larger waterproofed canvas bags, not only because it does not absorb moisture, but because there will be no possibility of the contents sifting through the cloth. If these or the cloth from which to make them cannot be readily obtained, closely woven muslin will do. Should the canoeist desire to make his own bags and should he not find it convenient to purchase waterproofed canvas, the ordinary canvas which he will use may be waterproofed by the following process: In two gallons of boiling water dissolve three and one-half ounces of alum. Rain water is best, though any soft water will do; but it _must be soft water_ to obtain the best results. In another vessel dissolve four ounces of sugar of lead in two gallons of soft water. Unite the solutions when they have cleared by pouring into another vessel No. 1 first, then No. 2. Let the solution stand over night, decant it into a tub, free of any sediment that may have settled, and it is ready for the canvas. The cloth should be put into the solution, thoroughly saturated with it and then lightly wrung out, and hung up to dry. This treatment will render canvas to a considerable extent, though not completely, waterproof. Muslin for the smaller food bags may be waterproofed by painting it with a saturate solution of turpentine and paraffin. Canned goods should be packed snugly in canvas bags, with cans on end, that the sides, not the corners or edges, will rest against the back in portaging. Camp chests in which to store food or other articles are carried by some canoeists, but they add considerable weight to the outfit. The best and most serviceable camp chest is one of indestructible fiber. One with an inside measurement of 18 × 24 × 12 inches weighs twenty pounds. CHAPTER VI THE PORTAGE There are several types of pack harness offered by outfitters, but it is generally conceded that the best method of carrying heavy or medium-weight packs is with the tump line. In tump line carrying the pack is supported by a broad band of leather passed across the head--high up on the forehead--thus throwing the weight upon the strong muscles of the neck, with no shoulder straps or other support. Canadian voyageurs, Hudson's Bay Company packers and Indians use the tump line to the exclusion of all shoulder-carrying devices. Indeed, by no other method would it be possible for them to transport upon their backs through a rough country the heavy burdens which they are called upon to carry. Experienced packers with the tump line will sometimes portage loads of upwards of four hundred pounds. In tests of skill I have seen a man carry in a single load the contents of three barrels of flour--588 pounds. The tump line consists of a broad piece of leather some eighteen or twenty inches in length (known as the head strap or headpiece), with a leather thong usually about seven feet in length attached to each end, the total length from the tip end of one thong to the tip end of the other thong averaging about sixteen feet. Sometimes the two thongs are sewn to the headpiece, and again the line is a single strip of leather, broadened in the center to form the headpiece. The best tump lines, however, have the head strap as a separate piece with a buckle at each end by which the thongs are attached. This arrangement admits of adjustment, if necessary, to suit the individual after the pack has been made up. There is a knack in tump line carrying, but the following directions for making up various packs will give the novice sufficient insight, with a little experience, to enable him to acquire the art. When the pack is to be made up wholly of bags, lay the tump line on the ground with the thongs parallel to each other and from sixteen to twenty inches apart, depending upon the length of the bags to be packed. Place the bags across the thongs, one bag upon another, taking care that the thongs are not so near the ends of the bags as to render them liable to slip off when the pack is tied. Now lift the head strap above the top bag and secure the pack by drawing the loose end of each thong in turn tight around the bags and knotting it a few inches below the buckle that attaches its other end to the headpiece. When a pack cloth is to be used, spread the pack cloth upon the thongs of the tump line, stretched upon the ground in the manner above described, and in the center of the pack cloth lay folded blankets and other articles to be packed, making the pile about two feet long, and taking care that hard substances are in the center, with blankets and soft things outside. Now turn the sides of the pack cloth over the pack and fold over the ends. If a bag is to be included, lay it upon the pack after the cloth has been folded, and secure the whole as in the former case. Another method of making up a pack with the pack cloth, common among Canadian voyageurs, is as follows: Spread the cloth upon the ground, and lay the tump line across it, the headpiece near one end and the thongs a foot from the sides. Fold the sides of the cloth inward over each thong. Now build up the pack in a neat pile about two feet long on the folded cloth, taking care as before that hard things are placed in the middle. Fold the end of the pack cloth with protruding thongs over the pack, take a half turn with the loose end of a thong around the other end near the headpiece, draw it tight until the end is closely puckered, then knot it and draw up the other thong and secure it in like manner. Now bring the free ends of the tump line to center of pack, on top, cross them and pass them around middle of pack and tie. The knack of comfortable tump line carrying once the neck muscles have become developed and hardened to the work is in properly balancing the pack. With the headpiece resting high up upon the forehead the pack should hang with its bottom no lower than the hips. Neither should it be too high. A little experimenting will teach just where the proper balance is to be found. If it is too high, lengthen the line, or if too low shorten it by means of the buckles which attach the thongs to the headpiece. Experienced packers pile additional bags or bundles on top of the pack, the uppermost bundle standing higher than the head. In my own experience I have found that an additional bag thus placed upon the pack and resting against the back of my neck helped balance the load. My favorite bag for this purpose is a forty or fifty pound bag of flour, sometimes surmounted by a lighter bundle which rested partly upon the flour and partly upon my head. The tenderfoot will be quite content to limit his early loads to sixty or seventy pounds, and even then his first portages will not be what he can conscientiously term experiences of unalloyed joy. Gradually, however, he will learn the knack of tump packing and at the end of a couple of weeks of daily experience will find himself able to negotiate a load of one hundred pounds with some ease. All the various types of pack harness are supplied with straps by which the pack is secured and loops through which to slip the arms, the pack being carried from the shoulders instead of the head. With this sort of a pack, as with the tump line, care should be given to the proper adjustment, with the bottom of the pack no lower than the hips. Fifty pounds is about as heavy a load as one can comfortably carry from the shoulders. Outfitters sometimes attach a headpiece to their pack harness--that is to say the harness is provided with both shoulder loops and tump line head strap. The object is to secure a division of weight between shoulders and head. This is a method employed by Eskimos when hunting without dogs. The Eskimo hunter binds his pack with sealskin thongs, and manipulates a single thong in such a manner as not only to secure the pack but to form arm loops and headpiece as well. No matter what type of shoulder harness is employed, a breast strap must be used to fasten together the arm loops in front or the loops will have a continual tendency to slip backward and off the shoulders. This breast strap fastens the packer so securely to his pack that should he slip, as is sometimes likely, the pack will carry him down with it and the probability of injury is multiplied many times. This alone is a very decided objection to all forms of pack harness. If one slips with a tump line, on the contrary, a slight twist of the head will disengage and free one from the pack; and if one is hunting the tump pack may readily be dropped at a moment's notice, should game be sighted. Let me therefore urge the adoption of the tump line for all portage work where fifty pounds or more must be transported. No experienced packer will use harness. Harness packing is indeed indicative of the tenderfoot who has never learned how, unless on long cross country tramps with light loads. But on a canoe trip, if one would make progress, big loads must be resorted to. For instance, if the canoeist has a two mile portage to negotiate and one hundred pounds of duffle he has but two miles to walk if he carries all his duffle at once, but if he makes two loads of it he must walk six miles. With the hundred pound load the portage may easily be covered in one hour. With fifty pound loads three hours will be consumed, for there will be time lost in making up the second pack. Axes, guns and extra paddles may be thrust under the thongs of the tump line, or carried in the hand. Never portage a rifle with a cartridge in the chamber, and never portage a loaded shotgun. To disregard this advice will be to take an unnecessary and foolhardy risk. Save in a rather stiff breeze, one man can carry a canoe weighing less than one hundred pounds nearly as easily as two can carry it. There is one best way of doing everything, and the best and most practical way to carry a canoe is the Indian's way. Tie one end of a stout string or thong securely to the middle thwart close to the gunwale, and the other end to the same thwart close to the opposite gunwale with the string stretched taut from end to end of the thwart and on top of it. Slip the blades of two paddles, lying side by side, under the string, the paddle handles lying on the forward thwart. With the handles as close together as they will lie, bind them with a piece of rope or thong to the center of the forward thwart. Spread the blades upon the middle thwart sufficiently wide apart to admit your head between them. Take a position on the left side of the canoe facing the stern. Just forward of the middle thwart grasp the gunwale on the opposite or right side of the canoe in your left hand and the gunwale on the near or left side in your right hand, and, lifting the canoe over your head, let the flat side of the paddles directly forward of the middle thwart rest upon the shoulders, your head between them. It will be found that though you faced the stern in lifting the canoe you are now facing the bow, and with the bow slightly elevated the canoe can be carried with ease and a view of the trail ahead will not be shut out. Should the flat paddle blades resting upon the shoulders be found uncomfortable, as they doubtless will at the end of the first two or three hundred yards, a Pontiac shirt or sweater will serve as a protecting pad. Outfitters offer for sale yokes, pneumatic pads and contrivances of various sorts as protections for the shoulders, but these contrivances elevate the canoe from two to four inches above the shoulders and this increases the difficulty of steadying it on rough trail. The sweater or Pontiac shirt eases the cutting effect of the paddles just as well as any of the special portaging pads, and the canoe can be handled more easily with it. Besides it makes one less thing to look after. In a strong breeze it is often difficult for one man to handle a canoe, for the wind striking it on the side will turn the portager around and he will find it impossible to keep his course in spite of his best efforts. If the portage is a short one--two or three hundred yards--the canoe may be carried very well, one man with the bow the other with the stern upon a shoulder, the canoe on its side with the bottom next the portagers' heads, that they may easily grasp the gunwale in one hand and steady the canoe with the other. This position will soon be found exceedingly tiresome, and on portages exceeding two or three hundred yards the paddles should be arranged with the blades on the after thwart and the handles lashed to the center of the middle thwart. With this arrangement one man carries exactly as when portaging the canoe alone, save that he stands under the canoe just forward of the after thwart instead of the middle thwart, while the other man carries the bow upon one shoulder. This is the easiest method of two-man portaging of which I know. Many odds and ends may be tucked in the canoe on the portage--fishing rods, for example, in cases, with one end stuck in the bow and the other end tied to the forward thwart. Should a canvas canoe become punctured it may be repaired by one of the following methods: If a stick of canoe cement is in the outfit, heat the cement with a match and smear it over the puncture. Should the outfit contain a canoe repair kit, cut a patch of canvas somewhat larger than the puncture, apply a coat of white lead to the puncture and over a marginal space as large as the canvas patch, press the patch firmly and evenly upon the white lead and tack it down with copper tacks. To this apply calor, and when dry complete the repairs with a coat of varnish. Should marine glue be used, lay a sheet of it over the puncture, heat the bottom of a cup or some other smooth metal utensil and rub it over the glue until the glue melts sufficiently to fill the puncture. In a region where spruce gum can be had, melt a quantity of gum in a frying pan with sufficient grease to take from the gum its brittle quality when cold. While hot pour the gum upon the rupture, letting it run well into the opening and smearing it smoothly over the outside. "Peterborough" canoes are also easily repaired with marine glue or gum. In loading the canoe place the heavier bags in the bottom and middle of the canoe, taking care so to distribute the weight that when fully loaded the canoe will lie on an even keel. Keep the load always as low down as possible. Every bag rising above the gunwales offers resistance to the wind, and tends to make the load topheavy. When but one man occupies a canoe, however, sufficient weight should be carried forward to counterbalance his weight in the stern. Lash everything fast, particularly in rough water or when running rapids. It does not pay to take chances. With a companion I was once turned over in a rapid in an unexplored, sparsely timbered wilderness several hundred miles from the nearest base of supplies--a Hudson's Bay trading post. Nearly all our food was lost, as well as guns, axes, cooking utensils and many other necessities of travel. The temperature stood close to zero, snow covered the ground and during the greater part of the three weeks occupied in reaching the post we had to dig driftwood from under the snow, and our ingenuity was taxed at times to the utmost in efforts to protect ourselves from the elements and travel with any degree of comfort. Nothing worse than an unpleasant ducking in icy waters would have resulted from our accident had we observed the rule of ordinary caution and lashed our outfit to the thwarts. One end of a rope tied to the forward thwart, the other end threaded through bag handles or pack lashings and secured to the after thwart, will do the trick. A short strap, one end attached to a thwart, the other end supplied with a snap to fasten on rifle or shotgun cases, is a good way to secure the guns and still have them readily accessible. If you would make speed be smart in unloading the canoe and making up your packs on the portage, and equally smart in reloading the canoe. Delays in loading, unloading and making up packs are the chief causes of slow progress. When it is found necessary to "track," give the rear end of the tracking line a turn around the forward thwart, on the land side of the canoe, then pass the end back and secure it to the middle thwart. This distributes the strain between the thwarts. While one man at the farther end of the line tows the canoe, the other man with a pole may walk upon the bank, and keep the canoe clear of snags, if the water is deep. Should the water be shallow it will usually be found necessary for him to wade and guide the bow through open channels. CHAPTER VII TRAVEL WITH SADDLE AND PACK ANIMALS Under this head we shall consider: (1) Saddles and pack equipment; (2) Animals best adapted to pack work; (3) Outfit and provisions and how to pack them; (4) How to throw some practical hitches; (5) Equipment of the traveler who has no pack animal and whose saddle horse is required to transport both rider and equipment. Comfort on the trail depends to a very large degree upon the animals of the outfit. A mean horse is an abomination, and a horse may be mean in many respects. A bucking horse, a horse that shies at stumps and other objects or at every moving thing, or one that is frightened by sudden and unexpected sounds is not only an uncomfortable but unsafe animal to ride upon rugged mountain trails; and a horse that will not stand without hitching, or one that is hard to catch when hobbled and turned loose, will cause no end of trouble. In choosing a horse, then, avoid so far as possible one with these tendencies, and also observe the manner in which he handles his feet. He should not be subject to stumbling. He should be sure-footed, steady and reliable, to qualify him for work on dangerous trails; this is of the first importance. A horse that does not keep his eyes on the trail and select his footing with care is wholly unsuited to mountain work. He should be gunwise. A gunwise horse will not be easily frightened by sudden and unexpected noises. Whether intended for mountain or plains work, the horse should be a good camp animal--that is, one that will not wander far from camp. It is more than aggravating to find upon arising in the morning that your horse has disappeared and one always feels that time consumed in searching for a roving horse is time worse than wasted. Of course this tendency of an animal can be forestalled by picketing him, but a picketed horse unless forage be particularly good will not do well, for it rarely happens in these days of sheep-ravaged ranges that an animal can find sufficient food to meet his requirements within the limited length of a picket rope. Some horses need much persuasion before they can be induced to ford streams, and I have had them lose their nerve and decline the descent of precipitous trails. An animal possessing this trait of timidity is not suited to trail work, for he is likely to cause trouble at a critical moment. Some horses are good foragers, others are not. A poor forager will become leg weary and break down much more quickly than the animal that takes advantage of every opportunity to graze or browse. A horse just in from the open range should be round and full-bellied. This is an indication that he is a good feeder. Generally speaking the chunky horse is the one best adapted to arduous trail work because he usually possesses greater powers of endurance than the longer, lankier type. All of the qualifications above enumerated should be borne in mind in selecting animals, whether for saddle or pack use. And of course the animals should be as sound as possible. One should never start upon a journey with an animal that is lame or has cinch sores or galled back. When mountain trails are to be negotiated a saddle horse weighing from nine hundred to a thousand pounds will be found better adapted to the work than a larger animal. Too large a horse is liable to be clumsy on the trail, while too light a horse will of course tire under a heavy rider. A small horse, as a rule, is better able to forage a living than a large horse, and for this reason stands up better with a moderate load on long, continuous journeys. Ponies weighing from eight hundred to eight hundred and fifty pounds will pack one hundred and fifty pounds easily, and ponies of this size make much better pack animals than larger ones. While for general saddle work I prefer a horse, a mule is surer footed and therefore preferable on precipitous, narrow mountain trails. In the Sierra Madres of Mexico I rode a mule over trails where I would scarcely have trusted a horse. Good saddle mules, however, are scarce. I never saw a really good saddle-broke mule north of Mexico, though they are doubtless to be had. Mules have greater powers of endurance than horses, and for many other reasons are superior as pack animals. The chief objection to a mule is his timidity upon marshy trails. His feet are much smaller than those of a horse, he mires easily, and he is fully aware of the fact. A good mule, nevertheless, is the one best all-around pack animal. Burros are good where forage is scarce, but they are slow. When the burro decides that he has done a day's work he stops, and that is the end of it. He will not consult you, and he will not take your advice. When he fully decides that he will go no farther you may as well unpack and make camp with as good grace as you can muster, and keep your temper. I believe that burros have a well-organized labor union and they will not do one stroke of work beyond the limit prescribed by their organization. But one must sometimes resort to them in desert travel. They will pick their living and thrive on sage brush wastes where other animals would die, and their ability to go long without water is truly remarkable. On rough mountain trails they are even more sure-footed if possible than mules, but like the mule it is difficult to force them over marshes or into rivers when fording is necessary. In horse-raising localities in the West very good horses can be had at anywhere from thirty to seventy-five dollars. The usual rate for horse rental is one dollar to one dollar and a half a day, and it is therefore cheaper, when the journey is to extend to a month or more, to purchase the animals outright and sell them when you are finished with them for what they will bring. Rented animals are generally animals of low value and sometimes not very efficient, and in the course of a month one pays in rental a good share of the value of the horse. The risk is no greater, for if a rented horse is injured while in a traveler's possession, the owner holds him who has rented the animal responsible for the damage. CHAPTER VIII SADDLE AND PACK EQUIPMENT The riding saddle should be a double cinch, horn saddle, with wool-lined skirts and of ample weight to hold its position. My own is a regular stock saddle weighing thirty-five pounds, though for all ordinary use a twenty-five- or thirty-pound saddle will do just as well. I prescribe the horn saddle because of its convenience. One may sling upon it a camera, binoculars or other articles in frequent demand, and when it becomes necessary to lead a pack pony the lead rope may be attached to it. For this latter purpose the horn is indeed indispensable. In the light of personal experience with both single and double cinch saddles, I recommend the latter unhesitatingly, particularly for mountain work. In steep ascents or descents it will not slide, while a single cinch saddle is certain to do so no matter how tightly cinched, and this shifting will sooner or later gall the horse's back. In Mexico the single cinch saddle is almost universally used, but who ever saw a Mexican's horse that was free from saddle sores? The forward cinch should preferably be a hair cinch, though the ordinary webbed sort, both forward and rear, does well enough. The saddle blanket should be a thick, good quality wool blanket. In Arizona Navajo saddle blankets are popular, and they are undoubtedly the best when obtainable. A hair saddle pad or corona, shaped to the animal's back and used in connection with the blanket, is a pretty good insurance against galling, and preferable to the felt pad, for it is cooler. A leather boot for rifle, and saddle bags for toilet articles, note books and odds and ends, bridle, halter rope, a pair of cowboy spurs with large blunt rowels, and a quirt to tickle delinquent pack horses will be needed. The rifle boot has two sling straps. The usual method of carrying it is to insert it between the stirrup leathers on the near side, drop the sling strap at the top of the boot over the saddle pommel and buckle the sling strap at the bottom of the boot into the rear latigo ring. By detaching the latter sling from the boot before buckling it to the ring, the boot may be removed from or attached to the saddle by simply lifting the forward sling strap over the pommel, without unbuckling. In case the sling strap at the top of the boot be placed too far down, it should be shifted higher up and secured to the boot with a leather loop which may be riveted to the boot. [Illustration: METHOD OF SLINGING LOAD ON APAREJO (FIG. 1.) Rope is doubled and loop A thrown over horse's back to off side. N. B.--In this and the following diagrams the pack is represented as spread out flat and viewed from above.] For the pack animals the ordinary cross-tree or sawbuck pack saddle is the most practical pack saddle for all-around use, though the aparejo, used by the army and generally throughout Mexico, is superior to the sawbuck when unwieldy packages of irregular size and shape are to be transported. Such packages must frequently be transported by army trains and they are the rule rather than the exception in Mexico, where freighting throughout wide regions must be done wholly on the backs of animals. [Illustration: (FIG. 2.) Packs are now lifted into place and off packer brings loop A up around off side pack to top of load. Near packer passes end B through loop A and ties ends B and C together with square knot. Balance or "break" the packs and load is ready for hitch.] The aparejo is of Arabian origin, and the Spaniards, who adopted it from the Moors, introduced it into Mexico. In Mexico there are two types of the aparejo in common use. One made usually of the fiber of _henequen_, which is woven into pockets which are stuffed with grass, to form the pads, is used on donkeys in comparatively light packing; in the other type the pad casing is made of Mexican tanned leather instead of _henequen_ matting but also stuffed with grass. This is used in heavier packing with mules, in transporting machinery and supplies to mines and merchandise to inland settlements. The cross-tree or sawbuck, however, is used almost exclusively in the United States by forest rangers, cowboys, prospectors and pack travelers generally, and it is to this type of pack saddle that we shall direct our attention chiefly. It may be interesting to note that this is a very ancient type of pack saddle, of Asiatic origin. It consists of two saddle boards connected near each end--front and rear--by two cross-pieces, the pommel and cantle forming a miniature sawbuck, while the saddle boards are similar in shape to the McClellan saddle tree. This is fitted with breeching, quarter straps, breast strap, latigos and cinch. As in the case of the riding saddle, the sawbuck pack saddle should be supplied with the double cinch. Care should be taken that the saddle fits the animal for which intended. A saddle either too wide or too narrow will be certain to cause a sore back. Each pack saddle should be accompanied by a heavy woolen saddle blanket, which should be folded into three or four thicknesses, for here even greater protection is necessary than with the riding saddle, for the animal is to carry a dead weight. The preferable method of carrying supplies with the sawbuck pack saddle is with kyacks, basket panniers or the _alforjas_, though with sling and lash ropes any sort of a bundle may be slung upon it. When they can be obtained, kyacks of indestructible fiber stand first for preference. These are usually from twenty-two to twenty-four inches wide, seventeen or eighteen inches high and about nine inches deep, and are fitted with heavy leather loops for slinging on the saddle. Unless the horse is a large one, the narrower, or twenty-two inch, should be selected. Basket panniers of similar size are lighter but not so well adapted to hard usage, and are more expensive. The alforjas is constructed of heavy duck and leather, and of the same dimensions as the kyack. They are much cheaper than either panniers or kyacks, and are therefore more commonly used. Any outfitter can supply them. They are slung upon the saddle in the same manner as kyacks. A pair of the type decided upon will be required for each animal. The next requirement is a half-inch lash rope. This should be at least thirty-three, but preferably forty feet in length. In some respects a cotton rope is preferable to one of hemp, though the latter is more commonly used, and regulations prescribe it for army pack trains. A good broad cinch should be provided, fitted with a ring on one end to which is attached the lash or lair rope and a cinch hook on the other end. There should be a pair of hobbles for each animal, and a blind to put upon obstreperous pack animals when slinging and lashing the load. These may be purchased throughout the West at almost any village store. It is well also to carry a bell, which should always be strapped around the neck of one of the horses when the animals are hobbled and turned loose to graze. It will sometimes be necessary to picket one of the animals, and for this purpose fifty or sixty feet of half or five-eighth inch rope will be required. Also sufficient leading rope should be provided for each pack animal, and a halter rope for the saddle horse. A lariat carried upon the saddle pommel will be found useful in a dozen ways, and may be utilized for picketing horses. All horses should be "slick" shod; that is, shod with uncalked shoes. The shoes should be of soft iron, not so light as to render them liable to bend before they are worn out, and they should not extend beyond the hoof at side or rear. Some extra shoes of proper size for each animal, a horseshoer's nippers, rasp, hammer and some nails should be included in the equipment. CHAPTER IX PERSONAL OUTFIT FOR THE SADDLE The outfit recommended in Chapters III and IV in discussing camp and personal equipment for canoe trips is, with the modifications and additions which we shall now consider, equally well adapted to saddle and pack horse travel. As previously stated, our object is to describe methods of packing, rather than to formulate an infallible check list. With this in view an efficient outfit that may be easily packed and transported is outlined, in a general way, and therefore such articles of outfit mentioned in previous chapters as are obviously useful only in canoe travel will not be referred to in this connection. The wedge, the Hudson Bay, the forest ranger and the lean-to tent are all good models for pack animal travel, and easily erected. Whichever type is chosen, if made of any one of the light-weight materials described, will be found both satisfactory and easily packed. For example, a forest ranger's tent eight feet deep and eight feet wide weighs less than four pounds, while a lean-to with approximately the same floor space weighs about three pounds. In the more arid regions of the West one rarely finds it necessary to pitch a tent, though it is handy to have one along and well worth carrying, particularly should it be desired to remain more than one night at any point. During the summer, save in high altitudes, one pair of light woolen blankets will be found ample bedding. For all probable conditions of weather, however, in tent or in the open, the sleeping bag is the most convenient and at the same time the most comfortable camp bed yet devised, and it is so easily carried on the pack horse that I advise its adoption. One made of close-woven waterproofed canvas is the most thoroughly practical bag for general use. This should be lined with two pairs of light blankets, that four thicknesses of blanket may be available for covering. The blankets should be so arranged that they may be taken out and the bag turned for airing. One may adapt such a bag to the temperature, using as many or as few thicknesses of blanket as desired, depending upon the number with which the bag is lined. I recently saw a bag lined with four thicknesses of llama wool duffel (providing two thicknesses for cover) that weighed but eight pounds and furnished ample protection for any weather down to a zero temperature. Pack cloths or light tarpaulins 6 × 7 feet, used to cover and protect the packs, will be needed for each pack animal, and at night the bed may be spread upon them. Saddle bags make excellent pillows. In traveling in an arid region canteens are a necessity. There should be one large one for each traveler to be carried on the pack horse, and a small one swung upon the saddle horn will be found convenient for ready use. A folding water bucket of waterproofed canvas should also be included in the outfit. The aluminum reflecting baker which has been described is far preferable to the Dutch oven--a heavy iron kettle with iron cover--not only because it weighs far less and is much more easily packed, but because it is more practical. Westerners are wedded to the Dutch oven, and this reference is merely made as a suggestion in case the question of choice between the two should arise. If kyacks or alforjas are used the large water-proofed canvas duffle bags and food bags will not be required. The smaller balloon silk or musline food bags, however, will be found fully as convenient in packing in the pack horse kyack as in the canvas bags on the canoe trip. Each rider should be provided with either a saddle slicker or a poncho, which when not in use may be rolled and secured to the saddle directly behind the seat by means of tie strings attached to the saddle. A poncho is preferable to a slicker, because of the many uses to which it may be put. On saddle journeys in cold, windy weather a wind-proof canvas coat or a large, roomy buckskin shirt is a comfort. If a buckskin shirt is adapted, have it made plain without fringe or frill. Wilderness dwellers formerly fringed their buckskin shirts, not alone for ornament, but to facilitate the drying of the garment when wet. In the fringed shirt water, instead of settling around the bottom of the shirt, around the yoke and the seams of the sleeve, will drain to the fringe which the wind quickly dries. In our case, however, the poncho will protect the shirt from a wetting. In summer, in an arid or desert region of the Southwest, athletic summer underwear will be found entirely satisfactory. Whether this or light wool is to be worn, however, will depend entirely upon the season and the region to be visited. In very warm weather a close-woven, good quality khaki outer shirt is both comfortable and practical; but on chilly autumn days a flannel shirt should take its place--gray, brown, blue--the color does not matter so long as it does not crock. It is my custom to have one khaki and one flannel shirt in my outfit. Trousers should be of heavy khaki, medium weight moleskin, or other strong close-woven material. Full-length trousers, with reinforced seat, are preferable in some respects to riding breeches, and may be worn with the regulation United States cavalry puttee leggings with shoes. Some riders prefer top boots, such as Arizona cowboys wear, and but for their high heels which make walking uncomfortable they would be admirable. High-laced, medium-weight mountaineering shoes will eliminate the necessity of puttees, and many prefer them to low-laced shoes and puttees. In snowy, cold weather I have found heavy German socks and ordinary shoes, large enough to avoid the possibility of pinching the feet, admirable footwear for the saddle. But whatever is decided upon, extra trousers, extra leggings and extra shoes are superfluous. One pair of each--the pair worn--is sufficient. The hat should be of the Western style, with broad brim, and of the best grade. The brims of the cheaper ones are sure to sag after a little wear and exposure to a shower or two. A good reliable hat may be had for five dollars that will stand several years of hard wear and may be renovated when soiled, assuming again the freshness of a new hat. I have one for which I paid fourteen pesos in Monterey, Mexico, in 1907. I have worn It pretty steadily since in camp and on the trail. It has been twice renovated, and to-day so nearly resembles a new hat that I am not ashamed to wear it about town. Heavy gauntlet buckskin gloves are a necessary protection, not only against cold in frosty weather, but against brush in summer. The regulation United States cavalry glove is the best that I have discovered for all-around hard usage, and will not harden after a wetting. The saddle rifle should be short and light--not over twenty-four-inch barrel, and not above seven pounds in weight. A revolver is never needed, though for target practice one offers a means of amusement. Unless going into permanent camp or into an isolated region, it will hardly be found necessary to start out with more than one week's provisions. Before these are consumed settlements will be reached, where fresh supplies may be purchased. It is well to have along a few cans of baked beans and corned or roast beef, that a hasty meal may be prepared when time does not allow a sufficient halt to permit the preparation of uncooked foods. Two or three dozen lemons should also be provided, particularly in summer, and in more or less arid regions. Provisions and general outfit should be neatly packed in small bags, and evenly distributed in the kyacks. CHAPTER X ADJUSTING THE PACK In saddling up, be sure that the saddle blanket is folded large enough to protect the horse's sides from the pack, when the pack is slung into place. Otherwise the kyacks or alforjas will be liable with constant chafing when the horse is in motion to cause sores. Not only where the saddle rests upon the blanket but where the pack rests upon the horse's sides there should be sufficient thicknesses of blanket to overcome friction, and this demands a greater thickness than under the riding saddle, for the pack load is a dead load. After the pack saddle is thrown into place, and before cinching it, ease the blanket by pulling it up slightly under the center of the saddle--along the backbone of the animal. This will overcome the tendency of the blanket to draw down and bind the horse's back too tightly when the saddle is cinched and the pack in place. When packing the kyacks or alforjas particular care should be taken to have the pair for each horse evenly balanced as to weight. If the load swung on one side of the horse is heavier than that on the opposite side, there will be a continual drawing down of the pack saddle on the heavier side, resulting almost certainly in injury to the animal. Inattention or willful carelessness on the part of packers in balancing the pack is five times out of six the cause which leads to sore-backed pack animals. If two or more pack animals are used, let such provisions and utensils as are in constant use and will be needed at once by the cook, be packed on one animal. Hobbles and bell should also be carried on this animal. This will be the first animal unpacked, and while the other animals are being unpacked the cook may get busy, and the packer will have hobbles and bell at hand to immediately attach to the animals. Attached to each end of the kyacks and alforjas is a leathern loop or sling strap. By means of these loops kyacks and alforjas are hung to the saddle, one loop fitting over the forward, the other over the rear cruz, or fork. The kyacks should be so adjusted as to hang evenly one with the other. That is to say, one kyack should hang no lower upon the animal's side than the other, and both should hang as high as possible. The kyacks in place, hobbles, bell, and such odds and ends as it may not be convenient to pack in the kyack, may be laid on the center between the crosstrees and on top of the kyack, and over all smoothly folded blankets, sleeping bags, or tent, care being exercised to keep the pack as low and smooth as possible. Everything carefully placed and adjusted, cover the pack with the pack cloth or tarpaulin, folded to proper size to protect the whole pack, but with no loose ends extending beyond it to catch upon brush or other obstructions. If inconvenient to include within the pack, the cooking outfit in its canvas case may be lashed to the top of pack after the final hitch has been tied. All is ready now for the hitch that is to bind the pack into place. Frequently the traveler is not provided with either kyacks or alforjas, and it becomes necessary to pack the load without the convenience of these receptacles. Before considering the hitches, therefore, let us describe methods of slinging the load in such cases upon the crosstree saddle. The load which is to be slung from the crosstree should be arranged in two compact packages of equal weight, one for each side of the animal. Boxes may be used, but large, strong sacks are preferable. The large canvas duffle bags, described in the chapter on canoe outfitting, are well adapted to the purpose. [Illustration: SLING FOR PACKING ON CROSSTREE SADDLE A is forward cruz, B rear cruz of saddle. CC are loops which support packages. D and E are ends or hauling parts of rope.] Take the sling rope, and, standing on the near side, throw one end over the horse's neck just forward of the saddle. Now at about the middle of the rope form two half hitches, or a clove hitch, on the forward cruz or fork of the saddle. With the free end of the rope on the near side form a half hitch on the rear cruz, allowing sufficient loop between the forward and rear cruz to receive the side pack, with the free end of the rope falling under the loop. Now go to the off side and arrange the rope on that side in similar manner. Lift the offside pack into position with its forward end even with the forward fork, lifting the pack well up to the forks. Hold the pack in position with the palm of the right hand against the center of the pack, and with the left hand pass the loop along the lower side of the pack, drawing in the slack with the free end of the rope, which passes around the rear fork and under the center of the pack. With the pack drawn snugly in position, take a turn with the free end of the rope around the rope along the side of the pack. This will hold the pack in position. Tie a bowline knot in the end of rope, and at proper length for the bowline loop to reach the center and top of pack. Place loop where it may be easily reached from the near side. Now pass to the near side and sling the near pack in exactly similar manner, save that no bowline knot is to be formed. Reach up and slip the end of the near rope, which you are holding, through the bowline loop, draw tight and tie. The following is another method of slinging packs, frequently used by forest rangers: Throw the rope across the horse directly in front of the saddle, and as in the previous method form two half hitches with the rope at its middle on the front fork, but in this case permitting the ends to lie on the ground on either side the horse. Place the near pack in position and against the lower rope, and holding it with one hand, bring the rope up and over the pack with the other hand and throw a half hitch around the forward fork, keeping the free end of the rope under. Draw the rope taut, lifting the pack well up. Pass the running rope back and throw a half hitch around the rear fork, the loose or running end of the rope on the under side, as when forming the half hitch on the front fork. Now pass the running rope from under over the pack at the rear, throw a half hitch over the rear fork, take up all slack, bring the loose end under and around the two ropes at their intersection between pack and rear fork, and tie securely. The pack on off side is slung in similar manner. Most mules, and not infrequently horses as well, have a constitutional dislike to receiving the pack. If your pack animal displays any such tendency adjust the blind over his eyes and let it remain there until the hitch is thrown and the load tightened and secured. The blind is usually an effective quieter. CHAPTER XI SOME PRACTICAL HITCHES Whether the load is made up with kyacks, alforjas, or separate packs slung to the crosstree saddle as described in the preceding chapter it must be secured in place. For this purpose various hitches are employed by packers, each hitch well adapted to the particular conditions which evolved it. Our description will be confined to the following six hitches, which furnish ample variety to suit the exigencies of ordinary circumstances: (1) The crosstree or squaw hitch, which is the father of all hitches because from it the diamond, the double diamond and all pack-train hitches in present-day use were evolved. (2) A diamond hitch, adapted to the crosstree pack saddle. This is a form of single diamond. (3) The United States army diamond particularly adapted for use with the aparejo. The true double diamond is a hitch rarely called for save in army work or freighting pack trains, and will therefore be omitted. There are several so-called double diamonds that might be described, but these near-double diamonds possess little or no advantage over the single diamond, and we shall pass them over as they are scarcely resorted to in ordinary pack work. (4) The one-man or lifting hitch. (5) The stirrup hitch, to be used when the packer has rope but no cinch. (6) The saddle hitch, employed in slinging loads upon an ordinary riding saddle. (7) The hitch for packing a sick or injured man. THE CROSSTREE HITCH This hitch was introduced into the Northwest by the early fur traders and adopted by the Indians. Among Indians, women are the laborers, and the crosstree hitch being the hitch almost exclusively employed by the squaws was presently dubbed by white men the "squaw hitch." It is a hitch very generally used by prospectors, and for this reason is known in some localities as the "prospector's hitch." In other sections of the West, where sheep herders commonly use it, it is locally called the "sheep herder's hitch." It is a hitch easily thrown by one man, holds well, and is therefore a favorite. [Illustration: SQUAW OR CROSSTREE HITCH (FIG. 1.) Rope engaged on cinch hook and bight of rope running from rear forward under standing rope.] [Illustration: (FIG. 2.) Loop of bight enlarged, reversed and passed around bottom and lower corners of off side pack.] [Illustration: (FIG. 3.) Hitch formed and ready to tighten. 1. Standing rope. 2. Running rope. 3. Rear rope--off side. 4. Front rope--off side. 5. Front rope--near side. 6. Rear rope--near side. 7. Marker.] With lash rope attached to cinch, take a position on the near side of the animal facing the pack. Throw the cinch over the top and center of pack in such manner as to be easily reached under the horse's belly. Pick up cinch and engage the rope from in out upon the hook. Draw up slack, taking care that the cinch rests properly upon the horse's belly. Grasp the running and standing rope in left hand above the hook, to hold slack, and with the right hand double the running rope and thrust the doubled portion under the standing rope from rear forward in a bight, at top of pack. Enlarge the loop of the bight by drawing through enough slack rope to make the loop of sufficient size to be passed over and around the off side kyack or pack. Step to off side, turn loop over, and engage it around the ends and bottom of kyack, from front to rear. Return to near side, and pass the loose end of running rope around the forward end, bottom and finally rear end of kyack. Draw the rope end, from above down, over and under the standing rear and running ropes, at the top and center of the load, and the hitch is ready to tighten. To tighten the hitch, grasp the running rope a little above the cinch hook, and pull with all your strength, taking up every inch of slack possible. Retain this slack by holding the standing and running rope together with left hand, while with the right hand you reach to top of load and pull up slack where running rope passes under standing rope. Go to off side and draw in all slack, following the rope around off side pack. Retaining slack, return to near side, and still following rope and taking up slack around front to rear of near side pack, grasp end of rope, already engaged as directed over and under standing rear and running rope, pull hard, bracing a foot against pack, and tie. Two men, one on each side of the horse, can, of course, throw the hitch and tighten the load much more quickly than one. Tightening the load is just as important a feature of packing as evenly balancing the packs. The result of an improperly tightened load will pretty certainly be a sore-backed horse. THE CROSSTREE DIAMOND HITCH [Illustration: (FIG. 1.) A turn is here taken around standing rope with loop of bight of running rope thrust under standing rope from rear to front, as in Fig. 1, illustrating Squaw Hitch.] Take position on the near side of horse, as when forming the crosstree hitch, and throw cinch over horse, engaging it on hook and adjusting it in exactly similar manner. Take in slack and retain it by grasping the standing and running ropes in left hand. Double running rope and thrust doubled portion under standing rope in a bight, from rear forward at top and center of load. Take up all slack. Enlarge loop of bight by drawing through enough running rope to form a diamond of sufficient size to hold top of load. Now bring center of loop over and under standing rope, from rear forward, thus giving rope at each side of loop a complete turn around standing rope. Throw the disengaged portion of running rope to off side of horse, and passing to the off side, bringing the rope down along rear, bottom, and up front of kyack, thrust loose rope end up through loop at top of pack. Take in slack and return to near side of horse. Engage running rope around front, bottom and rear end of near side kyack or pack, and thrust rope end over and under standing rope opposite center of loop. Take up slack and load in ready to tighten. [Illustration: CROSSTREE DIAMOND HITCH (FIG. 2.) Hitch formed ready to tighten.] Tighten load by grasping running rope above hook and drawing as tight as possible. Hold slack with left hand, gripping running and standing rope, and take up slack at loop with right hand. Pass to off side and take up slack and tighten rear to front around kyack. Pass to near side, tightening front to rear; finally, bracing a foot against the load pull on loose end, and retaining all slack make final tie. The above described "diamond" hitch is not the true diamond employed by government pack trains where the aparejo is used, but it is a diamond evolved from the crosstree hitch, and is particularly well adapted to the crosstree or sawbuck pack saddle, is easily formed, and holds the load securely, which is the ultimate object of all hitches. THE UNITED STATES ARMY DIAMOND HITCH The single diamond hitch employed by army packers is the ideal hitch for securing a load upon an aparejo. This is a two-man hitch, though an expert can throw it alone. One packer takes his position on the off side of the animal, while the other with the coiled lash rope, cinch attached, remains on the near side. The near packer, retaining the cinch, throws the coiled rope over the horse's haunch, to rear. The off packer picks up end of rope, and receiving the hook end of cinch, passed to him under horse's belly by near packer, holds it together with end of rope in his left hand, and stands erect. [Illustration: UNITED STATES ARMY DIAMOND HITCH Figures represent successive stages in formation. Near side towards right in each case. Line PP in Fig. 1 represents horse's back. AA (Fig. 3) standing part of rope, and A´ (Fig. 2) the running rope. FIG. 1.] [Illustration: FIG. 2.] [Illustration: FIG. 3.] [Illustration: FIG. 4.] [Illustration: FIG. 5.] [Illustration: FIG. 6.] The near packer, taking a position at the horse's neck, grasps the rope about six feet from cinch, and with an upward and backward motion, drops it between the two packs, one slung on either side of the aparejo. Still grasping the rope in his right hand just forward of the packs at the top, he pulls forward between the packs sufficient running rope to permit him to bring his hand down to his side. Retaining the rope in his right hand he now reaches up with his left hand, and with back of hand up and thumb under grasps running rope and draws sufficient rope forward to permit the left hand grasping the rope to come down to his side, arm's length. With the right elbow crooked the right hand, still holding the rope, is brought up about on a level with the chin, and the left hand, also retaining its hold on the rope, thumb down, is raised to hollow of the right arm, with loop of rope between the hands lying outside the right arm. Now by a single swinging motion with both hands the rope in the right hand, called the "standing rope," is thrown over the center of pack to the off packer who stands ready to receive it; and the rope held in the left hand, called the "running rope," over the horse's neck, forward of the pack. The off packer, still standing with cinch hook and end of rope in left hand, with his right hand grasps the standing rope as it comes over as high up as he can conveniently reach, draws it down, and holding the cinch hook in proper position below the aparejo draws down the standing rope and engages it upon the hook from in out. The near packer now draws forward between the packs about six feet more rope, which he throws to the rear of the near side pack. This rope is now called the "rear" rope. He next grasps the running rope at the horse's neck, and with the off packer's assistance releases that portion of the running rope lying between the packs forward of the standing rope, and brings it to the center of pack on near side, next to and just back of the standing rope. He now slips his right hand down the rope to a point half way between pack and aparejo boot, and with the left hand reaches from forward between standing rope and aparejo and grasps the rope just above the right hand. Both hands are now slipped down the rope, and with the same motion drawn apart, one on each side of standing rope (under which the rope being manipulated passes) to the cinches. With the hands about ten inches apart, the section of rope between them, which is held in a horizontal position, is jammed down between the two cinches under the aparejo. The off packer, holding the running rope with his right hand above the hook, places the left hand holding end of rope on top of running rope between his right hand and the hook, and with thumb under running rope grasps both ropes and slips his hands up on running rope, bringing it to center of load. He now draws the end of the rope, held by left hand, forward until a foot or so falls upon the near side of the horse's neck. The hitch is now formed, ready to tighten. To tighten, the near packer with his left palm passing the side and center of the pack grasps the running rope at the rear of the standing rope, at the same time bringing the running rope between the thumb and index finger of the left hand, which he is using as a brace. In this position he is prepared to hold slack as it is given him by the off packer. The off packer grasps the running rope close down to the hook, and, bracing himself with a knee against the aparejo boot, pulls with all his might, taking two or more pulls, if necessary, and giving slack to near packer, until no more slack can be taken on standing rope. He now steps smartly to rear and throws the top rope forward of the pack. The top rope is the rope leading up from the rear corner of the aparejo boot on near side to the side and center of off side pack. After it is thrown forward it is called the "front" rope. He now prepares to receive slack from near packer by grasping the rear rope where it lies between the packs. The near packer, who has been receiving the slack given him by the off packer, carries his right hand, with which he holds the slack at rear of standing rope, to lower side of pack toward the aparejo, and reaches under standing rope, with left hand grasps rope above right hand, drawing it forward under standing rope, and employing both hands jams it upward in a bight between standing rope and pack. Care should be taken during this operation to retain all slack. The near packer now engages around front boot of aparejo the free portion of the running rope below the bight just formed. Holding slack with left hand, he grasps the rope to rear of cinch in right hand; receiving slack from left hand he brings rope to rear of aparejo boot, and with both hands carries rope smartly to upper corner of side pack, always retaining slack. The off packer receives slack, pulling it in quickly hand over hand, the near packer retaining his hold until the off packer has the rope taut. The near packer now takes a position at the forward end of load, facing the rear, and grasps end of rope prepared to take slack from off packer. The off packer, after receiving slack from near packer as described takes a turn of the rope around each hand, holding every inch of slack, steps to the rear, keeping in line with the horse's body, and then facing forward throws his full weight back upon the rope. Retaining the slack with his left hand, with his right hand he brings the free portion of running rope under and around the aparejo boot, from rear to front, passes forward of rope, and facing the rear and grasping rope, right hand above the left, brings it smartly to upper corner of pack. The near packer, holding end of rope, immediately draws in slack until he has about six feet of free rope, which he throws over center of load to off side, and then drawing in all remaining slack takes a turn of rope around each hand and throws his weight upon it, and the off packer releases his hold. Holding the slack with the left hand, the near packer releases his right hand and with it engages the free or running portion of rope under and around the aparejo boot to rear of load, while the off packer steps to rear of load, takes end of rope, and while he draws in all slack, neatly coils rope, holding coil in right hand at lower side of pack, and, with palm of left hand braced against center of load, receives slack from near packer. Grasping in his left hand the taut rope above the coils, and lifting it sufficiently above the load to admit the coiled rope under it, he swings the coils with his right hand from rear to front to top of load and brings the standing rope held in his left hand down on top of the coils to hold them. He now takes a loop of the rope, forces it between standing rope and pack, in a bight, and takes a turn of the loop around standing and running rope to secure it, first joining the loop well up, and the hitch is tightened. THE ONE-MAN OR LIFTING HITCH This is a pretty good hitch sometimes where kyacks are not used and an irregular pack is swung upon the crosstree. While it holds the pack very securely to the animal's back, its tendency is to lift the corners that might cause friction upon the horse's sides. Standing on the near side of the horse, throw cinch over the horse's back, pick up cinch and engage rope upon cinch hook, from in out, as in previous hitches. Take up slack, bring running rope up side of pack, double and thrust loop or bight under standing rope from rear forward at top of pack, to hold slack. Throw all loose rope to off side, and pass around to off side yourself. [Illustration: (FIG. 1.) A--Cinch D--Running rope C--Standing rope E--Front rope B--Cinch hook F--Marker] [Illustration: LIFTING HITCH (FIG. 2.) Grasp loop A in left hand and with right jam rope C C along and under rope B (where latter passes beneath corner of pack) to D, as shown in Fig. 3.] [Illustration: (FIG. 3.) Off side of hitch completed.] [Illustration: LIFTING HITCH (FIG. 4.) Hitch formed ready to tighten.] Draw loose end of running rope forward and from under standing rope at top of pack. The effect of operations thus far is this: The running rope passes up the near side, from hook and to top of load and passes under standing rope, which will serve effectually in final tightening of cinch to hold slack. Pass end of running rope over and under the forward end of off pack and backward under standing rope and pack. Now bring the rope forward over side of pack, double, and thrust the doubled portion over and under forward rope in a bight. With left hand grasp double of rope at bight just to rear of forward rope where it passes over and under forward rope, and with right hand slip running rope down and just to rear of standing rope. Take up slack. By pulling hard upon loose end of running rope the ends of pack will be lifted slightly. Throw loose end over horse to near side, and across middle of load. Pass to near side and manipulate rope as on off side. Tighten load. Secure the hitch by bringing loose end of rope over and under forward running and standing ropes, and tie. STIRRUP HITCH This hitch is useful where the packer has lash rope but no cinch, and may be employed on sawbuck saddle, aparejo, or where the load is hung upon an ordinary riding saddle. It is a two-man hitch, though one man may manipulate it. [Illustration: (FIG. 1.) Rope is thrown across load with equal portion falling on each side. Loop A is formed on top of load, and the ends BB are passed through it to form large loops C and D.] [Illustration: STIRRUP HITCH (FIG. 2.) Loops C and D are passed under horse's belly and seized by packers on opposite sides. Each packer then draws end of rope which he is holding through loop which has been passed to him. Off packer forms bowline knot, E, and near packer passes his end of rope through this. Hitch is now ready to tighten.] Pass the rope over the load, with an equal division of rope on either side. Form a loop at center and top of load. Each packer will now place a foot upon the rope, where it falls from loop to ground, and pass his end of rope through loop from above down and draw through slack rope. This forms a loop on either side in which the foot rests. Each packer will now bring forward and under the horse's belly the loop in which his foot rests, passing the loop to the other packer at the same time disengaging his foot, and will pass the loose end of rope which he holds through the loop which he receives. The ropes on top of pack will now be spread to properly cover and secure the pack, and all slack taken. The off side packer now forms a bowline knot in the loose end of his rope, the near side packer passes his loose end through the bowline loop. To tighten the load the off side packer gives slack, while the near side packer braces and draws in on loose end of rope, tying at bowline loop to secure load. THE SADDLE HITCH [Illustration: SADDLE HITCH With rope arranged as shown throw deer across saddle, enlarge loops A and B around haunches and neck. Bring ends C and D together, form bowline knot on end D, pass end C through it and tighten.] This is a particularly useful hitch when it becomes necessary to sling a deer to a riding saddle for transportation to camp. Throw the lash rope across the saddle seat, an equal division of rope falling to either side. Double the rope where it crosses the cinch ring and thrust it through the cinch ring in a loop, drawing through enough loose rope to form a good-sized loop. This should be done on both sides. Lay the deer across saddle, with head hanging on one side and haunches on the other side, slip loop on one side over the deer's head, and the loop on the other side over its haunches. Take in all slack. Form a bowline loop on end of off side rope, and lay it on top of load. This loop should be so adjusted as to reach the middle of the top of load. Passing to near side, thread loose end of near side rope through the bowline loop. Tighten load by pulling on loose end, and tie. HOW TO PACK A SICK OR INJURED MAN Sometimes it occurs that a member of a party is so injured or becomes so ill as to be helpless, and the problem of transporting him upon horseback presents itself. This may be done in the following manner upon a crosstree or sawbuck saddle: Cut two straight sticks three feet long and about three inches in diameter. Fit one on either side of saddle snug against the forks. Lash securely to forks forward and rear, with ends of sticks protruding an equal distance forward of and back of forward and rear forks. It may be well to cut shallow notches in the sticks where they rest against the forks. This will preclude lateral motion. Cut two sticks two feet long and three inches in diameter. Place one in front and one in rear at right angles to and across top of sticks already in position. These cross-pieces are to be lashed to position one about two inches from forward ends, the other two inches from rear ends of lengthwise sticks. Before lashing them into position cut notches to receive lash ropes at points of intersection, that any tendency to slip or work loose may be overcome. Now cut two poles six feet long and three inches in diameter. Spread a pack cloth upon the ground, and presuming the pack cloth is six feet wide, place a pole on each outer end of it. Roll poles, with pack cloth, to center until there is a width of twenty inches between the outer edges of poles. In this position lace cloth to each pole, or if horseshoe or other nails are handy, nail it to poles. Should the cloth be wider than length of poles, fold in a margin on each end, before rolling. Place litter on cross-pieces, the flat of canvas on top. Notch, and secure poles of stretcher at front and rear to cross-pieces. Lash down litter by means of the stirrup hitch. CHAPTER XII TRAVELING WITHOUT A PACK HORSE The man who travels without a pack horse, and carries his full equipment and provision supply upon his saddle must, of necessity, deny himself many things that under ordinary circumstances are deemed essentials. He must indeed travel light, and unless he is well inured to roughing it will be content to confine his activities to the warmer and less inclement months. The food supply is the first consideration, but nowadays one is certain to come every three or four days at the outside upon some point where fresh supplies may be purchased. Therefore, twelve to fifteen pounds of provisions, carefully selected from the ration already suggested, will meet the utmost needs. In selecting the ration it is well to eliminate all luxuries. It may also be said that canned goods are too heavy, where one is to pack more than a two-days' supply, and bacon should be made the basis of the meat diet. But then we are considering methods of packing and carrying, rather than check lists. Limiting the quantity to fifteen pounds for a five-days' trip--and this is ample with judicious selection--the individual will be left to decide his ration for himself. Saddle bags will be found indispensable and in them will be ample room to carry the limited toilet articles required, a hand towel, one change of light woolen or summer underwear, matches, tobacco and rifle cartridges. The best shelter is a lean-to tent, made of extra light cloth. This should be about seven feet long, four and one-half feet high and four feet deep. Such a tent will weigh about three pounds. The cooking outfit will be limited to essentials. If it can be had an aluminum army or "Preston" mess kit, either of which weighs about two pounds, a sheath knife with broad blade, and a pint cup, will fill all requirements. If the mess kit cannot be procured, a small frying pan with folding handle, an aluminum or enamel plate and a dessert spoon with sheath knife, and a pint cup, will do nearly as well. In this latter case coffee may be made in the cup. A small canteen, which may be hung upon the saddle horn, should also be provided. A small belt axe that weighs about two pounds, with sheath, a lariat and a few feet of rope will be required. A single blanket or a pair of light blankets not exceeding five pounds in weight will constitute the only bedding that can be conveniently carried. To pack the outfit spread tent flat upon the ground, turning the triangular ends in to lie flat. Fold the tent once, end for end. This will make a rectangular pack cloth three and one-half feet long and about five and one-half feet wide. Fold your blanket to a size a little smaller than tent and spread it flat upon the tent. Arrange your provision packages on the blanket a foot or so from one end and with a margin of a foot or more on either side. Fold the end of blanket and tent up and over the packages and roll up blanket and tent together with a band close to the knob in center to hold the packages in place and prevent their working down toward ends of roll. The provisions should be thoroughly protected in bags, as previously suggested, in order that they may not soil the blanket. Place the roll directly behind saddle seat with the bulge caused by the provision bulk resting against saddle seat, the end of roll falling on either side, and tie in position by means of leather tie strings attached to saddle on each side. The tie should be made in both cases just below the bulge in roll. The tent will protect blanket and provisions, and if judgment has been used in the selection and arrangement of provisions the bulk should not be unduly or inconveniently large. The cooking kit, if enclosed in a canvas case with handle, may be lashed to roll by passing lash string through the handle and over the top and around the kit. A strap above the upper loop of the rifle boot and through the belt loop on the axe scabbard will hold the axe and another buckled around the rifle boot and lower end of handle will prevent a slapping motion of the handle. The poncho, neatly rolled, may be carried on the pommel, the center of the roll pressed against the back of the horn, the ends drawn down and forward of the pommel on either side and secured with the leathern tie strings attached to the saddle. When not in use sweater or Pontiac shirt may be carried with the poncho. The horse may be picketed with the lariat. Hobbles may be made as cowboys make them from rope. A strand unraveled from half-inch rope brought once around one leg, twisted rather tightly, the ends brought around the other leg and secured in the twist between the legs, makes a good hobble. Always fasten picket rope or hobble below the fetlock just above the hoof--_never_ above the fetlock. The outfit here outlined will weigh, including rifle and a reasonable amount of ammunition, from forty to forty-five pounds at the utmost, and one may be very comfortable with it. If game and fish can be caught and are to be depended upon, the provisions may be cut down to a little flour, bacon, coffee and sugar, and the traveler may tarry in the wilderness for a considerable time. One may leave out the tent, and in a warm climate even the blanket, relying for shelter wholly upon the poncho. An experienced man will often limit his cooking outfit to a cup and canteen. A good strong reliable horse, a good saddle equipment, and enough plain food is all one really needs who has experience in wilderness travel. Such a man can make himself comfortable with exceedingly little. CHAPTER XIII AFOOT IN SUMMER On the portage one may carry a pretty heavy pack and think nothing of it, for the end of the portage and the relaxation of the paddle is just ahead. The portage is merely an incident of the canoe trip. The foot traveler, however, has no canoe to carry him and his outfit five or ten miles for every mile he carries his outfit. He must carry both himself and his outfit the entire distance traversed. This is obvious, and it leads to the conclusion that the outfit must be accordingly reduced both in weight and bulk. How heavy a load may be easily transported depends, of course, upon the man, but it is safe to say that the inexperienced will find twenty-five pounds a heavy enough burden, and within this limit must be included shelter, bed, and one week's provisions; though ordinarily the tramper will be able to renew his supply of provisions almost daily. Under all ordinary circumstances a single woolen blanket weighing not to exceed three pounds will be found ample summer bedding. A lean-to shelter tent seven feet long, four feet wide and four feet high of one of the light tenting materials previously described, weighs less than three pounds and furnishes ample and comfortable shelter. Blanket and tent may be carried easily in a roll, the tent on the outside to protect the blanket. To make the roll spread the tent upon the ground, fold the blanket once, end for end, and spread it upon the tent, the sides of the blanket (_not_ folded ends) toward the ends of the tent. Fold in ends of tent over blanket and roll up. Double the roll and tie together a little above the ends with a stout string. The roll, dropped over the head with center resting upon one shoulder and the tied ends coming together near the hip on the opposite side, may be carried with little inconvenience. Blankets are usually seventy-two inches wide, therefore the roll should be about six feet in length before it is doubled and the ends tied. A belt axe will be carried, in a sheath, upon the belt, the remaining equipment and provisions in a Nessmuk pack or a ruck sack. The Nessmuk pack, sold by most outfitters, is about 12 × 20 × 5 inches in size and made of waterproofed canvas. This will easily hold a nine-inch frying pan with folding handle, an aluminum pan 7 × 3 inches with folding handle, a pint cup (if you do not wish to carry the cup on your belt), a spoon or two, a cooking knife, a dish cloth and a dish towel, together with one week's provisions, matches, etc. There will still be room for a small bag containing the few needed toilet articles and hand towel, and another small bag containing one change of light-weight woolen underwear and two pairs of socks. The cooking outfit indicated is limited, but quite ample. I have done very well for weeks at a time with no other cooking utensils than a pint cup and a sheath knife. But here we cannot go into woodcraft or extreme concentration of rations and outfit. We are considering, rather, comfortable or moderately comfortable outfits and how to pack or transport them. Tent, blanket, axe, food and other equipment above suggested will, if intelligently selected, not go beyond the twenty-five pound limit. The greatest weight will be in the food, and each day will reduce this about two pounds. If provisions can be purchased from day to day these, of course, need not be carried, and the remaining load will be very light indeed. I would suggest that a light sweater take the place of a coat as it will be found more comfortable and useful and may be carried on top of the pack or in the blanket roll, for it will rarely be worn save in the evening camp. A broad-brimmed felt hat, an outer shirt of medium-weight flannel, khaki trousers and strong but not too heavy shoes make a practical and comfortable costume. Woolen socks protect the feet from chafing. Some campers like long German stockings, which serve also for leggings, and wear thin cotton socks inside them. In selecting shoes take into consideration the kind of socks or stockings to be worn, and see that the shoes are amply large though not too large, for shoes too large are nearly as uncomfortable as shoes too small. CHAPTER XIV WITH SNOWSHOES AND TOBOGGAN In the mode of travel here to be considered the voyageur, equipped with snowshoes, hauls his provisions and entire camping paraphernalia upon a toboggan or flat sled. The toboggan (Indian ta´-bas-kan´) had its origin in the prehistoric past among the Algonquin Indians of northeastern America. It was designed by them for the purpose of transporting goods over trackless, unbeaten snow wastes where sleds with runners could not be used, and for this purpose it is unequaled. While for our purpose the conventionalized toboggan sold by outfitters and designed for hill sliding and general sport will answer very well, the wilderness model in use by Indians and trappers in our northern wilderness is a better designed and preferable type for the transportation of loads. Various lengths of toboggans are in use, each intended for the particular purpose for which it was built. The longest Indian toboggan I ever saw was twelve feet in length, but from six to eight feet is the ordinary length, with a width of nine inches at the tip of the curved nose, gradually increasing to fourteen inches wide where the curve ends and the sliding surface or bottom begins, and tapering away to about six inches wide at the heel. The conventionalized type averages from four to six feet in length with a uniform width of about fifteen inches from curve to heel. Some three or more crossbars, depending upon the length of the toboggan, are lashed at intervals across the top, the forward one at the beginning of the curve where the nose begins to turn upward, and on either side of the toboggan from front to rear side bar, and fastened to the side bars at their ends are side ropes. Beaver-tail, bear's-paw, or swallow-tail snowshoes, of Indian make, are the shapes best adapted to the sort of travel we are considering. These models are all broad and comparatively short. The web should be of good caribou babiche, closely woven for use upon dry snow, and indeed for all-around conditions. While on wet, soggy snow a coarse web may in some respects be preferable it will not compare in efficiency with the close web on loose snow, or for all-around work under all sorts of conditions. Long, narrow snowshoes may be very good for racing where the country is smooth, but they are not suited to a rough, wooded or broken country or to hummocky snow. The best and most practical, as well as the simplest sling or binding for the snowshoe is made as follows: Cut from an Indian tanned buckskin a thong about half an inch wide and thirty inches in length. Thread one end of this, from above down, through the web at one side of the toe hole, and from the bottom up at the opposite side. Pull it through until the two ends are even. Draw the thong up at the middle, where it crosses the toe hole, to make a loop large enough to admit the toe under it, but not large enough to permit the toe to slide forward against the forward cross-bar. Wrap the two ends of the thong around center of loop two or three times bringing them forward over the top and drawing them under and back through the loop. Slip your toes under the loop, bring the ends of the thong back, one on either side of the foot, and tie snugly in the hollow above your heel. This sling will hold well, will not chafe the foot, and with it the snowshoe may be kicked free from the foot or adjusted to the foot in an instant. Should the thongs stretch in moist weather, the sling may be tightened by simply taking an additional turn or two (without untying) around the toe loop. I believe that lamp-wicking would answer as well as buckskin thongs, though I have never used it because I have always carried an ample supply of buckskin. The best underclothing for the winter trail is good weight--though not the heaviest--woolen. Two suits should be carried besides the suit worn. Underclothing should not fit the body too snugly. It is better that it should be a size too large than an exact fit. The outer shirt should be of flannel, and of good quality, though not too heavy. Hudson's Bay Company trappers wear good-weight moleskin trousers, almost entirely to the exclusion of other fabrics, and I adopted them several years ago as superior to any other. They are wind-proof and warm and are particularly well adapted to the rough work of the trail. The ordinary coat is not at all adapted to the northern wilderness in winter, for it will not protect against drifting snow and driving blizzard. In its stead the Eskimo adickey should be worn. Any seamstress who can cut and make an ordinary work shirt can make an adickey if your outfitter cannot supply it. This garment is slipped on over the head like a shirt, and has a hood attached to draw over the cap as a neck and head protection. The neck opening is large enough to permit the head to pass through it without the necessity of a buttoned opening in front, for no matter how closely buttoned a garment may be drifting snow will find its way in. In length the adickey reaches half way between hip and knees and is made circular at the bottom. The hood should be of ample proportion to pull over the cap loosely, with a drawstring encircling the front by which it may be drawn snugly to the face. A fringe of muskrat or other fur around the face increases the comfort, the fur acting as a protection against drifting snow. While white Hudson's Bay Company kersey cloth is a favorite fabric for this garment, it may be made of any woolen blanket duffle or similar cloth. Over the kersey adickey another adickey of some smooth-surfaced, strong material, preferably moleskin, should be worn. This outside adickey should of course be just enough larger than the kersey or blanket adickey to fit over it easily. The adickeys may be worn singly or together, according to the demands of the weather. A Pontiac shirt, to be worn under the adickeys in extremely cold weather, should be included in the outfit. This will serve, too, in camp, when the adickeys are laid aside. A round cap of fur or heavy cloth provided with flaps to turn down over the ears makes the best head protection. The hoods of the two adickeys, as before stated, should be large enough to draw over this. Very important indeed is the question of foot dress. Not only must we aim to secure the greatest possible freedom and ease in walking, but the ever-present danger of frostbite must also be guarded against. Socks should be of wool, of the home-knit variety, and besides the pair worn, three or four extra pairs should be carried in the kit. Knit socks will not be sufficient protection, however, and where two or three pairs are worn they are certain to bunch or wrinkle, with chafed and sore feet as a result. All Hudson's Bay Company stores keep in stock a white fuzzy woolen duffle of blanket thickness. If you are making your start from a Post purchase some of this duffle and have one of the women at the Post make you a pair of knee-length stockings of the duffle to pull over your knit socks, and two pairs of slippers of the same material, one just large enough to fit over the foot of the long stockings, the other just a little larger to fit over all. These should be made of proper size, to obviate wrinkles. The larger outfitters carry in stock good wool duffle, and will make these to fit properly. In crisp, cold weather, when the snow never softens or gets moist even under the midday sun, buckskin moccasins should be the outer footwear. Ordinary leather will freeze stiff, stop the proper circulation of blood, and certainly lead to frosted feet. The moccasins should be made with high tops, reaching above the ankles, with buckskin strings to wrap around and secure them. Moccasins are light to pack, and it is always well to carry a couple of extra pairs, to have on hand in case of emergency. Leggings of moleskin (or some other strong, pliable cloth) large enough to push the foot through protect the legs. These should be knee high, with a drawstring to secure them just below the knee. Ordinary canvas leggings will not do. The leggings _must_ be made in one piece, without side buttons or other fastenings, for otherwise snow will work through to the great discomfort of the wearer. I have a pair of buckskin moccasins sewn to legs of harbor sealskin, the hair side of the sealskin out. This arrangement is preferable to separate leggings but sealskin legs are difficult to procure. Ordinarily I have found one pair of knit socks, one pair of the long duffle stockings described above and one pair of the duffle slippers, worn inside the buckskin moccasins, quite sufficient. The knit socks may be done away with entirely and also one pair of duffle slippers if rabbit-skin socks are to be had. These are worn with the hair next the foot, and are very warm and soft. In weather when the snow softens and becomes wet at midday, buckskin moccasins will not do, for the least moisture penetrates buckskin. In such weather sealskin boots are the best foot protection. They are waterproof, pliable and light. Sealskin boots for this purpose have neither soles nor heels. They are simply sealskin moccasins with legs, secured with drawstrings below the knee. These are of Eskimo make, and not generally obtainable though they may be purchased in Newfoundland. Oil-tanned moccasins, or larrigans, are the next best moist-snow foot gear. Buckskin mittens with one or two inner pairs of mittens of thick wool duffle, will protect the hands in the coldest weather. One pair should be a little smaller than the other, that it may fit snugly into the larger pair without wrinkles, and the larger pair of a size to fit in the same manner into the buckskin mittens. When the weather is too warm for both pairs, one pair may be removed. A fringe of muskrat or other fur around the wrists of the buckskin mittens protects the wrists from drifting snow. A pad of rabbit-skin worn across the forehead will protect it from intense cold. Hunting hoods of knit camel's hair worsted are a pretty good head protection, particularly at night. They cover the whole head except the face, and may be drawn up over the chin. Mouth and nose must not be covered, or the breath will quickly form a mass of ice upon the face. One caution, though it may seem a digression, may be made: If the nose or cheeks become frosted, as will certainly happen sooner or later to one traveling in a very low temperature, _do not rub snow upon the frosted part_. Snow rubbed on is pretty certain to fracture and remove sections of the skin. The Eskimo way is to hold or rub the frosted part with the bare hand until frost has been removed, and is far superior. The clothing outfit above described will be found ample. Extra trousers or other extra outer garments are not needed. _Let all hang loosely upon the body._ Nothing should fit snugly. A pair of smoked or amber goggles should always be included in the winter outfit. Amber is more effective than smoked glass, though ordinarily the latter will do. The goggles should be fastened with a string to slip over the back of the head. _No metal should touch the flesh._ The best low temperature sleeping bag is one of caribou skin made with the hair inside. Under ordinary conditions, however, a waterproofed canvas bag lined with good woolen blankets will do as well, though such a bag with sufficient blanket lining to give it warmth equal to that of the caribou skin bag would be much heavier and more bulky than the latter. A bag lined with four thicknesses of llama wool duffle (that is, four thicknesses over and four beneath the sleeper), however, should not weigh more than ten pounds, and would correspond in warmth to one lined with blankets weighing twenty pounds. An A or wedge tent will be found the best model for winter travel. A sheet-iron tent stove _with bottom_ and telescoping pipe will make the tent warm and snug. The tent should be fitted with an asbestos ring at the stovepipe hole as a protection. A pack cloth or tarpaulin will serve as an adequate and comfortable tent floor. It is never safe or advisable for one to travel in the wilderness alone, for a sprained ankle or broken leg in an isolated region would be more than likely to result in death. In the Hudson Bay country two pounds of flour, one pound of fat pork, with baking powder, tea and sugar, form the daily ration for a man. It is well when possible to carry frozen fresh meat, free from bone, with a proportion of desiccated vegetables to vary the diet. Butter makes a tasty variety to the fat, for it will remain sweet at this season. Prunes and chocolate are both worth while. Or if the journey is to be extended the menu may be simplified by the introduction of pemmican and the elimination of other articles. Pemmican is the best condensed food ever invented for cold weather work. One pound of pemmican and a quarter pound of pilot biscuit, as a daily ration, will sustain a man at hard work, though it will prove a monotonous diet. The above is merely suggested as a basis. It may be expanded or contracted as circumstances require without disturbing its mean value. Let it be remembered, however, that ordinary bread and other moist foodstuffs will freeze as hard as stone. Jerked venison and desiccated vegetables make tasty and sustaining additions to the ration, and will not freeze. A man is supposed to be able to haul at good speed upon a toboggan a load equal to his own weight. Therefore two men, each weighing 150 pounds, should between them haul 300 pounds. Camp equipment, tent axes, guns, bedding, extra underclothing and all personal belongings of both, if proper care be exercised in selection, should weigh not to exceed 140 pounds. Add 80 pounds of food, and we have 220 pounds, or a maximum load of 110 pounds for each. The tent and general camp outfit is indeed sufficient for four men. It is presumed that the aluminum cooking outfit previously described will be chosen. Some eliminations, as, for example, that of the folding baker, might easily be made without serious loss of comfort. To secure the load upon the toboggan, arrange the bags in which it is packed evenly, taking care that no part of the load extends beyond the sides of the toboggan. Adjust the tarpaulin or canvas ground cloth neatly over it. Secure one end of your lash rope to the side rope on one side at the rear. Bring the other end over and under the side rope opposite. Cross it back over the load and over and under side rope to front of next crossbar, and so on to front crossbar, taking slack as you proceed. From front to rear criss-cross rope in same manner over load and under side ropes, forming diamonds where the rope crosses itself on top of load. Bring the end of rope under side rope at rear, take in all slack and tie. CHAPTER XV WITH DOGS AND KOMATIK In considering equipment for dog and sledge traveling, we must constantly bear in mind the necessity of keeping down weight and bulk. Not long since, while visiting the establishment of a New York City outfitter, I saw an equipment which a sportsman ambitious for experience with dogs and komatik (sledge) had selected for a month's journey which he was about to undertake. Exclusive of provisions there was enough material to weight down four eight-dog teams. Among other things was a specially designed tent stove that would have tipped the scales at upwards of one hundred pounds. The would-be traveler declared with pride that he "did not intend to have cold camps." It certainly gave me "cold feet" to contemplate his outfit. It was the most ridiculous and impracticable conglomerate aggregation of camping material that I have ever seen put together, and I doubt if the would-be traveler ever found a sufficient number of dogs at any one point to transport it. While it is the aim of every experienced camper to obtain the greatest degree of comfort of which circumstances will admit, the voyager with dogs cannot hope to carry with him the luxuries of a metropolitan hotel, and one soon learns how little after all is really necessary to make one comfortable. How much weight a team of eight good dogs can haul depends upon the character of the country and the condition of the snow or ice. Under very favorable conditions I have seen such a team make good progress with twelve hundred pounds. Ordinarily, however, eight hundred pounds is a full load, and if much rough ice, hilly country or soft snow is encountered six hundred pounds will be found all too heavy. I have heard of cases, when traveling was exceptionally good, of dogs covering upwards of one hundred miles a day. The biggest day's travel I ever made with dogs was sixty miles, but often I have toiled day after day, pulling and hauling with the animals at the traces, lifting the komatik over rough places, or packing a trail for the team with my snowshoes, to find myself rewarded with less than ten miles when camping time arrived. In selecting outfit the region to be visited will be a factor to take into consideration. It would be quite impossible to discuss adequately in a single chapter all the phases of dog travel to be provided for. We shall therefore leave out of consideration polar outfitting, or outfitting for other unusual work, which the reader of this will scarcely be likely to undertake. The clothing suggested in the chapter on snowshoe and toboggan travel is equally well suited to travel with dogs and komatik. Should the voyager's ambition, however, draw him within the sub-arctic regions or across the Arctic Circle some additional protection will be needed. In the far Arctic the natives wear trousers of either polar bear skin or caribou skin, with an upper garment of caribou skin called, in Greenland, the "kulutar;" in Labrador, the "kulutuk." The only difference between the adickey and the kulutuk is that the one is made of cloth, the other of caribou skin. In Ungava I supplied myself with caribou skin trousers, which, as is the custom there, I drew on over my moleskin trousers in windy or intensely cold weather. The kulutuk takes the place of the moleskin adickey. That is to say, the kersey adickey worn under the kulutuk will be found ample protection in any weather, and often the kulutuk of itself will be found sufficient. Kulutuk and skin trousers are worn hair side out. Were they worn with the hairy side in, they would accumulate moisture exuded by the body, and the moisture would freeze, presently transforming the hair into a mass of ice. A friend of mine going to the Arctic for the first time as a member of one of Peary's early Greenland expeditions, turned his kulutuk inside out and donned it with the hairy side next the body. The Eskimos laughed, and resenting their levity he assured them it was much warmer worn in that manner than as they wore it. "No," said one of them, "if it were warmer worn that way the animals would wear their fur inside." My friend quickly learned by experience the logic of the Eskimo's argument. Deerskin kulutuk and trousers are not easily purchased, though along any coast where seals are captured similar garments of sealskin may be procured, which, though not equal to deerskin garments, answer very well. The skin of the young harbor seal (the ranger seal) is best for the purpose, as skins of other species are too thick and heavy. When made of sealskin the upper garment is called a "netsek." I discovered when traveling among them that some of the Moravian missionaries of the Labrador coast wore a buckskin suit under their ordinary trousers and outer shirt. Such a suit is much lighter than deerskin trousers and kulutuk, and serves nearly as well. It is not difficult to purchase buckskin from which one may have such a suit made. It is wind-proof and very light. All skin garments, including moccasins, should be sewn with animal sinew. Ordinary thread will quickly break out and will not do. Thread-sewn moccasins are factory-made, and will give very little service. The types of snowshoes suggested in the chapter on snowshoe and toboggan travel are the types also best suited to dog and komatik work. Long snowshoes would be very much in the way when one has to go to the traces and haul with the dogs or lift and assist the komatik over rough places; and this becomes the rule rather than the exception as one goes North. Let me insist that the web should be of good caribou babiche, and not the ordinary rawhide used in many of the snowshoes offered for sale. The former will not stretch when wet, while the latter will stretch and bag so badly as to render the snowshoe practically useless. It is well to wrap the frame on either side where the babiche is drawn around it, with buckskin or sealskin. Otherwise even a slight crust upon the snow will in time cut the babiche strands. Wrapping the snowshoe in this manner will at least double its life. What was said in reference to tent, small sheet-iron stove and general camp and cooking outfit in the previous chapter will apply here, as well as directions heretofore given for packing in waterproof bags. In selecting the sleeping bag, give first preference to one of deerskin. In a barren region where firewood is not to be had, it will be necessary to carry an alcohol or kerosene burner and stock of fuel. The former is preferable on account of the low freezing point of alcohol. Alcohol or oil should be secured in tin cases. It is regularly put up in this way by dealers. In such a region, too, it may be necessary to carry snow knives with which to cut blocks of snow for the erection of snow igloos as shelter. These knives resemble somewhat the machete. One cannot, however, learn to build a snow igloo properly without long practice. This phase of the work is merely referred to as interesting; for anyone traveling in a country where snow house shelter is necessary will secure the assistance of a native, who will attend to proper sledge outfitting at the point of departure. On regular lines of dog travel opportunities to renew the provision supply will frequently occur, and cabins for night shelter will be found. Therefore the food outfit will depend upon the country to be traversed. Where long stretches occur between supply points, however, fat pork, pilot bread, tea and sugar should form the basis. The very best possible food, however, for this work is pemmican, pilot bread, tea and sugar. Of course a little coffee may be carried, but it is bulky. The traveler will make his selection carefully, building around pork, pilot bread and pemmican with other articles of food like desiccated vegetables from which water has been eliminated. Too much salt meat opens the door to scurvy, unless sufficient variation in the way of vegetables, fish, or fresh meat is introduced. Dessicated cranberries are an excellent preventive. A man can do good hard work day in and day out, as already stated, upon one pound of pemmican and a quarter pound of pilot bread as a daily ration, and such a ration offers no danger of scurvy. Dog pemmican is the best dog food, and the lightest, for dogs will do pretty well upon one pound of pemmican each a day. To do well the animals should be given plenty of fat, when pemmican is not available, though not a clear fat diet, for that will make them sick. Three-quarters of a pound of fat and three-quarters of a pound of meat or fish is an ordinary ration. Dogs are fed but once a day--at night. The number of dogs in a team varies, but the average team is composed of seven or eight. Eight or nine is the most economical number so far as results are concerned. In the Northwest dogs are harnessed tandem. This is the white man's method. In the Northeast they are harnessed fan fashion--the Eskimo method. That is to say, each dog has an individual trace secured to the end of a single thong, leading out from the bow of the komatik and called the bridle. The individual traces are of various lengths. The dog with the longest trace is the leader of the pack, and particularly trained to respond to the driver's directions. The other dogs will follow his lead. For open country and sea ice travel the Eskimo method is probably best, as the work is more evenly distributed and the driver can always tell whether each dog is doing his share of the work, but for narrow trails and woods travel the tandem method is more practicable. Dogs are good, bad and indifferent. One seldom has an opportunity to pick one's dogs discriminately, and rarely may one purchase them outright unless contracted for a year in advance, for the native dog owner seldom maintains animals in excess of his requirements in the ordinary routine of his life. The traveler will usually be able, however, to hire a team by employing the owner to drive it, and the owner of a team will get much more work out of his dogs than a stranger to the dogs can hope to do. At least a year's experience is necessary to enable a white man to handle a dog team with anything approaching efficiency, and even then one cannot hope to approach the performance of an Eskimo. The failure to enlist Eskimos as dog drivers has been the real cause of the failure of many an Arctic expedition. It is advised, then, that the traveler employ at so much per day or for the trip driver and dogs. It is an unsafe experiment to start off with a dog team unattended by an experienced man. The owner of the team will supply also the necessary dog harness, his own dog whip and general dog traveling paraphernalia, including the komatik. Sledges or komatiks vary in different localities as to width, length and minor methods of construction. The average komatik is two feet wide and ten feet long but as stated, they vary in different localities, a uniform width being maintained to suit the local conditions of the region in which they are used. For example, wide and comparatively short komatiks are employed in Quebec, while the Ungava komatik is but sixteen inches wide. These latter komatiks are usually fifteen or sixteen feet in length, however. The runners stand ten inches high. This is, in fact, the heaviest and most efficient komatik I have ever seen. Each runner is made from a single piece of timber and is from two and one-half to three inches thick. It is designed for the roughest possible use, and is, I believe, better adapted to this purpose than the Greenland komatik because more substantially built. The latter is peculiar in that it has upstands at the rear for guiding it. Crossbars, extending an inch or so on either side of the runners and from one to two inches apart, are lashed into place with rawhide. When the rawhide shrinks the komatik becomes firm. Iron fastenings being rigid would break too readily, particularly in intense cold, to be reliable. The traveler will do well, therefore, to purchase if he does not hire his komatik at the point of departure, as in so doing he will secure one of correct design for the region to be traversed. It is well to have a box made the width of the komatik two or three feet long, and about fourteen inches deep to lash upon the rear end of the komatik in which cooking utensils and a portion of the food supply, as well as odds and ends, may be carried. This should be supplied with a hinged cover, and hook or clasp by which the cover may be securely fastened down. The best lash for securing the load in position is one of sealskin, though ordinary hemp rope will do. Before lashing, the tarpaulin should be neatly folded over the top of load to protect it. One end of the lash is secured to an end of the crossbar at the forward end of the load, brought across the load and under the other end, then across, skipping a couple of crossbars, and back again skipping a couple of crossbars, thus threading it from side to side under the ends of every second or third crossbar to the rear bar, where it is brought across the load to the opposite end of this crossbar and crisscrossed across the load again to the forward crossbar to be tied. THE END Transcriber's note: Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained. Punctuation has been normalized. The following errors have been corrected: * p. 46 "two or three hundreds" fixed to "... hundred" * p. 51 Chapter VII: fixed numbering of topics * p. 72 carelessless -> carelessness * p. 85 change A_1 to A´ to match the illustration * p. 87 graps -> grasps * p. 88 "betwee nthem" -> "between them" * p. 90 fixed period instead of comma * p. 90 graps -> grasps * p. 119 removed redundant "of" 
51331	----	Swenson, Dispatcher By R. DeWITT MILLER Illustrated by FRANCIS [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction April 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] There were no vacuums in Space Regulations, so Swenson--well, you might say he knew how to plot courses through sub-ether legality! It was on October 15, 2177, that Swenson staggered into the offices of Acme Interplanetary Express and demanded a job as dispatcher. They threw him out. They forgot to lock the door. The next time they threw him out, they remembered to lock the door but forgot the window. The dingy office was on the ground floor and Swenson was a tall man. When he came in the window, the distraught Acme Board of Directors realized that they had something unusual in the way of determined drunks to deal with. Acme was one of the small hermaphroditic companies--hauling mainly freight, but shipping a few passengers--which were an outgrowth of the most recent war to create peace. During that violent conflict, America had established bases throughout the Solar System. These required an endless stream of items necessary for human existence. While the hostilities lasted, the small outfits were vital and for that reason prospered. They hauled oxygen, food, spare parts, whisky, atomic slugs, professional women, uniforms, paper for quadruplicate reports, cigarettes, and all the other impedimenta of war-time life. With the outbreak of peace, such companies faced a precarious, devil-take-the-hindmost type of existence. * * * * * The day that Swenson arrived had been grim even for Acme. Dovorkin, the regular dispatcher, had been fired that morning. He had succeeded in leaving the schedule in a nightmarish muddle. And on Dovorkin's vacant desk lay the last straw--a Special Message. _Acme Interplanetary Express_ _147 Z Street_ _New York_ _Your atomic-converted ship Number 7 is hereby grounded at Luna City, Moon, until demurrage bill paid. Your previous violations of Space Regulations make our action mandatory._ _Planetary Commerce Commission_ The Acme Board of Directors was inured to accepting the inevitable. They had heard rumors along Blaster's Alley of Swenson's reputation, which ranged from brilliance, through competence, to insanity. So they shrugged and hired him. His first act was to order a case of beer. His second was to look at what Dovorkin had left of a Dispatch Sheet. "Number 5 is still blasting through the astraloids. It should be free-falling. Why the hell isn't it?" Old Mister Cerobie, Chairman of the Board, said quietly: "Before you begin your work, we would like a bit of information. What is your full name?" "Patrick M. Swenson." "What does the M stand for?" "I don't know." "Why not?" "My mother never told me. I don't think she knows. In the name of God, why don't you send Number 3...." "What's your nationality?" "I'm supposed to be a Swede." "What do you mean, 'supposed'?" "Will you open one of those beers?" "I asked you...." Swenson made a notation on the Dispatch Sheet and spun around in the swivel chair. "I was born on a _Swallow Class_ ship in space between the Moon and Earth. My mother said my father was a Swede. She was Irish. I was delivered and circumcised by a rabbi who happened to be on board. The ship was of Venutian registry, but was owned by a Czechoslovakian company. Now you figure it out." "How did you happen to come here?" "I met Dovorkin in a bar. He told me that you were in trouble. You are. Is one of the Moulton Trust's ships at Luna City?" "Yes." "Then that's why you're grounded. They've got an in with the Planetary Commerce Commission. What's the demurrage?" "Seventy-six thousand dollars." "Can you raise it?" "No." * * * * * Swenson glanced at the sheet. "How come Number 2 is in New York?" "We're waiting for additional cargo. We have half a load of snuff for Mars. And we've been promised half a load of canned goods for Luna City. It's reduced rate freight that another company can't handle." "Dovorkin told me about the snuff. That's a starter, anyway." Swenson turned back to the Dispatch Sheet and muttered to himself: "Always a good thing to have snuff for Mars." Mister Cerobie became strangely interested. "Why?" Swenson paid no attention. "What are you taking a split load for?" "We had no choice." "You know damn well that the broken-down old stovepipes you buy from war surplus are too slow to handle split loads. Who promised you the canned goods?" "Lesquallan, Ltd." "Oh, Lord!" said Swenson. "An outfit that expects lions to lie down with lambs!" The red _ship-calling_ light flashed on. "Number 4 to dispatcher. This is Captain Elsing. Dovorkin...." "Dispatcher to Number 4. Dovorkin, hell. This is Swenson. What blasts?" "B jet just went out. Atomic slug clogged." "How radioactive is the spout?" asked Swenson. "Heavy." "Have somebody who's already had a family put on armor and clean up the mess," Swenson said, "and alter course for Luna City. I'll send you the exact course in a few minutes. When you get to Luna, land beside the Moulton Trust's ship. Now stand by to record code." Swenson reached back to Mister Cerobie. "Acme private code book." Silently, the Chairman of the Board handed it to him. When Swenson had finished coding, he handed the original message to Mister Cerobie. The message read: "Captain Elsing, have crew start fight with Moulton's crew. Not much incentive will be necessary. See that no real damage is done. Urgent. Will take all responsibility. Explain later. Cerobie." "Swenson," Mister Cerobie said quietly, "you _are_ insane. Tear that up." With slow dignity, Swenson put on his coat. He stood there, smiling, and looking at Mister Cerobie. The memory of Dovorkin stalked unpleasantly through the Chairman's mind. Everything was hopeless, anyway. Better go out with a bang than a whimper. "All right, send it," he said. "There is plenty of time to countermand--after I talk to you." * * * * * When Swenson had finished sending the coded message, he turned back to Mister Cerobie. "What's this I hear from Dovorkin about a Senator being aboard Number 7 at Luna?" A member of the Board began: "After all...." Mister Cerobie cut him off: "Your information is correct, Swenson. A Senator has shipped with us. However, I would prefer to discuss the matter in my private office." Swenson crossed the room to the astrographer in the calculating booth and said: "Plot the free-falling curve for Number 5 to Mars." Then he followed Mister Cerobie into the Chairman's office. Half an hour later, they came out and Swenson went back to his desk. First he glanced at the free-falling plot. Then he snorted, called the astrographer and fired him. Next he said to Mister Cerobie: "Is that half load of snuff...." "Yes, it is. You know Martians as well as I do. With their type of nose, they must get quite a sensation. I understand they go a bit berserk. That's why their government outlaws snuff as an Earth vice. However, our cargo release states that it is being sent for 'medicinal purposes.' It's no consequence to us what they use the snuff for. We're just hauling it. And I don't have to tell you how fantastic a rate we're getting." "To hell with the canned goods part of the load," Swenson said. "Can you get a full haul of snuff?" "Possibly. But it would cost." "Even this outfit can afford to grease palms." "I'll see what I can do." "What's the Senator on the Moon for?" "He's supposed to make a speech on Conquest Day." Mister Cerobie lit a cigar. "That's day after tomorrow," he added. "Exactly where is this eloquence to be expounded?" * * * * * "The Senator is speaking at the dedication of the new underground recreation dome. It's just outside Luna City. They've bored a tunnel from the main dome cluster. This dedication is considered very important. Everybody in Luna will be there. It's been declared an official holiday, with all crews released. Even the maintenance and public service personnel have been cut to skeleton staffs." "With that fiesta scheduled on our beloved satellite," said Swenson, "we won't have to worry about getting the Senator off for some time. His name's Higby, isn't it?" Mister Cerobie nodded. "Then he'll whoop it up long enough for you to get that demurrage mess straightened out." "Unfortunately, it isn't that simple. The Senator is due for another speech on Mars. The timing is close--he only has a minimum of leeway. As you mentioned, Number 7 is grounded for demurrage. And we can't ship the Senator out on Number 4 because of the bad jet." Swenson was silent for a long time. The beer gurgled pleasantly as he drank it. Then a bright smile--which could have been due either to inspiration or beer--spread across his face. "If that idiot Dovorkin can be trusted," he said, "the Senator is speaking in the early afternoon, our time. Do you happen to know just when he starts yapping? And the scheduled length of the spiel?" "I'll check it." Mister Cerobie turned to one of his assistants. Swenson took down the _Luna Data Handbook_ and thumbed through it. A moment later, the assistant handed a slip of paper to the Board Chairman. "The Senator," Mister Cerobie said, "will speak from 1300 hours to 1500 hours." Swenson smiled and stuck a marker in the _Luna Data Handbook_. "Now," he said, "about this snuff. Can you have it loaded by tomorrow night?" "I don't see how." "Remember our agreement in the office. If we don't do something, we're through, so all we can do is lose. Leave me be and don't ask questions. I want to blast Number 2 into low Earth-orbital tomorrow night." Mister Cerobie looked off into that nowhere which was the daily destiny of Acme. "All right," he said, "I was born a damn fool. I'll do my best to have a full load of snuff aboard--somehow--tomorrow night." Swenson went back to his Dispatch Sheet. During the next five hours, he looked up only long enough to order another case of beer and a new astrographer. Finally, he called Heilberg, the assistant dispatcher who was on the night shift, gave him a lecture concerning dispatching in general and the present situation in particular, promoted a date with one of the stenographers, and departed. * * * * * When Swenson came back the next morning, he was sober, ornery and disinclined to do any work. He cornered O'Toole, the labor relations man, and began talking women. O'Toole was intrigued but evasive. "Your trouble," Swenson said, "is not with women. It's with evolution. I don't blame evolution for creating women. I blame it for abandoning the egg. Just when it had invented a reasonable method of reproduction which didn't make the female silly-looking and tie her down needlessly for nine months...." "I don't think they're silly-looking." "Maybe you don't, O'Toole, but I do. And you must admit that nine months is a hell of a long time to fool around with something that could be hatched in an incubator under automatic controls. Look at the time saving. If evolution hadn't abandoned the egg idea, half the human race wouldn't waste time being damned incubators." O'Toole backed away. He had never heard the legend of Swenson's egg speech. "Don't tell me," Swenson went on, "that evolution is efficient. Are you married, O'Toole?" "Yes, I--" "Wouldn't you rather your wife laid an egg than--" "I don't know," O'Toole interrupted, "but I do know that I'd like to find out what the dispatch situation is at the moment." Swenson grabbed a piece of paper and drew a diagram. While O'Toole was studying the diagram, someone laid a Special Message on Swenson's desk. Swenson glanced at it: _Acme Interplanetary Express_ _147 Z Street_ _New York_ _Your ship Number 4 is hereby grounded at Luna City, pending an investigation of a riot involving your men, and for non-payment of bill for atomic slug purification. Your Number 4 is also charged with unpaid demurrage bill._ _Planetary Commerce Commission_ * * * * * Swenson muttered: "Good!" and threw the Special Message in the wastebasket. Mister Cerobie, who had just entered the office, fished the form out and read it. "It never rains, but it pours," he said. "You can't stand long on one foot," Swenson answered without looking up. "Put all your troubles in one basket and then lose the basket. _Morituri te salutamus._ Have you heard my theory about the advantage of reproduction via the egg? And get me a beer." "I will get you a beer, but if you say a word about that egg theory, I will fire you. I heard you talking to O'Toole." "Okay. We'll forget the egg for the nonce. Did you pilfer that snuff?" "It's being loaded. And it cost Acme--" "Did you expect it would fall like manna from heaven?" Swenson flipped the switch of the intercom to Acme's launching area. "Give me Number 2. Captain Wilkins." "What are you going to do?" Mister Cerobie asked. "Don't you remember what I told you yesterday? Where's that beer?" Mister Cerobie smiled, a weary, dogged smile, the smile of a man who had bet on drawing to a belly straight. "Captain Wilkins," came over the intercom, "calling Swenson, dispatcher, for orders." "Blast as soon as loaded for low altitude Earth-orbital." Swenson was silent a moment, then: "Hell, don't you know the plot? All right, I'll give it to you. Full jets, two minutes, azimuth...." Mister Cerobie interrupted quietly: "Swenson, don't you think you'd better check with the astrographer?" Turning off the intercom, Swenson spun in his chair. "Any decent dispatcher knows that one by heart. So maybe I'm wrong. Then Number 2 will pile up on either the Moon or the Earth. If that happens, you can collect the insurance and get out of this mess." He flipped on the intercom switch. "Sorry, Captain Wilkins, brass interference. As I was saying, azimuth...." * * * * * Mister Cerobie made no effort to continue the conversation. He was reading an astrogram, which had just been handed to him. ACME INTERPLANETARY EXPRESS 147 Z STREET NEW YORK EARTH HEAR PERSISTENT RUMOR YOUR SHIP ON WHICH I AM A PASSENGER HELD HERE FOR NON-PAYMENT OF DEMURRAGE. MUST MAKE WORLD CRISIS SPEECH ON MARS AS SCHEDULED. ASTROGRAM TRUTH OF SITUATION AT ONCE. INVESTIGATION OF SUCH MATTERS NOW PENDING BEFORE SUBCOMMITTEE. DO NOT ASTROGRAM COLLECT. SEN. HIRAM C. HIGBY Swenson snapped off the intercom, glanced at his Dispatch Sheet, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He was silent for the next half hour and drank three beers, looking either thoughtful or asleep. Mister Cerobie smoked a cigar until it burned his mustache. When the third beer was finished, Swenson reached for an astrogram blank and wrote: HON. SENATOR HIRAM C. HIGBY ESQ. ACME INTERPLANETARY EXPRESS LUNA CITY RUMOR RE UNPAID DEMURRAGE UTTERLY UN-FOUNDED. INFORMATION HERE THAT RUMOR STARTED BY YOUR OPPOSITION. HAVE VITAL NEW DATA FOR YOUR LUNA CITY SPEECH. WILL SEND SPEECH INSERT AT ONCE. JAMES CEROBIE Mister Cerobie, who had been reading over Swenson's shoulder, said: "You know that demurrage rumor is true." "If things don't work out and we have any trouble, you can say you hadn't heard about the demurrage. By the way, can you write an insert to a political speech?" "I suppose so. I've lied before." "Make sure it will take ten minutes to deliver--even talking fast--which Senators don't usually do." "What," inquired Mister Cerobie, "shall I write about?" "You know that scandal Senator Higby's opposition just got involved in. That business about slave labor exploitation on Venus. The story broke this morning. Get in touch with my friend Max Zempky on _Telenews_ and have him give you some inside details. It doesn't matter if they're important or not. The Senator will grab anything that might pep up his speech. Besides, he's probably been having a large time in Luna City and hasn't heard about this morning's story." Mister Cerobie executed a sweeping bow. "Yes, sir. And if this thing doesn't work, I told you yesterday in my office what would happen." Swenson shrugged. "Kismet." * * * * * As Mister Cerobie opened the door to his private office, Swenson called after him: "Where's this outfit's attorney?" "In the Board Room." "Find him and send him in here." Mister Cerobie nodded. "And," Swenson added, "be damned sure that speech insert will run at least ten minutes. More, if possible." Mister Cerobie slammed the door. Five minutes later, slim, soft-spoken Van Euing, Acme's attorney, coughed behind the dispatcher's chair. Swenson swiveled from coding the astrogram and dropped his cigarette. "What the hell--oh, you. Lawyers are like policemen--they sneak up on people." "How did you know I was the firm's attorney?" "I watched you try that unfair-trade-practice suit against Lesquallan Ltd. two years ago. It was snowing outside. I was broke and the courtroom was warm. You should have won the case. Some of their evidence looked phony to me. Anyway, you did a good job." "Thank you." "Did you ever stop to think about the advantage of the egg--" "Mister Cerobie said you wished to speak to me." "That's right. I want you to draw up a something-or-other--you know what I mean--grounding Moulton Trust's ship on the Moon until this fight hassle is settled." "You mean you wish me to prepare a restraining order?" "Restrain, yeah! And restrain them as long as you can. I wish you could restrain them forever. This solar system would be a better place." "On what grounds am I to base my order?" "Claim they started the fight and our crew's so bashed up that we haven't enough able men to blast off." "But I'm afraid we can't prove that." "And what's it going to cost us to try? You're on retainer. The total bill for said restraining order will be only the price of some legal paper and the services of a notary. The steno's hired by the month, like you." Van Euing looked puzzled. "What good will it do?" "You know how long it takes courts to do anything. Before your order is tossed out, Moulton will have been grounded for a week." Van Euing lit his pipe. "In legal parlance, it is something irregular, which, being translated, means it's a slick trick." "All it's going to cost _you_ is being half an hour late to lunch." Van Euing puffed a moment on his pipe and said: "Because of your audacity, Swenson, and furthermore, because you'll be fired tomorrow, I'll prepare the restraining order." Swenson put out his hand and his blunt fingers closed around Van Euing's delicate ones. When Van Euing had gone, Swenson returned to coding the astrogram. He checked the form twice and sent it. Then he turned over his desk to an apprentice dispatcher, left orders to be called if anything broke down, and went out to lunch. * * * * * It was 2:30 P.M. when news of the restraining order arrived in the quiet, streamlined offices of the Moulton Trust. Two minutes later, the offices were still streamlined, but not quiet. The three major stockholders of the great organization, N. Rovance, F. K. Esrov, and Cecil Neinfort-Whritings, formed a tiny huddle at one end of the long conference table. Esrov was waving a copy of the order. "Gentlemen, we can consider this nothing but an outrage!" "Blackmail, really!" It was Neinfort-Whritings's lisping voice. "Whatever it is, this sort of nonsense must be stopped at the beginning. It might set a precedent." "May I suggest," Rovance broke in, "that, as the matter of precedent is sure to arise, we take no action without first consulting Lesquallan Ltd." "An excellent idea," Esrov nodded. He switched on the intercom to his first secretary. "Connect me with Lesquallan Ltd. I want to speak with Novell Lesquallan. Inform him that it is urgent." "He just entered our office." The voice that came from the intercom carried the slightest trace of surprise. "He said he desired to discuss something about canned goods and snuff. I shall send him in at once." Rovance turned to Neinfort-Whritings. "I fear that old Cerobie is becoming senile. Apparently he has lost his mind." "But really, did he ever have one?" Nobody laughed. Esrov slammed the restraining order on the conference table and stood up. "Gentlemen, what shall we do concerning--" "Yes, gentlemen, that is just what I want to know." Three heads pivoted. Novell Lesquallan, sole owner of Lesquallan Ltd., stood in the doorway. He was a broad, ruddy-faced man with a voice trained to basso interruptions. "I understand, Mr. Lesquallan," Esrov said, "that you have a matter to discuss with us." "Yes! Sit down, F.K. We have some talking to do--about that bankrupt, dishonest Acme Interplanetary Express." "Quite a coincidence," Neinfort-Whritings murmured. "You got trouble with that outfit, too? That settles it. They've cluttered up the orderly progress of free enterprise long enough. Out they go." Novell Lesquallan swiftly read the document and bellowed an unintelligible remark. "Something, quite," Neinfort-Whritings agreed. * * * * * Lesquallan got his voice under control. "What action do you intend to take?" "We hadn't decided," Rovance answered. "We received the order only a few minutes ago." "Before we form our plans," Esrov said, "we would like some information about your problems with Acme. We understand it involves canned goods and snuff." "Yes, those damned.... At the last minute, they turned down a small load of canned goods for Luna that we'd been decent enough to give them at reduced rates. They can't get away with that kind of thing long. But that's just the beginning. They got hold of the contract and permit to haul a consignment of medicinal snuff to Mars. We had already arranged for that cargo. You know that snuff situation. Through certain contacts, we have been able--perfectly legally--to have permits issued. That customs man must have taken a double--" "We understand," Rovance broke in. "We have had occasion to make similar arrangements. The rates--and other inducements--are extremely satisfactory." "Well, gentlemen," Lesquallan demanded, "what are we going to do about this unprecedented situation?" "I suggest," Neinfort-Whritings said, "that we have our legal staffs meet in joint session. We should impress on them that the quashing of this restraining order is urgent. Perhaps we should consider debts owed us by the judiciary we helped elect." "An excellent idea," Lesquallan declared. "I will take care of that part of it myself, personally." "As to the snuff matter," Esrov said, "I think we should emphasize to our mutual contact that he should be more discriminating in issuing permits." "That's all right for now," Lesquallan snapped. "But he's done with, too. I'll see to it that he's replaced." "As to the canned goods situation," Rovance said, "it seems to me that we should have a subsidiary company to handle our excess cargoes--at reduced rates, of course. It shouldn't cost too much to pick up one of the less financially secure companies--such as Acme." Esrov nodded. "An excellent idea." "I agree," Lesquallan said and sat down. "But first we must dispose of today's damned annoyances. I suggest that we outline a plan for immediate action." "To begin with," Esrov reminded him, "we must deal with the restraining order." * * * * * When Swenson came back from lunch, he was not as sober and thus in a better mood. Mister Cerobie's insert to the Senator's speech was on his desk. Swenson read the first few lines: As a further indication of the methods, devices, malfeasances, and corrupt practices employed, used, and sustained by those with whom you have called upon me to negotiate in the highest tribunal in Washington, let me cite the following information which I have just received. Although this information is top-drawer, restricted and highly secret, I was able to obtain it through certain channels which, as a man of honor, I must leave undisclosed. The right of all creatures to be free is a fundamental, an inviolable, right and yet on Venus.... Swenson said to himself: "Mister Cerobie is in the wrong business," and started coding the insert. He had almost finished when the ship-calling light flashed red. "Number 5 to Dispatcher. Captain Verbold speaking." "Dispatcher to Number 5. This is Swenson. Go ahead." "I'm afraid you can't help me. May I speak to Mister Cerobie?" "He's out to lunch." "This matter is serious. I am faced with what amounts to mutiny." "Sorry, but I got troubles, too. Maybe I can find Mister Cerobie, maybe I can't. Why don't you tell me your grief?" Captain Verbold hesitated. "It's something I've been expecting. The crew has stated that they will leave the ship at Mars." Captain Verbold's next sentence was pronounced word by word in code. "I even have private information that there is a plot to take over the ship and blast directly to Earth, where the crew feel their case can be more justly presented." "What are they squawking about?" "Everything. Wages have not been paid for six months. Poor radiation shielding. Food not up to standard. You know the story." "It's not the first time I've heard it." "What am I to do?" * * * * * "First, read them section 942 in your copy of _Space Regulations_," said Swenson. "If they divert ship from Mars without your permission, it's mutiny. That means the neutron death chamber or, if they are very lucky, life sentences to the Luna Penal Colony. Get them all together and read it to them. You're free-falling now, so even the jetters won't have to be on duty." "But if I could talk to Mister Cerobie--" "I've already told you I don't know where the hell he is. He couldn't do you any good, anyway. Didn't you ever read _Space Regulations_? Section 19: 'The captain of a ship in flight is _solely responsible_ for the maintenance of discipline and his orders cannot be changed or overruled'." "Swenson, you said a moment ago that this was your first suggestion. I presume, therefore, that you have others." "I have two others." Swenson paused long enough for a brief study of his Master Ship Location Chart, which he had just brought up to date. The chart showed the position of all ships at the moment in space. "There's a patrol cruiser loaded with gendarmes three million miles behind you on a course paralleling yours. It's one of the new Arrow Class and if they blast full, they can catch you in ten hours. Mention to the crew that you could notify the police boys and have them pick you up and escort you to Mars." "What is the patrol ship's number and call letters?" "Arrow--British--Earth--number 96. Call letters MMXAH." "Thanks. If things get too bad, I might take advantage of our valiant guarders of the spaceways. All right, you said you had three suggestions. What's the third?" "Some goons on a Moulton Trust ship, parked beside our number 2 on the Moon, started a fight and beat up our boys. We're about to sue Moulton for plenty. Tell your crew about it and suggest that if they behave, we'll cut them in on the proceeds from the suit, in addition to paying their wages as soon as a snuff cargo that I had to send into orbital gets to Mars." "On whose authority am I to make such a statement?" "Swenson's. You don't need any other, do you? I know most of the boys on your mobile junkyard. They trust me, so they'll trust you. You have my word that Cerobie will go for the idea." "You talk to Cerobie and let me know what happens. Meanwhile, I'll think over your suggestions." * * * * * The ship-calling light blinked off and Swenson went back to coding the speech insert. As he was finishing, O'Toole came in. Swenson looked up. "O'Toole, sure and it's one hell of a job you're doing. You've got me in a fight with myself. My Swedish half wants to ignore you and my Irish half wants to punch you in the nose. You're supposed to handle labor relations. And I just received a message from Captain Verbold of Number 5 that his crew is about to mutiny." "Mother of God, what can I do?" cried O'Toole. "This outfit's so broke, it doesn't have enough money to pay the filing fee for bankruptcy." "In the face of adversity, you should spit." "Who are you quoting?" "Me." "Look, Swenson, I'm supposed to supervise labor relations, sure. Labor is something you hire. That's done by paying wages--on time." "At least you should have brains enough to understand the advantage of the egg." "What?" asked O'Toole blankly. "I've already explained it to you. Apparently it didn't get past your hair. I shall therefore make a second attempt. Do you understand the principle of the egg?" "I don't--" "Of course not. You never stopped to analyze it. You just assumed that because human beings are born the way they are, it is the best method. How much pain and trouble does a hen have laying an egg? Does she--" "Getting back to number 5," O'Toole said firmly, "what did Captain Verbold--" "Consider the advantage of the egg from another angle, O'Toole. Let's say your wife lays an egg and, at the moment, you don't have money enough to support another child. All you would have to do is put the egg in cold storage until your ship comes in. Then you can take the egg out and incubate it. Instead of being--" The click of the latch as O'Toole closed the door caused Swenson to spin in his chair. Tossing his pencil on the Dispatch Sheet, he put on his coat and went home. * * * * * When the dispatcher for Acme Interplanetary Express arrived at the office the following morning, a Special Message lay in sublime isolation on his desk. Swenson opened a beer and read the message. _Board of Directors_ _Acme Interplanetary Express_ _Gentlemen_: _Your restraining order concerning our ship at Luna City can only be considered as representing a warped and intolerable concept of justice. We will take every legal action available to us._ _Moreover, your action in refusing, without notice, a load which we were so kind as to offer you and your immoral dealings in contraband snuff force us to sever all commercial relations with your organization._ _We are taking appropriate action with the Planetary Commerce Commission._ _Yours sincerely_, _Moulton Trust_ _Lesquallan Ltd._ Swenson was smiling cherubically and bringing his Master Chart up to date when O'Toole came in. "Swenson, did you have eggs for breakfast? And how goes with the dispatch?" Carefully noting the last change of ship position on the Master Chart, Swenson turned to O'Toole. "Things are like so," he said, and drew a diagram. While O'Toole was studying the diagram, Swenson placed a call to Moulton Trust. "Give me Esrov. Yes, Esrov himself. This is Swenson, Acme Interplanetary. If Esrov doesn't want to talk to me, jets to him, but I think I have some information he can use." "Will you please hold on, Mr. Swenson? I will convey your message." Swenson looked at O'Toole for a moment in silence. "No, I don't like eggs for eating. My theory concerns another aspect--" "I know," said O'Toole resignedly. * * * * * Esrov's urbane voice came from the desk speaker. "Mr. Swenson, you have some information for us?" "Yes, Esrov. I've just seen your message to our Board and I want you to know that I can certainly understand your position. I could not prevent the restraining order. However, I have a suggestion as to what you can do about it." "We are doing everything we can." "Didn't you support Senator Higby for re-election last year? Well, he has shipped with us on an inspection tour of planetary outposts. Right now, he's on the Moon and will speak at 1:30 this afternoon at the official opening of the new Recreation Center. It occurred to me that it might be worthwhile for you to send him a message suggesting that he incorporate in his speech something about the laxity of the Planetary Commerce Commission that allowed you to get into this mess." "An excellent idea, Mr. Swenson. We shall give it immediate consideration. And, by the way, if for any reason your employment with Acme should terminate, we should be able to find a suitable position for you with our company." "Thanks, Esrov." Swenson switched off the set. "You dirty, stinking," O'Toole blared, "doublecrossing--" "Calm down, O'Toole. Don't get off the rocket until she's on the ground. I've got reasons." "Reasons? You haven't even got _reason_! And you're a crook!" "Now don't let my Irish half get on top. I want that Senator to talk as long as possible. Let's go back to the egg." "You've laid it." "For the last time, let me explain. If evolution had followed my theory, I, being a man, would not lay eggs. Women would and therefore they would escape--" "Swenson," Mister Cerobie called from the door of the Board Room, "you are hired--tentatively--as a dispatcher, not an egg-evolution theorist. Now come in here. The Board wants to talk to you." Swenson jerked the diagram out of O'Toole's hand and followed Cerobie. Ten minutes later, he came out of the Board Room, saying: "Gentlemen, the Senator speaks at 1:30 this afternoon. At 6:00 either fire me, crucify me and make me drink boiled beer alone, or give me a raise." * * * * * The clock on the wall over the dispatcher's desk showed 2:59 when Swenson called Acme's Luna City Terminal. "Dispatcher to Numbers 7 and 4, have crew stand by to blast off in exactly 15 minutes. I don't give a damn about regulations or the P.C.C. This is an order from your company. It must be obeyed. Number 7 will follow course as originally planned--destination Mars. Number 4 will blast for Earth, curve to be given in space." Fifteen minutes later, the dispatcher's office at Acme Interplanetary Express was quieter than an abandoned and forgotten tomb. The Board of Directors stood silently in a semi-circle behind Swenson. Every employee, even the stenographers, were jammed into the frowsy room. As the hand of the clock sliced off the last second of the 15 minutes, Swenson looked over his shoulder--and laughed, a great, resounding laugh. Then he flicked the switch and picked up the microphone. "Swenson dispatcher to 7 and 4. Blast! Over. Swenson dispatcher to 4 and 7. Blast!" Suddenly the silent room was filled with the roar of the jets as they thundered in the imaginations of the men and women crowded around the dispatcher's desk. The tension broke as almost a sob of gladness. What if it proved a hopeless dream, a mere stalling of inevitable ruin? They were no longer grounded. They were in space. To those in the room, it seemed only an instant until the ship-calling light flashed on. "Number 7 to dispatcher. In space. All clear." "Dispatcher to Number 7, steady as she goes." The red light was off for a moment. Then: "Number 4 to dispatcher. In space. All clear." "Dispatcher to Number 4. Temporary curve A 17. Will send exact curve plot in half an hour." Swenson turned to the astrographer. "Give me a plot for Chicago. I don't want to land her in this state. Just a matter of prudence. She's registered in this state." The astrographer shouldered his way through the crowd. When he reached the calculators, his swift fingers began pushing buttons. Swenson leaned back. "Mischief, thou art a'space," he said. "Now take whatever course thou wilt." * * * * * At 3:30, Swenson reached again for the microphone. "Dispatcher to Number 2. You are circling Earth at low orbital. Decelerate and drop to stratosphere. Maintain position over New York. Curve and blasting data...." At 4:00, he called Max Zempky at _Telenews_. "Anything frying at Luna?" "My God, yes! Senator Higby yapped sixteen minutes overtime and the shadow knife-edge caught everybody with their air tanks down. The control crews were listening to the speech and there wasn't anybody left to switch over the heating-cooling system. You've been to the Moon, so you know what happens. When day changes to night and you haven't got any atmosphere, the temperature drops from boiling to practically absolute zero. Sure, the automatic controls worked, but there wasn't any crew to adjust and service the heaters and coolers. It's a mess. Say, haven't you got a ship or two up there?" "I got 'em out in time." "Well, Moulton didn't. Their ship's been considerably damaged." "Thanks, Max. Let me know if anything else breaks." While Swenson had been talking, two Special Messages and an astrogram had been laid on his desk. He first read one of the Special Messages. _Acme Interplanetary Express_ _147 Z Street_ _New York_ _Gentlemen_: _We are holding you responsible for the damage to our ship Number 57, now on the Moon. The captain of your ship should have known the potential danger and warned Senator Higby of the time factor._ _We will contact the PCC at once._ _F. K. Esrov_ _Moulton Trust_ Swenson scribbled an answer and handed it to an assistant. _Moulton Trust_ _Nuts, Esrov. You've got to think up something better than that. We have no control over public officials, except during flight. Bellyache all you want to the PCC._ _Sedately_, _Swenson_ The astrogram was from Senator Hiram C. Higby: MY BEING STRANDED ON MOON UNMITIGATED AND UNPARALLELED OUTRAGE. MUST SPEAK AS SCHEDULED ON MARS. FIND ME TRANSPORTATION. WILL DEAL LATER WITH YOUR COMPANY CONCERNING INFAMOUS TREATMENT. SEN. HIRAM C. HIGBY Swenson replied: UNFORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCE UNAVOIDABLE. YOUR SPEECH MAGNIFICENT. WILL MAKE EVERY EFFORT TO SECURE IMMEDIATE TRANSPORTATION TO MARS. SWENSON * * * * * The second Special Message was from the PCC and asked with crisp and blunt formality why two Acme ships, which had been officially grounded by the Commission, had blasted off the Moon. In answer, Swenson was mild and apologetic. What else could he have done? Surely the Commission must understand that his first duty was to save his ships from damage. He had been informed by his captains that the shadow knife-edge was almost due, and there was no possibility of the control crews servicing the temperature-change compensators in time. It was an emergency. The matter of the grounding could be settled later. When his answer was finished, he coded it, along with the Special Message from Moulton Trust, the astrogram from Senator Higby, and his replies. Finally, he coded the Special Message from PCC. Then he called Number 5. "Number 5 to dispatcher. This is Verbold. What goes on now?" "You tell me. Dwelleth thy household in peace?" "For the moment." "Have you followed my instructions?" "In general, yes." "Did your crew hear Senator Higby's speech?" "Most of them. What else is there to do in this rat-trap?" "I could think of a lot of things. But as long as the crew heard the Honorable's spiel, that's all that matters. Do you know about the little affair half an hour ago at Luna City?" "No." "Check your news recorder. Have the item broadcast to the crew. Then decode the sequence of messages I'm about to send and read them--at your discretion--to the men. Stand by to record code." When he had finished, Swenson leaned back and opened a beer. "All we can do now is wait. But I'd give my grandmother's immortal soul, if the old shrew had one, to be in the sacred sanctum of Moulton Trust." * * * * * Lesquallan sat on the edge of the long table in Moulton's Board Room. He spoke slowly and for once his voice was low: "Esrov, did you or did you not suggest to our Senator Higby that he lengthen his speech on the Moon to include certain new information? And did that information involve my company along with yours?" "Mr. Lesquallan, the matter concerns only a minor aspect of policy," said Esrov placatingly. "Minor aspect of policy, hell! It concerns business. Look what happened at Luna. And you let us get publicly involved in it. Such matters must never be handled openly." Esrov did not answer. "Did you send such a message, Rovance?" Rovance shook his head. Lesquallan turned to Neinfort-Whritings. "Did you?" "No, Lesquallan." Neinfort-Whritings gently pulled a Special Message form from beneath Esrov's folded hands as they lay on the gleaming conference table. Lesquallan swung back to Esrov. "Did _you_ send it?" Esrov looked down at his folded hands. At last he said quietly: "Yes, I sent a message to the Senator--in our mutual interests." "Was it your own idea? Or did someone else suggest it?" "The basic thought came from a most unexpected source. It was, we might say, one of those happy breaks of industry. The dispatcher at Acme had the sense to cooperate with us. He gave me certain otherwise unavailable information, and--" "What was his name?" "I don't--oh, yes, it was Swenson." "You ... you fool ... _idiot_!" Neinfort-Whritings handed Lesquallan the Special Message he had taken from Esrov. It was the one from Swenson, which began: "Nuts, Esrov." Lesquallan read the message. Then he said slowly: "I've dealt with that clown Swenson before--over minor matters. I never thought he had that much brains." He looked at Esrov. "Or insight. Swenson's a smart man. Therefore, he must be eliminated." "I still maintain," Rovance said, "that the basis of the matter is the strangling of free enterprise." "I agree," said Lesquallan. "What right has Acme to interfere with free enterprise? They haven't a dollar to our million." "What shall we do?" Neinfort-Whritings murmured. "Follow Swenson's suggestion. We're going to the PCC--and we're going to our top contacts. They owe us plenty." "Shall we dictate a memo?" Esrov put in. "Call the PCC," Lesquallan ordered. "We're not dictating anything. And we're not sending any messages to anybody. Let the PCC send them!" * * * * * No employee of Acme Interplanetary Express had left the smoke-dense office when the ship-calling light went on: "Number 5 to Swenson. Verbold speaking." "Dispatcher to Number 5. Go ahead." "Uproar under control. I followed your instructions. A crew that's laughing won't mutiny. The crew sends thanks and their most pious wishes for the distress of Moulton. The men expect shares of the proceeds, if any, in the lawsuit. But they insist on being paid on Mars." "They will be, Captain Verbold. Now I've got to keep this beam clear. Good luck." Swenson turned to Mister Cerobie. "I presume you can at least find enough cash for the back pay?" Mister Cerobie did not answer. He was staring at a Special Message which had just been handed to him. He dropped it on Swenson's desk. _Acme Interplanetary Express_ _147 Z Street_ _New York_ _Because of your violation of Space Regulations and unprecedented effrontery, your ships Numbers 7 and 4 are hereby ordered to return to the Moon. There they will be impounded. A police patrol escort has been dispatched to insure your compliance with our order._ _Planetary Commerce Commission_ Swenson read the message and looked up. "Well?" asked Mister Cerobie. The murmur of voices died. The dispatcher's office of Acme Interplanetary Express was a silent, isolated world. Swenson wrote an astrogram and handed it to the Chairman of the Board. "Shall I code it?" Mister Cerobie read the astrogram. He read it a second time and his perplexity vanished. "But will it work?" he asked. Swenson shrugged. "It ought to. Remember what happened when Solar System Freight lost that chemical load? We're stratosphering over New York. Anyway, he wouldn't dare take the chance. Shall I code it, Mister Cerobie?" "Absolutely!" * * * * * The men and women of Acme crowded and squirmed for a look at the astrogram on Swenson's desk. O'Toole realized first and yelled. Slowly, as understanding came, other voices took it up, until the office was a chaos of sound. Bottles appeared from nowhere. O'Toole raised one of them: "Sure and St. Patrick would have loved it!" Calmly, Swenson coded: SENATOR HIRAM C. HIGBY ACME INTERPLANETARY EXPRESS LUNA CITY ONLY TRANSPORTATION AVAILABLE OUR SHIP NOW IN EARTH STRATOSPHERE ABOVE NEW YORK WITH CARGO SNUFF. WILL DISPATCH THIS SHIP SPECIAL TO MOON FOR YOUR DISPOSAL. HOWEVER MUST JETTISON CARGO TO LIGHTEN SHIP. WILL NOTIFY AIR POLLUTION AND PCC. ONLY ALTERNATIVE COMPLETE CLEARANCE BY PCC OUR SHIPS NUMBERS 7 AND 4. WILL THEN DISPATCH ONE OF THEM TO PICK YOU UP. ORDER TO JETTISON WILL BE GIVEN IN HALF AN HOUR UNLESS WE RECEIVE WORD FROM YOU. HAVE YOU ANY INFLUENCE WITH THE PCC? SEND REACTION AT ONCE. URGENCY OBVIOUS. SWENSON The dispatcher for Acme said to himself: "I doubt very seriously if any sane Senator up for re-election would want the official records to show that, because he talked too long on the Moon, a cargo of snuff was dumped over New York. Sneezing voters cannot see candidate's name on ballot." Twenty minutes later, the replying astrogram was in Swenson's hand. ACME INTERPLANETARY EXPRESS 147 Z STREET NEW YORK EARTH ORDER CLEARING YOUR SHIPS 7 AND 4 APPROVED BY PCC. HAVE SHIP IMMEDIATELY REVERSE COURSE AND PICK ME UP. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES JETTISON SNUFF. SEND FURTHER INFORMATION CONCERNING SLAVE LABOR EXPLOITATION VENUS FOR INCLUSION IN MY FORTHCOMING MARS SPEECH. HAVE SPEECH INSERT IN SAME FORM AS BEFORE. SENATOR HIRAM C. HIGBY * * * * * "And that, Mister Cerobie," said Swenson, "is how you slide out of a jam. You'll get enough cash for that snuff haul to Mars to pay the crew of Number 5 when she lands there. And you'll have enough left over to pay the demurrage and repair charges at Luna. Now open me a beer." Mister Cerobie opened the beer wearily. "You're fired, Swenson," he said. "I'll be damned if I'll write another speech or be your bartender." Swenson drank and smiled. The ship-calling light flashed red. "Number 3 to dispatcher. This is Captain Marwovan. Compartment holed by meteorite. Cannot land on Ganymede until we make repairs. Send me the orbital curve so we can circle until the hole is patched. And tell Mister Cerobie that the crew is complaining about back pay." Transferring the beer to his other hand, Swenson grabbed the microphone. "Dispatcher to Number 3...." 
59404	----	THE DRIVERS BY EDWARD W. LUDWIG _Jetways were excellent substitutes for war, perfect outlets for all forms of neuroses. And the unfit were weeded out by death...._ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Up the concrete steps. Slowly, one, two, three, four. Down the naked, ice-white corridor. The echo of his footfalls like drumbeats, ominous, threatening. Around him, bodies, faces, moving dimly behind the veil of his fear. At last, above an oaken door, the black-lettered sign: DEPARTMENT OF LAND-JET VEHICLES DIVISION OF LICENSES He took a deep breath. He withdrew his handkerchief and wiped perspiration from his forehead, his upper lip, the palms of his hands. His mind caressed the hope: _Maybe I've failed the tests. Maybe they won't give me a license._ He opened the door and stepped inside. The metallic voice of a robot-receptionist hummed at him: "Name?" "T--Tom Rogers." Click. "Have you an appointment?" His gaze ran over the multitude of silver-boxed analyzers, computers, tabulators, over the white-clad technicians and attendants, over the endless streams of taped data fed from mouths in the dome-shaped ceiling. "Have you an appointment?" repeated the robot. "Oh. At 4:45 p. m." Click. "Follow the red arrow in Aisle Three, please." Tom Rogers moved down the aisle, eyes wide on the flashing, arrow-shaped lights just beneath the surface of the quartzite floor. Abruptly, he found himself before a desk. Someone pushed him into a foam-rubber contour chair. "Surprised, eh, boy?" boomed a deep voice. "No robots at this stage of the game. No sir. This requires the human touch. Get me?" "Uh-huh." "Well, let's see now." The man settled back in his chair behind the desk and began thumbing through a file of papers. He was paunchy and bald save for a forepeak of red-brown fuzz. His gray eyes, with the dreamy look imposed by thick contact lenses, were kindly. Sweeping across his flat chest were two rows of rainbow-bright Driver's Ribbons. Two of the bronze accident stars were flanked by smaller stars which indicated limb replacements. Belatedly, Tom noticed the desk's aluminum placard which read _Harry Hayden, Final Examiner--Human_. Tom thought, _Please, Harry Hayden, tell me I failed. Don't lead up to it. Please come out and say I failed the tests._ "Haven't had much time to look over your file," mused Harry Hayden. "Thomas Darwell Rogers. Occupation: journalism student. Unmarried. No siblings. Height, five-eleven. Weight, one-sixty-three. Age, twenty." Harry Hayden frowned. "Twenty?" he repeated, looking up. _Oh, God, here it comes again._ "Yes, sir," said Tom Rogers. Harry Hayden's face hardened. "You've tried to enlist before? You were turned down?" "This is my first application." Sudden hostility swept aside Harry Hayden's expression of kindliness. He scowled at Tom's file. "Born July 18, 2020. This is July 16, 2041. In two days you'll be twenty-one. We don't issue new licenses to people over twenty-one." "I--I know, sir. The psychiatrists believe you adjust better to Driving when you're young." "In fact," glowered Harry Hayden, "in two days you'd have been classified as an enlistment evader. Our robo-statistics department would have issued an automatic warrant of arrest." "I know, sir." "Then why'd you wait so long?" The voice was razor-sharp. Tom wiped a fresh burst of sweat from his forehead. "Well, you know how one keeps putting things off. I just--" "You don't put off things like this, boy. Why, my three sons were lined up here at five in the morning on their sixteenth birthdays. Every mother's son of 'em. They'd talked of nothing else since they were twelve. Used to play Drivers maybe six, seven hours every day...." His voice trailed. "Most kids are like that," said Tom. "Weren't _you_?" The hostility in Harry Hayden seemed to be churning like boiling water. "Oh, sure," lied Tom. "I don't get it. You say you wanted to Drive, but you didn't try to enlist." Tom squirmed. _You can't tell him you've been scared of jetmobiles ever since you saw that crash when you were three. You can't say that, at seven, you saw your grandfather die in a jetmobile and that after that you wouldn't even play with a jetmobile toy. You can't tell him those things because five years of psychiatric treatment didn't get the fear out of you. If the medics didn't understand, how could Harry Hayden?_ Tom licked his lips. _And you can't tell him how you used to lie in bed praying you'd die before you were sixteen--or how you've pleaded with Mom and Dad not to make you enlist till you were twenty. You can't--_ Inspiration struck him. He clenched his fists. "It--it was my mother, sir. You know how mothers are sometimes. Hate to see their kids grow up. Hate to see them put on a uniform and risk being killed." Harry Hayden digested the explanation for a few seconds. It seemed to pacify him. "By golly, that's right. Esther took it hard when Mark died in a five-car bang-up out of San Francisco. And when Larry got his three summers ago in Europe. Esther's my wife--Mark was my youngest, Larry the oldest." He shook his head. "But it isn't as bad as it used to be. Organ and limb grafts are pretty well perfected, and with electro-hypnosis operations are painless. The only fatalities now are when death is immediate, when it happens before the medics get to you. Why, no more than one out of ten Drivers died in the last four-year period." A portion of his good nature returned. "Anyway, your personal life's none of my business. You understand the enlistment contract?" Tom nodded. _Damn you, Harry Hayden, let me out of here. Tell me I failed, tell me I passed. But damn you, let me out._ "Well?" said Harry Hayden, waiting. "Oh. The enlistment contract. First enlistment is for four years. Renewal any time during the fourth year at the option of the enlistee. Minimum number of hours required per week: seven. Use of unauthorized armour or offensive weapons punishable by $5,000.00 fine or five years in prison. All accidents and deaths not witnessed by a Jetway 'copter-jet must be reported at once by visi-phone to nearest Referee and Medical Depot. Oh yes, maximum speed: 900 miles per." "Right! You got it, boy!" Harry Hayden paused, licking his lips. "Now, let's see. Guess I'd better ask another question or two. This is your final examination, you know. What do you remember about the history of Driving?" Tom was tempted to say, "Go to Hell, you fat idiot," but he knew that whatever he did or said now was of no importance. The robot-training tests he'd undergone during the past three weeks, only, were of importance. Dimly, he heard himself repeating the phrases beaten into his mind by school history-tapes: "In the 20th Century a majority of the Earth's peoples were filled with hatreds and frustrations. Humanity was cursed with a world war every generation or so. Between wars, young people had no outlets for their energy, and many of them formed bands of delinquents. Even older people developed an alarming number of psychoses and neuroses. "The institution of Driving was established in 1998 after automobiles were declared obsolete because of their great number. The Jetways were retained for use of young people in search of thrills." "Right!" Harry Hayden broke in. "Now, the kids get all the excitement they need, and there are no more delinquent bands and wars. When you've spent a hitch or two killing or almost being killed, you're mature. You're ready to settle down and live a quiet life--just like most of the old-time war veterans used to do. And you're trained to think and act fast, you've got good judgment. And the weak and unfit are weeded out. Right, boy?" Tom nodded. A thought forced its way up from the layer of fear that covered his mind. "Right--as far as it goes." "How's that?" Tom's voice quavered, but he said, "I mean that's part of it. The rest is that most people are bored with themselves. They think that by traveling fast they can escape from themselves. After four or eight years of racing at 800 per, they find out they can't escape after all, so they become resigned. Or, sometimes if they're lucky enough to escape death, they begin to feel important after all. They aren't so bored then because a part of their mind tells them they're mightier than death." Harry Hayden whistled. "Hey, I never heard that before. Is that in the tapes now? Can't say I understand it too well, but it's a fine idea. Anyway, Driving's good. Cuts down on excess population, too--and with Peru putting in Jetways, it's world-wide. Yep, by golly. Yes, sir!" He thrust a pen at Tom. "All right, boy. Just sign here." Tom Rogers took the pen automatically. "You mean, I--" "Yep, you came through your robot-training tests A-1. Oh, some of the psycho reports aren't too flattering. Lack of confidence, sense of inferiority, inability to adjust. But nothing serious. A few weeks of Driving'll fix you up. Yep, boy, you've passed. You're getting your license. Tomorrow morning you'll be on the Jetway. You'll be Driving, boy, Driving!" _Oh Mother of God, Mother of God...._ * * * * * "And now," said Harry Hayden, "you'll want to see your Hornet." "Of course," murmured Tom Rogers, swaying. The paunchy man rose and led Tom down an aluminite ramp and onto a small observation platform some ninety feet above the ground. A dry summer wind licked at Tom's hair and stung his eyes. Nausea twisted at his innards. He felt as if he were perched on the edge of a slippery precipice. "There," intoned Harry Hayden, "is the Jetway. Beautiful, eh?" "Uh-huh." Trembling, Tom forced his vision to the bright, smooth canyon beneath him. Its bottom was a shining white asphalt ribbon, a thousand feet wide, that cut arrow-straight through the city. Its walls were naked concrete banks a hundred feet high whose reinforced lips curved inward over the antiseptic whiteness. Harry Hayden pointed a chubby finger downward. "And there _they_ are--the Hornets. See 'em, boy? Right there in front of the assembly shop. Twelve of 'em. Brand new DeLuxe Super-Jet '41 Hornets. Yes, sir. Going to be twelve of you initiated tomorrow." Tom scowled at the twelve jetmobiles shaped like flattened tear-drops. No sunlight glittered on their dead-black bodies. They squatted silent and foreboding, oblivious to sunlight, black bullets poised to hurl their prospective occupants into fury and horror. _Grandpa looked so very white in his coffin, so very dead--_ "What's the matter, boy? You sick?" "N--no, of course not." Harry Hayden laughed. "I get it. You thought you'd get to _really_ see one. Get in it, I mean, try it out. It's too late in the day, boy. Shop's closing. You couldn't drive one anyway. Regulation is that new drivers start in the morning when they're fresh. But tomorrow morning one of those Hornets'll be assigned to you. Delivered to the terminal nearest your home. Live far from your terminal?" "About four blocks." "Half a minute on the mobile-walk. What college you go to?" "Western U." "Lord, that's 400 miles away. You been living there?" "No. Commuting every day on the monorail." "Hell, that's for old women. Must have taken you over an hour to get there. Now you'll make it in almost thirty minutes. Still, it's best to take it easy the first day. Don't get 'er over 600 per. But don't let 'er fall beneath that either. If you do, some old veteran'll know you're a greenhorn and try to knock you off." Suddenly Harry Hayden stiffened. "Here come a couple! Look at 'em, boy!" The low rumbling came out of the west, as of angry bees. Twin pinpoints of black appeared on the distant white ribbon. Louder and louder the rumbling. Larger and larger the dots. To Tom, the sterile Jetway was transformed into a home of horror, an amphitheatre of death. Louder and larger-- _Brooommmmmm._ Gone. "Hey, how'ja like that, boy? They're gonna crack the sonic barrier or my name's not Harry Hayden!" Tom's white-knuckled hands grasped a railing for support. _Christ, I'm going to be sick. I'm going to vomit._ "But wait'll five o'clock or nine in the morning. That's when you see the traffic. That's when you _really_ do some Driving!" Tom gulped. "Is--is there a rest room here?" "What's that, boy?" "A--a rest room." "What's the matter, boy? You _do_ look sick. Too much excitement, maybe?" Tom motioned frantically. Harry Hayden pointed, slow comprehension crawling over his puffy features. "Up the ramp, to your right." Tom Rogers made it just in time.... * * * * * Many voices: "Happy Driving to You, Happy Driving to You, Happy Driving, Dear Taaa-ahmmm--" (pause) "Happy Driving to--" (flourish) "--You!" An explosion of laughter. A descent of beaming faces, a thrusting forward of hands. Mom reached him first. Her small face was pale under its thin coat of make-up. Her firm, rounded body was like a girl's in its dress of swishing Martian silk, yet her blue eyes were sad and her voice held a trembling fear: "You passed, Tom?" Softly. Tom's upper lip twitched. Was she afraid that he'd passed the tests--or that he hadn't! He wasn't sure. Before he could answer, Dad broke in, hilariously. "Everybody passes these days excepts idiots and cripples!" Tom tried to join the chorus of laughter. Dad said, more softly, "You _did_ pass, didn't you?" "I passed," said Tom, forcing a smile. "But, Dad, I didn't want a surprise party. Really, I--" "Nonsense." Dad straightened. "This is the happiest moment of our lives--or at least it _should_ be." Dad grinned. An understanding, intimate and gentle, flickered across his handsome, gray-thatched features. For an instant Tom felt that he was not alone. Then the grin faded. Dad resumed his role of proud and blustering father. Light glittered on his three rows of Driver's Ribbons. The huge Blue Ribbon of Honor was in their center, like a blue flower in an evil garden of bronze accident stars, crimson fatality ribbons and silver death's-heads. In a moment of desperation Tom turned to Mom. The sadness was still in her face, but it seemed over-shadowed by pride. What was it she'd once said? "It's terrible, Tom, to think of your becoming a Driver, but it'd be a hundred times more terrible _not_ to see you become one." He knew now that he was alone, an exile, and Mom and Dad were strangers. After all, how could one person, entrenched in his own little world of calm security, truly know another's fear and loneliness? "Just a little celebration," Dad was saying. "You wouldn't be a Driver unless we gave you a real send-off. All our friends are here, Tom. Uncle Mack and Aunt Edith and Bill Ackerman and Lou Dorrance--" No, Dad, Tom thought. Not our friends. _Your_ friends. Don't you remember that a man of twenty who isn't a Driver has no friends? A lank, loose-jowled man jostled between them. Tom realized that Uncle Mack was babbling at him. "Knew you'd make it, Tom. Never believed what some people said 'bout you being afraid. My boy, of course, enlisted when he was only seventeen. Over thirty now, but he still Drives now and then. Got a special license, you know. Only last week--" Dad exclaimed, "A toast to our new Driver!" Murmurs of delight. Clinkings of glasses. Gurglings of liquid. Someone bounded a piano chord. Voices rose: "A-Driving he will go, A-Driving he will go, To Hell and back in a coffin-sack A-Driving he will go." Tom downed his glass of champagne. A pleasant warmth filled his belly. A satisfying numbness dulled the raw ache of fear. He smiled bitterly. There was kindness and gentleness within the human heart, he thought, but like tiny inextinguishable fires, there were ferocity and savageness, too. What else could one expect from a race only a few thousand years beyond the spear and stone axe? Through his imagination passed a parade of sombre scenes: The primitive man dancing about a Paleolithic fire, chanting an invocation to strange gods who might help in tomorrow's battle with the hairy warriors from the South. The barrel-chested Roman gladiator, with trident and net, striding into the great stone arena. The silver-armored knight, gauntlet in gloved hand, riding into the pennant-bordered tournament ground. The rock-shouldered fullback trotting beneath an avalanche of cheers into the 20th Century stadium. Men needed a challenge to their wits, a test for their strength. The urge to combat and the lust for danger was as innate as the desire for life. Who was he to say that the law of Driving was unjust? Nevertheless he shuddered. And the singers continued: "A thousand miles an hour, A thousand miles an hour, Angels cry and devils sigh At a thousand miles an hour...." * * * * * The jetmobile terminal was like a den of chained, growling black tigers. White-cloaked attendants scurried from stall to stall, deft hands flying over atomic-engine controls and flooding each vehicle with surging life. Ashen-faced, shivering in the early-morning coolness, Tom Rogers handed an identification slip to an attendant. "Okay, kid," the rat-faced man wheezed, "there she is--Stall 17. Brand new, first time out. Good luck." Tom stared in horror at the grumbling metal beast. "But remember," the attendant said, "don't try to make a killing your first day. Most Drivers aren't out to get a Ribbon every day either. They just want to get to work or school, mostly, and have fun doing it." _Have fun doing it_, thought Tom. _Good God._ About him passed other black-uniformed Drivers. They paused at the heads of their stalls, donned crash-helmets and safety belts, adjusted goggles. They were like primitive warriors, like cocky Roman gladiators, like armored knights, like star fullbacks. They were formidable and professional. Tom's imagination wandered. _By Jupiter's beard, we'll vanquish Attila and his savages. We'll prove ourselves worthy of being men and Romans.... The Red Knight? I vow, Mother, that his blood alone shall know the sting of the lance.... Don't worry, Dad. Those damned Japs and Germans won't lay a hand on me.... Watch me on TV, folks. Three touchdowns today--I promise!_ The attendant's voice snapped him back to reality. "What you waiting for, kid? Get in!" Tom's heart pounded. He felt the hot pulse of blood in his temples. The Hornet lay beneath him like an open, waiting coffin. He swayed. "Hi, Tom!" a boyish voice called. "Bet I beat ya!" Tom blinked and beheld a small-boned, tousled-haired lad of seventeen striding past the stall. What was his name? Miles. That was it. Larry Miles. A frosh at Western U. A skinny, pimply-faced boy suddenly transformed into a black-garbed warrior. How could this be? "Okay," Tom called, biting his lip. He looked again at the Hornet. A giddiness returned to him. You can say you're sick, he told himself. It's happened before: a hangover from the party. Sure. Tomorrow you'll feel better. If you could just have one more day, just one-- Other Hornets were easing out into the slip, sleek black cats embarking on an insane flight. One after another, grumbling, growling, spatting scarlet flame from their tail jets. Perhaps if he waited a few minutes, the traffic would be thinner. He could have coffee, let the other nine-o'clock people go on ahead of him. _No, dammit, get it over with. If you crash, you crash. If you die, you die. You and Grandpa and a million others._ He gritted his teeth, fighting the omnipresent giddiness. He eased his body down into the Hornet's cockpit. He felt the surge of incredible energies beneath the steelite controls. Compared to this vehicle, the ancient training jets were as children's toys. An attendant snapped down the plexite canopy. Ahead, a guide-master twirled a blue flag in a starting signal. Tom flicked on a switch. His trembling hands tightened about the steering lever. The Hornet lunged forward, quivering as it was seized by the Jetway's electromagnetic guide-field. He drove.... * * * * * One hundred miles an hour, two hundred, three hundred. Down the great asphalt valley he drove. Perspiration formed inside his goggles, steaming the glass. He tore them off. The glaring whiteness hurt his eyes. Swish, swish swish. Jetmobiles roared past him. The rushing wind of their passage buffeted his own car. His hands were knuckled white around the steering lever. He recalled the advice of Harry Hayden: Don't let 'er under 600 per. If you do, some old veteran'll know you're a greenhorn and try to knock you off. Lord. Six hundred. But strangely, a measure of desperate courage crept into his fear-clouded mind. If Larry Miles, a pimply-faced kid of seventeen, could do it, so could he. Certainly, he told himself. His foot squeezed down on the accelerator. Atomic engines hummed smoothly. To his right, he caught a kaleidoscopic glimpse of a white gyro-ambulance. A group of metal beasts lay huddled on the emergency strip like black ants feeding on a carcass. _Like Grandfather_, he thought. _Like those two moments out of the dark past, moments of screaming flame and black death and a child's horror._ Swish. The scene was gone, transformed into a cluster of black dots on his rear-vision radarscope. His stomach heaved. For a moment he thought he was going to be sick again. But stronger now than his horror was a growing hatred of that horror. His body tensed as if he were fighting a physical enemy. He fought his memories, tried to thrust them back into the oblivion of lost time, tried to leave them behind him just as his Hornet had left the cluster of metal beasts. He took a deep breath. He was not going to be sick after all. Five hundred now. Six hundred. He'd reached the speed without realizing it. Keep 'er steady. Stay on the right. If Larry Miles can do it, so can you. _Swooommmm._ God, where did _that_ one come from? Only ten minutes more. You'll be there. You'll make a right hand turn at the college. The automatic pilot'll take care of that. You won't have to get in the fast traffic lanes. He wiped perspiration from his forehead. Not so bad, these Drivers. Like Harry Hayden said, the killers come out on Saturdays and Sundays. Now, most of us are just anxious to get to work and school. Six hundred, seven hundred, seven-twenty-- Did he dare tackle the sonic barrier? The white asphalt was like opaque mist. The universe seemed to consist only of the broad expanse of Jetway. _Swooommmm._ Someone passing even at this speed! The crazy fool! And cutting in, the flame of his exhaust clouding Tom's windshield! Tom's foot jerked off the accelerator. His Hornet slowed. The car ahead disappeared into the white distance like a black arrow. Whew! His legs were suddenly like ice water. He pulled over to the emergency strip. Down went the speedometer--five hundred, four, three, two, one, zero.... He saw the image of the approaching Hornet in his rear-vision radarscope. It was traveling fast and heading straight toward him. Heading onto the emergency strip. A side-swiper! Tom's heart churned. There would be no physical contact between the two Hornets--but the torrent of air from the inch-close passage would be enough to hurl his car into the Jetway bank like a storm-blown leaf. There was no time to build enough acceleration for escape. His only chance was to frighten the attacker away. He swung his Hornet right, slammed both his acceleration and braking jet controls to full force. The car shook under the sudden release of energy. White-hot flame roared from its two dozen jets. Tom's Hornet was enclosed by a sphere of flame. But dwarfing the roar was the thunder of the attacking Hornet. A black meteor in Tom's radarscope, it zoomed upon him. Tom closed his eyes, braced himself for the impact. There was no impact. There was only an explosion of sound and a moderate buffeting of his car. It was as if many feet, not inches, had separated the two Hornets. Tom opened his eyes and flicked off his jet controls. Ahead, through the plexite canopy, he beheld the attacker. It was far away now, like an insane, fiery black bird. Both its acceleration and braking jets flamed. It careened to the far side of the Jetway and zig-zagged up the curved embankment. Its body trembled as its momentum fought the Jetway's electromagnetic guide-field. As if in an incredible carnival loop-the-loop, the Hornet topped the lip of the wall. It left the concrete, did a backward somersault, and gyrated through space like a flaming pinwheel. It descended with an earth-shaking crash in the center of the gleaming Jetway. _What happened?_ Tom's dazed mind screamed. _In God's name, what happened?_ He saw the sleek white shape of a Referee's 'copter-jet floating to the pavement beside him. Soon he was being pulled out of his Hornet. Someone was pumping his hand and thumping his back. "Magnificent," a voice was saying. "Simply magnificent!" * * * * * Night. Gay laughter and tinkling glasses. Above all, Dad's voice, strong and proud: "... and on his very first day, too. He saw the car in his rear radarscope, guessed what the devil was up to. Did he try to escape? No, he stayed right there. When the car closed in for the kill, he spun around and turned on all his jets full-blast. The killer never had a chance to get close enough to do his side-swiping. The blast roasted him like a peanut." Dad put his arm around Tom's shoulder. All eyes seemed upon Tom's bright new crimson fatality ribbon embossed not only with a silver death's-head, but also with a sea-blue Circle of Honor. Tom thought: _Behold the conquering hero. Attila is vanquished and Rome is saved. The Red Knight has been defeated, and the fair princess is mine. That Jap Zero didn't have a chance. A touchdown in the final five seconds of the fourth quarter--not bad, eh?_ Dad went on: "That devil really _was_ a killer. Fellow name of Wilson. Been Driving for six years. Had thirty-three accident ribbons with twenty-one fatalities--not one of them honorable. That Wilson drove for just one purpose: to kill. He met his match in our Tom Rogers." Applause from Uncle Mack and Aunt Edith and Bill Ackerman and Lou Dorrance--and more important, from young Larry Miles and big Norm Powers and blonde Geraldine Oliver and cute little Sally Peters. Tom smiled. Not only _your_ friends tonight, Dad. Tonight it's _my_ friends, too. _My_ friends from Western U. Fame was as unpredictable as the trembling of a leaf, Tom thought, as delicate as a pillar of glass. Yet the yoke of fame rested pleasantly on his shoulders. He had no inclination to dislodge it. And while a fear was still in him, it was now a fragile thing, an egg shell to be easily crushed. Later Mom came to him. There was a proudness in her features, and yet a sadness and a fear, too. Her eyes held the thoughtful hesitancy of one for whom time and event have moved too swiftly for comprehension. "Tomorrow's Saturday," she murmured. "There's no school, and no one'll expect you to Drive after what happened today. You'll be staying home for your birthday, won't you, Tom?" Tom Rogers shook his head. "No," he said wistfully. "Sally Peters is giving a little party over in New Boston. It's the first time anyone like Sally ever asked me anywhere." "I see," said Mom, as if she really didn't see at all. "You'll take the monorail?" "No, Mom," Tom answered very softly. "I'm Driving." 
3098	----	*** The Paths of Inland Commerce By Archer B. Hulbert A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway Volume 21 of the Chronicles of America Series ∴ Allen Johnson, Editor Assistant Editors Gerhard R. Lomer Charles W. Jefferys Abraham Lincoln Edition New Haven: Yale University Press Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. London: Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press 1920 Copyright, 1920 by Yale University Press PREFACE If the great American novel is ever written, I hazard the guess that its plot will be woven around the theme of American transportation, for that has been the vital factor in the national development of the United States. Every problem in the building of the Republic has been, in the last analysis, a problem in transportation. The author of such a novel will find a rich fund of material in the perpetual rivalries of pack-horseman and wagoner, of riverman and canal boatman, of steamboat promoter and railway capitalist. He will find at every point the old jostling and challenging the new: pack-horsemen demolishing wagons in the early days of the Alleghany traffic; wagoners deriding Clinton's Ditch; angry boatmen anxious to ram the paddle wheels of Fulton's Clermont, which threatened their monopoly. Such opposition has always been an incident of progress; and even in this new country, receptive as it was to new ideas, the Washingtons, the Fitches, the Fultons, the Coopers, and the Whitneys, who saw visions and dreamed dreams, all had to face scepticism and hostility from those whom they would serve. A. B. H. Worcester, Mass., June, 1919. The Paths of Inland Commerce Chapter Chapter Title Page Preface vii I. The Man Who Caught The Vision 1 II. The Red Man's Trail 14 III. The Mastery Of The Rivers 30 IV. A Nation On Wheels 44 V. The Flatboat Age 62 VI. The Passing Show Of 1800 81 VII. The Birth Of The Steamboat 100 VIII. The Conquest Of The Alleghanies 116 IX. The Dawn Of The Iron Age 134 X. The Pathway of the Lakes 154 XI. The Steamboat And The West 174 Bibliographical Note 197 Index 203 THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE ∴ CHAPTER I. The Man Who Caught the Vision Inland America, at the birth of the Republic, was as great a mystery to the average dweller on the Atlantic seaboard as the elephant was to the blind men of Hindustan. The reports of those who had penetrated this wilderness--of those who had seen the barren ranges of the Alleghanies, the fertile uplands of the Unakas, the luxuriant blue-grass regions, the rich bottom lands of the Ohio and Mississippi, the wide shores of the inland seas, or the stretches of prairie increasing in width beyond the Wabash--seemed strangely contradictory, and no one had been able to patch these reports together and grasp the real proportions of the giant inland empire that had become a part of the United States. It was a pathless desert; it was a maze of trails, trodden out by deer, buffalo, and Indian. Its great riverways were broad avenues for voyagers and explorers; they were treacherous gorges filled with the plunder of a million floods. It was a rich soil, a land of plenty; the natives were seldom more than a day removed from starvation. Within its broad confines could dwell a great people; but it was as inaccessible as the interior of China. It had a great commercial future; yet its gigantic distances and natural obstructions defied all known means of transportation. Such were the varied and contradictory stories told by the men who had entered the portals of inland America. It is not surprising, therefore, that theories and prophecies about the interior were vague and conflicting nor that most of the schemes of statesmen and financiers for the development of the West were all parts and no whole. They all agreed as to the vast richness of that inland realm and took for granted an immense commerce therein that was certain to yield enormous profits. In faraway Paris, the ingenious diplomat, Silas Deane, writing to the Secret Committee of Congress in 1776, pictured the Old Northwest--bounded by the Ohio, the Alleghanies, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi--as paying the whole expense of the Revolutionary War. ¹ Thomas Paine in 1780 drew specifications for a State of from twenty to thirty millions of acres lying west of Virginia and south of the Ohio River, the sale of which land would pay the cost of three years of the war. ² On the other hand, Pelatiah Webster, patriotic economist that he was, decried in 1781 all schemes to "pawn" this vast westward region; he likened such plans to "killing the goose that laid an egg every day, in order to tear out at once all that was in her belly." He advocated the township system of compact and regular settlement; and he argued that any State making a cession of land would reap great benefit "from the produce and trade" of the newly created settlements. ¹ Deane's plan was to grant a tract two hundred miles square at the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi to a company on the condition that a thousand families should be settled on it within seven years. He added that, as this company would be in a great degree commercial, the establishing of commerce at the junction of those large rivers would immediately give a value to all the lands situated on or near them. ² Paine thought that while the new State could send its exports southward down the Mississippi, its imports must necessarily come from the East through Chesapeake Bay because the current of the Mississippi was too strong to be overcome by any means of navigation then known. There were mooted many other schemes. General Rufus Putnam, for example, advocated the Pickering or "Army" plan of occupying the West; he wanted a fortified line to the Great Lakes, in case of war with England, and fortifications on the Ohio and the Mississippi, in case Spain should interrupt the national commerce on these waterways. And Thomas Jefferson theorized in his study over the toy states of Metropotamia and Polypotamia--brought his ... trees and houses out And planted cities all about. But it remained for George Washington, the Virginia planter, to catch, in something of its actual grandeur, the vision of a Republic stretching towards the setting sun, bound and unified by paths of inland commerce. It was Washington who traversed the long ranges of the Alleghanies, slept in the snows of Deer Park with no covering but his greatcoat, inquired eagerly of trapper and trader and herder concerning the courses of the Cheat, the Monongahela, and the Little Kanawha, and who drew from these personal explorations a clear and accurate picture of the future trade routes by which the country could be economically, socially, and nationally united. Washington's experience had peculiarly fitted him to catch this vision. Fortune had turned him westward as he left his mother's knee. First as a surveyor for Lord Fairfax in the Shenandoah Valley and later, under Braddock and Forbes, in the armies fighting for the Ohio against the French he had come to know the interior as it was known by no other man of his standing. His own landed property lay largely along the upper Potomac and in and beyond the Alleghanies. Washington's interest in this property was very real. Those who attempt to explain his early concern with the West as purely altruistic must misread his numerous letters and diaries. Nothing in his unofficial character shows more plainly than his business enterprise and acumen. On one occasion he wrote to his agent, Crawford, concerning a proposed land speculation: "I recommend that you keep this whole matter a secret or trust it only to those in whom you can confide. If the scheme I am now proposing to you were known, it might give alarm to others, and by putting them on a plan of the same nature, before we could lay a proper foundation for success ourselves, set the different interests clashing and in the end overturn the whole." Nor can it be denied that Washington's attitude to the commercial development of the West was characterized in his early days by a narrow colonial partisanship. He was a stout Virginian; and all stout Virginians of that day refused to admit the pretensions of other colonies to the land beyond the mountains. But from no man could the shackles of self-interest and provincial rivalry drop more quickly than they dropped from Washington when he found his country free after the close of the Revolutionary War. He then began to consider how that country might grow and prosper. And he began to preach the new doctrine of expansion and unity. This new doctrine first appears in a letter which he wrote to the Marquis de Chastellux in 1783, after a tour from his camp at Newburg into central New York, where he had explored the headwaters of the Mohawk and the Susquehanna: "I could not help taking a more extensive view of the vast inland navigation of these United States [the letter runs] and could not but be struck by the immense extent and importance of it, and of the goodness of that Providence which has dealt its favors to us with so profuse a hand. Would to God we may have wisdom enough to improve them. I shall not rest contented till I have explored the Western country, and traversed those lines, or great part of them, which have given bounds to a new empire." "The vast inland navigation of these United States!" It is an interesting fact that Washington should have had his first glimpse of this vision from the strategic valley of the Mohawk, which was soon to rival his beloved Potomac as an improved commercial route from the seaboard to the West, and which was finally to achieve an unrivaled superiority in the days of the Erie Canal and the Twentieth Century Limited. We may understand something of what the lure of the West meant to Washington when we learn that in order to carry out his proposed journey after the Revolution, he was compelled to refuse urgent invitations to visit Europe and be the guest of France. "I found it indispensably necessary," he writes, "to visit my Landed property West of the Apalacheon Mountains.... One object of my journey being to obtain information of the nearest and best communication between Eastern & Western waters; & to facilitate as much as in me lay the Inland Navigation of the Potomack." On September 1, 1784, Washington set out from Mount Vernon on his journey to the West. Even the least romantic mind must feel a thrill in picturing this solitary horseman, the victor of Yorktown, threading the trails of the Potomac, passing on by Cumberland and Fort Necessity and Braddock's grave to the Monongahela. The man, now at the height of his fame, is retracing the trails of his boyhood--covering ground over which he had passed as a young officer in the last English and French war--but he is seeing the land in so much larger perspective that, although his diary is voluminous, the reader of those pages would not know that Washington had been this way before. Concerning Great Meadows, where he first saw the "bright face of danger" and which he once described gleefully as "a charming place for an encounter," he now significantly remarks: "The upland, East of the meadow, is good for grain." Changed are the ardent dreams that filled the young man's heart when he wrote to his mother from this region that singing bullets "have truly a charming sound." Today, as he looks upon the flow of Youghiogheny, he sees it reaching out its finger tips to Potomac's tributaries. He perceives a similar movement all along the chain of the Alleghanies: on the west are the Great Lakes and the Ohio, and reaching out towards them from the east, waiting to be joined by portage road and canal, are the Hudson, the Susquehanna, the Potomac, and the James. He foresees these streams bearing to the Atlantic ports the golden produce of the interior and carrying back to the interior the manufactured goods of the seaboard. He foresees the Republic becoming homogeneous, rich, and happy. "Open all the communication which nature has afforded," he wrote Henry Lee, "between the Atlantic States and the Western territory, and encourage the use of them to the utmost ... and sure I am there is no other tie by which they will long form a link in the chain of Federal Union." Crude as were the material methods by which Washington hoped to accomplish this end, in spirit he saw the very America that we know today; and he marked out accurately the actual pathways of inland commerce that have played their part in the making of America. Taking the city of Detroit as the key position, commercially, he traced the main lines of internal trade. He foresaw New York improving her natural line of communication by way of the Mohawk and the Niagara frontier on Lake Erie--the present line of the Erie Canal and the New York Central Railway. For Pennsylvania, he pointed out the importance of linking the Schuylkill and the Susquehanna and of opening the two avenues westward to Pittsburgh and to Lake Erie. In general, he thus forecast the Pennsylvania Canal and the Pennsylvania and the Erie railways. For Maryland and Virginia he indicated the Potomac route as the nearest for all the trade of the Ohio Valley, with the route by way of the James and the Great Kanawha as an alternative for the settlements on the lower Ohio. His vision here was realized in a later day by the Potomac and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the Cumberland Road, the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, and by the James-Kanawha Turnpike and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. Washington's general conclusions are stated in a summary at the end of his Journal, which was reproduced in his classic letter to Harrison, written in 1784. His first point is that every State which had water routes reaching westward could enhance the value of its lands, increase its commerce, and quiet the democratic turbulence of its shut-in pioneer communities by the improvement of its river transportation. Taking Pennsylvania as a specific example, he declared that "there are one hundred thousand souls West of the Laurel Hill, who are groaning under the inconveniences of a long land transportation.... If this cannot be made easy for them to Philadelphia ... they will seek a mart elsewhere.... An opposition on the part of [that] government ... would ultimately bring on a separation between its Eastern and Western settlements; towards which there is not wanting a disposition at this moment in that part of it beyond the mountains." Washington's second proposal was the achievement of a new and lasting conquest of the West by binding it to the seaboard with chains of commerce. He thus states his point: "No well informed mind need be told that the flanks and rear of the United territory are possessed by other powers, and formidable ones too--nor how necessary it is to apply the cement of interest to bind all parts of it together, by one indissoluble bond--particularly the middle States with the Country immediately back of them--for what ties let me ask, should we have upon those people; and how entirely unconnected should we be with them if the Spaniards on their right or Great Britain on their left, instead of throwing stumbling blocks in their way as they do now, should invite their trade and seek alliances with them?" Some of the pictures in Washington's vision reveal, in the light of subsequent events, an almost uncanny prescience. He very plainly prophesied the international rivalry for the trade of the Great Lakes zone, embodied today in the Welland and the Erie canals. He declared the possibility of navigating with ocean-going vessels the tortuous two-thousand-mile channel of the Ohio and the Mississippi River; and within sixteen years ships left the Ohio, crossed the Atlantic, and sailed into the Mediterranean. His description of a possible insurrection of a western community might well have been written later; it might almost indeed have made a page of his diary after he became President of the United States and during the Whiskey Insurrection in western Pennsylvania. He approved and encouraged Rumsey's mechanical invention for propelling boats against the stream, showing that he had a glimpse of what was to follow after Fitch, Rumsey, and Fulton should have overcome the mighty currents of the Hudson and the Ohio with the steamboat's paddle wheel. His proposal that Congress should undertake a survey of western rivers for the purpose of giving people at large a knowledge of their possible importance as avenues of commerce was a forecast of the Lewis and Clark expedition as well as of the policy of the Government today for the improvement of the great inland rivers and harbors. "The destinies of our country run east and west. Intercourse between the mighty interior west and the sea coast is the great principle of our commercial prosperity." These are the words of Edward Everett in advocating the Boston and Albany Railroad. In effect Washington had uttered those same words half a century earlier when he gave momentum to an era filled with energetic but unsuccessful efforts to join with the waters of the West the rivers reaching inland from the Atlantic. The fact that American engineering science had not in his day reached a point where it could cope with this problem successfully should in no wise lessen our admiration for the man who had thus caught the vision of a nation united and unified by improved methods of transportation. CHAPTER II The Red Man's Trail For the beginnings of the paths of our inland commerce, we must look far back into the dim prehistoric ages of America. The earliest routes that threaded the continent were the streams and the tracks beaten out by the heavier four-footed animals. The Indian hunter followed the migrations of the animals and the streams that would float his light canoe. Today the main lines of travel and transportation for the most part still cling to these primeval pathways. In their wanderings, man and beast alike sought the heights, the passes that pierced the mountain chains, and the headwaters of navigable rivers. On the ridges the forest growth was lightest and there was little obstruction from fallen timber; rain and frost caused least damage by erosion; and the winds swept the trails clear of leaves in summer and of snow in winter. Here lay the easiest paths for the heavy, blundering buffalo and the roving elk and moose and deer. Here, high up in the sun, where the outlook was unobstructed and signal fires could be seen from every direction, on the longest watersheds, curving around river and swamp, ran the earliest travel routes of the aboriginal inhabitants and of their successors, the red men of historic times. For their encampments and towns these peoples seem to have preferred the more sheltered ground along the smaller streams; but, when they fared abroad to hunt, to trade, to wage war, to seek new material for pipe and amulet, they followed in the main the highest ways. If in imagination one surveys the eastern half of the North American continent from one of the strategic passageways of the Alleghanies, say from Cumberland Gap or from above Kittanning Gorge, the outstanding feature in the picture will be the Appalachian barrier that separates the interior from the Atlantic coast. To the north lie the Adirondacks and the Berkshire Hills, hedging New England in close to the ocean. Two glittering waterways lie east and west of these heights--the Connecticut and the Hudson. Upon the valleys of these two rivers converged the two deeply worn pathways of the Puritan, the Old Bay Path and the Connecticut Path. By way of Westfield River, that silver tributary which joins the Connecticut at Springfield, Massachusetts, the Bay Path surmounted the Berkshire highlands and united old Massachusetts to the upper Hudson Valley near Fort Orange, now Albany. Here, north of the Catskills, the Appalachian barrier subsides and gives New York a supreme advantage over all the other Atlantic States--a level route to the Great Lakes and the West. The Mohawk River threads the smiling landscape; beyond lies the "Finger Lake country" and the valley of the Genesee. Through this romantic region ran the Mohawk Trail, sending offshoots to Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence, to the Susquehanna, and to the Allegheny. A few names have been altered in the course of years--the Bay Path is now the Boston and Albany Railroad, the Mohawk Trail is the New York Central, and Fort Orange is Albany--and thus we may tell in a dozen words the story of three centuries. Upon Fort Orange converged the score of land and water pathways of the fur trade of our North. These Indian trade routes were slowly widened into colonial roads, notably the Mohawk and Catskill turnpikes, and these in turn were transformed into the Erie, Lehigh, Nickel Plate, and New York Central railways. But from the day when the canoe and the keel boat floated their bulky cargoes of pelts or the heavy laden Indian pony trudged the trail, the routes of trade have been little or nothing altered. Traversing the line of the Alleghanies southward, the eye notes first the break in the wall at the Delaware Water Gap, and then that long arm of the Susquehanna, the Juniata, reaching out through dark Kittanning Gorge to its silver playmate, the dancing Conemaugh. Here amid its leafy aisles ran the brown and red Kittanning Trail, the main route of the Pennsylvania traders from the rich region of York, Lancaster, and Chambersburg. On this general alignment the Broadway Limited flies today toward Pittsburgh and Chicago. A little to the south another important pathway from the same region led, by way of Carlisle, Bedford, and Ligonier, to the Ohio. The "Highland Trail" the Indian traders called it, for it kept well on the watershed dividing the Allegheny tributaries on the north from those of the Monongahela on the south. Farther to the south the scene shows a change, for the Atlantic plain widens considerably. The Potomac River, the James, the Pedee, and the Savannah flow through valleys much longer than those of the northern rivers. Here in the South commerce was carried on mainly by shallop and pinnace. The trails of the Indian skirted the rivers and offered for trader and explorer passageway to the West, especially to the towns of the Cherokees in the southern Alleghanies or Unakas; but the waterways and the roads over which the hogsheads of tobacco were rolled (hence called "rolling roads") sufficed for the needs of the thin fringes of population settled along the rivers. Trails from Winchester in Virginia and Frederick in Maryland focused on Cumberland at the head of the Potomac. Beyond, to the west, the finger tips of the Potomac interlocked closely with the Monongahela and Youghiogheny, and through this network of mountain and river valley, by the "Shades of Death" and Great Meadows, coiled Nemacolin's Path to the Ohio. Even today this ancient route is in part followed by the Baltimore and Ohio and the Western Maryland Railway. A bird's-eye view of the southern Alleghanies shows that, while the Atlantic plain of Virginia and the Carolinas widens out, the mountain chains increase in number, fold on fold, from the Blue Ridge to the ragged ranges of the Cumberlands. Few trails led across this manifold barrier. There was a connection at Balcony Falls between the James River and the Great Kanawha; but as a trade route it was of no such value to the men of its day as the Chesapeake and Ohio system over the same course is to us. As in the North, so in the South, trade avoided obstacles by taking a roundabout, and often the longest route. In order to double the extremity of the Unakas, for instance, the trails reached down by the Valley of Virginia and New River to the uplands of the Tennessee, and here, near Elizabethton, they met the trails leading up the Broad and the Yadkin rivers from Charleston, South Carolina. To the west rise the somber heights of Cumberland Gap. Through this portal ran the famous "Warrior's Path," known to wandering hunters, the "trail of iron" from Fort Watauga and Fort Chiswell, which Daniel Boone widened for the settlers of Kentucky. To the southwest lay the Blue Grass region of Tennessee with its various trails converging on Nashville from almost every direction. Today the Southern Railway enters the "Sapphire Country," in which Asheville lies, by practically the same route as the old Rutherfordton Trail which was used for generations by red man and pioneer from the Carolina coast. In our entire region of the Appalachians, from the Berkshire Hills southward, practically every old-time pathway from the seaboard to the trans-Alleghany country is now occupied by an important railway system, with the exception of the Warrior's Trail through Cumberland Gap to central Ohio and the Highland Trail across southern Pennsylvania. And even Cumberland Gap is accessible by rail today, and a line across southern Pennsylvania was once planned and partially constructed only to be killed by jealous rivals. These numerous keys to the Alleghanies were a challenge to the men of the seaboard to seize upon the rich trade of the West which had been early monopolized by the French in Canada. But the challenge brought its difficult problems. What land canoes could compete with the flotillas that brought their priceless cargoes of furs each year to Montreal and Quebec? What race of landlubbers could vie with the picturesque bands of fearless voyageurs who sang their songs on the Great Lakes, the Ohio, the Illinois, and the Mississippi? In the solution of this problem of diverting trade probably the factor of greatest importance, next to open pathways through the mountain barriers, was the rich stock-breeding ground lying between the Delaware and the Susquehanna rivers, a region occupied by the settlers familiarly known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. In this famous belt, running from Pennsylvania into Virginia, originated the historic pack-horse trade with the "far Indians" of the Ohio Valley. Here, in the first granary of America, Germans, Scotch-Irish, and English bred horses worthy of the name. "Brave fat Horses" an amazed officer under Braddock called the mounts of five Quakers who unexpectedly rode into camp as though straight "from the land of Goshen." These animals, crossed with the Indian "pony" from New Spain, produced the wise, wiry, and sturdy pack-horse, fit to transport nearly two hundred pounds of merchandise across the rough and narrow Alleghany trails. This animal and the heavy Conestoga horse from the same breeding ground revolutionized inland commerce. The first American cow pony was not without his cowboy. Though the drivers were not all of the same type and though the proprietors, so to speak, of the trans-Alleghany pack-horse trade came generally from the older settlements, the bulk of the hard work was done by a lusty army of men not reproduced again in America until the picturesque figure of the cow-puncher appeared above the western horizon. This breed of men was nurtured on the outer confines of civilization, along the headwaters of the Susquehanna, the Potomac, the James, and the Broad--the country of the "Cowpens." Rough as the wilderness they occupied, made strong by their diet of meat and curds, these Tatars of the highlands played a part in the commercial history of America that has never had its historian. In their knowledge of Indian character, of horse and packsaddle lore, of the forest and its trails in every season, these men of the Cowpens were the kings of the old frontier. An officer under Braddock has left us one of the few pictures of these people ¹: ¹ Extracts of Letters from an Officer (London, 1755). From the Heart of the Settlements we are now got into the Cow-pens; the Keepers of these are very extraordinary Kind of Fellows, they drive up their Herds on Horseback, and they had need do so, for their Cattle are near as wild as Deer; a Cow-pen generally consists of a very large Cottage or House in the Woods, with about four-score or one hundred Acres, inclosed with high Rails and divided; a small Inclosure they keep for Corn, for the family, the rest is the Pasture in which they keep their calves; but the Manner is far different from any Thing you ever saw; they may perhaps have a Stock of four or five hundred to a thousand Head of Cattle belonging to a Cow-pen, these run as they please in the Great Woods, where there are no Inclosures to stop them. In the Month of March the Cows begin to drop their Calves, then the Cow-pen Master, with all his Men, rides out to see and drive up the Cows with all their new fallen Calves; they being weak cannot run away so as to escape, therefore are easily drove up, and the Bulls and other Cattle follow them; and they put these Calves into the Pasture, and every Morning and Evening suffer the Cows to come and suckle them, which done they let the Cows out into the great Woods to shift for their Food as well as they can; whilst the Calf is sucking one Tit of the Cow, the Woman of the Cow-Pen is milking one of the other Tits, so that she steals some Milk from the Cow, who thinks she is giving it to the Calf; soon as the Cow begins to go dry, and the Calf grows Strong, they mark them, if they are Males they cut them, and let them go into the Wood. Every Year in September and October they drive up the Market Steers, that are fat and of a proper Age, and kill them; they say they are fat in October, but I am sure they are not so in May, June and July; they reckon that out of 100 Head of Cattle they can kill about 10 or 12 steers, and four or five Cows a Year; so they reckon that a Cow-Pen for every 100 Head of Cattle brings about £40 Sterling per Year. The Keepers live chiefly upon Milk, for out of their Vast Herds, they do condescend to tame Cows enough to keep their Family in Milk, Whey, Curds, Cheese and Butter; they also have Flesh in Abundance such as it is, for they eat the old Cows and lean Calves that are like to die. The Cow-Pen Men are hardy People, are almost continually on Horseback, being obliged to know the Haunts of their Cattle. You see, Sir, what a wild set of Creatures Our English Men grow into, when they lose Society, and it is surprising to think how many Advantages they throw away, which our industrious Country-Men would be glad of: Out of many hundred Cows they will not give themselves the trouble of milking more than will maintain their Family. With such a race of born horsemen, every whit as bold and resourceful as the voyageurs, to bear the brunt of a new era of transportation, all that was needed to challenge French trade beyond the Alleghanies was competent and aggressive leadership. The situation called for men of means, men of daring, men closely in touch with governors and assemblies and acquainted with the web of politics that was being spun at Philadelphia, Williamsburg, New York, London, and Paris. Generations of tenacious struggle along the American frontier had developed such men. The Weisers, Croghans, Gists, Washingtons, Franklins, Walkers, and Cresaps were men of varied descent and nationality. They had the cunning, the boldness, and the resources to undertake successfully the task of conquering commercially the Great West. They were the first men of the colonies to be unafraid of that bugbear of the trader, Distance. We may aptly call them the first Americans because, though not a few were actually born abroad, they were the first whose plans, spirit, and very life were dominated by the vision of an America of continental dimensions. The long story of French and English rivalry and of the war which ended it concerns us here chiefly as a commercial struggle. The French at Niagara (1749) had access to the Ohio by way of Lake Erie and any one of several rivers--the Allegheny, the Muskingum, the Scioto, or the Miami. The main routes of the English were the Nemacolin and Kittanning paths. The French, laboring under the disadvantages of the longer distance over which their goods had to be transported to the Indians and of the higher price necessarily demanded for them, had to meet the competition of the traders from the rival colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia, each of them jealous of and underbidding the other. When Céloron de Blainville was sent to the Allegheny in 1749, by the Governor of New France, his message was that "the Governor of Canada desired his children on Ohio to turn away the English Traders from amongst them and discharge them from ever coming to trade there again, or on any of the Branches." He sent away all the traders whom he found, giving them letters addressed to their respective governors denying England's right to trade in the West. To offset this move, within two years Pennsylvania sent goods to the value of nine hundred pounds in order to hold the Indians constant. The Governor had already ordered the traders to sell whiskey to the Indians at "5 Bucks" per cask and had told the Indians, through his agent Conrad Weiser, that if any trader refused to sell the liquor at that price they might "take it from him and drink it for nothing." There was but one way for the French to meet such competition. Without delay they fortified the Allegheny and began to coerce the natives. Driving away the carpenters of the Ohio Company from the present site of Pittsburgh, they built Fort Duquesne. The beginning of the Old French War ended what we may call the first era of the pack-horse trade. The capture of Fort Duquesne by the English army under General Forbes in 1758 and the final conquest of New France two years later removed the French barrier and opened the way to expansion beyond the Alleghanies. Thereafter settlements in the Monongahela country grew apace. Pittsburgh, Uniontown, Morgantown, Brownsville, Ligonier, Greensburg, Connellsville--we give the modern names--became centers of a great migration which was halted only for a season by Pontiac's Rebellion, the aftermath of the French War, and was resumed immediately on the suppression of that Indian rising. The pack-horse trade now entered its final and most important era. The earlier period was one in which the trade was confined chiefly to the Indians; the later phase was concerned with supplying the needs of the white man in his rapidly developing frontier settlements. Formerly the principal articles of merchandise for the western trade were guns, ammunition, knives, kettles, and tools for their repair, blankets, tobacco, hatchets, and liquor. In the new era every known product of the East found a market in the thriving communities of the upper Ohio. As time went on the West began to send to the East, in addition to skins and pelts, whiskey that brought a dollar a gallon. Each pony could carry sixteen gallons and every drop could be sold for real money. On the return trip the pack-horses carried back chiefly salt and iron. Doddridge's Notes, one of the chief sources of our information, gives this lively picture: In the fall of the year, after seeding time, every family formed an association with some of their neighbors, for starting the little caravan. A master driver was to be selected from among them, who was to be assisted by one or more young men and sometimes a boy or two. The horses were fitted out with packsaddles, to the latter part of which was fastened a pair of hobbles made of hickory withes,--a bell and collar ornamented their necks. The bags provided for the conveyance of the salt were filled with bread, jerk, boiled ham, and cheese furnished a provision for the drivers. At night, after feeding, the horses, whether put in pasture or turned out into the woods, were hobbled and the bells were opened. The barter for salt and iron was made first at Baltimore; Frederick, Hagerstown, Oldtown, and Fort Cumberland, in succession, became the places of exchange. Each horse carried two bushels of alum salt, weighing eighty-four pounds to the bushel. This, to be sure, was not a heavy load for the horses, but it was enough, considering the scanty subsistence allowed them on the journey. The common price of a bushel of alum salt, at an early period, was a good cow and a calf. Thus, with the English flag afloat at Fort Pitt, as Duquesne was renamed after its capture, a new day dawned for the great region to the West. Beyond the Alleghanies and as far as the Rockies, a new science of transportation was now to be learned--the art of finding the dividing ridge. Here the first routes, like the "Great Trail" from Pittsburgh to Detroit, struck out with an assurance that is in marvelous agreement with the findings of the surveyors of a later day. The railways, when they came, found the valleys and penetrated with their tunnels the watersheds from the heads of the streams of one drainage area to the streams of another. Thus on the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore and Ohio, the Southern, the Chesapeake and Ohio, and other railroads, important tunnels are to be found lying immediately under the Red Man's trail which clung to the long ascending slope and held persistently to the dividing ridges. Even this necessarily brief survey shows plainly how that preëminently American institution, the ridge road, came about. East and west, it was the legitimate and natural successor to the ancient trail. With the coming of the wagon, whose rattle was heard among the hills as early as Braddock's campaign, the process of lowering these paths from the heights was inevitably begun, and it was to the riverways that men first looked for a solution of the difficult problems of inland commerce. Eventually the paths of inland commerce constituted a vast network of canals, roads, and railway lines in those very valleys to which Washington had called the nation's attention in 1784. CHAPTER III The Mastery of the Rivers It would perhaps have been well, in the light of later difficulties and failures, if the men who at Washington's call undertook to master the capricious rivers of the seaboard had studied a stately Spanish decree which declared that, since God had not made the rivers of Spain navigable, it were sacrilege for mortals to attempt to do so. Even before the Revolution, Mayor Rhodes of Philadelphia was in correspondence with Franklin in London concerning the experiences of European engineers in harnessing foreign streams. That sage philosopher, writing to Rhodes in 1772, uttered a clear word of warning: "rivers are ungovernable things," he had said, and English engineers "seldom or never use a River where it can be avoided." But it was the birthright of New World democracy to make its own mistakes and in so doing to prove for itself the errors of the Old World. As energetic men all along the Atlantic Plain now took up the problem of improving the inland rivers, they faced a storm of criticism and ridicule that would have daunted any but such as Washington and Johnson of Virginia or White and Hazard of Pennsylvania or Morris and Watson of New York. Every imaginable objection to such projects was advanced--from the inefficiency of the science of engineering to the probable destruction of all the fish in the streams. In spite of these discouragements, however, various men set themselves to form in rapid succession the Potomac Company in 1785, the Society for Promoting the Improvement of Inland Navigation in 1791, the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company in 1792, and the Lehigh Coal Mine Company in 1793. A brief review of these various enterprises will give a clear if not a complete view of the first era of inland water commerce in America. The Potomac Company, authorized in 1785 by the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, received an appropriation of $6666 from each State for opening a road from the headwaters of the Potomac to either the Cheat or the Monongahela, "as commissioners ... shall find most convenient and beneficial to the Western settlers." This was the only public aid which the enterprise received; and the stipulated purpose clearly indicates the fact that, in the minds of its promoters, the transcontinental character of the undertaking appeared to be vital. The remainder of the money required for the work was raised by public subscription in the principal cities of the two States. In this way £40,300 was subscribed, Virginia men taking 266 shares and Maryland men 137 shares. The stockholders elected George Washington as president of the company, at a salary of thirty shillings a year, with four directors to aid him, and they chose as general manager James Rumsey, the boat mechanician. These men then proceeded to attack the chief impediments in the Potomac--the Great Falls above Washington, the Seneca Falls at the mouth of Seneca Creek, and the Shenandoah Falls at Harper's Ferry. But, as they had difficulty in obtaining workmen and sufficient liquor to cheer them in their herculean tasks, they made such slow progress that subscribers, doubting Washington's optimistic prophecy that the stock would increase in value twenty per cent, paid their assessments only after much deliberation or not at all. Thirty-six years later, though $729,380 had been spent and lock canals had been opened about the unnavigable stretches of the Potomac River, a commission appointed to examine the affairs of the company reported "that the floods and freshets nevertheless gave the only navigation that was enjoyed." As for the road between the Potomac and the Cheat or the Monongahela, the records at hand do not show that the money voted for that enterprise had been used. The Potomac Company nevertheless had accomplished something: it had acquired an asset of the greatest value--a right of way up the strategic Potomac Valley; and it had furnished an object lesson to men in other States who were struggling with a similar problem. When, as will soon be apparent, New York men undertook the improvement of the Mohawk waterway there was no pattern of canal construction for them to follow in America except the inadequate wooden locks erected along the Potomac. It is interesting to know that Elkanah Watson, prominent in inland navigation to the North, went down from New York in order to study these wooden locks and that New Yorkers adopted them as models, though they changed the material to brick and finally to stone. Pennsylvania had been foremost among the colonies in canal building, for it had surveyed as early as 1762 the first lock canal in America, from near Reading on the Schuylkill to Middletown on the Susquehanna. Work, however, had to be suspended when Pontiac's Rebellion threw the inland country into a panic. But the enterprise of Maryland and Virginia in 1785 in developing the Potomac aroused the Pennsylvanians to renewed activity. The Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation set forth a programme that was as broad as the Keystone State itself. Their ultimate object was to capture the trade of the Great Lakes. "If we turn our view," read the memorial which the Society presented to the Legislature, "to the immense territories connected with the Ohio and Mississippi waters, and bordering on the Great Lakes, it will appear ... that our communication with those vast countries (considering Fort Pitt as the port of entrance upon them) is as easy and may be rendered as cheap, as to any other port on the Atlantic tide waters." Pennsylvania, lying between Virginia and New York, occupied a peculiar position. Her Susquehanna Valley stretched northwest--not so directly west as did the Potomac on the south and the Mohawk on the north. This more northerly trend led these early Pennsylvania promoters to believe that, while they might "only have a share in the trade of those [the Ohio] waters," they could absolutely secure for themselves the trade of the Great Lakes, "taking Presq'Isle [Erie, Pennsylvania] which is within our own State, as the great mart or place of embarkation." The plan which the Society proposed involved the improvement of water and land routes by way of the Delaware to Lake Ontario and Lake Otsego, and of eight routes by the Susquehanna drainage, north, northwest, and west. A bill which passed the Legislature on April 13, 1791, appropriated money for these improvements. Work was begun immediately on the Schuylkill-Susquehanna Canal, but only four miles had been completed by 1794, when the Lancaster Turnpike directed men's attention to improved highways as an alternative more likely than canals to provide the desired facilities for inland transportation. The work on the canal was renewed, however, in 1821, when the rival Erie Canal was nearing completion, and was finished in 1827. It became known as the Union Canal and formed a link in the Pennsylvania canal system, the development of which will be described in a later chapter. In New York State, throughout the period of the Old French and the Revolutionary wars, barges and keel boats had plied the Mohawk, Wood Creek, and the Oswego to Lake Ontario. Around such obstructions as Cohoes Falls, Little Falls, and the portage at Rome to Wood Creek, wagons, sleds, and pack-horses had transferred the cargoes. To avoid this labor and delay men soon conceived of conquering these obstacles by locks and canals. As early as 1777 the brilliant Gouverneur Morris had a vision of the economic development of his State when "the waters of the great western inland seas would, by the aid of man, break through their barriers and mingle with those of the Hudson." Elkanah Watson was in many ways the Washington of New York. He had the foresight, patience, and persistence of the Virginia planter. His Journal of a tour up the Mohawk in 1788 and a pamphlet which he published in 1791 may be said to be the ultimate sources in any history of the internal commerce of New York. As a result, a company known as "The President, Directors, and Company of the Western Inland Lock Navigation in the State of New York," with a capital stock of $25,000, was authorized by act of legislature in March, 1792, and the State subscribed for $12,500 in stock. Many singular provisions were inserted in this charter, but none more remarkable than one which stipulated that all profits over fifteen per cent should revert to the State Treasury. This hint concerning surplus profits, however, did not cause a stampede when the books were opened for subscriptions in New York and Albany. In later years, when the Erie Canal gave promise of a new era in American inland commerce, Elkanah Watson recalled with a grim satisfaction the efforts of these early days. The subscription books at the old Coffee House in New York, he tells us, lay open three days without an entry, and at Lewis's tavern in Albany, where the books were opened for a similar period, "no mortal" had subscribed for more than two shares. The system proposed for the improvement of the waterways of New York was similar to that projected for the Potomac. A canal was to be cut from the Mohawk to the Hudson in order to avoid Cohoes Falls; a canal with locks would overcome the forty-foot drop at Little Falls; another canal over five thousand feet in length was to connect the Mohawk and Wood Creek at Rome; minor improvements were to be made between Schenectady and the mouth of the Schoharie; and finally the Oswego Falls at Rochester were to be circumvented also by canal. All the objections, difficulties, and discouragements which had attended efforts to improve waterways elsewhere in America confronted these New York promoters. They began in 1793 at Little Falls but were soon forced to cease owing to the failure of funds. Under the encouraging spur of a state subscription to two hundred shares of stock, they renewed their efforts in 1794 but were again forced to abandon the work before the year had passed. By November, 1795, however, they had completed the canal and in thirty days had received toll to the amount of about four hundred dollars. The total actual work done is not clearly shown by the documents, but it is evident that the measure of success achieved was not equaled elsewhere on similar improvements on a large scale. From 1796 to 1804 the tolls received at Rome amounted to over fifteen thousand dollars, and at Little Falls to over fifty-eight thousand dollars--a sum which exceeded the original cost of construction. Dividends had crept up from three per cent in 1798 to five and a half per cent in 1817, the year in which work was begun on the Erie Canal. No struggle for the mastery of an American river matches in certain respects the effort of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company to bridle the Lehigh and make it play its part in the commercial development of Pennsylvania. The failures and trials of the promoters of this company were no less remarkable than was the great success that eventually crowned the effort. In 1793 the Lehigh Coal Mine Company was organized and purchased some ten thousand acres in the Mauch Chunk anthracite region, nine miles from the Lehigh River. It then appropriated a sum of money to build a road from the mines to the river in the expectation that the State would improve the navigation of the waterway, for which, it has already been noted, an appropriation had been made in 1791, in accordance with the programme of the Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation. Nothing was done, however, to improve the river, and the company, after various attempts at shipping coal to Philadelphia, gave up the effort and allowed the property, which was worth millions, to lie idle. In 1807 the Lehigh Coal Mine Company, in another effort to get its wares before the public, granted to Rowland and Butland, a private firm, free right to operate one of its veins of coal; but this operation also resulted in failure. In 1813 the company made a third attempt and granted to a private concern a lease of the entire property on the condition that ten thousand bushels of coal should be taken to market annually. Difficulties immediately made themselves apparent. No contractor could be found who would haul the output to the Lehigh River for less than four dollars a ton, and the man who accepted those terms lost money. Of five barges filled at Mauch Chunk three went to pieces on the way to Philadelphia. Although the contents of the other two sold for twenty dollars a ton, the proceeds failed to meet expenses, and the operating company threw up the lease. But it happened that White and Hazard, the wire manufacturers who purchased this Lehigh coal, were greatly pleased with its quality. Believing that coal could be obtained more cheaply from Mauch Chunk than from the mines along the Schuylkill, White, Hauto, and Hazard formed a company, entered into negotiation with the owners of the Lehigh mines, and obtained the lease of their properties for a period of twenty years at an annual rental of one ear of corn. The company agreed, moreover, to ship every year at least forty thousand bushels of coal to Philadelphia for its own consumption, to prove the value of the property. White and his partners immediately applied to the Legislature for permission to improve the navigation of the Lehigh, stating the purpose of the improvement and citing the fact that their efforts would tend to serve as a model for the improvement of other Pennsylvania streams. The desired opportunity "to ruin themselves," as one member of the Legislature put it, was granted by an act passed March 20, 1818. The various powers applied for, and granted, embraced the whole range of tried and untried methods for securing "a navigation downward once in three days for boats loaded with one hundred barrels, or ten tons." The State kept its weather eye open in this matter, however, for a small minority felt that these men would not ruin themselves. Accordingly, the act of grant reserved to the commonwealth the right to compel the adoption of a complete system of slack-water navigation from Easton to Stoddartsville if the service given by the company did not meet "the wants of the country." Capital was subscribed by a patriotic public on condition that a committee of stockholders should go over the ground and pass judgment on the probable success of the effort. The report was favorable, so far as the improvement of the river was concerned; but the nine-mile road to the mines was unanimously voted impracticable. "To give you an idea of the country over which the road is to pass," wrote one of the commissioners, "I need only tell you that I considered it quite an easement when the wheel of my carriage struck a stump instead of a stone." The public mind was divided. Some held that the attempt to operate the coal mine was farcical, but that the improvement of the Lehigh River was an undertaking of great value and of probable profit to investors. Others were just as positive that the river improvement would follow the fate of so many similar enterprises but that a fortune was in store for those who invested in the Lehigh mines. The direct result of the examiners' report and of the public debate it provoked was the organization of the first interlocking companies in the commercial history of America. The Lehigh Navigation Company was formed with a capital stock of $150,000 and the Lehigh Coal Company with a capital stock of $55,000. This incident forms one of the most striking illustrations in American history of the dependence of a commercial venture upon methods of inland transportation. The Lehigh Navigation Company proceeded to build its dams and walls while the Lehigh Coal Company constructed the first roadway in America built on the principle--later adopted by the railways--of dividing the total distance by the total descent in order to determine the grade. Not to be outdone in point of ingenuity, the Lehigh Navigation Company, then suffering from an unprecedented dearth of water, adopted White's invention of sluice gates connecting with pools which could be filled with reserve water to be drawn upon as navigation required. By 1819 the necessary depth of water between Mauch Chunk and Easton was obtained. The two companies were immediately amalgamated under the title of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company and by 1823 had sent over two thousand tons of coal to market. As most of the efforts to improve the rivers, however, met with indifferent success and many failures were recorded, the pendulum of public confidence in this aid to inland commerce swung away, and highway improvement by means of stone roads and toll road companies came into favor in the interval between the nation's two eras of river improvement and canal building. CHAPTER IV A Nation on Wheels In early days the Indian had not only followed the watercourses in his canoe but had made his way on foot over trails through the woods and over the mountains. In colonial days, Englishman and Frenchman followed the footsteps of the Indian, and as settlement increased and trade developed, the forest path widened into the highway for wheeled vehicles. Massachusetts began the work of road making in 1639 by passing an act which decreed that "the ways" should be six to ten rods wide "in common grounds," thus allowing sufficient room for more than one track. Similar broad "ways" were authorized in New York and Pennsylvania in 1664; stumps and shrubs were to be cut close to the ground, and "sufficient bridges" were to be built over streams and marshy places. Virginia passed legislation for highways at an early date, but it was not until 1662 that strict laws were enacted with a view to keeping the roads in a permanently good condition. Under these laws surveyors were appointed to establish in each county roads forty feet wide to the church and to the courthouse. In 1700, Pennsylvania turned her local roads over to the county justices, put the King's highway and the main public roads under the care of the governor and his council, and ordered each county to erect bridges over its streams. The word "roadmaking" was capable of several interpretations. In general, it meant outlining the course for the new thoroughfare, clearing away fallen timber, blazing or notching the trees so that the traveler might not miss the track, and building bridges or laying logs "over all the marshy, swampy, and difficult dirty places." The streams proved serious obstacles to early traffic. It has been shown already that the earliest routes of animal or man sought the watersheds; the trails therefore usually encountered one stream near its junction with another. At first, of course, fording was the common method of crossing water, and the most advantageous fording places were generally found near the mouths of tributary streams, where bars and islands are frequently formed and where the water is consequently shallow. When ferries began to be used, they were usually situated just above or below the fords; but when the bridge succeeded the ferry, the primitive bridge builder went back to the old fording place in order to take advantage of the shallower water, bars, and islands. With the advent of improved engineering, the character of river banks and currents was more frequently taken into consideration in choosing a site for a bridge than was the case in the olden times, but despite this fact the bridges of today, generally speaking, span the rivers where the deer or the buffalo splashed his way across centuries ago. On the broader streams, where fording was impossible and traffic was perforce carried by ferry, the canoe and the keel boat of the earliest days gave way in time to the ordinary "flat" or barge. At first the obligation of the ferryman to the public, though recognized by English law, was ignored in America by legislators and monopolists alike. Men obtained the land on both sides of the rivers at the crossing places and served the public only at their own convenience and at their own charges. In many cases, to encourage the opening of roads or of ferries, national and state authorities made grants of land on the same principle followed in later days in the case of Western railroads. Such, for instance, was the grant to Ebenezer Zane, at Zanesville, Lancaster, and Chillicothe in the Northwest Territory. These monopolies sometimes were extremely profitable: a descendant of the owners of the famous Ingles ferry across New River, on the Wilderness Road to Kentucky, is responsible for the statement that in the heyday of travel to the Southwest the privilege was worth from $10,000 to $15,000 annually to the family. But as local governments became more efficient, monopolies were abolished and the collection of tolls was taken over by the authorities. The awakening of inland trade is most clearly indicated everywhere by the action of assemblies regarding the operation of ferries, and in general, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, tolls and ferries were being regulated by law. But neither roads nor ferries were of themselves sufficient to put a nation on wheels. The early polite society of the settled neighborhoods traveled in horse litters, in sedan chairs, or on horseback, the women seated on pillions or cushions behind the saddle riders, while oxcarts and horse barrows brought to town the produce of the outlying farms. Although carts and rude wagons could be built entirely of wood, there could be no marked advance in transportation until the development of mining in certain localities reduced the price of iron. With the increase of travel and trade, the old world coach and chaise and wain came into use, and iron for tire and brace became an imperative necessity. The connection between the production of iron and the care of highways was recognized by legislation as early as 1732, when Maryland excused men and slaves in the ironworks from labor on the public roads, though by the middle of the century owners of ironworks were obliged to detail one man out of every ten in their employ for such work. While the coastwise trade between the colonies was still preëminently important as a means of transporting commodities, by the beginning of the eighteenth century the land routes from New York to New England, from New York across New Jersey to Philadelphia, and those radiating from Philadelphia in every direction, were coming into general use. The date of the opening of regular freight traffic between New York and Philadelphia is set by the reply of the Governor of New Jersey in 1707 to a protest against monopolies granted on one of the old widened Indian trails between Burlington and Amboy. "At present," he says, "everybody is sure, once a fortnight, to have an opportunity of sending any quantity of goods, great or small, at reasonable rates, without being in danger of imposition; and the sending of this wagon is so far from being a grievance or monopoly, that by this means and no other, a trade has been carried on between Philadelphia, Burlington, Amboy, and New York, which was never known before." The long Philadelphia Road from the Lancaster region into the Valley of Virginia, by way of Wadkins on the Potomac, was used by German and Irish traders probably as early as 1700. In 1728 the people of Maryland were petitioning for a road from the ford of the Monocacy to the home of Nathan Wickham. Four years later Jost Heydt, leading an immigrant party southward, broke open a road from the York Barrens toward the Potomac two miles above Harper's Ferry. This avenue--by way of the Berkeley, Staunton, Watauga, and Greenbrier regions to Tennessee and Kentucky--was the longest and most important in America during the Revolutionary period. The Virginia Assembly in 1779 appointed commissioners to view this route and to report on the advisability of making it a wagon road all the way to Kentucky. In 1795, efforts were made in Kentucky to turn the Wilderness Trail into a wagon road, and in this same year the Kentucky Legislature passed an act making the route from Crab Orchard to Cumberland Gap a wagon road thirty feet in width. From Pennsylvania and from Virginia commerce westward bound followed in the main the army roads hewn out by Braddock and Forbes in their campaigns against Fort Duquesne. In 1755, Braddock, marching from Alexandria by way of Fort Cumberland, had opened a passage for his artillery and wagons to Laurel Hill, near Uniontown, Pennsylvania. His force included a corps of seamen equipped with block and tackle to raise and lower his wagons in the steep inclines of the Alleghanies. Three years later, Forbes, in his careful, dogged campaign, followed a more northerly route. Advancing from Philadelphia and Carlisle, he established Fort Bedford and Fort Ligonier as bases of supply and broke a new road through the interminable forest which clothed the rugged mountain ranges. From the first there was bitter rivalry between these two routes, and the young Colonel Washington was roundly criticized by both Forbes and Bouquet, his second in command, for his partisan effort to "drive me down," as Forbes phrased it, into the Virginia or Braddock's Road. This rivalry between the two routes continued when the destruction of the French power over the roads in the interior threw open to Pennsylvania and her southern neighbors alike the lucrative trade of the Ohio country. From the journals of the time may be caught faint glimpses of the toils and dangers of travel through these wild hill regions. Let the traveler of today, as he follows the track that once was Braddock's Road, picture the scene of that earlier time when, in the face of every natural obstacle, the army toiled across the mountain chains. Where the earth in yonder ravine is whipped to a black froth, the engineers have thrown down the timber cut in widening the trail and have constructed a corduroy bridge, or rather a loose raft on a sea of muck. The wreck of the last wagon which tried to pass gives some additional safety to the next. Already the stench from the horse killed in the accident deadens the heavy, heated air of the forest. The sailors, stripped to the waist, are ready with ropes and tackle to let the next wagon down the incline; the pulleys creak, the ropes groan. The horses, weak and terror-stricken, plunge and rear; in the final crash to the level the leg of the wheel horse is caught and broken; one of the soldiers shoots the animal; the traces are unbuckled; another beast is substituted. Beyond, the seamen are waiting with tackle attached to trees on the ridge above to assist the horses on the cruel upgrade--and Braddock, the deceived, maligned, misrepresented, and misjudged, creeps onward in his brave conquest of the Alleghanies in a campaign that, in spite of its military failure, deserves honorable mention among the achievements of British arms. Everywhere, north and south, the early American road was a veritable Slough of Despond. Watery pits were to be encountered wherein horses were drowned and loads sank from sight. Frequently traffic was stopped for hours by wagons which had broken down and blocked the way. Thirteen wagons at one time were stalled on Logan's Hill on the York Road. Frightful accidents occurred in attempting to draw out loads. Jonathan Tyson, for instance, in 1792, near Philadelphia saw a horse's lower jaw torn off by the slipping of a chain. Save in the winter, when in the northern colonies snow filled the ruts and frost built solid bridges over the streams, travel on these early roads was never safe, rapid, nor comfortable. The comparative ease of winter travel for the carriage of heavy freight and for purposes of trade and social intercourse gave the colder regions an advantage over the southern that was an important factor in the development of the country. No genuine improvement of roads and highways seems to have been attempted until the era heralded by Washington's letter to Harrison in 1784. But the problem slowly forced itself upon all sections of the country, and especially upon Pennsylvania and Maryland, whose inhabitants began to fear lest New York, Alexandria, or Richmond should snatch the Western trade from Philadelphia or Baltimore. The truth that underlies the proverb that "history repeats itself" is well illustrated by the fact that the first macadamized road in America was built in Pennsylvania, for here also originated the pack-horse trade and the Conestoga horse and wagon; here the first inland American canal was built, the first roadbed was graded on the principle of dividing the whole distance by the whole descent, and the first railway was operated. Macadam and Telford had only begun to show the people of England how to build roads of crushed stone--an art first developed by the French engineer Trésaguet--when Pennsylvanians built the Lancaster Turnpike. The Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Road Company was chartered April 9, 1792, as a part of the general plan of the Society for the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation already described. This road, sixty-two miles in length, was built of stone at a cost of $465,000 and was completed in two years. Never before had such a sum been invested in internal improvement in the United States. The rapidity with which the undertaking was carried through and the profits which accrued from the investment were alike astonishing. The subscription books were opened at eleven o'clock one morning and by midnight 2226 shares had been subscribed, each purchaser paying down thirty dollars. At the same time Elkanah Watson was despondently scanning the subscription books of his Mohawk River enterprise at Albany where "no mortal" had risked more than two shares. The success of the Lancaster Turnpike was not achieved without a protest against the monopoly which the new venture created. It is true that in all the colonies the exercise of the right of eminent domain had been conceded in a veiled way to officials to whose care the laying out of roads had been delegated. As early as 1639 the General Court of Massachusetts had ordered each town to choose men who, coöperating with men from the adjoining town, should "lay out highways where they may be most convenient, notwithstanding any man's property, or any corne ground, so as it occasion not the pulling down of any man's house, or laying open any garden or orchard." But the open and extended exercise of these rights led to vigorous opposition in the case of this Pennsylvania road. A public meeting was held at the Prince of Wales Tavern in Philadelphia in 1793 to protest in round terms against the monopolistic character of the Lancaster Turnpike. Blackstone and Edward III were hurled at the heads of the "venal" legislators who had made this "monstrosity" possible. The opposition died down, however, in the face of the success which the new road instantly achieved. The Turnpike was, indeed, admirably situated. Converging at the quaint old "borough of Lancaster," the various routes--northeast from Virginia, east from the Carlisle and Chambersburg region and the Alleghanies, and southeast from the upper Susquehanna country--poured upon the Quaker City a trade that profited every merchant, landholder, and laborer. The nine tollgates, on the average a little less than seven miles apart, turned in a revenue that allowed the "President and Managers" to declare dividends to stockholders running, it is said, as high as fifteen per cent. The Lancaster Turnpike is interesting from three points of view: it began a new period of American transportation; it ushered in an era of speculation unheard of in the previous history of the country; and it introduced American lawmakers to the great problem of controlling public corporations. Along this thirty-seven-foot road, of which twenty-four feet were laid with stone, the new era of American inland travel progressed. The array of two-wheeled private equipages and other family carriages, the stagecoaches of bright color, and the carts, Dutch wagons, and Conestogas, gave token of what was soon to be witnessed on the great roads of a dozen States in the next generation. Here, probably, the first distinction began to be drawn between the taverns for passengers and those patronized by the drivers of freight. The colonial taverns, comparatively few and far between, had up to this time served the traveling public, high and low, rich and poor, alike. But in this new era members of Congress and the élite of Philadelphia and neighboring towns were not to be jostled at the table by burly hostlers, drivers, wagoners, and hucksters. Two types of inns thus came quickly into existence: the tavern entertained the stagecoach traffic, while the democratic roadhouse served the established lines of Conestogas, freighters, and all other vehicles which poured from every town, village, and hamlet upon the great thoroughfare leading to the metropolis on the Delaware. Among American inventions the Conestoga wagon must forever be remembered with respect. Originating in the Lancaster region of Pennsylvania and taking its name either from the horses of the Conestoga Valley or from the valley itself, this vehicle was unlike the old English wain or the Dutch wagon because of the curve of its bed. This peculiarly shaped bottom, higher by twelve inches or more at each end than in the middle, made the vehicle a safer conveyance across the mountains and over all rough country than the old straight-bed wagon. The Conestoga was covered with canvas, as were other freight vehicles, but the lines of the bed were also carried out in the framework above and gave the whole the effect of a great ship swaying up and down the billowy hills. The wheels of the Conestoga were heavily built and wore tires four and six inches in width. The harness of the six horses attached to the wagon was proportionately heavy, the back bands being fifteen inches wide, the hip straps ten, and the traces consisting of ponderous iron chains. The color of the original Conestoga wagons never varied: the underbody was always blue and the upper parts were red. The wagoners and drivers who manned this fleet on wheels were men of a type that finds no parallel except in the boatmen on the western rivers who were almost their contemporaries. Fit for the severest toil, weathered to the color of the red man, at home under any roof that harbored a demijohn and a fiddle, these hardy nomads of early commerce were the custodians of the largest amount of traffic in their day. The turnpike era overlaps the period of the building of national roads and canals and the beginning of the railway age, but it is of greatest interest during the first twenty-five years of the nineteenth century, up to the time when the completion of the Erie Canal set new standards. During this period roads were also constructed westward from Baltimore and Albany to connect, as the Lancaster Turnpike did at its terminus, with the thoroughfares from the trans-Alleghany country. The metropolis of Maryland was quickly in the field to challenge the bid which the Quaker City made for western trade. The Baltimore-Reisterstown and Baltimore-Frederick turnpikes were built at a cost of $10,000 and $8000 a mile respectively; and the latter, connecting with roads to Cumberland, linked itself with the great national road to Ohio which the Government built between 1811 and 1817. These famous stone roads of Maryland long kept Baltimore in the lead as the principal outlet for the western trade. New York, too, proved her right to the title of Empire State by a marvelous activity in improving her magnificent strategic position. In the first seven years of the nineteenth century eighty-eight incorporated road companies were formed with a total capital of over $8,000,000. Twenty large bridges and more than three thousand miles of turnpike were constructed. The movement, indeed, extended from New England to Virginia and the Carolinas, and turnpike companies built all kinds of roads--earth, corduroy, plank, and stone. In many cases the kind of road to be constructed, the tolls to be charged, and the amount of profit to be permitted, were laid down in the charters. Thus new problems confronted the various legislatures, and interesting principles of regulation were now established. In most cases companies were allowed, on producing their books of receipts and expenditures, to increase their tolls until they obtained a profit of six per cent on the investment, though in a number of cases nine per cent was permitted. When revenues increased beyond the six per cent mark, however, the tendency was to reduce tolls or to use the extra profit to purchase the stock for the State, with the expectation of ultimately abolishing tollgates entirely. The theories of state regulation of corporations and the obligations of public carriers, extending even to the compensation of workmen in case of accident, were developed to a considerable degree in this turnpike era; but, on the other hand, the principle of permitting fair profit to corporations upon public examination of their accounts was also recognized. The stone roads, which were passable at all seasons, brought a new era in correspondence and business. Lines of stages and wagons, as well known at that time as are the great railways of today, plied the new thoroughfares, provided some of the comforts of travel, and assured the safer and more rapid delivery of goods. This period is sometimes known in American history as "The Era of Good Feeling" and the turnpike contributed in no small degree to make the phrase applicable not only to the domain of politics but to all the relations of social and commercial life. While road building in the East gives a clear picture of the rise and growth of commerce and trade in that section, it is to the rivers of the trans-Alleghany country that we must look for a corresponding picture in this early period. The canoe and pirogue could handle the packs and kegs brought westward by the files of Indian ponies; but the heavy loads of the Conestoga wagons demanded stancher craft. The flatboat and barge therefore served the West and its commerce as the Conestoga and turnpike served the East. CHAPTER V The Flatboat Age In the early twenties of the last century one of the popular songs of the day was The Hunters of Kentucky. Written by Samuel Woodworth, the author of The Old Oaken Bucket, it had originally been printed in the New York Mirror but had come into the hands of an actor named Ludlow, who was playing in the old French theater in New Orleans. The poem chants the praises of the Kentucky riflemen who fought with Jackson at New Orleans and indubitably proved That every man was half a horse And half an alligator. Ludlow knew his audience and he saw his chance. Setting the words to Risk's tune, Love Laughs at Locksmiths, donning the costume of a Western riverman, and arming himself with a long "squirrel" rifle, he presented himself before the house. The rivermen who filled the pit received him, it is related, with "a prolonged whoop, or howl, such as Indians give when they are especially pleased." And to these sturdy men the words of his song made a strong appeal: We are a hardy, freeborn race, Each man to fear a stranger; Whate'er the game, we join in chase, Despising toil and danger; And if a daring foe annoys, No matter what his force is, We'll show him that Kentucky boys Are Alligator-horses. The title "alligator-horse," of which Western rivermen were very proud, carried with it a suggestion of amphibious strength that made it both apt and figuratively accurate. On all the American rivers, east and west, a lusty crew, collected from the waning Indian trade and the disbanded pioneer armies, found work to its taste in poling the long keel boats, "cordelling" the bulky barges--that is, towing them by pulling on a line attached to the shore--or steering the "broadhorns" or flatboats that transported the first heavy inland river cargoes. Like longshoremen of all ages, the American riverman was as rough as the work which calloused his hands and transformed his muscles into bands of tempered steel. Like all men given to hard but intermittent labor, he employed his intervals of leisure in coarse and brutal recreation. Their roistering exploits, indeed, have made these rivermen almost better known at play than at work. One of them, the notorious Mike Fink, known as "the Snag" on the Mississippi and as the "Snapping Turtle" on the Ohio, has left the record, not that he could load a keel boat in a certain length of time, or lift a barrel of whiskey with one arm, or that no tumultuous current had ever compelled him to back water, but that he could "out-run, out-hop, out-jump, throw down, drag out, and lick any man in the country," and that he was "a Salt River roarer." Such men and the craft they handled were known on the Atlantic rivers, but it was on the Mississippi and its branches, especially the Ohio, that they played their most important part in the history of American inland commerce. Before the beginning of the nineteenth century wagons and Conestogas were bringing great loads of merchandise to such points on the headwaters as Brownsville, Pittsburgh, and Wheeling. As early as 1782, we are told, Jacob Yoder, a Pennsylvania German, set sail from the Monongahela country with the first flatboat to descend the Ohio and Mississippi. As the years passed, the number of such craft grew constantly larger. The custom of fixing the widespreading horns of cattle on the prow gave these boats the alternative name of "broadhorns," but no accurate classification can be made of the various kinds of craft engaged in this vast traffic. Everything that would float, from rough rafts to finished barges, was commandeered into service, and what was found unsuitable for the strenuous purposes of commercial transportation was palmed off whenever possible on unsuspecting emigrants en route to the lands of promise beyond. Flour, salt, iron, cider and peach brandy were staple products of the Ohio country which the South desired. In return they shipped molasses, sugar, coffee, lead, and hides upon the few keel boats which crept upstream or the blundering barges which were propelled northward by means of oar, sail, and cordelle. It was not, however, until the nineteenth century that the young West was producing any considerable quantity of manufactured goods. Though the town of Pittsburgh had been laid out in 1764, by the end of the Revolution it was still little more than a collection of huts about a fort. A notable amount of local trade was carried on, but the expense of transportation was very high even after wagons began crossing the Alleghanies. For example, the cost from Philadelphia and Baltimore was given by Arthur Lee, a member of Congress, in 1784 as forty-five shillings a hundredweight, and a few months later it is quoted at sixpence a pound when Johann D. Schoph crossed the mountains in a chaise--a feat "which till now had been considered quite impossible." Opinions differed widely as to the future of the little town of five hundred inhabitants. The important product of the region at first was Monongahela flour which long held a high place in the New Orleans market. Coal was being mined as early as 1796 and was worth locally threepence halfpenny a bushel, though within seven years it was being sold at Philadelphia at thirty-seven and a half cents a bushel. The fur trade with the Illinois country grew less important as the century came to its close, but Maynard and Morrison, cooperating with Guy Bryan at Philadelphia, sent a barge laden with merchandise to Illinois annually between 1790 and 1796, which returned each season with a cargo of skins and furs. Pittsburgh was thus a distributing center of some importance; but the fact that no drayman or warehouse was to be found in the town at this time is a significant commentary on the undeveloped state of its commerce and manufacture. After Wayne's victory at the battle of the Fallen Timber in 1794 and the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, which ended the earlier Indian wars of the Old Northwest and opened for settlement the country beyond the Ohio, a great migration followed into Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, and the commercial activity of Pittsburgh rapidly increased. By 1800 a score of profitable industries had arisen, and by 1803 the first bar-iron foundry was, to quote the advertisement of its owner, "sufficiently upheld by the hand of the Almighty" to supply in part the demand for iron and castings. Glass factories were established, and ropewalks, sail lofts, boatyards, anchor smithies, and brickyards, were soon ready to supply the rapidly increasing demands of the infant cities and the countryside on the lower Ohio. When the new century arrived the Pittsburgh district had a population of upwards of two thousand. One by one the other important centers of trade in the great valley beyond began to show evidences of life. Marietta, Ohio, founded in 1788 by Revolutionary officers from New England, became the metropolis of the rich Muskingum River district, which was presently sending many flatboats southward. Cincinnati was founded in the same year as Marietta, with the building of Fort Washington and the formal organization of Hamilton County. The soil of the Miami country was as "mellow as an ash heap" and in the first four months of 1802 over four thousand barrels of flour were shipped southward to challenge the prestige of the Monongahela product. Potters, brickmakers, gunsmiths, cotton and wool weavers, coopers, turners, wheelwrights, dyers, printers, and ropemakers were at work here within the next decade. A brewery turned out five thousand barrels of beer and porter in 1811, and by the next year the pork-packing business was thoroughly established. Louisville, the "Little Falls" of the West, was the entrepôt of the Blue Grass region. It had been a place of some importance since Revolutionary days, for in seasons of low water the rapids in the Ohio at this point gave employment to scores of laborers who assisted the flatboatmen in hauling their cargoes around the obstruction which prevented the passage of the heavily loaded barges. The town, which was incorporated in 1780, soon showed signs of commercial activity. It was the proud possessor of a drygoods house in 1783. The growth of its tobacco industry was rapid from the first. The warehouses were under government supervision and inspection as early as 1795, and innumerable flatboats were already bearing cargoes of bright leaf southward in the last decade of the century. The first brick house in Louisville was erected in 1789 with materials brought from Pittsburgh. Yankees soon established the "Hope Distillery"; and the manufacture of whiskey, which had long been a staple industry conducted by individuals, became an incorporated business of great promise in spite of objections raised against the "creation of gigantic reservoirs of this damning drink." Thus, about the year 1800, the great industries of the young West were all established in the regions dominated by the growing cities of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville. But, since the combined population of these centers could not have been over three thousand in the year 1800, it is evident that the adjacent rural population and the people living in every neighboring creek and river valley were chiefly responsible for the large trade that already existed between this corner of the Mississippi basin and the South. In this trade the riverman was the fundamental factor. Only by means of his brawn and his genius for navigation could these innumerable tons of flour, tobacco, and bacon have been kept from rotting on the shores. Yet the man himself remains a legend grotesque and mysterious, one of the shadowy figures of a time when history was being made too rapidly to be written. If we ask how he loaded his flatboat or barge, we are told that "one squint of his eye would blister a bull's heel." When we inquire how he found the channel amid the shifting bars and floating islands of that tortuous two-thousand-mile journey to New Orleans, we are informed that he was "the very infant that turned from his mother's breast and called out for a bottle of old rye." When we ask how he overcame the natural difficulties of trade--lack of commission houses, varying standards of money, want of systems of credit and low prices due to the glutting of the market when hundreds of flatboats arrived in the South simultaneously on the same freshet--we are informed that "Billy Earthquake is the geniwine, double-acting engine, and can out-run, out-swim, chaw more tobacco and spit less, drink more whiskey and keep soberer than any other man in these localities." The reason for this lack of information is that our descriptions of flatboating and keel boating are written by travelers who, as is always the case, are interested in what is unusual, not in what is typical and commonplace. It is therefore only dimly, as through a mist, that we can see the two lines of polemen pass from the prow to the stern on the narrow running-board of a keel boat, lifting and setting their poles to the cry of steersman or captain. The struggle in a swift "riffle" or rapid is momentous. If the craft swerves, all is lost. Shoulders bend with savage strength; poles quiver under the tension; the captain's voice is raucous, and every other word is an oath; a pole breaks, and the next man, though half-dazed in the mortal crisis, does for a few moments the work of two. At last they reach the head of the rapid, and the boat floats out on the placid pool above, while the "alligator-horse" who had the mishap remarks to the scenery at large that he'd be "fly-blowed before sun-down to a certingty" if that were not the very pole with which he "pushed the broadhorn up Salt River where the snags were so thick that a fish couldn't swim without rubbing his scales off." Audubon, the naturalist-merchant of the Mississippi, has left us a clear picture of the process by which these heavy tubs, loaded with forty or fifty tons of freight, were forced upstream against a swift current: Wherever a point projected so as to render the course or bend below it of some magnitude, there was an eddy, the returning current of which was sometimes as strong as that of the middle of the great stream. The bargemen, therefore, rowed up pretty close under the bank and had merely to keep watch in the bow lest the boat should run against a planter or sawyer. But the boat has reached the point, and there the current is to all appearance of double strength and right against it. The men, who have rested a few minutes, are ordered to take their stations and lay hold of their oars, for the river must be crossed, it being seldom possible to double such a point and proceed along the same shore. The boat is crossing, its head slanting to the current, which is, however, too strong for the rowers, and when the other side of the river has been reached, it has drifted perhaps a quarter of a mile. The men are by this time exhausted and, as we shall suppose it to be 12 o'clock, fasten the boat to a tree on the shore. A small glass of whiskey is given to each, when they cook and eat their dinner and, after resting from their fatigue for an hour, recommence their labors. The boat is again seen slowly advancing against the stream. It has reached the lower end of a sandbar, along the edge of which it is propelled by means of long poles, if the bottom be hard. Two men, called bowsmen, remain at the prow to assist, in concert with the steersman, in managing the boat and keeping its head right against the current. The rest place themselves on the land side of the footway of the vessel, put one end of their poles on the ground and the other against their shoulders and push with all their might. As each of the men reaches the stern, he crosses to the other side, runs along it and comes again to the landward side of the bow, when he recommences operations. The barge in the meantime is ascending at a rate not exceeding one mile in the hour. Trustworthy statistics as to the amount and character of the Western river trade have never been gathered. They are to be found, if anywhere, in the reports of the collectors of customs located at the various Western ports of entry and departure. Nothing indicates more definitely the hour when the West awoke to its first era of big business than the demand for the creation of "districts" and their respective ports, for by no other means could merchandise and produce be shipped legally to Spanish territory beyond or down the Mississippi or to English territory on the northern shores of the Great Lakes. Louisville is as old a port of the United States as New York or Philadelphia, having been so created when our government was established in 1789, but oddly enough the first returns to the National Treasury (1798) are credited to the port of Palmyra, Tennessee, far inland on the Cumberland River. In 1799 the following Western towns were made ports of entry: Erie, Sandusky, Detroit, Mackinaw Island, and Columbia (Cincinnati). The first port on the Ohio to make returns was Fort Massac, Illinois, and it is from the collector at this point that we get our first hint as to the character and volume of Western river traffic. In the spring months of March, April, and May, 1800, cargoes to the value of £28,581, Pennsylvania currency, went down the Ohio. This included 22,714 barrels of flour, 1017 barrels of whiskey, 12,500 pounds of pork, 18,710 pounds of bacon, 75,814 pounds of cordage, 3650 yards of country linen, 700 bottles, and 700 barrels of potatoes. In the three autumn months of 1800, for instance, twenty-one boats ascended the Ohio by Fort Massac, with cargoes amounting to 36 hundredweight of lead and a few hides. Descending the river at the same time, flatboats and barges carried 245 hundredweight of drygoods valued at $32,550. When we compare these spring and fall records of commerce downstream we reach the natural conclusion that the bulk of the drygoods which went down in the fall of the year had been brought over the mountains during the summer. The fact that the Alleghany pack-horses and Conestogas were transporting freight to supply the Spanish towns on the Mississippi River in the first year of the nineteenth century seems proved beyond a doubt by these reports from Fort Massac. The most interesting phase of this era is the connection between western trade and the politics of the Mississippi Valley which led up to the Louisiana Purchase. By the Treaty of San Lorenzo in 1795 Spain made New Orleans an open port, and in the next seven years the young West made the most of its opportunity. But before the new century was two years old the difficulties encountered were found to be serious. The lack of commission merchants, of methods of credit, of information as to the state of the market, all combined to handicap trade and to cause loss. Pittsburgh shippers figured their loss already at $60,000 a year. In consequence men began to look elsewhere, and an advocate of big business wrote in 1802: "The country has received a shock; let us immediately extend our views and direct our efforts to every foreign market." One of the most remarkable plans for the capture of foreign trade to be found in the annals of American commerce originated almost simultaneously in the Muskingum and Monongahela regions. With a view to making the American West independent of the Spanish middlemen, it was proposed to build ocean-going vessels on the Ohio that should carry the produce of the interior down the Mississippi and thence abroad through the open port of New Orleans. The idea was typically Western in its arrogant originality and confident self-assertion. Two vessels were built: the brig St. Clair, of 110 tons, at Marietta, and the Monongahela Farmer, of 250 tons, at Elizabeth on the Monongahela. The former reached Cincinnati April 27, 1801; the latter, loaded with 750 barrels of flour, passed Pittsburgh on the 13th of May. Eventually, the St. Clair reached Havana and thus proved that Muskingum Valley black walnut, Ohio hemp, and Marietta carpenters, anchor smiths, and skippers could defy the grip of the Spaniard on the Mississippi. Other vessels followed these adventurers, and shipbuilding immediately became an important industry at Pittsburgh, Marietta, Cincinnati, and other points. The Duane of Pittsburgh was said by the Liverpool Saturday Advertiser of July 9, 1803, to have been the "first vessel which ever came to Europe from the western waters of the United States." Probably the Louisiana of Marietta went as far afield as any of the one hundred odd ships built in these years on the Ohio. The official papers of her voyage in 1805, dated at New Orleans, Norfolk (Virginia), Liverpool, Messina, and Trieste at the head of the Adriatic, are preserved today in the Marietta College Library. The growth of the shipbuilding industry necessitated a readjustment of the districts for the collection of customs. Columbia (Cincinnati) at first served the region of the upper Ohio; but in 1803 the district was divided and Marietta was made the port for the Pittsburgh-Portsmouth section of the river. In 1807 all the western districts were amalgamated, and Pittsburgh, Charleston (Wellsburg), Marietta, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Fort Massac were made ports of entry. The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 gave a marked impulse to inland shipbuilding; but the embargo of 1807, which prohibited foreign trade, following so soon, killed the shipyards, which, for a few years, had been so busy. The great new industry of the Ohio Valley was ruined. By this time the successful voyage of Fulton's steamboat, the Clermont, between New York and Albany, had demonstrated the possibilities of steam navigation. Not a few men saw in the novel craft the beginning of a new era in Western river traffic; but many doubted whether it was possible to construct a vessel powerful enough to make its way upstream against such sweeping currents as those of the Mississippi and the Ohio. Surely no one for a moment dreamed that in hardly more than a generation the Western rivers would carry a tonnage larger than that of the cities of the Atlantic seaboard combined and larger than that of Great Britain! As early as 1805, two years before the trip of the Clermont, Captain Keever built a "steamboat" on the Ohio, and sent her down to New Orleans where her engine was to be installed. But it was not until 1811 that the Orleans, the first steamboat to ply the Western streams, was built at Pittsburgh, from which point she sailed for New Orleans in October of that year. The Comet and Vesuvius quickly followed, but all three entered the New Orleans-Natchez trade on the lower river and were never seen again at the headwaters. As yet the swift currents and flood tides of the great river had not been mastered. It is true that in 1815 the Enterprise had made two trips between New Orleans and Louisville, but this was in time of high water, when counter currents and backwaters had assisted her feeble engine. In 1816, however, Henry Shreve conceived the idea of raising the engine out of the hold and constructing an additional deck. The Washington, the first doubledecker, was the result. The next year this steamboat made the round trip from Louisville to New Orleans and back in forty-one days. The doubters were now convinced. For a little while the quaint and original riverman held on in the new age, only to disappear entirely when the colored roustabout became the deckhand of post-bellum days. The riverman as a type was unknown except on the larger rivers in the earlier years of water traffic. What an experience it would be today to rouse one of those remarkable individuals from his dreaming, as Davy Crockett did, with an oar, and hear him howl "Halloe stranger, who axed you to crack my lice?"--to tell him in his own lingo to "shut his mouth or he would get his teeth sunburnt"--to see him crook his neck and neigh like a stallion--to answer his challenge in kind with a flapping of arms and a cock's crow--to go to shore and have a scrimmage such as was never known on a gridiron--and then to resolve with Crockett, during a period of recuperation, that you would never "wake up a ring-tailed roarer with an oar again." The riverman, his art, his language, his traffic, seem to belong to days as distant as those of which Homer sang. CHAPTER VI The Passing Show Of 1800 Foreign travelers who have come to the United States have always proved of great interest to Americans. From Brissot to Arnold Bennett, while in the country they have been fed and clothed and transported wheresoever they would go--at the highest prevailing prices. And after they have left, the records of their sojourn that these travelers have published have made interesting reading for Americans all over the land. Some of these trans-Atlantic visitors have been jaundiced, disgruntled, and contemptuous; others have shown themselves of an open nature, discreet, conscientious, and fair-minded. One of the most amiable and clear-headed of such foreign guests was Francis Baily, later in life president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Great Britain, but at the time of his American tour a young man of twenty-two. His journey in 1796-97 gave him a wide experience of stage, flatboat, and pack-horse travel, and his genial disposition, his observant eye, and his discriminating criticism, together with his comments on the commercial features of the towns and regions he visited, make his record particularly interesting and valuable to the historian. ¹ Using Baily's journal as a guide, therefore, one can today journey with him across the country and note the passing show as he saw it in this transitional period. ¹ Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America in 1796 and 1797 by the late Francis Baily (London, 1856). Landing at Norfolk, Virginia, Baily was immediately introduced to an American tavern. Like most travelers, he was surprised to find that American taverns were "boarding-places," frequented by crowds of "young, able-bodied men who seemed to be as perfectly at leisure as the loungers of ancient Europe." In those days of few newspapers, the tavern everywhere in America was the center of information; in fact, it was a common practice for travelers in the interior, after signing their names in the register, to add on the same page any news of local interest which they brought with them. The tavern habitués, Baily remarks, did not sit and drink after meals but "wasted" their time at billiards and cards. The passion for billiards was notorious, and taverns in the most out-of-the-way places, though they lacked the most ordinary conveniences, were nevertheless provided with billiard tables. This custom seems to have been especially true in the South; and it is significant that the first taxes in Tennessee levied before the beginning of the nineteenth century were the poll tax and taxes on billiard tables and studhorses! From Norfolk Baily passed northward to Baltimore, paying a fare of ten dollars, and from there he went on to Philadelphia, paying six dollars more. On the way his stagecoach stuck fast in a bog and the passengers were compelled to leave it until the next morning. This sixty-mile road out of Baltimore was evidently one of the worst in the East. Ten years prior to this date, Brissot, a keen French journalist, mentions the great ruts in its heavy clay soil, the overturned trees which blocked the way, and the unexampled skilfulness of the stage drivers. All travelers in America, though differing on almost every other subject, invariably praise the ability of these sturdy, weather-beaten American drivers, their kindness to their horses, and their attention to their passengers. Harriet Martineau stated that, in her experience, American drivers as a class were marked by the merciful temper which accompanies genius, and their perfection in their art, their fertility of resource, and the gentleness with which they treated female fears and fretfulness, were exemplary. In the City of Brotherly Love Baily notes the geniality of the people, who by many travelers are called aristocratic, and comments on Quaker opposition to the theater and the inconsequence of the Peale Museum, which travelers a generation later highly praise. Proceeding to New York at a cost of six dollars, he is struck by the uncouthness of the public buildings, churches excepted, the widespread passion for music, dancing, and the theater, the craze for sleighing, and the promise which the harbor gave of becoming the finest in America. Not a few travelers in this early period gave expression to their belief in the future greatness of New York City. These prophecies, taken in connection with the investment of eight millions of dollars which New Yorkers made in toll-roads in the first seven years of this new century, incline one to believe that the influence of the Erie Canal as a factor in the development of the city may have been unduly emphasized, great though it was. From New York Baily returned to Baltimore and went on to Washington. The records of all travelers to the site of the new national capital give much the same picture of the countryside. It was a land worn out by tobacco culture and variously described as "dried up," "run down," and "hung out to dry." Even George Washington, at Mount Vernon, was giving up tobacco culture and was attempting new crops by a system of rotation. Cotton was being grown in Maryland, but little care was given to its culture and manufacture. Tobacco was graded in Virginia in accordance with the rigidity of its inspection at Hanover Court House, Pittsburgh, Richmond, and Cabin-Point: leaf worth sixteen shillings at Richmond was worth twenty-one at Hanover Court House; if it was refused at all places, it was smuggled to the West Indies or consumed in the country. Meadows were rapidly taking the place of tobacco-fields, for the planters preferred to clear new land rather than to enrich the old. At Washington Baily found that lots to the value of $278,000 had been sold, although only one-half of the proposed city had been "cleared." It was to be forty years ere travelers could speak respectfully of what is now the beautiful city of Washington. In these earlier days, the streets were mudholes divided by vacant fields and "beautified by trees, swamps, and cows." Departing for the West by way of Frederick, Baily, like all travelers, was intensely interested upon entering the rich limestone region which stretched from Pennsylvania far down into Virginia. It was occupied in part by the Pennsylvania Dutch and was so famous for its rich milk that it was called by many travelers the "Bonnyclabber Country." Most Englishmen were delighted with this region because they found here the good old English breed of horses, that is, the English hunter developed into a stout coach-horse. Of native breeds, Baily found animals of all degrees of strength and size down to hackneys of fourteen hands, as well as the "vile dog-horses," or pack-horses, whose faithful service to the frontier could in no wise be appreciated by a foreigner. This region of Pennsylvania was as noted for its wagons as for its horses. It was this wheat-bearing belt that made the common freight-wagon in its colors of red and blue a national institution. It was in this region of rich, well-watered land that the maple tree gained its reputation. Men even prophesied that its delightful sap would prove a cure for slavery, for, if one family could make fifteen hundred pounds of maple sugar in a season, eighty thousand families could, at the same rate, equal the output of cane sugar each year from Santo Domingo! The traveler at the beginning of the century noticed a change in the temper of the people as well as a change in the soil when the Bonnyclabber Country was reached. The time-serving attitude of the good people of the East now gave place to a "consciousness of independence" due, Baily remarks, to the fact that each man was self-sufficient and passed his life "without regard to the smiles and frowns of men in power." This spirit was handsomely illustrated in the case of one burly Westerner who was "churched" for fighting. Showing a surly attitude to the deacon-judges who sat on his case, he was threatened with civil prosecution and imprisonment. "I don't want freedom," he is said to have replied, bitterly; "I don't even want to live if I can't knock down a man who calls me a liar." Pushing on westward by way of historic Sideling Hill and Bedford to Statlers, Baily found here a prosperous millstone quarry, which sold its stones at from fifteen to thirty dollars a pair. Twelve years earlier Washington had prophesied that the Alleghanies would soon be furnishing millstones equal to the best English burr. As he crossed the mountains Baily found that taverns charged the following schedule: breakfast, eighteen pence; dinner and supper from two shillings to two shillings and sixpence each. Traversing Laurel Hill, he reached Pittsburgh just at the time when it was awakening to activity as the trading center of the West. In order to descend the Ohio, Baily obtained a flatboat, thirty-six feet long and twelve feet broad, which drew eighteen inches of water and was of ten tons burden. On the way downstream, Charleston and Wheeling were the principal settlements which Baily first noted. Ebenezer Zane, the founder of Wheeling, had just opened across Ohio the famous landward route from the Monongahela country to Kentucky, which it entered at Limestone, the present Maysville. This famous road, passing through Zanesville, Lancaster, and Chillicothe, though at that time safe only for men in parties, was a common route to and from Kentucky. On such inland pathways as this, early travelers came to take for granted a hospitality not to be found on more frequented thoroughfares. In this hospitality, roughness and good will, cleanliness and filth, attempts to ape the style of Eastern towns and habits of the most primitive kind, were singularly blended. In one instance, the traveler might be cordially assigned by the landlord to a good position in "the first rush for a chance at the head of the table"; at the next stopping place he might be coldly turned away because the proprietor "had the gout" and his wife the "delicate blue-devils"; farther on, where "soap was unknown, nothing clean but birds, nothing industrious but pigs, and nothing happy but squirrels," Daniel Boone's daughter might be seen in high-heeled shoes, attended by white servants whose wages were a dollar a week, skirting muddy roads under a ten-dollar bonnet and a six-dollar parasol. Or, he might emerge from a lonely forest in Ohio or Indiana and come suddenly upon a party of neighbors at a dreary tavern, enjoying a corn shucking or a harvest home. Immediately dubbed "Doctor," "Squire," or "Colonel" by the hospitable merrymakers, the passer-by would be informed that he "should drink and lack no good thing." After he had retired, as likely as not his quarters would be invaded at one or two o'clock in the morning by the uproarious company, and the best refreshment of the house would be forced upon him with a hilarity "created by omnipotent whiskey." Sometimes, however, the traveler would encounter pitiful instances of loneliness in the wide-spreading forests. One man in passing a certain isolated cabin was implored by the woman who inhabited it to rest awhile and talk, since she was, she confessed, completely overwhelmed by "the lone!" Every traveler has remarked upon the yellow pallor of the first inhabitants of the western forests and doubtless correctly attributed this sickly appearance to the effects of malaria and miasma. The psychic influences of the forest wilderness also weighed heavily upon the spirits of the settlers, although, as Baily notes, it was the newcomers who felt the depression to an exaggerated degree. As he says: It is a feeling of confinement, which begins to damp the spirits, from this complete exclusion of distant objects. To travel day after day, among trees of a hundred feet high, is oppressive to a degree which those cannot conceive who have not experienced it; and it must depress the spirits of the solitary settler to pass years in this state. His visible horizon extends no farther than the tops of the trees which bound his plantation--perhaps five hundred yards. Upwards he sees the sun, and sky, and stars, but around him an eternal forest, from which he can never hope to emerge:--not so in a thickly settled district; he cannot there enjoy any freedom of prospect, yet there is variety, and some scope for the imprisoned vision. In a hilly country a little more range of view may occasionally be obtained; and a river is a stream of light as well as of water, which feasts the eye with a delight inconceivable to the inhabitants of open countries. In direct contradiction to this longing for society was the passion which the first generation of pioneers had for the wilderness. When the population of one settlement became too thick, they were seized by an irresistible impulse to "follow the migration," as the expression went. The easy independence of the first hunter-agriculturalist was upset by the advance of immigration. His range was curtailed, his freedom limited. His very breath seems to have become difficult. So he sold out at a phenomenal profit, put out his fire, shouldered his gun, called his dog, and set off again in search of the solitude he craved. Severe winter weather overtook Baily as he descended the Ohio River, until below Grave Creek floating ice wrecked his boat and drove him ashore. Here in the primeval forest, far from "Merrie England," Baily spent the Christmas of 1796 in building a new flatboat. This task completed, he resumed his journey. Passing Marietta, where the bad condition of the winter roads prevented a visit to a famous Indian mound, he reached Limestone. In due time he sighted Columbia, the metropolis of the Miami country. According to Baily, the sale of European goods in this part of the Ohio Valley netted the importers a hundred per cent. Prices varied with the ease of navigation. When ice blocked the Ohio the price of flour went up until it was eight dollars a barrel; whiskey was a dollar a gallon; potatoes, a dollar a bushel; and bacon, twelve cents a pound. At these prices, the total produce which went by Fort Massac in the early months of 1800 would have been worth on the Ohio River upwards of two hundred thousand dollars! In the preceding summer Baily quoted flour at Norfolk as selling at sixty-three shillings a barrel of 196 pounds, or double the price it was bringing on the ice-gorged Ohio. It is by such comparisons that we get some inkling of the value of western produce and of the rates in western trade. After a short stay at Cincinnati, Baily set out for the South on an "Orleans boat" loaded with four hundred barrels of flour. At the mouth of Pigeon Creek he noted the famous path to "Post St. Vincent's" (Vincennes), over which he saw emigrants driving cattle to that ancient town on the Wabash. At Fort Massac he met Captain Zebulon M. Pike, whose tact in dealing with intoxicated Indians he commended. At New Madrid Baily made a stay of some days. This settlement, consisting of some two hundred and fifty houses, was in the possession of Spain. It was within the province of Louisiana, soon to be ceded to Napoleon. New Orleans supplied this district with merchandise, but smuggling from the United States was connived at by the Spanish officials. From New Madrid Baily proceeded to Natchez, which then contained about eighty-five houses. The town did not boast a tavern, but, as was true of other places in the interior, this lack was made up for by the hospitality of its inhabitants. Rice and tobacco were being grown, Baily notes, and Georgian cotton was being raised in the neighborhood. Several jennies were already at work, and their owners received a royalty of one-eighth of the product. The cotton was sent to New Orleans, where it usually sold for twenty dollars a hundred weight. From Natchez to New Orleans the charge for transportation by flatboat was a dollar and a half a bag. The bags contained from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty pounds, and each flatboat carried about two hundred and fifty bags. Baily adds two items to the story of the development of the mechanical operation of watercraft. He tells us that in the fall of 1796 a party of "Dutchmen," in the Pittsburgh region, fashioned a boat with side paddle wheels which were turned by a treadmill worked by eight horses under the deck. This strange boat, which passed Baily when he was wrecked on the Ohio near Grave Creek, appeared "to go with prodigious swiftness." Baily does not state how much business the boat did on its downward trip to New Orleans but contents himself with remarking that the owners expected the return trip to prove very profitable. When he met the boat on its upward voyage at Natchez, it had covered three hundred miles in six days. It was, however, not loaded, "so little occasion was there for a vessel of this kind." As this run between New Orleans and Natchez came to be one of the most profitable in the United States in the early days of steamboating, less than fifteen years later, the experience of these "Flying Dutchmen" affords a very pretty proof that something more than a means of transportation is needed to create commerce. The owners abandoned their craft at Natchez in disgust and returned home across country, wiser and poorer. Baily also noted that a Dr. Waters of New Madrid built a schooner "some few years since" at the head of the Ohio and navigated it down the Ohio and Mississippi and around to Philadelphia, "where it is now employed in the commerce of the United States." It is thus apparent, solely from this traveler's record, that an ocean-going vessel and a side-paddle-wheel boat had been seen on the Western Waters of the United States at least four years before the nineteenth century arrived. Baily finally reached New Orleans. The city then contained about a thousand houses and was not only the market for the produce of the river plantations but also the center of an extensive Indian trade. The goods for this trade were packed in little barrels which were carried into the interior on pack-horses, three barrels to a horse. The traders traveled for hundreds of miles through the woods, bartering with the Indians on the way and receiving, in exchange for their goods, bear and deer skins, beaver furs, and wild ponies which had been caught by lariat in the neighboring Apalousa country. Baily had intended to return to New York by sea, but on his arrival at New Orleans he was unable to find a ship sailing to New York. He therefore decided to proceed northward by way of the long and dangerous Natchez Trace and the Tennessee Path. Though few Europeans had made this laborious journey before 1800, the Natchez Trace had been for many years the land route of thousands of returning rivermen who had descended the Mississippi in flatboat and barge. In practically all cases these men carried with them the proceeds of their investment, and, as on every thoroughfare in the world traveled by those returning from market, so here, too, highwaymen and desperadoes, red and white, built their lairs and lay in wait. Some of the most revolting crimes of the American frontier were committed on these northward pathways and their branches. Joining a party bound for Natchez, a hundred and fifty miles distant overland, Baily proceeded to Lake Pontchartrain and thence "north by west through the woods," by way of the ford of the Tangipahoa, Cooper's Plantation, Tickfaw River, Amite River, and the "Hurricane" (the path of a tornado) to the beginning of the Apalousa country. This tangled region of stunted growth was reputed to be seven miles in width from "shore to shore" and three hundred miles in length. It took the party half a day to reach the opposite "shore," and they had to quench their thirst on the way with dew. At Natchez, Baily organized a party which included the five "Dutchmen" whose horse boat had proved a failure. For their twenty-one days' journey to Nashville the party laid in the following provisions: 15 pounds of biscuit, 6 pounds of flour, 12 pounds of bacon, 10 pounds of dried beef, 3 pounds of rice, 1½ pounds of coffee, 4 pounds of sugar, and a quantity of pounded corn, such as the Indians used on all their journeys. After celebrating the Fourth of July, 1797, with "all the inhabitants who were hostile to the Spanish Government," and bribing the baker at the Spanish fort to bake them a quarter of a hundredweight of bread, the party started on their northward journey. They reached without incident the famous Grindstone Ford of Bayou Pierre, where crayfishes had destroyed a pioneer dam. Beyond, at the forks of the path where the Choctaw Trail bore off to the east the party pursued the alternate Chickasaw Trail by Indian guidance, and soon noted the change in the character of the soil from black loam to sandy gravel, which indicated that they had reached the Piedmont region. Indian marauders stole one horse from the camp, and three of the party fell ill. The others, pressed for food, were compelled to leave the sick men in an improvised camp and to hasten on, promising to send to their aid the first Indian they should meet "who understood herbs." After appalling hardships, they crossed the Tennessee and entered the Nashville country, where the roads were good enough for coaches, for they met two on the way. Thence Baily proceeded to Knoxville, seeing, as he went, droves of cattle bound for the settlements of west Tennessee. With his arrival at Knoxville, his journal ends abruptly; but from other sources we learn that he sailed from New York on his return to England in January, 1798. His interesting record, however, remained unpublished until after his death in 1844. Not only to Francis Baily but to scores of other travelers, even those of unfriendly eyes, do modern readers owe a debt of gratitude. These men have preserved a multitude of pictures and a wealth of data which would otherwise have been lost. The men of America in those days were writing the story of their deeds not on parchment or paper but on the virgin soil of the wilderness. But though the stage driver, the tavern keeper, and the burly riverman left no description of the life of their highways and their commerce, these visitors from other lands have bequeathed to us their thousands of pages full of the enterprising life of these pioneer days in the history of American commerce. CHAPTER VII The Birth Of The Steamboat The crowds who welcomed the successive stages in the development of American transportation were much alike in essentials--they were all optimistic, self-congratulatory, irrepressible in their enthusiasm, and undaunted in their outlook. Dickens, perhaps, did not miss the truth widely when, in speaking of stage driving, he said that the cry of "Go Ahead!" in America and of "All Right!" in England were typical of the civilizations of the two countries. Right or wrong, "Go Ahead!" has always been the underlying passion of all men interested in the development of commerce and transportation in these United States. During the era of river improvement already described, men of imagination were fascinated with the idea of propelling boats by mechanical means. Even when Washington fared westward in 1784, he met at Bath, Virginia, one of these early experimenters, James Rumsey, who haled him forthwith to a neighboring meadow to watch a secret trial of a boat moved by means of machinery which worked setting-poles similar to the ironshod poles used by the rivermen to propel their boats upstream. "The model," wrote Washington, "and its operation upon the water, which had been made to run pretty swift, not only convinced me of what I before thought next to, if not quite impracticable, but that it might be to the greatest possible utility in inland navigation." Later he mentions the "discovery" as one of those "circumstances which have combined to render the present epoch favorable above all others for securing a large portion of the produce of the western settlements, and of the fur and peltry of the Lakes, also." From that day forward, scarcely a week passed without some new development in the long and difficult struggle to improve the means of navigation. Among the scores of men who engaged in this engrossing but discouraging work, there is one whom the world is coming to honor more highly than in previous years--John Fitch, of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. As early as August, 1785, Fitch launched on a rivulet in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a boat propelled by an engine which moved an endless chain to which little paddles were attached. The next year, Fitch's second boat, operated by twelve paddles, six on a side--an arrangement suggesting the "side-wheeler" of the future--successfully plied the Delaware off "Conjuror's Point," as the scene of Fitch's labors was dubbed in whimsical amusement and derision. In 1787 Rumsey, encouraged by Franklin, fashioned a boat propelled by a stream of water taken in at the prow and ejected at the stern. In 1788 Fitch's third boat traversed the distance from Philadelphia to Burlington on numerous occasions and ran as a regular packet in 1790, covering over a thousand miles. In this model Fitch shifted the paddles from the sides to the rear, thus anticipating in principle the modern stern-wheeler. It was doubtless Fitch's experiments in 1785 that led to the first plan in America to operate a land vehicle by steam. Oliver Evans, a neighbor and acquaintance of Fitch's, petitioned the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1786 for the right of operating wagons propelled by steam on the highways of that State. This petition was derisively rejected; but a similar one made to the Legislature of Maryland was granted on the ground that such action could hurt nobody. Evans in 1802 took fiery revenge on the scoffers by actually running his little five-horse-power carriage through Philadelphia. The rate of speed, however, was so slow that the idea of moving vehicles by steam was still considered useless for practical purposes. Eight years later, Evans offered to wager $3000 that, on a level road, he could make a carriage driven by steam equal the speed of the swiftest horse, but he found no response. In 1812 he asserted that he was willing to wager that he could drive a steam carriage on level rails at a rate of fifteen miles an hour. Evans thus anticipated the belief of Stephenson that steam-driven vehicles would travel best on railed tracks. In the development of the steamboat almost all earlier means of propulsion, natural and artificial, were used as models by the inventors. The fins of fishes, the webbed feet of amphibious birds, the paddles of the Indian, and the poles and oars of the riverman, were all imitated by the patient inventors struggling with the problem. Rumsey's first effort was a copy of the old setting-pole idea. Fitch's model of 1785 had side paddle wheels operated by an endless chain. Fitch's second and third models were practically paddle-wheel models, one having the paddles at the side and the other at the stern. Ormsbee of Connecticut made a model, in 1792, on the plan of a duck's foot. Morey made what may be called the first real stern-wheeler in 1794. Two years later Fitch ran a veritable screw propeller on Collect Pond near New York City. Although General Benjamin Tupper of Massachusetts had been fashioning devices of this character eight years previously, Fitch was the first to apply the idea effectively. In 1798 he evolved the strange, amphibious creation known as his "model of 1798," which has never been adequately explained. It was a steamboat on iron wheels provided with flanges, as though it was intended to be run on submerged tracks. What may have been the idea of its inventor, living out his last gloomy days in Kentucky, may never be known; but it is possible to see in this anomalous machine an anticipation of the locomotive not approached by any other American of the time. Thus, prior to 1800 almost every type of mechanism for the propulsion of steamboats had been suggested and tried; and in 1804, Stevens's twin-screw propeller completed the list. It is not alone Fitch's development of the devices of the endless chain, paddle wheel, and screw propeller and of his puzzling earth-and-water creature that gives luster to his name. His prophetic insight into the future national importance of the steamboat and his conception, as an inventor, of his moral obligations to the people at large were as original and striking in the science of that age as were his models. The early years of the national life of the United States were the golden age of monopoly. Every colony, as a matter of course, had granted to certain men special privileges, and, as has already been pointed out, the questions of monopolies and combinations in restraint of trade had arisen even so early as the beginning of the eighteenth century. Interwoven inextricably with these problems was the whole problem of colonial rivalry, which in its later form developed into an insistence on state rights. Every improvement in the means of transportation, every development of natural resources, every new invention was inevitably considered from the standpoint of sectional interests and with a view to its monopolistic possibilities. This was particularly true in the case of the steamboat, because of its limitation to rivers and bays which could be specifically enumerated and defined. For instance, Washington in 1784 attests the fact that Rumsey operated his mechanical boat at Bath in secret "until he saw the effect of an application he was about to make to the Assembly of this State, for a reward." The application was successful, and Rumsey was awarded a monopoly in Virginia waters for ten years. Fitch, on the other hand, when he applied to Congress in 1785, desired merely to obtain official encouragement and intended to allow his invention to be used by all comers. Meeting only with rebuff, he realized that his only hope of organizing a company that could provide working capital lay in securing monopolistic privileges. In 1786 he accordingly applied to the individual States and secured the sole right to operate steamboats on the waterways of New Jersey, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. How different would have been the story of the steamboat if Congress had accepted Fitch at his word and created a precedent against monopolistic rights on American rivers! Fitch, in addition to the high purpose of devoting his new invention to the good of the nation without personal considerations, must be credited with perceiving at the very beginning the peculiar importance of the steamboat to the American West. His original application to Congress in 1785 opened: "The subscriber begs leave to lay at the feet of Congress, an attempt he has made to facilitate the internal Navigation of the United States, adapted especially to the Waters of the Mississippi." At another time with prophetic vision he wrote: "The Grand and Principle object must be on the Atlantick, which would soon overspread the wild forests of America with people, and make us the most oppulent Empire on Earth. Pardon me, generous public, for suggesting ideas that cannot be dijested at this day." Foremost in exhibiting high civic and patriotic motives, Fitch was also foremost in appreciating the importance of the steamboat in the expansion of American trade. This significance was also clearly perceived by his brilliant successor, Robert Fulton. That the West and its commerce were always predominant in Fulton's great schemes is proved by words which he addressed in 1803 to James Monroe, American Ambassador to Great Britain: "You have perhaps heard of the success of my experiments for navigating boats by steam engines and you will feel the importance of establishing such boats on the Mississippi and other rivers of the United States as soon as possible." Robert Fulton had been interested in steamboats for a period not definitely known, possibly since his sojourn in Philadelphia in the days of Fitch's early efforts. That he profited by the other inventor's efforts at the time, however, is not suggested by any of his biographers. He subsequently went to London and gave himself up to the study and practice of engineering. There he later met James Rumsey, who came to England in 1788, and by him no doubt was informed, if he was not already aware, of the experiments and models of Rumsey and Fitch. He obtained the loan of Fitch's plans and drawings and made his own trial of various existing devices, such as oars, paddles, duck's feet, and Fitch's endless chain with "resisting-boards" attached. Meanwhile Fulton was also devoting his attention to problems of canal construction and to the development of submarine boats and submarine explosives. He was engaged in these researches in France in 1801 when the new American minister, Robert R. Livingston, arrived, and the two men soon formed a friendship destined to have a vital and enduring influence upon the development of steam navigation on the inland waterways of America. Livingston already had no little experience in the same field of invention as Fulton. In 1798 he had obtained, for a period of twenty years, the right to operate steamboats on all the waters of the State of New York, a monopoly which had just lapsed owing to the death of Fitch. In the same year Livingston had built a steamboat which had made three miles an hour on the Hudson. He had experimented with most of the models then in existence--upright paddles at the side, endless-chain paddles, and stern paddle wheels. Fulton was soon inspired to resume his efforts by Livingston's account of his own experiments and of recent advances in England, where a steamboat had navigated the Thames in 1801 and a year later the famous stern-wheeler Charlotte Dundas had towed boats of 140 tons' burden on the Forth and Clyde Canal at the rate of five miles an hour. In this same year Fulton and Livingston made successful experiments on the Seine. It is fortunate that, in one particular, Livingston's influence did not prevail with Fulton, for the American Minister was distinctly prejudiced against paddle wheels. Although Livingston had previously ridden as a passenger on Morey's stern-wheeler at the rate of five miles an hour, yet he had turned a deaf ear when his partner in experimentation, Nicholas J. Roosevelt, had insisted strongly on "throwing wheels over the sides." At the beginning, Fulton himself was inclined to agree with Livingston in this respect; but, probably late in 1803, he began to investigate more carefully the possibilities of the paddle wheel as used twice in America by Morey and by four or five experimenters in Europe. In 1804 an eight-mile trip which Fulton made on the Charlotte Dundas in an hour and twenty minutes established his faith in the undeniable superiority of two fundamental factors of early navigation--paddle wheels and British engines. Fulton's splendid fame rests, and rightly so, on his perception of the fact that no mere ingenuity of design could counterbalance weakness, uncertainty, and inefficiency in the mechanism which was intended to make a steamboat run and keep running. As early as November, 1803, Fulton had written to Boulton and Watt of Birmingham that he had "not confidence in any other engines" than theirs and that he was seeking a means of getting one of those engines to America. "I cannot establish the boat without the engine," he now emphatically wrote to James Monroe, then Ambassador to the Court of St. James. "The question then is shall we or shall we not have such boats." But there were difficulties in the way. Though England forbade the exportation of engines, Fulton knew that, in numerous instances, this rule had not been enforced, and he had hopes of success. "The British Government," Fulton wrote Monroe, "must have little friendship or even civility toward America, if they refuse such a request." Before the steamboat which Fulton and Livingston proposed to build in America could be operated there was another obstacle to be surmounted. The rights of steam navigation of New York waters which Livingston had obtained on the death of Fitch in 1798 had lapsed because of his failure to run a steamboat at the rate of four miles an hour, which was one provision of the grant. In April, 1803, the grant was renewed to Livingston, Roosevelt, and Fulton jointly for another period of twenty years, and the date when the boat was to make the required four miles an hour was extended finally to 1807. Any one who is inclined to criticize the Livingston-Roosevelt-Fulton monopoly which now came into existence should remember that the previous state grants formed a precedent of no slight moment. The whole proceeding was in perfect accord with the spirit of the times, for it was an era of speculation and monopoly ushered in by the toll-road and turnpike organizations, when probably no less than two hundred companies were formed. It was young America showing itself in an unmistakable manner--"conceived in liberty" and starting on the long road to learn that obedience to law and respect for public rights constitute true liberty. Finally, it must be pointed out that Fulton, like his famous predecessor, Fitch, was impelled by motives far higher than the love of personal gain. "I consider them [steamboats] of such infinite use in America," he wrote Monroe, "that I should feel a culpable neglect toward my country if I relaxed for a moment in pursuing every necessary measure for carrying it into effect." And later, when repeating his argument, he says: "I plead this not for myself alone but for our country." It is now evident why the alliance of Fulton with Livingston was of such epoch-making importance, for, although it may have in some brief measure delayed Fulton's adoption of paddle wheels, it gave him an entry to the waters of New York. Livingston and Fulton thus supplemented each other; Livingston possessed a monopoly and Fulton a correct estimate of the value of paddle wheels and, secondly, of Boulton and Watt engines. It was a rare combination destined to crown with success a long period of effort and discouragement in the history of navigation. After considerable delay and difficulty, the two Americans obtained permission to export the necessary engine from Great Britain and shipped it to New York, whither Fulton himself proceeded to construct his steamboat. The hull was built by Charles Brown, a New York shipbuilder, and the Boulton and Watt machinery, set in masonry, was finally installed. The voyage to Albany, against a stiff wind, occupied thirty-two hours; the return trip was made in thirty. H. Freeland, one of the spectators who stood on the banks of the Hudson when the boat made its maiden voyage in 1807, gives the following description: Some imagined it to be a sea-monster whilst others did not hesitate to express their belief that it was a sign of the approaching judgment. What seemed strange in the vessel was the substitution of lofty and straight smoke-pipes, rising from the deck, instead of the gracefully tapered masts ... and, in place of the spars and rigging, the curious play of the walking-beam and pistons, and the slow turning and splashing of the huge and naked paddle-wheels, met the astonished gaze. The dense clouds of smoke, as they rose, wave upon wave, added still more to the wonderment of the rustics.... On her return trip the curiosity she excited was scarcely less intense ... fishermen became terrified, and rode homewards, and they saw nothing but destruction devastating their fishing grounds, whilst the wreaths of black vapor and rushing noise of the paddle-wheels, foaming with the stirred-up water, produced great excitement.... With the launching of the Clermont on the Hudson a new era in American history began. How quick with life it was many of the preceding pages bear testimony. The infatuation of the public for building toll and turnpike roads was now at its height. Only a few years before, a comprehensive scheme of internal improvements had been outlined by Jefferson's Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin. When a boy, it is said, he had lain on the floor of a surveyor's cabin on the western slopes of the Alleghanies and had heard Washington describe to a rough crowd of Westerners his plan to unite the Great Lakes with the Potomac in one mighty chain of inland commerce. Jefferson's Administration was now about to devote the surplus in the Treasury to the construction of national highways and canals. The Cumberland Road, to be built across the Alleghanies by the War Department, was authorized by the President in the same year in which the Clermont made her first trip; and Jesse Hawley, at his table in a little room in a Pittsburgh boarding house, was even now penning in a series of articles, published in the Pittsburgh Commonwealth, beginning in January, 1807, the first clear challenge to the Empire State to connect the Hudson and Lake Erie by a canal. Thus the two next steps in the history of inland commerce in America were ready to be taken. CHAPTER VIII The Conquest Of The Alleghanies The two great thoroughfares of American commerce in the first half of the nineteenth century were the Cumberland Road and the Erie Canal. The first generation of the new century witnessed the great burst of population into the West which at once gave Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin a place of national importance which they have never relinquished. So far as pathways of commerce contributed to the creation of this veritable new republic in the Middle West, the Cumberland Road and the Erie Canal, coöperating respectively with Ohio River and Lake Erie steamboats, were of the utmost importance. The national spirit, said to have arisen from the second war with England, had its clearest manifestation in the throwing of a great macadamized roadway across the Alleghanies to the Ohio River and the digging of the Erie Canal through the swamps and wildernesses of New York. Both of these pathways were essentially the fruition of the doctrine to which Washington gave wide circulation in his letter to Harrison in 1784, wherein he pictured the vision of a vast Republic united by commercial chains. Both were essentially Western enterprises. The highway was built to fulfil the promise which the Government had made in 1802 to use a portion of the money accruing from the sale of public lands in Ohio in order to connect that young State with Atlantic waters. It was proposed to build the canal, according to one early plan, with funds to be obtained by the sale of land in Michigan. So firmly did the promoters believe in the national importance of this project that subscriptions, according to another plan, were to be solicited as far afield as Vermont in the North and Kentucky in the Southwest. All that Washington had hoped for, and all that Aaron Burr is supposed to have been hopeless of, were epitomized in these great works of internal improvement. They bespoke coöperation of the highest existing types of loyalty, optimism, financial skill, and engineering ability. Yet, on the other hand, the contrasts between these undertakings were great. The two enterprises, one the work of the nation and the other that of a single State, were practically contemporaneous and were therefore constantly inviting comparison. The Cumberland Road was, for its day, a gigantic government undertaking involving problems of finance, civil engineering, eminent domain, state rights, local favoritism, and political machination. Its purpose was noble and its successful construction a credit to the nation; but the paternalism to which it gave rise and the conflicts which it precipitated in Congress over questions of constitutionality were remembered soberly for a century. The Erie Canal, after its projectors had failed to obtain national aid, became the undertaking of one commonwealth conducted, amid countless doubts and jeers, to a conclusion unbelievably successful. As a result many States, foregoing Federal aid, attempted to duplicate the successful feat of New York. In this respect the northern canal resembled the Lancaster Turnpike and tempted scores of States and corporations to expenditures which were unwise in circumstances less favorable than those of the fruitful and strategic Empire State. In the conception of both the roadway and the canal, it should be noted, the old idea of making use of navigable rivers still persisted. The act foreshadowing the Cumberland Road, passed in 1802, called for "making public roads leading from the navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic, to the Ohio, to said State Ohio and through the same"; and Hawley's original plan was to build the Erie Canal from Utica to Buffalo using the Mohawk from Utica to the Hudson. Historic Cumberland, in Maryland, was chosen by Congress as the eastern terminus of the great highway which should bind Ohio to the Old Thirteen. Commissioners were appointed in 1806 to choose the best route by which the great highway could reach the Ohio River between Steubenville, Ohio and the mouth of Grave Creek; but difficulties of navigation in the neighborhood of the Three Sister Islands near Charlestown, or Wellsburg, West Virginia, led to the choice of Wheeling, farther down, as a temporary western terminus. The route selected was an excellent compromise between the long standing rival claims of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to the trade of the West. If Baltimore and Alexandria were to be better served than Philadelphia, the advantage was slight; and Pennsylvania gained compensation, ere the State gave the National Government permission to build the road within its limits, by dictating that it should pass through Uniontown and Washington. In this way Pennsylvania obtained, without cost, unrivaled advantages for a portion of the State which might otherwise have been long neglected. The building of the road, however satisfactory in the main, was not undertaken without arousing many sectional and personal hopes and prejudices and jealousies, of which the echoes still linger in local legends today. Land-owners, mine-owners, factory-owners, innkeepers and countless townsmen and villagers anxiously watched the course of the road and were bitterly disappointed if the new sixty-four-foot thoroughfare did not pass immediately through their property. On the other hand, promoters of toll and turnpike companies, who had promising schemes and long lists of shareholders, were far from eager to have their property taken for a national road. No one believed that, if it proved successful, it would be the only work of its kind, and everywhere men looked for the construction of government highways out of the overflowing wealth of the treasury within the next few years. In April, 1811, the first contracts were let for building the first ten miles of the road from its eastern terminus and were completed in 1812. More contracts were let in 1812, 1813, and 1815. Even in those days of war when the drain on the national treasury was excessive, over a quarter of a million dollars was appropriated for the construction of the road. Onward it crawled, through the beautiful Cumberland gateway of the Potomac, to Big Savage and Little Savage Mountains, to Little Pine Run (the first "Western" water), to Red Hill (later called "Shades of Death" because of the gloomy forest growth), to high-flung Negro Mountain at an elevation of 2325 feet, and thence on to the Youghiogheny, historic Great Meadows, Braddock's Grave, Laurel Hill, Uniontown, and Brownsville, where it crossed the Monongahela. Thence, on almost a straight line, it sped by way of Washington to Wheeling. Its average cost was upwards of thirteen thousand dollars a mile from the Potomac to the Ohio. The road was used in 1817, and in another year the mail coaches of the United States were running from Washington to Wheeling, West Virginia. Within five years one of the five commission houses doing business at Wheeling is said to have handled over a thousand wagons carrying freight of nearly two tons each. The Cumberland Road at once leaped into a position of leadership, both in volume of commerce and in popularity, and held its own for two famous decades. The pulse of the nation beat to the steady throb of trade along its highway. Maryland at once stretched out her eager arms, along stone roads, through Frederick and Hagerstown to Cumberland, and thus formed a single route from the Ohio to Baltimore. Great stagecoach and freight lines were soon established, each patronizing its own stage house or wagon stand in the thriving towns along the road. The primitive box stage gave way to the oval or football type with curved top and bottom, and this was displaced in turn by the more practical Concord coach of national fame. The names of the important stagecoach companies were quite as well known, a century ago, as those of our great railways today. Chief among them were the National, Good Intent, June Bug, and Pioneer lines. The coaches, drawn by four and sometimes six horses, were usually painted in brilliant colors and were named after eminent statesmen. The drivers of these gay chariots were characters quite as famous locally as the personages whose names were borne by the coaches. Westover and his record of forty-five minutes for the twenty miles between Uniontown and Brownsville, and "Red" Bunting, with his drive of a hundred and thirty-one miles in twelve hours with the declaration of war against Mexico, will be long famous on the curving stretches of the Cumberland Road. Although the freight and express traffic of those days lacked the picturesqueness of the passenger coaches, nothing illustrates so conclusively what the great road meant to an awakening West as the long lines of heavy Conestogas and rattling express wagons which raced at "unprecedented" speed across hill and vale. Searight, the local historian of the road, describes these large, broad-wheeled wagons covered with white canvas as visible all the day long, at every point, making the highway look more like a leading avenue of a great city than a road through rural districts.... I have staid over night with William Cheets on Nigger [Negro] Mountain when there were about thirty six-horse teams in the wagon yard, a hundred Kentucky mules in an adjoining lot, a thousand hogs in their enclosures, and as many fat cattle in adjoining fields. The music made by this large number of hogs eating corn on a frosty night I shall never forget. After supper and attention to the teams, the wagoners would gather in the bar-room and listen to the music on the violin furnished by one of their fellows, have a Virginia hoe-down, sing songs, tell anecdotes, and hear the experiences of drivers and drovers from all points of the road, and, when it was all over, unroll their beds, lay them down on the floor before the bar-room fire side by side, and sleep with their feet near the blaze as soundly as under the parental roof. Meanwhile New York, the other great rival for Western trade, was intent on its own darling project, the Erie Canal. In 1808, three years before the building of the Cumberland Road, Joshua Forman offered a bill in favor of the canal in the Legislature of New York. In plain but dignified language this document stated that New York possessed "the best route of communication between the Atlantic and western waters," and that it held "the first commercial rank in the United States." The bill also noted that, while "several of our sister States" were seeking to secure "the trade of that wide extended country," their natural advantages were "vastly inferior." Six hundred dollars was the amount appropriated for a brief survey, and Congress was asked to vote aid for the construction of the "Buffalo-Utica Canal." The matter was widely talked about but action was delayed. Doubt as to the best route to be pursued caused some discussion. If the western terminus were to be located on Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Oswego, as some advocated, would produce not make its way to Montreal instead of to New York? In 1810 a new committee was appointed and, though their report favored the paralleling of the course of the Mohawk and Oswego rivers, their engineer, James Geddes, gave strength to the party which believed a direct canal would best serve the interests of the State. It is worth noting that Livingston and Fulton were added to the committee in 1811. The hopes of outside aid from Congress and adjacent States met with disappointment. In vain did the advocates of the canal in 1812 plead that its construction would promote "a free and general intercourse between different parts of the United States, tend to the aggrandizement and prosperity of the country, and consolidate and strengthen the Union." The plan to have the Government subsidize the canal by vesting in the State of New York four million acres of Michigan land brought out a protest from the West which is notable not so much because it records the opposition of this section as because it illustrates the shortsightedness of most of the arguments raised against the New York enterprise. The purpose of the canal, the detractors asserted, was to build up New York City to the detriment of Montreal, and the navigation of Lake Ontario, whose beauty they touchingly described, was to be abandoned for a "narrow, winding obstructed canal ... for an expense which arithmetic dares not approach." It was, in their minds, unquestionably a selfish object, and they believed that "both correct science, and the dictates of patriotism and philanthropy [should] lead to the adoption of more liberal principles." It was a shortsighted object, "predicated on the eternal adhesion of the Canadas to England." It would never give satisfaction since trade would always ignore artificial and seek natural routes. The attempting of such comparatively useless projects would discourage worthy schemes, relax the bonds of Union, and depress the national character. But though these Westerners thus misjudged the possibilities of the Erie Canal, we must doff our hats to them for their foresight in suggesting that, instead of aiding the Erie Canal, the nation ought to build canals at Niagara Falls and Panama! The War of 1812 suspended all talk of the canal, but the subject was again brought up by Judge Platt in the autumn of 1816. With alacrity strong men came to the aid of the measure. De Witt Clinton's Memorial of 1816 addressed to the State Legislature may well rank with Washington's letter to Harrison in the documentary history of American commercial development. It sums up the geographical position of New York with reference to the Great Lakes and the Atlantic, her relationship to the West and to Canada, the feasibility of the proposed route from an engineering standpoint, the timeliness of the moment for such a work of improvement, the value that the canal would give to the state lands of the interior, and the trade that it would bring to the towns along its pathway. The Erie Canal was born in the Act of April 14, 1817, but the decision of the Council of Revision, which held the power of veto, was in doubt. An anecdote related by Judge Platt tends to prove that fear of another war with England was the straw that broke the camel's back of opposition. Acting-Governor Taylor, Chief Justice Thompson, Chancellor Kent, Judge Yates, and Judge Platt composed the Council. The two first named were open opponents of the measure; Kent, Yates, and Platt were warm advocates of the project, but one of them doubted if the time was ripe to undertake it. Taylor opposed the canal on the ground that the late treaty with England was a mere truce and that the resources of the State should be husbanded against renewed war. "Do you think so, Sir?" Chancellor Kent is said to have asked the Governor. "Yes, Sir," was the reported reply. "England will never forgive us for our victories, and, my word for it, we shall have another war with her within two years." The Chancellor rose to his feet with determination and sealed the fate of the great enterprise in a word. "If we must have war," he exclaimed, "I am in favor of the canal and I cast my vote for this bill." On July 4, 1817, work was formally inaugurated at Rome with simple ceremonies. Thus the year 1817 was marked by three great undertakings: the navigation of the Mississippi River upstream and down by steamboats, the opening of the national road across the Alleghany Mountains, and the beginning of the Erie Canal. No single year in the early history of the United States witnessed three such important events in the material progress of the country. What days the ancient "Long House of the Iroquois" now saw! The engineers of the Cumberland Road, now nearing the Ohio River, had enjoyed the advantage of many precedents and examples; but the Commissioners of the Erie Canal had been able to study only such crude examples of canal-building as America then afforded. Never on any continent had such an inaccessible region been pierced by such a highway. The total length of the whole network of canals in Great Britain did not equal that of the waterway which the New Yorkers now undertook to build. The lack of roads, materials, vehicles, methods of drilling and efficient business systems was overcome by sheer patience and perseverance in experiment. The frozen winter roads saved the day by making it possible to accumulate a proper supply of provisions and materials. As tools of construction, the plough and scraper with their greater capacity for work soon supplanted the shovel and the wheelbarrow, which had been the chief implements for such construction in Europe. Strange new machinery born of Mother Necessity was now heard groaning in the dark swamps of New York. These giants, worked by means of a cable, wheel, and endless screw, were made to hoist green stumps bodily from the ground and, without the use of axe, to lay trees prostrate, root and branch. A new plough was fashioned with which a yoke of oxen could cut roots two inches in thickness well beneath the surface of the ground. Handicaps of various sorts wore the patience of commissioners, engineers, and contractors. Lack of snow during one winter all but stopped the work by cutting off the source of supplies. Pioneer ailments, such as fever and ague, reaped great harvests, incapacitated more than a thousand workmen at one time and for a brief while stopped work completely. For the most part, however, work was carried on simultaneously on all the three great links or sections into which the enterprise was divided. Local contractors were given preference by the commissioners, and three-fourths of the work was done by natives of the State. Forward up the Mohawk by Schenectady and Utica to Rome, thence bending southward to Syracuse, and from there by way of Clyde, Lyons, and Palmyra, the canal made its way to the giant viaduct over the Genesee River at Rochester. Keeping close to the summit level on the dividing ridge between Lake Ontario streams and the Valley of the Tonawanda, the line ran to Lockport, where a series of locks placed the canal on the Lake Erie level, 365 miles from and 564 feet above Albany. By June, 1823, the canal was completed from Rochester to Schenectady; in October boats passed into the tidewaters of the Hudson at Albany; and in the autumn of 1825 the canal was formally opened by the passage of a triumphant fleet from Lake Erie to New York Bay. Here two kegs of lake water were emptied into the Atlantic, while the Governor of the State of New York spoke these words: This solemnity, at this place, on the first arrival of vessels from Lake Erie, is intended to indicate and commemorate the navigable communication, which has been accomplished between our Mediterranean Seas and the Atlantic Ocean, in about eight years, to the extent of more than four hundred and twenty-five miles, by the wisdom, public spirit, and energy of the people of the State of New York; and may the God of the Heavens and the Earth smile most propitiously on this work, and render it subservient to the best interests of the human race. Throughout these last seven years, the West was subconsciously getting ready to meet the East halfway by improving and extending her steamboat operations. Steamboats were first run on the Great Lakes by enterprising Buffalo citizens who, in 1818, secured rights from the Fulton-Livingston monopoly to build the Walk-in-the-Water, the first of the great fleet of ships that now whiten the inland seas of the United States. Regular lines of steamboats were now formed on the Ohio to connect with the Cumberland Road at Wheeling, although the steamboat monopoly threatened to stifle the natural development of transportation on Western rivers. The completion of the Erie Canal--coupled with the new appropriation by Congress for extending the Cumberland Road from the Ohio River to Missouri and the beginning of the Pennsylvania and the Chesapeake and Ohio canals, reveal the importance of these concluding days of the first quarter of the nineteenth century in the annals of American transportation. Never since that time have men doubted the ability of Americans to accomplish the physical domination of their continent. With the conquest of the Alleghanies and of the forests and swamps of the "Long House" by pick and plough and scraper, and the mastery of the currents of the Mississippi by the paddle wheel, the vast plains beyond seemed smaller and the Rockies less formidable. Men now looked forward confidently, with an optimist of these days, to the time "when circulation and association between the Atlantic and Pacific and the Mexican Gulf shall be as free and perfect as they are at this moment in England" between the extremities of that country. The vision of a nation closely linked by well-worn paths of commerce was daily becoming clearer. What further westward progress was soon to be made remains to be seen. CHAPTER IX The Dawn Of The Iron Age Despite the superiority of the new iron age that quickly followed the widespreading canal movement, there was a generous spirit and a chivalry in the "good old days" of the stagecoach, the Conestoga, and the lazy canal boat, which did not to an equal degree pervade the iron age of the railroad. When machinery takes the place of human brawn and patience, there is an indefinable eclipse of human interest. Somehow, cogs and levers and differentials do not have the same appeal as fingers and eyes and muscles. The old days of coach and canal boat had a picturesqueness and a comradeship of their own. In the turmoil and confusion and odd mixing of every kind of humanity along the lines of travel in the days of the hurtling coach-and-six, a friendliness, a robust sympathy, a ready interest in the successful and the unfortunate, a knowledge of how the other half lives, and a familiarity with men as well as with mere places, was common to all who took the road. As Thackeray so vividly describes it: The land rang yet with the tooting horns and rattling teams of mail-coaches; a gay sight was the road in those days, before steam-engines arose and flung its hostelry and chivalry over. To travel in coaches, to know coachmen and guards, to be familiar with inns along the road, to laugh with the jolly hostess in the bar, to chuck the pretty chamber-maid under the chin, were the delight of men who were young not very long ago. The road was an institution, the ring was an institution. Men rallied around them; and, not without a kind of conservatism expatiated on the benefits with which they endowed the country, and the evils which would occur when they should be no more:--decay of British spirit, decay of manly pluck, ruin of the breed of horses, and so forth and so forth. To give and take a black eye was not unusual nor derogatory in a gentleman: to drive a stage-coach the enjoyment, the emulation, of generous youth. Is there any young fellow of the present time, who aspires to take the place of a stoker? One sees occasionally in the country a dismal old drag with a lonely driver. Where are you, charioteers? Where are you, O rattling Quicksilver, O swift Defiance? You are passed by racers stronger and swifter than you. Your lamps are out, and the music of your horns has died away. Behind this change from the older and more picturesque days which is thus lamented there lay potent economic forces and a strong commercial rivalry between different parts of the country. The Atlantic States were all rivals of each other, reaching out by one bold stroke after another across forest, mountain, and river to the gigantic and fruitful West. Step after step the inevitable conquest went on. Foremost in time marched the sturdy pack-horsemen, blazing the way for the heavier forces quietly biding their time in the rear--the Conestogas, the steamboat, the canal boat, and, last and greatest of them all, the locomotive. Through a long preliminary period the principal center of interest was the Potomac Valley, towards whose strategic head Virginia and Maryland, by river-improvement and road-building, were directing their commercial routes in amiable rivalry for the conquest of the Western trade. Suddenly out from the southern region of the Middle Atlantic States went the Cumberland National Road to the Ohio. New York instantly, in her zone, took up the challenge and thrust her great Erie Canal across to the Great Lakes. In rapid succession, Pennsylvania and Maryland and Virginia, eager not to be outdone in winning the struggle for Western trade, sent their canals into the Alleghanies toward the Ohio. It soon developed, however, that Baltimore, both powerful and ambitious, was seriously handicapped. In order to retain her commanding position as the metropolis of Western trade she was compelled to resort to a new and untried method of transportation which marks an era in American history. It seems plain that the Southern rivals of New York City--Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Alexandria--had relied for a while on the deterring effect of a host of critics who warned all men that a canal of such proportions as the Erie was not practicable, that no State could bear the financial drain which its construction would involve, that theories which had proved practical on a small scale would fail in so large an undertaking, that the canal would be clogged by floods or frozen up for half of each year, and that commerce would ignore artificial courses and cling to natural channels. But the answer of the Empire State to her rivals was the homely but triumphant cry "Low Bridge!"--the warning to passengers on the decks of canal boats as they approached the numerous bridges which spanned the route. When this cry passed into a byword it afforded positive proof that the Erie Canal traffic was firmly established. The words rang in the counting-houses of Philadelphia and out and along the Lancaster and the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh turnpikes--"Low Bridge! Low Bridge!" Pennsylvania had granted, it has been pointed out, that her Southern neighbors might have their share of the Ohio Valley trade but maintained that the splendid commerce of the Great Lakes was her own peculiar heritage. Men of Baltimore who had dominated the energetic policy of stone-road building in their State heard this alarming challenge from the North. The echo ran "Low Bridge!" in the poor decaying locks of the Potomac Company where, according to the committee once appointed to examine that enterprise, flood-tides "gave the only navigation that was enjoyed." Were their efforts to keep the Chesapeake metropolis in the lead to be set at naught? There could be but one answer to the challenge, and that was to rival canal with canal. These more southerly States, confronted by the towering ranges of the Alleghanies to the westward, showed a courage which was superb, although, as time proved in the case of Maryland, they might well have taken more counsel of their fears. Pennsylvania acted swiftly. Though its western waterway--the roaring Juniata, which entered the Susquehanna near Harrisburg--had a drop from head to mouth greater than that of the entire New York canal, and, though the mountains of the Altoona region loomed straight up nearly three thousand feet, Pennsylvania overcame the lowlands by main strength and the mountain peaks by strategy and was sending canal boats from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh within nine years of the completion of the Erie Canal. The eastern division of the Pennsylvania Canal, known as the Union Canal, from Reading on the Schuylkill to Middletown on the Susquehanna, was completed in 1827. The Juniata section was then driven on up to Hollidaysburg. Beyond the mountain barrier, the Conemaugh, the Kiskiminitas, and the Allegheny were followed to Pittsburgh. But the greatest feat in the whole enterprise was the conquest of the mountain section, from Hollidaysburg to Johnstown. This was accomplished by the building of five inclined planes on each slope, each plane averaging about 2300 feet in length and 200 feet in height. Up or down these slopes and along the intermediate level sections cars and giant cradles (built to be lowered into locks where they could take an entire canal boat as a load) were to be hauled or lowered by horsepower, and later, by steam. After the plans had been drawn up by Sylvester Welch and Moncure Robinson, the Pennsylvania Legislature authorized the work in 1831, and traffic over this aerial route was begun in March, 1834. In autumn of that year, the stanch boat Hit or Miss, from the Lackawanna country, owned by Jesse Crisman and captained by Major Williams, made the journey across the whole length of the canal. It rested for a night on the Alleghany summit "like Noah's Ark on Ararat," wrote Sherman Day, "descended the next morning into the Valley of the Mississippi, and sailed for St. Louis." Well did Robert Stephenson, the famous English engineer, say that, in boldness of design and difficulty of execution, this Pennsylvania scheme of mastering the Alleghanies could be compared with no modern triumph short of the feats performed at the Simplon Pass and Mont Cenis. Before long this line of communication became a very popular thoroughfare; even Charles Dickens "heartily enjoyed" it--in retrospect--and left interesting impressions of his journey over it: Even the running up, bare-necked, at five o'clock in the morning from the tainted cabin to the dirty deck; scooping up the icy water, plunging one's head into it, and drawing it out, all fresh and glowing with the cold; was a good thing. The fast, brisk walk upon the towing-path, between that time and breakfast, when every vein and artery seemed to tingle with health; the exquisite beauty of the opening day, when light came gleaming off from everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when one lay idly on the deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep blue sky; the gliding on, at night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills, sullen with dark trees, and sometimes angry in one red burning spot high up, where unseen men lay crouching round a fire; the shining out of the bright stars, undisturbed by noise of wheels or steam, or any other sound than the liquid rippling of the water as the boat went on; all these were pure delights. ¹ ¹ American Notes (Gadshill Edition), pp. 180-181. Dickens also thus graphically depicts the unique experience of being carried over the mountain peaks on the aerial railway: There are ten inclined planes; five ascending and five descending; the carriages are dragged up the former, and let slowly down the latter, by means of stationary engines; the comparatively level spaces between being traversed, sometimes by horse, and sometimes by engine power, as the case demands. Occasionally the rails are laid upon the extreme verge of a giddy precipice; and looking from the carriage window, the traveler gazes sheer down, without a stone or scrap of fence between, into the mountain depths below. The journey is very carefully made, however; only two carriages traveling together; and while proper precautions are taken, is not to be dreaded for its dangers. It was very pretty traveling thus, at a rapid pace along the heights of the mountain in a keen wind, to look down into a valley full of light and softness; catching glimpses, through the tree-tops, of scattered cabins; children running to the doors; dogs bursting out to bark, whom we could see without hearing; terrified pigs scampering homewards; families sitting out in their rude gardens; cows gazing upward with a stupid indifference; men in their shirt-sleeves looking on at their unfinished houses, planning out tomorrow's work; and we riding onward, high above them, like a whirl-wind. It was amusing, too, when we had dined, and rattled down a steep pass, having no other motive power than the weight of the carriages themselves, to see the engine released, long after us, come buzzing down alone, like a great insect, its back of green and gold so shining in the sun, that if it had spread a pair of wings and soared away, no one would have had occasion, as I fancied, for the least surprise. But it stopped short of us in a very business-like manner when we reached the canal; and, before we left the wharf, went panting up this hill again, with the passengers who had waited our arrival for the means of traversing the road by which we had come. ¹ ¹ Op. cit. This Pennsylvania route was likewise famous because it included the first tunnel in America; but with the advance of years, tunnel, planes, and canal were supplanted by what was to become in time the Pennsylvania Railroad, the pride of the State and one of the great highways of the nation. In the year before Pennsylvania investigated her western water route, a joint bill was introduced into the legislatures of the Potomac Valley States, proposing a Potomac Canal Company which should construct a Chesapeake and Ohio canal at the expense of Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The plan was of vital moment to Alexandria and Georgetown on the Potomac, but unless a lateral canal could be built to Baltimore, that city--which paid a third of Maryland's taxes--would be called on to supply a great sum to benefit only her chief rivals. The bitter struggle which now developed is one of the most significant in commercial history because of its sequel. The conditions underlying this rivalry must not be lost sight of. Baltimore had done more than any other Eastern city to ally herself with the West and to obtain its trade. She had instinctively responded to every move made by her rivals in the great game. If Pennsylvania promoted a Lancaster Turnpike, Baltimore threw out her superb Baltimore-Reisterstown boulevard, though her northern road to Philadelphia remained the slough that Brissot and Baily had found it. If New York projected an Erie Canal, Baltimore successfully championed the building of a Cumberland Road by a governmental godmother. So thoroughly and quickly, indeed, did she link her system of stone roads to that great artery, that even today many well-informed writers seem to be under the impression that the Cumberland Road ran from the Ohio to Washington and Baltimore. Now, with canals building to the north of her and canals to the south of her, what of her prestige and future? For the moment Baltimore compromised by agreeing to a Chesapeake and Ohio canal which, by a lateral branch, should still lead to her market square. Her scheme embraced a vision of conquest regal in its sweep, beyond that of any rival, and comprehending two ideas worthy of the most farseeing strategist and the most astute politician. It called not only for the building of a transmontane canal to the Ohio but also for a connecting canal from the Ohio to the Great Lakes. Not only would the trade of the Northwest be secured by this means--for this southerly route would not be affected by winter frosts as would those of Pennsylvania and New York--but the good godmother at Washington would be almost certain to champion it and help to build it since the proposed route was so thoroughly interstate in character. With the backing of Maryland, Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and probably several States bordering the Inland Lakes, government aid in the undertaking seemed feasible and proper. Theoretically the daring scheme captured the admiration of all who were to be benefited by it. At a great banquet at Washington, late in 1823, the project was launched. Adams, Clay, and Calhoun took the opportunity to ally themselves with it by robustly declaring themselves in favor of widespread internal improvements. Even the godmother smiled upon it for, following Monroe's recommendation, Congress without hesitation voted thirty thousand dollars for the preliminary survey from Washington to Pittsburgh. Quickly the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company and the connecting Maryland Canal Company were formed, and steps were taken to have Ohio promote an Ohio and Lake Erie Company. As high as were the hopes awakened by this movement, just so deep was the dejection and chagrin into which its advocates were thrown upon receiving the report of the engineers who made the preliminary survey. The estimated cost ran towards a quarter of a billion, four times the capital stock of the company; and there were not lacking those who pointed out that the Erie Canal had cost more than double the original appropriation made for it. The situation was aggravated for Baltimore by the fact that Maryland and Virginia were willing to take half a loaf if they could not get a whole one: in other words, they were willing to build the canal up the Potomac to Cumberland and stop there. Baltimore, even if linked to this partial scheme, would lose her water connection with the West, the one prized asset which the project had held out, and her Potomac Valley rivals would, on this contracted plan, be in a particularly advantageous position to surpass her. But the last blow was yet to come. Engineers reported that a lateral canal connecting the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay was not feasible. It was consequently of little moment whether the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal could be built across the Alleghanies or not, for, even if it could have been carried through the Great Plains or to the Pacific, Baltimore was, for topographical reasons, out of the running. The men of Baltimore now gave one of the most striking illustrations of spirit and pluck ever exhibited by the people of any city. They refused to accept defeat. If engineering science held a means of overcoming the natural disadvantages of their position, they were determined to adopt that means, come what would of hardship, difficulty, and expenditure. If roads and canals would not serve the city on the Chesapeake, what of the railroad on which so many experiments were being made in England? The idea of controlling the trade of the West by railroads was not new. As early as February, 1825, certain astute Pennsylvanians had advocated building a railroad to Pittsburgh instead of a canal, and in a memorial to the Legislature they had set forth the theory that a railroad could be built in one-third of the time and could be operated with one-third of the number of employees required by a canal, that it would never be frozen, and that its cost of construction would be less. But these arguments did not influence the majority, who felt that to follow the line of least resistance and to do as others had done would involve the least hazard. But Baltimore, with her back against the wall, did not have the alternative of a canal. It was a leap into the unknown for her or commercial stagnation. It is regrettable that, as Baltimore began to break this fresh track, she should have had political as well as physical and mechanical obstacles to overcome. The conquest of the natural difficulties alone required superhuman effort and endurance. But Baltimore had also to fight a miserable internecine warfare in her own State, for Maryland immediately subscribed half a million to the canal as well as to the newly formed Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In rival pageants, both companies broke ground on July 4, 1828, and the race to the Ohio was on. The canal company clung doggedly to the idle belief that their enterprise was still of continental proportions, since it would connect at Cumberland with the Cumberland Road. This exaggerated estimate of the importance of the undertaking shines out in the pompous words of President Mercer, at the time when construction was begun: There are moments in the progress of time, which are counters of whole ages. There are events, the monuments of which, surviving every other memorial of human existence, eternize the nation to whose history they belong, after all other vestiges of its glory have disappeared from the globe. At such a moment have we now arrived. This oracular language lacks the simple but winning straightforwardness of the words which Director Morris uttered on the same day near Baltimore and which prove how distinctly Western the new railway project was held to be: We are about opening a channel through which the commerce of the mighty country beyond the Allegheny must seek the ocean--we are about affording facilities of intercourse between the East and West, which will bind the one more closely to the other, beyond the power of an increased population or sectional differences to disunite. The difficulties which faced the Baltimore enthusiasts in their task of keeping their city "on the map" would have daunted men of less heroic mold. Every conceivable trial and test which nature and machinery could seemingly devise was a part of their day's work for twelve years--struggles with grades, locomotives, rails, cars. As Rumsey, Fitch, and Fulton in their experiments with boats had floundered despondently with endless chains, oars, paddles, duck's feet, so now Thomas and Brown in their efforts to make the railroad effective wandered in a maze of difficulties testing out such absurd and impossible ideas as cars propelled by sails and cars operated by horse treadmills. By May, 1830, however, cars on rails, running by "brigades" and drawn by horses, were in operation in America. It was only in this year that in England locomotives were used with any marked success on the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad; yet in August of this year Peter Cooper's engine, Tom Thumb, built in Baltimore in 1829, traversed the twelve miles between that city and Ellicott's Mills in seventy-two minutes. Steel springs came in 1832, together with car wheels of cylindrical and conical section which made it easier to turn curves. The railroad was just beginning to master its mechanical problems when a new obstacle confronted it in the Potomac Valley. It could not cross Maryland to the Cumberland mountain gateway unless it could follow the Potomac. But its rival, the canal, had inherited from the old Potomac Company the only earthly asset it possessed of any value--the right of way up the Maryland shore. Five years of quarreling now ensued, and the contest, though it may not have seriously delayed either enterprise, aroused much bitterness and involved the usual train of lawsuits and injunctions. In 1833 the canal company yielded the railroad a right of way through the Point of Rocks--the Potomac chasm through the Blue Ridge wall, just below Harper's Ferry--on condition that the railroad should not build beyond Harper's Ferry until the canal was completed to Cumberland. But probably nothing but the financial helplessness of the canal company could have brought a solution satisfactory to all concerned. A settlement of the long quarrel by compromise was the price paid for state aid, and, in 1835 Maryland subsidized to a large degree both canal and railroad by her famous eight million dollar bill. The railroad received three millions from the State, and the city of Baltimore was permitted to subscribe an equal amount of stock. With this support and a free right of way, the railroad pushed on up the Potomac. Though delayed by the financial disasters of 1837, in 1842 it was at Hancock; in 1851, at Piedmont; in 1852, at Fairmont; and the next year it reached the Ohio River at Wheeling. Spurred by the enterprise shown by these Southerners, Pennsylvania and New York now took immediate steps to parallel their own canals by railways. The line of the Union Canal in Pennsylvania was paralleled by a railroad in 1834, the same year in which the Allegheny Portage Railway was constructed. New York lines reached Buffalo in 1842. The Pennsylvania Railroad, which was incorporated in 1846, was completed to Pittsburgh in 1854. It is thus obvious that, with the completion of these lines and the building of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway through the "Sapphire Country" of the Southern Alleghanies, the new railway era pursued its paths of conquest through the very same mountain passageways that had been previously used by pack-horseman and Conestoga and, in three instances out of four, by the canal boat. If one motors today in the Juniata Valley in Pennsylvania, he can survey near Newport a scene full of meaning to one who has a taste for history. Traveling along the heights on the highway that was once the red man's trail, he can enjoy a wide prospect from this vantage point. Deep in the valley glitters the little Juniata, route of the ancient canoe and the blundering barge. Beside it lies a long lagoon, an abandoned portion of the Pennsylvania Canal. Beside this again, as though some monster had passed leaving a track clear of trees, stretches the right of way of the first "Pennsylvania," and a little nearer swings the magnificent double-tracked bed of the railroad of today. Between these lines of travel may be read the history of the past two centuries of American commerce, for the vital factors in the development of the nation have been the evolution of transportation and its manifold and far-reaching influence upon the expansion of population and commerce and upon the rise of new industries. Thus all the rivals in the great contest for the trade of the West speedily reached their goal, New York with the Erie and the New York Central, and Pennsylvania and Maryland with the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore and Ohio. But what of this West for whose commerce the great struggle was being waged? When the railheads of these eager Atlantic promoters were laid down at Buffalo on Lake Erie and at Pittsburgh on the Ohio they looked out on a new world. The centaurs of the Western rivers were no less things of the far past than the tinkling bells borne by the ancient ponies of the pack-horse trade. The sons of this new West had their eyes riveted on the commerce of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley. With road, canal, steamboat, and railway, they were renewing the struggle of their fathers but for prizes greater than their fathers ever knew. New York again proved the favored State. Her Mohawk pathway gave her easiest access to the West and here, at her back door on the Niagara frontier, lay her path by way of the Great Lakes to the North and the Northwest. CHAPTER X The Pathway of the Lakes As one stands in imagination at the early railheads of the West--on the Ohio River at the end of the Cumberland Road, or at Buffalo, the terminus of the Erie Canal--the vision which Washington caught breaks upon him and the dream of a nation made strong by trans-Alleghany routes of commerce. Link by link the great interior is being connected with the sea. Behind him all lines of transportation lead eastward to the cities of the coast. Before him lies the giant valley where the Father of Waters throws out his two splendid arms, the Ohio and the Missouri, one reaching to the Alleghanies and the other to the Rockies. Northward, at the end of the Erie Canal, lies the empire of the Great Lakes, inland seas that wash the shores of a Northland having a coastline longer than that of the Atlantic from Maine to Mexico. Ships and conditions of navigation were much the same on the lakes as on the ocean. It was therefore possible to imagine the rise of a coasting trade between Illinois and Ohio as profitable as that between Massachusetts and New York. Yet the older colonies on the Atlantic had an outlet for trade, whereas the Great Lakes had none for craft of any size, since their northern shores lay beyond the international boundary. If there had been danger from Spain in the Southwest, what of the danger of Canada's control of the St. Lawrence River and of the trade of the Northwest through the Welland Canal which was to join Lake Ontario to Lake Erie? But in those days the possibility of Canadian rivalry was not treated with great seriousness, and many men failed to see that the West was soon to contain a very large population. The editor of a newspaper at Munroe, New York, commenting in 1827 on a proposed canal to connect Lake Erie with the Mississippi by way of the Ohio, believed that the rate of Western development was such that this waterway could be expected only "some hundred of years hence." Even so gifted a man as Henry Clay spoke of the proposed canal between Lake Michigan and Lake Superior in 1825 as one relating to a region beyond the pale of civilization "if not in the moon." Yet in twenty-five years Michigan, which had numbered one thousand inhabitants in 1812, had gained two hundredfold, and Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois had their hundreds of thousands who were clamoring for ways and means of sending their surplus products to market. Early in the century representatives of the Fulton-Livingston monopoly were at the shores of Lake Ontario to prove that their steamboats could master the waves of the inland sea and serve commerce there as well as in tidewater rivers. True, the luckless Ontario, built in 1817 at Sackett's Harbor, proved unseaworthy when the waves lifted the shaft of her paddle wheels off their bearings and caused them to demolish the wooden covering built for their protection; but the Walk-in-the-Water, completed at Black Rock (Buffalo) in August, 1818, plied successfully as far as Mackinac Island until her destruction three years later. Her engines were then inherited by the Superior of stronger build, and with the launching of such boats as the Niagara, the Henry Clay, and the Pioneer, the fleet builders of Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit proved themselves not unworthy fellow-countrymen of the old seafarers of Salem and Philadelphia. But how were cargoes to reach these vessels from the vast regions beyond the Great Lakes? Those thousands of settlers who poured into the Northwest had cargoes ready to fill every manner of craft in so short a space of time that it seems as if they must have resorted to arts of necromancy. It was not magic, however, but perseverance that had triumphed. The story of the creating of the main lakeward-reaching canals is long and involved. A period of agitation and campaigning preceded every such undertaking; and when construction was once begun, financial woes usually brought disappointing delays. When a canal was completed after many vicissitudes and doubts, traffic overwhelmed every method provided to handle it: locks proved altogether too small; boats were inadequate; wharfs became congested; blockades which occurred at locks entailed long delay. In the end only lines and double lines of steel rails could solve the problem of rapid and adequate transportation, but the story of the railroad builders is told elsewhere. ¹ ¹ See The Railroad Builders, by John Moody (in The Chronicles of America). Ohio and Illinois caught the canal fever even before the Erie Canal was completed, and the Ohio Canal and the Illinois-Michigan Canal saw preliminary surveying done in 1822 and 1824 respectively. Ohio particularly had cause to seek a northern outlet to Eastern markets by way of Lake Erie. The valleys of the Muskingum, Scioto, and Miami rivers were producing wheat in large quantities as early as 1802, when Ohio was admitted to the Union. Flour which brought $3.50 a barrel in Cincinnati was worth $8 in New York. There were difficulties in the way of transportation. Sometimes ice prevented produce and merchandise from descending the Ohio to Cincinnati. At other times merchants of that city had as many as a hundred thousand barrels awaiting a rise in the river which would make it possible for boats to go over the falls at Louisville. As these conditions involved a delay which often seemed intolerable, the project to build canals to Lake Erie met with generous acclaim. A northward route, though it might be blocked by ice for a few months each winter, had an additional value in the eyes of numerous merchants whose wheat, sent in bulk to New Orleans, had soured either in the long delay at Louisville or in the semi-tropical heat of the Southern port. The Ohio Legislature in 1822 authorized the survey of all possible routes for canals which would give Ohio an outlet for its produce on Lake Erie. The three wheat zones which have been mentioned were favored in the proposed construction of two canals which, together, should satisfy the need of increased transportation: the Ohio Canal to connect Portsmouth on the Ohio River with Cleveland on Lake Erie and to traverse the richest parts of the Scioto and Muskingum valleys, and to the west the Miami Canal to pierce the fruitful Miami and Maumee valleys and join Cincinnati with Toledo. De Witt Clinton, the presiding genius of the Erie Canal, was invited to Ohio to play godfather to these northward arteries which should ultimately swell the profits of the commission merchants of New York City, and amid the cheers of thousands he lifted the first spadefuls of earth in each undertaking. The Ohio Canal, which was opened in 1833, had a marked effect upon the commerce of Lake Erie. Before that date the largest amount of wheat obtained from Cleveland by a Buffalo firm had been a thousand bushels; but in the first year of its operation the Ohio Canal brought to the village of Cleveland over a quarter of a million bushels of wheat, fifty thousand barrels of flour, and over a million pounds of butter and lard. In return, the markets of the world sent into Ohio by canal in this same year thirty thousand barrels of salt and above five million pounds of general merchandise. Ever since the time when the Erie Canal was begun, Canadian statesmen had been alive to the strong bid New York was making for the trade of the Great Lakes. Their answer to the Erie Canal was the Welland Canal, built between 1824 and 1832 and connecting Lake Erie with Lake Ontario by a series of twenty-seven locks with a drop of three hundred feet in twenty-six miles. This undertaking prepared the way for the subsequent opening of the St. Lawrence canal system (183 miles) and of the Rideau system by way of the Ottawa River (246 miles). There was thus provided an ocean outlet to the north, although it was not until 1856 that an American vessel reached London by way of the St. Lawrence. With the Hudson and the St. Lawrence in the East thus competing for the trade of the Great Lakes, it is not surprising that the call of the Mississippi for improved highways was presently heard. From the period of the War of 1812 onward the position of the Mississippi River in relation to Lake Michigan was often referred to as holding possibilities of great importance in the development of Western commerce. Already the old portage-path links between the Fox and Wisconsin and the Chicago and Illinois rivers had been worn deep by the fur traders of many generations, and with the dawning of the new era enthusiasts of Illinois were pointing out the strategic position of the latter route for a great trade between Lake Michigan and the Gulf of Mexico. Thus the wave of enthusiasm for canal construction that had swept New York and Ohio now reached Indiana and Illinois. Indian ownership of land in the latter State for a moment seemed to block the promotion of the proposed Illinois and Michigan Canal, but a handsome grant of a quarter of a million acres by the Federal Government in 1827 came as a signal recognition of the growing importance of the Northwest; and an appropriation for the lighting and improving of the harbor of the little village of Chicago was hailed by ardent promoters as sure proof that the wedding of Lake Michigan and the Mississippi was but a matter of months. All the difficulties encountered by the advocates of earlier works of this character, in the valleys of the Potomac, the Susquehanna, and the Mohawk, were the portion of these dogged promoters of Illinois. Here, as elsewhere, there were rival routes and methods of construction, opposition of jealous sections not immediately benefited, estimates which had to be reconsidered and augmented, and so on. The land grants pledged to pay the bonds were at first of small value, and their advance in price depended on the success of the canal itself, which could not be built--unless the State underwrote the whole enterprise--if the lands were not worth the bonds. Thus the argument ran in a circle, and no one could foresee the splendid traffic and receipts from tolls that would result from the completed canal. The commissioners in charge of the project performed one interesting service in these early days by putting Chicago on the map; but the two terminals, Ottawa on the Illinois and Chicago on Lake Michigan--both plotted in 1830--were very largely figures of speech at that time. The day of miracles was at hand, however, for the little town of one hundred people at the foot of Lake Michigan. The purchase of the lands of the Potawatomies, the Black Hawk War in 1832, which brought steamboats to Chicago for the first time, and the decision of Illinois in 1836 to pledge her good name in favor of the Illinois and Michigan Canal made Chicago a city of four thousand people by the panic year of 1837. So absorbed were these Chicago folk in the building of their canal and in wresting from their lake firm foothold for a city (reclaiming four hundred feet of lake bed in two years) that the panic affected their town less than it did many a rival. Although the canal enterprise came to an ominous pause in 1842, after the expenditure of five millions, the pledge of the State stood the enterprise in good stead. Local financiers, together with New York and Boston promoters, advanced about a quarter of a million, while French and English bankers, notably Baring Brothers, contributed about three-quarters of a million. With this assistance the work was carried to a successful ending. On April 10, 1848, the first boat passed over the ninety-mile route from Chicago to Ottawa, and the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Basin were united by this Erie Canal of the West. Though its days of greatest value were soon over, no one can exaggerate the importance of this waterway in the growth and prosperity of Chicago between 1848 and 1860. By 1857 Chicago was sending north and south annually by boat over twenty million bushels of wheat and corn. The awakening of the lands behind Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan brought forth innumerable demands for roads, canals, and railways to the ports of Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Chicago. There were actually hundreds of these enterprises undertaken. The development of the land behind Lake Superior was particularly spectacular and important, not only because of its general effect on the industrial world but also because out of it came the St. Mary's River Ship Canal. Nowhere in the zone of the Great Lakes has any region produced such unexpected changes in American industrial and commercial life as did the region of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota contributory to Lake Superior. If, as the story goes, Benjamin Franklin said, when he drew at Paris the international boundary line through Lake Superior, that this was his greatest service to America, he did not exaggerate. The line running north of Isle Royale and thence to the Lake of the Woods gave the United States the lion's share of that great inland seaboard and the inestimably rich deposits of copper and iron that have revolutionized American industry. From earliest days rumors of deposits of bright copper in the land behind Lake Superior had been reported by Indians to fur traders who in turn had passed the story on to fur company agents and thus to the outside world. As a result of her "Toledo War"--as her boundary dispute was called--Michigan had reluctantly accepted the northern peninsula lying between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan in lieu of the strip of Ohio territory which she believed to be hers. If Michigan felt that she had lost by this compromise, her state geologist, Douglass Houghton, soon found a splendid jewel in the toad's head of defeat, for the report of his survey of 1840 confirmed the story of the existence of large copper deposits, and the first rush to El Dorado followed. Amid the usual chaos, conflict, and failure incident to such stampedes, order and system at last triumphed and the richest copper mines of the New World were uncovered. Then came the unexpected finding of the mammoth iron-ore beds by William A. Burt, inventor of the solar compass. The circumstance of this discovery is of such national importance that a contemporary description by a member of Burt's party which was surveying a line near Marquette, Michigan, is worth quoting: I shall never forget the excitement of the old gentleman when viewing the changes of the variation. He kept changing his position to take observations, all the time saying "How would they survey this country without my compass" and "What could be done here without my compass." At length the compassman called for us all to "come and see a variation which will beat them all." As we looked at the instrument, to our astonishment, the north end of the needle was traversing a few degrees to the south west. Mr. Burt called out "Boys, look around and see what you can find." We all left the line, some going to the east, some going to the west, and all of us returned with specimens of iron ore. But it was not enough that this Aladdin's Land in the Northwest should revolutionize the copper and steel industry of the world, for as soon as the soil took to its bosom an enterprising race of agriculturists it bade fair to play as equally important a part in the grain industry. Copper and iron no less came out of the blue of this cold northern region than did the mighty crops of Minnesota wheat, corn, and oats. In the decade preceding the Civil War the export of wheat from Lake Superior rose from fourteen hundred bushels to three and a quarter millions of bushels, while in 1859 nearly seven million bushels of corn and oats were sent out to the world. The commerce of Lake Superior could not await the building of a canal around the foaming rapids of the St. Mary's River, its one outlet to the lower lakes. In the decade following the discovery of copper and iron more than a dozen ships, one even of as much as five hundred tons, were hauled bodily across the portage between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. The last link of navigation in the Great Lake system, however, was made possible in 1852 by a grant by Congress of 750,000 acres of Michigan land. Although only a mile in length, the work proved to be of unusual difficulty since the pathway for the canal had to be blasted throughout practically its whole length out of solid rock. It was completed in 1855, and the princely empire "in the moon" was in a position to make its terms with the coal fields of Pennsylvania and to usher in the iron age of transportation and construction. It is only in the light of this awakening of the lands around the Great Lakes that one can see plainly the task which fell to the lot of the successors of the frail Walk-in-the-Water and sturdier Superior of the early twenties. For the first fifteen years the steamboat found its mission in carrying the thousands of emigrants pouring into the Northwest, a heterogeneous multitude which made the Lake Erie boats seem, to one traveler at least, filled with "men, women and children, beds, cradles, kettles, and frying pans." These craft were built after the pattern of the Walk-in-the-Water--side-wheelers with a steering wheel at the stern. No cabins or staterooms on deck were provided; and amid such freight as the thriving young towns provided were to be found the twenty or thirty cords of wood which the engines required as fuel. The second period of steamboating began with the opening of the Ohio Canal and the Welland Canal about 1834 and extended another fifteen years to the middle of the century, when it underwent a transformation owing to the great development of Chicago, the completion of the Illinois and Michigan and St. Mary's canals, and the new railways. This second period was marked by the building of such steamers as the Michigan, the Great Western, and the Illinois. These were the first boats with an upper cabin and were looked upon with marked suspicion by those best acquainted with the severe storms upon the Great Lakes. The Michigan, of 475 tons, built by Oliver Newberry at Detroit in 1833, is said to have been the first ship of this type. These boats proved their seaworthiness and caused a revolution in the construction of lake craft. Later in this period freight transportation saw an equally radical advance with the building of the first propellers. The sloop-rigged Vandalia, built by Sylvester Doolittle at Oswego on Lake Ontario in 1841-42, was the first of the propeller type and was soon followed by the Hercules, the Samson, and the Detroit. One very great handicap in lake commerce up to this time had been the lack of harbors. Detroit alone of the lake ports was distinctly favored in this respect. The harbors of Buffalo, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Chicago were improved slowly, but it was not until the great Chicago convention of 1846 that the nation's attention was focused on the needs of Western rivers and harbors, and there dawned a new era of lighthouses and buoys, breakwaters and piers, and dredged channels. Another handicap to the volume of business which the lake boats handled in the period just previous to the Civil War was the inadequacy of the feeders, the roads, riverways, and canals. The Erie Canal was declared too small almost before the cries of its virulent opponents had died away, and the enlargement of its locks was soon undertaken. The same thing proved true of the Ohio and Illinois canals. The failure of the Welland Canal was similarly a very serious handicap. Although its locks were enlarged in 1841, it was found by 1850 that despite the improvements it could not admit more than about one-third of the grain-carrying boats, while only one in four of the new propellers could enter its locks. As late as the middle forties men did not in the least grasp the commercial situation which now confronted the Northwest nor could they foresee that the land behind the Great Lakes was about to deluge the country with an output of produce and manufactures of which the roads, canals, ships, wharfs, or warehouses in existence could handle not a tenth part. They did not yet understand that this trade was to become national. It was well on in the forties before the Galena lead mines, for instance, were given up as the terminal of the Illinois Central Railroad and the main line was directed to Chicago. The middle of the century was reached before the Lake Shore was considered at Cleveland or Chicago as important commercially as the neighboring portage paths which by the Ordinance of 1787 had been created "common highways forever free." The idea of joining Buffalo, Cleveland, and Chicago with the interior--an idea as old as the Indian trails thither--still dominated men's minds even in the early part of the railroad epoch. Chicago desired to be connected with Cairo, the ice-free port on the Mississippi; and Cleveland was eager to be joined to Columbus and Cincinnati. The enthusiastic railway promoters of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois drew splendid plans for uniting all parts of those States by railway lines; but the strategic position of the cities on the continental alignment from New York to the Pacific by way of South Pass never came within their horizon. The ten million dollar Illinois scheme did not even contemplate a railway running eastward from Chicago. But the future of the commerce of the Great Lakes depended absolutely upon this development. There was no hope of any canals being able to handle the traffic of the mighty empire which was now awake and fully conscious of its power. The solution lay in joining the cities to each other and to the Atlantic world markets by iron rails running east and west. This railroad expansion is what makes the last decade before the Civil War such a remarkable series of years in the West. In the half decade, 1850-55, the Baltimore and Ohio and Pennsylvania railways reached the Ohio River; the links of the present Lake Shore system between Buffalo and Chicago by way of Cleveland and Toledo were constructed; and the Pennsylvania line was put through from Pittsburgh to Chicago. The place of the lake country on the continental alignment and the imperial situation of Chicago, and later of Omaha, came to be realized. The new view transformed men's conceptions of every port on the Great Lakes in the chain from Buffalo to Chicago. At a dozen southern ports on Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Michigan, commerce now touched the swiftest and most economical means of transcontinental traffic. This development culminated in the miracle we call Chicago. In 1847 not a line of rail entered the town; its population then numbered about twenty-five thousand and its property valuation approximated seven millions. Ten years later four thousand miles of railway connected with all four points of the compass a city of nearly one hundred thousand people, and property valuation had increased five hundred per cent. The growth of Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit during this period was also phenomenal. When the crisis of 1861 came, the service performed by the Walk-in-the-Water and her successors was seen in its true light. The Great Lakes as avenues of migration had played a providential part in filling a northern empire with a proud and loyal race; from farm and factory regiment on regiment marched forth to fight for unity; from fields without number produce to sustain a nation on trial poured forth in abundance; enormous quantities of iron were at hand for the casting of cannon and cannon balls; and, finally, pathways of water and steel were in readiness in the nick of time to carry these resources where they would count tremendously in the four long years of conflict. CHAPTER XI The Steamboat And The West Two great fields of service lay open before those who were to achieve by steam the mastery of the inland waterways. On the one hand the cotton kingdom of the South, now demanding great stores of manufactured goods, produce, and machinery, was waiting to be linked to the valleys and industrial cities of the Middle West; and, on the other hand, along those great eastward and westward rivers, the Ohio and Missouri, lay the commerce of the prairies and the Great Plains. But before the steamboat could serve the inland commerce of the West, it had to be constructed on new lines. The craft brought from the seaboard were of too deep draft to navigate shallow streams which ran through this more level country. The task of constructing a great inland river marine to play the dual rôle of serving the cotton empire and of extending American migration and commerce into the trans-Mississippi region was solved by Henry Shreve when he built the Washington at Wheeling in 1816. Shreve was the American John Hawkins. Hawkins, that sturdy old admiral of Elizabethan days, took the English ship of his time, trimmed down the high stern and poop decks, and cut away the deep-lying prow and stern, after the fashion of our modern cup defenders, and in a day gave England the key to sea mastery in the shape of a new ship that would take sail and answer her rudder beyond anything the maritime world until then had known. Shreve, like Hawkins, flagrantly ignoring the conventional wisdom of his day and craft, built the Washington to sail on the water instead of in it, doing away altogether with a hold and supplying an upper deck in its place. To few inventors, indeed, does America owe a greater debt of thanks than to this Ohio River shipbuilder. A dozen men were on the way to produce a Clermont had Fulton failed; but Shreve had no rival in his plan to build a flat-bottomed steamboat. The remarkable success of his design is attested by the fact that in two decades the boats built on his model outweighed in tonnage all the ships of the Atlantic seaboard and Great Lakes combined. Immediately the Ohio became in effect the western extension of the great national highway and opened an easy pathway for immigration to the eastern as well as the western lands of the Mississippi Basin. The story goes that an old phlegmatic negro watched the approach of one of the first steamboats to the wharf of a Southern city. Like many others, he had doubted the practicability of this new-fangled Yankee notion. The boat, however, came and went with ease and dispatch. The old negro was converted. "By golly," he shouted, waving his cap, "the Mississippi's got her Massa now." The Mississippi had indeed found her master, but only by slow degrees and after intervals of protracted rebellion did she succumb to that master. Luckily, however, there was at hand an army of unusual men--the "alligator-horses" of the flatboat era--upon whom the steamboat could call with supreme confidence that they would not fail. Theodore Roosevelt has said of the Western pioneers that they "had to be good and strong--especially, strong." If these men upon whom the success of the steamboat depended were not always good, they were beyond any doubt behemoths in strength. The task before them, however, was a task worthy of Hercules. The great river boldly fought its conquerors, asking and giving no quarter, biding its time when opposed by the brave but crushing the fearful on sight. In one respect alone could it be depended upon--it was never the same. It is said to bring down annually four hundred million tons of mud, but its eccentricity in deciding where to wash away and where to deposit its load is still the despair of river pilots. The great river could destroy islands and build new ones overnight with the nonchalance of a child playing with clay. It could shorten itself thirty miles at a single lunge. It could move inland towns to its banks and leave river towns far inland. It transferred the town of Delta, for instance, from three miles below Vicksburg to two miles above it. Men have gone to sleep in one State and have wakened unharmed in another, because the river decided in the night to alter the boundary line. In this way the village of Hard Times, the original site of which was in Louisiana, found itself eventually in Mississippi. Were La Salle to descend the river today by the route he traversed two and a half centuries ago, he would follow dry ground most of the way, for the river now lies practically everywhere either to the right or left of its old course. If the Mississippi could perform such miracles upon its whole course without a show of effort, what could it not do with the little winding canal through its center called by pilots the "channel"? The flatboatmen had laboriously acquired the art of piloting the commerce of the West through this mazy, shifting channel, but as steamboats developed in size and power the man at the wheel had to become almost a superman. He needed to be. He must know the stage of water anywhere by a glance at the river banks. He must guess correctly the amount of "fill" at the head of dangerous chutes, detect bars "working down," distinguish between bars and "sand reefs" or "wind reefs" or "bluff reefs" by night as well as by day, avoid the "breaks" in the "graveyard" behind Goose Island, navigate the Hat Island chutes, or find the "middle crossing" at Hole-in-the-Wall. He must navigate his craft in fogs, in storms, in the face of treacherous winds, on black nights, with thousands of dollars' worth of cargo and hundreds of lives at stake. As the golfer knows each knoll and tuft of grass on his home links, so the pilot learned his river by heart. Said one of these pilots to an apprentice: You see this has got to be learned.... A clear starlight night throws such heavy shadows that if you didn't know the shape of a shore perfectly you would claw away from every bunch of timber because you would take the black shadow of it for a solid cape; and you see you would be getting scared to death every fifteen minutes by the watch. You would be fifty yards from shore all the time when you ought to be within fifty feet of it. You can't see a snag in one of those shadows, but you know exactly where it is, and the shape of the river tells you when you are coming to it. Then there's your pitch-dark night; the river is a very different shape on a pitch-dark night from what it is on a starlight night. All shores seem to be straight lines, then, and mighty dim ones, too; and you'd run them for straight lines only you know better. You boldly drive your boat right into what seems to be a solid, straight wall (you knowing very well that in reality there is a curve there) and that wall falls back and makes way for you. Then there's your gray mist. You take a night when there's one of these grisly, drizzly, gray mists, and then there isn't any particular shape to a shore. A gray mist would tangle the head of the oldest man that ever lived. Well, then, different kinds of moonlight change the shape of the river in different ways.... You only learn the shape of the river; and you learn it with such absolute certainty that you can always steer by the shape that's in your head and never mind the one that's before your eyes. ¹ ¹ Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, pp. 103-04. No wonder that the two hundred miles of the Mississippi from the mouth of the Ohio to St. Louis in time contained the wrecks of two hundred steamboats. The river trade reached its zenith between 1840 and 1860, in the two decades previous to the Civil War, that period before the railroads began to parallel the great rivers. It was a time which saw the rise of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Arkansas, and which witnessed the spread of the cotton kingdom into the Southwest. The story of King Cotton's conquest of the Mississippi South is best told in statistics. In 1811, the year of the first voyage which the New Orleans made down the Ohio River, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi exported five million pounds of cotton. In 1834 these same States exported almost two hundred million pounds of cotton. To take care of this crop and to supply the cotton country, which was becoming wealthy, with the necessaries and luxuries of life, more and more steamboats were needed. The great shipyards situated, because of the proximity of suitable timber, at St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Louisville became busy hives, not since paralleled except by such centers of shipbuilding as Hog Island in 1917-18, during the time of the Great War. The steamboat tonnage of the Mississippi Valley (exclusive of New Orleans) in the hustling forties exceeded that of the Atlantic ports (exclusive of New York City) by 15,000 tons. The steamboat tonnage of New Orleans alone in 1843 was more than double that of New York City. Those who, if the old story is true, ran in fear to the hills when the little New Orleans went puffing down the Ohio, in 1811, would have been doubly amazed at the splendid development in the art of boat building, could they have seen the stately Sultana or Southern Belle of the fifties sweep swiftly by. After a period of gaudy ornamentation (1830-40) steamboat architecture settled down, as has that of Pullman cars today, to sane and practical lines, and the boats gained in length and strength, though they contained less weight of timber. The value of one of the greater boats of this era would be about fifty thousand dollars. When Captain Bixby made his celebrated night crossing at Hat Island a quarter of a million dollars in ship and cargo would have been the price of an error in judgment, according to Mark Twain, ¹ a good authority. ¹ Op. cit., p. 101. The Yorktown, built in 1844 for the Ohio-Mississippi trade, was typical of that epoch of inland commerce. Her length was 182 feet, breadth of beam 31 feet, and the diameter of wheels 28 feet. Though her hold was 8 feet in depth, yet she drew but 4 feet of water light and barely over 8 feet when loaded with 500 tons of freight. She had 4 boilers, 30 feet long and 42 inches in diameter, double engines, and two 24-inch cylinders. The stateroom cabin had come in with Captain Isaiah Sellers's Prairie in 1836, the first boat with such luxuries ever seen in St. Louis, according to Sellers. The Yorktown had 40 private cabins. It is interesting to compare the Yorktown with The Queen of the West, the giant British steamer built for the Falmouth-Calcutta trade in 1839. The Queen of the West had a length of 310 feet, a beam of 31 feet, a draft of 15 feet, and 16 private cabins. The building of this great vessel led a writer in the New York American to say: "It would really seem that we as a nation had no interest in this new application of steam power, or no energy to appropriate it to our own use." The statement--written in a day when the Mississippi steamboat tonnage exceeded that of the entire British Empire--is one of the best examples of provincial ignorance concerning the West. On these steamboats there was a multiplicity of arrangements and equipments for preventing and for fighting fire. One of the innovations on the new boats in this particular was the substitution of wire for the combustible rope formerly used to control the tiller, so that even in time of fire the pilot could "hold her nozzle agin' the bank." Much of the great loss of life in steamboat fires had been due to the tiller-ropes being burned and the boats becoming unmanageable. The arrival of the railroad at the head of the Ohio River in the early fifties brought the East into an immediate touch with the Mississippi Valley unknown before. But however bold railway engineers were in the face of the ragged ranges of the Alleghanies, they could not then out-guess the tricks of the Ohio, the Mississippi, or the Missouri, and railway promoters could not afford to take chances on having their stations and tracks unexpectedly isolated, if not actually carried away, by swirling, yellow floods. The Mississippi, too, had been known at times to achieve a width of seventy miles, and tributaries have overflowed their banks to a proportionate extent. It was several decades ere the Ohio was paralleled by a railway, and the Mississippi for long distances even today has not yet heard the shrill cry of the locomotive. So the steamboat entered its heyday and encountered little competition. Until the Civil War the rivers of the West remained the great arteries of trade, carrying grain and merchandise of every description southward and bringing back cotton, rice, and sugar. The rivalries of the great lines of packets established in these days of the steamboat, however, equaled anything ever known in railway competition, and, in the matter of fast time, became more spectacular than anything of its kind in any line of transportation in our country. With flags flying, boilers heated white with abundance of pine and resin, and bold and skillful pilots at the steering wheels, no sport of kings ever aroused the enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands to such a pitch as did many of the old-time races northward from New Orleans. The J. M. White and her performances stand out conspicuously in the annals of the river. Her builder, familiarly known to a generation of rivermen as Billy King, deserves to rank with Henry Shreve. Commissioned in 1844 to build the J. M. White for J. M. Converse of St. Louis, with funds supplied by Robert Chouteau of that city, King proceeded to put into effect the knowledge which he had derived from a close study of the swells made by steamboats when under way. When the boat was being built in the famous shipyards at Elizabeth, on the Monongahela, the wheel beams were set twenty feet farther back than was customary. Converse was struck with this unheard-of radicalism in design, and balked; King was a man given to few words; he was resolved to throw convention to the winds and trust his judgment; he refused to build the boat on other lines. Converse felt compelled to let Chouteau pass on the question; in time the laconic answer came: "Let King put the beams where he pleases." Thus the craft which Converse thought a monstrosity became known far and wide for both its design and its speed. In 1844 the J. M. White made the record of three days, twenty-three hours, and nine minutes between New Orleans and St. Louis. ¹ Of course the secret of Billy King's success soon became known. He had placed his paddle wheels where they would bite into the swell produced by every boat just under its engines. He had transformed what had been a handicap into a positive asset. It is said that he attempted to shield his prize against competition by destroying the model of the J. M. White, as well as to have refused large offers to build a boat that would beat her. But it is said also that an exhibition model of the boat was a cherished possession of E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, and that it hung in his office during Lincoln's administration. ¹ This performance is illustrated by the following comparative table showing the best records of later years between New Orleans and St. Louis, a distance estimated in 1844 as 1300 miles but in 1870 as 1218 miles, owing to the action of the river in shortening its course. Year Boat Time 1844 J. M. White 3 d. 23 h. 9 m. 1849 Missouri 4 d. 19 h. -- 1869 Dexter 4 d. 9 h. -- 1870 Natchez 3 d. 21 h. 58 m. 1870 R. E. Lee 3 d. 18 h. 14 m. The steamboat now extended its service to the West and North. The ancient fur trade with the Indians of the upper Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Arkansas, had its headquarters at St. Louis, whence the notable band of men engaged in that trade were reaching out to the Rockies. The roll includes Ashley, Campbell, Sublette, Manuel Lisa, Perkins, Hempstead, William Clark, Labadie, the Chouteaus, and Menard--men of different races and colors and alike only in their energy, bravery, and initiative. Through them the village of St. Louis had grown to a population of four thousand in 1819, when Major Long's expedition passed up the Missouri in the first steamboat to ascend that river. This boat, the Western Engineer, was built at Pittsburgh and was modeled cunningly for its work. It was one of the first stern wheelers built in the West; and the saving in width meant much on streams having such narrow channels as the Missouri and the Platte, especially when barges were to be towed. Then, too, its machinery, which was covered over or boarded up, was shrouded in mystery. A fantastic figure representing a serpent's open mouth contained the exhaust pipe. If the New Orleans alarmed the population of the Ohio Valley, the sensation caused among the red children of the Missouri at the sight of this gigantic snake belching fire and smoke must have thoroughly satisfied the whim of its designer. The admission of Missouri to statehood and the independence of Mexico mark the beginning of real commercial relations between St. Louis and Santa Fé. In 1822 Captain William Becknell organized the first wagon train which left the Missouri (at Franklin, near Independence) for the long dangerous journey to the Arkansas and on to Santa Fé. In the following year two expeditions set forth, carrying out cottons and other drygoods to exchange for horses, mules, furs, and silver. Despite the handicaps of Indian opposition and Mexican tariffs, the Santa Fé trade became an important factor in the growth of St. Louis and the Missouri River steamboat lines. In 1825 the pathway was "surveyed" from Franklin to San Fernando, then in Mexico. This Santa Fé trade grew from fifteen thousand pounds of freight in 1822 to nearly half a million pounds twenty years later. By 1826 steamboat traffic up the Missouri began to assume regularity. The navigation was dangerous and difficult because the Missouri never kept even an approximately constant head of water. In times of drought it became very shallow, and in times of flood it tore its wayward course open in any direction it chose. "Of all variable things in creation," wrote a Western editor, "the most uncertain are the action of a jury, the state of a woman's mind, and the condition of the Missouri River." A further handicap, and one which was unknown on the Ohio and rare on the Mississippi, was the lack of forests to supply the necessary fuel. The Missouri, it is true, had its cottonwoods, but in a green state they were poor fuel, and along vast stretches they were not obtainable in any quantity. The steamboat linked St. Louis with that vital stretch of the river lying between the mouth of the Kansas and the mouth of the Nebraska. From this region the great Western trail ran on to California and Oregon. In the early thirties Bonneville, Walker, Kelley, and Wyeth successively essayed this Overland Trail by way of the Platte through the South Pass of the Rockies to the Humboldt, Snake, and Columbia rivers. From Independence on the Missouri this famous pathway led to Fort Laramie, a distance of 672 miles; another 300-mile climb brought the traveler through South Pass; and so, by way of Fort Bridger, Salt Lake, and Sutter's Fort, to San Francisco. The route, well known by hundreds of Oregon pioneers in the early forties, became a thoroughfare in the eager days of the Forty-Niners. ¹ ¹ For map see The Passing of the Frontier, by Emerson Hough (in The Chronicles of America). The earliest overland stage line to Great Salt Lake was established by Hockaday and Liggett. After the founding of the famous Overland Stage Company by Russell, Majors, and Waddell in 1858, stages were soon ascending the Platte from the steamboat terminals on the Missouri and making the twelve hundred miles from St. Joseph to Salt Lake City in ten days. Stations were established from ten to fifteen miles apart, and the line was soon extended on to Sacramento. The nineteen hundred miles from St. Joseph to Sacramento were made in fifteen days, although the government contract with the company for handling United States mail allowed nineteen days. A host of employees was engaged in this exciting but not very remunerative enterprise--station-agents and helpers, drivers, conductors who had charge of passengers, in addition to mail and express and road agents who acted as division superintendents. In 1862 the Overland Route was taken over by the renowned Ben Holliday, who operated it until the railway was constructed seven years later. Freight was hauled by the same company in wagons known as the "J. Murphy wagons," which were made in St. Louis. These wagons went out from Leavenworth loaded with six thousand pounds of freight each. A train usually consisted of twenty-five wagons and was known, in the vernacular of the plains, as a "bull-outfit"; the drivers were "bull-whackers"; and the wagon master was the "bull-wagon boss." The old story, however, was repeated again here on the boundless plains of the West. The Western trails streaming out from the terminus of steamboat traffic between Kansas City and Omaha had scarcely time to become well known before the railway conquerors of the Atlantic and Great Lakes regions were planning the conquest of the greater plains and the Rockies beyond. The opening of the Chinese ports in 1844 turned men's minds as never before to the Pacific coast. The acquisition of Oregon within a few years and of California at the close of the Mexican War opened the way for a newspaper and congressional discussion as to whether the first railway to parallel the Santa Fé or the Overland Trail should run from Memphis, St. Louis, or Chicago. The building of the Union Pacific from Omaha westward assured the future of that city, and it was soon joined to Chicago and the East by several lines which were building toward Clinton, Rock Island, and Burlington. But the construction of a few main lines of railway across the continent could only partially satisfy the commercial needs of the West. True, the overland trade was at once transferred to the railroad, but the enormous equipment of stage and express companies previously employed in westward overland trade was now devoted to joining the railway lines with the vast regions to the north and the south. The rivers of the West could not alone take care of this commerce and for many years these great transportation companies went with their stages and their wagons into the growing Dakota and Montana trade and opened up direct lines of communication to the nearest railway. On the south the cattle industry of Texas came northward into touch with the railways of Kansas. Eventually lateral and trunk lines covered the West with their network of lines and thus obliterated all rivalry and competition by providing unmatched facilities for quick transportation. In the last days previous to the opening of the first transcontinental railway line a unique method of rapid transportation for mail and light parcels was established when the famous "Pony Express" line was put into operation between St. Joseph and San Francisco in 1860. By relays of horsemen, who carried pouches not exceeding twenty pounds in weight, the time was cut to nine days. The innovation was the new wonder of the world for the time being and led to an outburst on the part of the enthusiastic editor of the St. Joseph Free Democrat that deserves reading because it breathes so fully the Western spirit of exultant conquest: Take down your map and trace the footprints of our quadrupedantic animal: From St. Joseph, on the Missouri, to San Francisco, on the Golden Horn--two thousand miles--more than half the distance across our boundless continent; through Kansas, through Nebraska, by Fort Kearney, along the Platte, by Fort Laramie, past the Buttes, over the Mountains, through the narrow passes and along the steep defiles, Utah, Fort Bridger, Salt Lake City, he witches Brigham with his swift pony-ship--through the valleys, along the grassy slopes, into the snow, into the sand, faster than Thor's Thialfi, away they go, rider and horse--did you see them? They are in California, leaping over its golden sands, treading its busy streets. The courser has unrolled to us the great American panorama, allowed us to glance at the home of one million people, and has put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes. Verily the riding is like the riding of Jehu, the son of Nimshi for he rideth furiously. Take out your watch. We are eight days from New York, eighteen from London. The race is to the swift. ¹ ¹ Quoted in Inman's The Great Salt Lake Trail, p. 171. The lifetime of many and many a man has covered a period longer than that interval of eighty-six years between 1783, when George Washington had his vision of "the vast inland navigation of these United States," and the year 1869, when the two divisions of the Union Pacific were joined by a golden spike at Promontory Point in Utah. In point of time, those eighty-six years are as nothing; in point of accomplishment, they stand unparalleled. When Washington's horse splashed across the Youghiogheny in October, 1784, the boundary lines of the United States were guarded with all the jealousy and provincial selfishness of European kingdoms. But overnight, so to speak, these limitations became no more than mere geometrical expressions. "Pennamite," "Erie," and "Toledo" wars between the States, suggesting a world of bitterness and recrimination, are remembered today, if at all, only by the cartoonist and the playwright. The ancient false pride in mock values, so cherished in Europe, has quite departed from the provincial areas of the United States, and Americans can fly in a day, unwittingly, through many States. Problems that would have cost Europe blood are settled without turmoil in the solemn cloisters of that American "international tribunal," the Supreme Court, and they appear only as items of passing interest in our newspapers. In unifying the nation the influence of the Supreme Court has been priceless, for it has given to Americans, in place of the colonial or provincial mind, a continental mind. But great is the debt of Americans to the men who laid the foundations of interstate commerce. No antidote served so well to counteract the poison of clannish rivalry as did their enthusiasm and their constructive energy. These men, dreamers and promoters, were building better than they knew. They thought to overcome mountains, obliterate swamps, conquer stormy lakes, master great rivers and endless plains; but, as their labors are judged today, the greater service which these men rendered appears in its true light. They stifled provincialism; they battered down Chinese Walls of prejudice and separatism; they reduced the aimless rivalry of bickering provinces to a businesslike common denominator; and, perhaps more than any class of men, they made possible the wide-spreading and yet united Republic that is honored and loved today. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE The history of the early phase of American transportation is dealt with in three general works. John Luther Ringwalt's Development of Transportation Systems in the United States (1888) is a reliable summary of the general subject at the time. Archer B. Hulbert's Historic Highways of America, 16 vols. (1902-1905), is a collection of monographs of varying quality written with youthful enthusiasm by the author, who traversed in good part the main pioneer roads and canals of the eastern portion of the United States; Indian trails, portage paths, the military roads of the Old French War period, the Ohio River as a pathway of migration, the Cumberland Road, and three of the canals which played a part in the western movement, form the subject of the more valuable volumes. The temptation of a writer on transportation to wander from his subject is illustrated in this work, as it is illustrated afresh in Seymour Dunbar's A History of Travel in America, 4 vols. (1915). The reader will take great pleasure in this magnificently illustrated work, which, in completer fashion than it has ever been attempted, gives a readable running story of the whole subject for the whole country, despite detours, which some will make around the many pages devoted to Indian relations. For almost every phase of the general topic books, monographs, pamphlets, and articles are to be found in the corners of any great library, ranging in character from such productions as William F. Ganong's A Monograph of Historic Sites in the Province of New Brunswick (Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, Second Series, vol. V, 1899) which treats of early travel in New England and Canada, or St. George L. Sioussat's Highway Legislation in Maryland and its Influence on the Economic Development of the State (Maryland Geological Survey, III, 1899) treating of colonial road making and legislation thereon, or Elbert J. Benton's The Wabash Trade Route in the Development of the Old Northwest (Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, vol. XXI, 1903) and Julius Winden's The Influence of the Erie Canal upon the Population along its Course (University of Wisconsin, 1901), which treat of the economic and political influence of the opening of inland water routes, to volumes of a more popular character such as Francis W. Halsey's The Old New York Frontier (1901), Frank H. Severance's Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier (1903) for the North, and Charles A. Hanna's The Wilderness Trail, 2 vols. (1911), and Thomas Speed's The Wilderness Road (The Filson Club Publications, vol. II, 1886) for Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky. The value of Hanna's work deserves special mention. For the early phases of inland navigation John Pickell's A New Chapter in the Early Life of Washington (1856), is an excellent work of the old-fashioned type, while in Herbert B. Adams's Maryland's Influence upon Land Cessions to the United States (Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Third Series, I, 1885) a master-hand pays Washington his due for originating plans of trans-Alleghany solidarity; this likewise is the theme of Archer B. Hulbert's Washington and the West (1905) wherein is printed Washington's Diary of September, 1784, containing the first and unexpurgated draft of his classic letter to Harrison of that year. The publications of the various societies for internal improvement and state boards of control and a few books, such as Turner Camac's Facts and Arguments Respecting the Great Utility of an Extensive Plan of Inland Navigation in America (1805), give the student distinct impressions of the difficulties and the ideals of the first great American promoters of inland commerce. Elkanah Watson's History of the ... Western Canals in the State of New York (1820), despite inaccuracies due to lapses of memory, should be specially remarked. For the rise and progress of turnpike building one must remember W. Kingsford's History, Structure, and Statistics of Plank Roads (1852), a reliable book by a careful writer. The Cumberland (National) Road has its political influence carefully adjudged by Jeremiah S. Young in A Political and Constitutional Study of the Cumberland Road (1904), while the social and personal side is interestingly treated in county history style in Thomas B. Searight's The Old Pike (1894). Motorists will appreciate Robert Bruce's The National Road (1916), handsomely illustrated and containing forty-odd sectional maps. The best life of Fulton is H. W. Dickinson's Robert Fulton, Engineer and Artist: His Life and Works (1913), while in Alice Crary Sutcliffe's Robert Fulton and the "Clermont" (1909), the more intimate picture of a family biography is given. For the controversy concerning the Fulton-Livingston monopoly, note W. A. Duer's A Course of Lectures on Constitutional Jurisprudence and his pamphlets addressed to Cadwallader D. Colden. The life of that stranger to success, the forlorn John Fitch, was written sympathetically and after assiduous research by Thompson Westcott in his Life of John Fitch the Inventor of the Steamboat (1858). For the pamphlet war between Fitch and Rumsey see Allibone's Dictionary. The Great Lakes have not been adequately treated. E. Channing and M. F. Lansing's The Story of the Great Lakes (1909) is reliable but deals very largely with the routine history covered by the works of Parkman. J. O. Curwood's The Great Lakes (1909) is stereotyped in its scope but has certain chapters of interest to students of commercial development, as has also The Story of the Great Lakes. The vast bulk of material of value on the subject lies in the publications of the New York, Buffalo, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Chicago Historical Societies, whose lists should be consulted. These publications also give much data on the Mississippi River and western commercial development. S. L. Clemens's Life on the Mississippi (in his Writings, vol. IX, 1869-1909) is invaluable for its graphic pictures of steamboating in the heyday of river traffic. A. B. Hulbert's Waterways of Western Expansion (Historic Highways, vol. IX, 1903) and The Ohio River (1906) give chapters on commerce and transportation. For the beginnings of traffic into the Far West, H. Inman's The Old Santa Fé Trail (1897) and The Great Salt Lake Trail (1914) may be consulted, together with the publications of the various state historical societies of the trans-Mississippi States. Various bibliographies on this general subject have been issued by the Library of Congress. Seymour Dunbar gives a good bibliography in his A History of Travel in America, 4 vols. (1915). The student will find quantities of material in books of travel, in which connection he would do well to consult Solon J. Buck's Travel and Description, 1765-1865 (Illinois State Historical Library Collections, vol. IX, 1914). INDEX A. Adams, J. Q., and internal improvements, 145. Albany, Old Bay Path to, 16; road to Baltimore, 58; Clermont's voyage to, 113. Alexandria (Va.), rival of New York City, 137. Alleghanies, pathways across, 17-19, 116 et seq. Allegheny Portage Railway, 151. American, New York, quoted, 182. Appalachian Mountains, pathways across, 15-21. Arkansas, influence of river trade on, 180. "Army" plan of occupying West, 4. Ashley, fur trader, 186. Audubon, J. J., description of barge journey, 72-73. B. Baily, Francis, journey in United States (1796-97), 81-98; quoted, 90-91. Balcony Falls, trail between James and Great Kanawha Rivers at, 19. Baltimore, road to Albany, 58; part in transportation development, 136-137, 143-151. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 153; Washington's vision realized by, 10; follows old trail, 18, 29; state appropriation, 148; contest with canal company, 150-151; reaches Ohio, 151, 171. Baltimore-Frederick Turnpike, 59. Baltimore-Reisterstown Turnpike, 58-59, 143. Baring Brothers contribute to canal work, 163. Bay Path, see Old Bay Path. Becknell, Captain William, organizes first wagon train for Sante Fé, 187. Bedford, Fort, established, 50. Bixby, Captain, at Hat Island, 181. Black Hawk War (1832), 162. Bonneville, Captain B. L. E., on Overland Trail, 189. "Bonnyclabber Country," 86, 87. Boone, Daniel, 19. Bouquet, Colonel Henry, criticizes Washington, 50. Boston and Albany Railroad, 13, 16. Boulton and Watt of Birmingham, Fulton uses engine of, 110, 113. Braddock's Road, 51. Brissot, French traveler in America, 81, 83. Broad River, trail on, 19. Brown, Charles, builds hull of Clermont, 113. Brown, George, and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 149. Brownsville (Penn.) growth of, 26. Bryan, Guy, of Philadelphia, 66. Buffalo, demand for means of transportation, 164, 170; harbor improvement, 169; growth, 172. Buffalo-Utica Canal, 124; see also Erie Canal. Bunting, "Red," stagecoach driver, 123. Burt, W. A., discovers iron ore in Michigan, 165-166. C. Calhoun, J. C., and internal improvements, 145. California, western trail to, 188; acquisition of, 191. Campbell, fur trader, 186. Canals, early projects, 37-38; inadequacy of, 157; in the West, 157 et seq.; see also Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Erie Canal, Welland Canal. Catskill Turnpike, 16. Céloron de Blainville sends English traders from Ohio country, 25-26. Charleston (S. C.), trails to Tennessee from, 19. Charleston (Wellsburg) made port of entry, 77. Charlotte Dundas (steamboat), 109, 110. Chastellux, Chevalier de, Washington's letter to, 6. Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Washington's vision realized in, 10; plan for, 132, 143, 144; Company formed, 145; engineering difficulties, 146; state subscription, 148; contest with Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 150-151. Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, 19; Washington's vision realized in, 10; follows old route, 152. Chicago, harbor improvement, 161, 169; canal terminal, 162; growth, 162-163, 172; demand for means of transportation, 164, 170; convention discusses rivers and harbors (1846), 169; Illinois Central Railroad to, 170. Chickasaw Trail, 97. Chillicothe (O.), grant to Zane at, 47. China, influence on West of opening ports, 191. Chiswell, Fort, "Warrior's Path" from, 19. Choctaw Trail, 97. Chouteau, Robert, 184. Cincinnati, founded, 68; ship-building, 76, 180; made port of entry, 77; see also Columbia. Clark, William, fur trader, 186. Clay, Henry, and internal improvements, 145; on Western canal project, 155. Clermont (steamboat), 78, 113-114. Cleveland, demand for means of transportation, 164, 170; harbor improvement, 169; growth, 172. Clinton, DeWitt, Memorial (1816), 127; and Ohio and Miami canals, 159. Columbia (Cincinnati), port of entry, 74, 77; Baily at, 92; see also Cincinnati. Comet (steamboat), 78. Conemaugh River, Kittanning Trail follows, 17. Congress, Fitch appeals to, 106; appropriation for canal survey, 145. Connecticut Path, 16. Connecticut River, Old Bay Path, 15. Connellsville (Penn.), growth of, 26. Converse, J. M., 184. Cooper, Peter, builds engine Tom Thumb, 150. Cotton, influence on river navigation, 180. Cowpens, description of inhabitants, 22-24. Crawford, agent for Washington, letter to, 5. Crisman, Jesse, owner of Hit or Miss, 140. Cumberland (Md.), eastern terminus of Cumberland Road, 119. Cumberland Gap, "Warrior's Path" through, 19; railroad through, 20. Cumberland Road, 136; Washington's vision realized in, 10; building authorized, 114-115; importance, 116; plan, 118-119; route, 119-120; building of, 120-121; cost, 121; stage lines, 122-123; freight traffic, 123-124; extension to Missouri, 132; Baltimore and, 143-144; bibliography, 199. D. Day, Sherman, quoted, 140. Deane, Silas, plan for payment of Revolutionary War debt, 2-3. Delaware Water Gap, 17. Delta (La.), changed by Mississippi River, 177. Detroit, Washington marks out commercial lines to, 9; port of entry, 74; demand for transportation facilities, 164; harbor, 169; growth, 172. Detroit (lake steamer), 169. Dickens, Charles, cited, 100; describes canal boat journey, 140-141; describes aerial railway, 141-142. Doddridge, Notes, quoted, 27-28. Doolittle, Sylvester, builds Vandalia, 168. Duane (ship), 76-77. Duquesne, Fort, 26, 28, 50. E. Enterprise (steamboat), 79. "Era of Good Feeling," 60. Erie (Penn.), as place of embarkation, 35; port of entry, 74. Erie Canal, 35, 37, 58, 116-117; Washington foresees, 9, 12; work begun (1817), 38, 128; Hawley writes challenge to New York concerning, 115; state enterprise, 118, 124-128, 136; Hawley's original plan, 119; building of, 129-131; completion, 132; locks enlarged, 169. Erie Railroad, 153; Washington forecasts, 9-10; follows Indian trade route, 17. "Erie" war, 194. Evans, Oliver, and steam propelled wagon, 102-103. Everett, Edward, quoted, 12-13. F. Fallen Timber, battle of, 67. Ferries, 46-47. Fink, Mike, "the Snag," 64; "Snapping Turtle," 64. Fitch, John, steamboat experiments, 12, 101-102, 103-105; petition to Congress, 106-107; obtains monopoly from States, 106; Fulton and, 108. Forbes, General John, captures Fort Duquesne, 26; breaks army road, 50. Forman, Joshua, bill for Erie Canal project, 124. Franklin, Benjamin, on making rivers navigable, 30; and international boundary line, 164. Frederick (Md.), trail from, 18. Free Democrat, St. Joseph, quoted, 192-193. Freeland, H., account of the Clermont, 113-114. French as commercial rivals, 20. Fulton, Robert, steamboat experiments, 12, 107-114; and Livingston, 108-112; on Erie Canal committee, 125; bibliography, 199. Fur trade, French and, 20; with Illinois country, 66; headquarters at St. Louis, 186. G. Gallatin, Albert, scheme of internal improvements, 114. Geddes, James, engineer, 125. Gibbons, Thomas, steamboat competitor of Ogden, 132. Great Britain, steamboat experiments in, 109; Fulton imports engine from, 111, 113. Great Kanawha River, Washington outlines route by way of, 10; as trade route, 19. Great Lakes, Washington's vision concerning, 8; French on, 20; navigation of, 154 et seq. Great Meadows, Washington on, 8; Nemacolin's Path by, 18. "Great Trail," 28. Great Western (lake steamer), 168. Greensburg (Penn.), growth of, 26. Greenville, Treaty of, 67. H. Hamilton County (O.) organized, 68. Hard Times (Miss.), location changed by Mississippi River, 177. Hawkins, John, Shreve compared with, 175. Hawley, Jesse, and Erie Canal, 115, 119. Hazard, of Pennsylvania, 31; and Lehigh coal, 40. Hempstead, fur trader, 186. Henry Clay (steamboat), 156. Hercules (lake freighter), 169. Heydt, Jost, leads immigrants south, 49. "Highland Trail," 17, 20. Hit or Miss (canal boat), 140. Hockaday and Liggett establish stage line to Great Salt Lake, 189. Holliday, Ben, and Overland Route, 190. Horses, pack, 21; in "Bonnyclabber Country," 86. Hough, Emerson, The Passing of the Frontier, cited, 189 (note). Houghton, Douglass, discovers copper in Michigan, 165. Hudson River, Washington foresees joining to Great Lakes, 8; pathway along, 15; see also Erie Canal. I. Illinois, trade with, 66; growth of population, 116, 156; canal fever, 157, 161; railway projects, 171; influence of river trade on, 180. Illinois (lake steamer), 168. Illinois Central Railroad, 170. Illinois-Michigan Canal, 157-158, 161, 167, 168. Illinois River, French on, 20. Independence (Mo.), Overland Trail from, 189. Indiana, migration to, 67; growth of population, 116, 156; canal enthusiasm, 161; railway projects, 171; influence of river trade on, 180. Indians, trails, 14, 18; pack-horse trade with, 21, 27. Ingles ferry, 47. Iowa, influence of river trade on, 180. J. J. M. White (river boat), 184, 185, 186. James-Kanawha Turnpike, 10. James River, 17; Washington's vision regarding, 8, 10; as trade route, 19. Jefferson, Thomas, plan for settlement of West, 4. June Bug, stagecoach line, 122. Juniata River, Kittanning Trail along, 17, 152. K. Keever, Captain, builds steamboat on Ohio, 78. Kent, Chancellor, and Erie Canal, 127, 128. Kentucky, wagon road constructed to, 49-50; migration to, 67. King, Billy, builder of the J. M. White, 184. Kittanning Trail, 17, 25. Knoxville (Tenn.), Baily reaches, 98. L. Labadie, fur trader, 186. Lake Shore Railroad, 170, 171. Lancaster (O.) grant to Zane at, 47. Lancaster Turnpike, 35, 53-58. Laramie, Fort, Overland Trail to, 189. Lee, Arthur, on cost of transportation (1784), 66. Lee, Henry, Washington writes to, 9. Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, 39, 43. Lehigh Coal Company, 42-43. Lehigh Navigation Company, 42-43. Lewis and Clark expedition, 12. Liggett and Holliday run stage to Salt Lake, 189. Ligonier (Penn.), growth of, 26. Ligonier, Fort, 50. Lisa, Manuel, fur trader, 186. Livingston, R. R., and Fulton, 108-112; on Erie Canal committee, 125. Long, Major, expedition up Missouri River, 186. Louisiana cotton exports, 180. Louisiana of Marietta (ship), 77. Louisiana Purchase, 75, 77. Louisville, importance and growth, 68-69; as river port, 73-74, 77; shipbuilding, 180. Ludlow, actor, sings The Hunters of Kentucky, 62-63. M. Mackinaw Island, port of entry, 74. Marietta (O.), founded, 67-68; shipbuilding, 76; as port of entry, 77. Maryland, Washington outlines trade routes for, 10; roads, 49, 53, 58-59; cotton grown in, 85; Cumberland Road, 119; canals, 136, 144; Canal Company formed, 145; see also Baltimore. Massac, Fort (Ill.), port of entry, 74; 75, 77; Baily at, 93. Massachusetts, Old Bay Path, 16; roads, 44, 54-55. Mauch Chunk (Penn.), coal from, 40. Maynard and Morrison, trade with Illinois, 66. Menard, fur trader, 186. Mercer quoted, 148. Miami Canal, 159. Michigan, growth of population, 116, 156; plan for Erie Canal funds from sale of land in, 117, 125; development, 164; "Toledo War," 164-165; minerals, 165. Michigan (lake steamer), 168. Milwaukee, demand for transportation facilities, 164; harbor improvement, 169. Minnesota, development, 164. Mirror, New York, prints The Hunters of Kentucky, 62. Mississippi cotton exports, 180. Mississippi River, Washington's vision of navigation on, 12; French on, 20; importance to commerce, 160; canal to connect with Lake Michigan, 161, 163; navigation, 176 et seq.; eccentricities, 177, 183. Missouri, influence of river trade on, 180; admitted as State, 187. Missouri River, navigation on, 186, 187, 188. Mohawk River, route through Appalachians, 16. Mohawk Trail, 16. Mohawk Turnpike, 16. Mohawk Valley, Washington and, 7. Monongahela Farmer (ship), 76. Monroe, James, Fulton writes to, 107, 110, 112; recommends congressional aid for canals, 145. Montreal, furs brought to, 20; rival of New York City, 125, 126. Moody, John, The Railroad Builders, cited, 157 (note). Morey, Samuel, inventor of stern-wheeler, 104, 109, 110. Morgantown (Penn.), growth of, 26. Morris, Gouverneur, of New York, 31, 36. N. Nashville (Tenn.), trails to, 19. Natchez (Miss.), Baily at, 93, 97. Natchez Trace, 96. National, stagecoach line, 122. Nemacolin Path, 18, 25. Newberry, Oliver, of Detroit, builds Michigan, 168. New Madrid, Baily at, 93. New Orleans, made open port, 75; Baily at, 95; steamboat tonnage of (1843), 181. New Orleans (steamboat), 180, 181, 187. New York (State), Washington foresees communication lines of, 9; canal project, 35-38; roads, 44, 59; Livingston obtains steamboat monopoly, 109; steamboat grant to Livingston, Roosevelt and Fulton, 111; railroads, 151, 153; see also Erie Canal. New York Central Railroad, 153; Washington and, 9; follows Mohawk Trail, 16, 17. New York City, Baily at, 84; Erie Canal and, 125, 126; tonnage compared to that of river ports, 181. Niagara, French at, 25. Niagara (steamboat), 156. Nickel Plate Railroad, 17. Northwest, Deane's plan for, 2-3; navigation of Great Lakes, 154 et seq.; immigration to, 167-168. O. Ogden, Aaron, vs. Gibbon, 132. Ohio, migration to, 67; growth of population, 116, 156; and Cumberland Road, 117; canals, 157-160; admitted as State (1802), 158; railroads, 171; influence of river trade on, 180. Ohio and Lake Erie Company, 145. Ohio Canal, 157, 159, 168, 169. Ohio River, Washington and, 8, 12; access of French and English to, 25; value of cargoes on (1800), 74; Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reaches (1853), 151, 183; navigation, 180. Old Bay Path, 15, 16. Ontario (steamboat), 156. Orange, Fort (Albany), 16; see also Albany. Ordinance of 1787, 170. Oregon, western trail to, 188; effect of acquisition on transportation, 191. Orleans (steamboat), 78. Ormsbee, of Connecticut, makes steamboat model, 104. Ottawa (Ill.) canal terminal, 162. Overland Stage Company, 189. Overland Trail, 189, 191. P. Palmyra (Tenn.), as river port, 74. Pedee River, 17. "Pennamite" war, 194. Pennsylvania, Washington and transportation in, 9, 10-11; canals, 33-35, 136; roads, 35, 44, 45, 48-49, 50, 53-54, 119-120; "Bonnyclabber Country," 86, 87; and Great Lakes, 138; railways, 151. Pennsylvania Canal, 132; Washington forecasts, 9; route, 139; engineering achievement, 139-140. Pennsylvania Railroad, 142, 153; Washington and, 9-10; follows Indian trail, 29; incorporated (1846), 151; reaches Ohio River, 171. Perkins, fur trader, 186. Philadelphia, roads to, 48-49; meeting to protest against monopoly of Lancaster Turnpike, 55; Baily at, 84; rival of New York City, 137. Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Road Company, 53-54. Philadelphia Road, 49. Pickering plan of occupying West, 4. Pike, Captain Z. M., 93. Pioneer, stagecoach line, 122. Pioneer (steamboat), 156. Pitt, Fort, 28. Pittsburgh, growth, 26, 67; trade with, 65-66, 66-67, 75; shipbuilding, 76; port of entry, 77; Baily reaches, 88. Platt, Judge, and Erie Canal, 126, 127. Pontiac's Rebellion, 26-27, 34. "Pony Express," 192. Potomac Canal Company, 143. Potomac Company, 31-33, 138. Potomac River, Washington's vision regarding, 8, 10; commerce on, 17-18. Prairie (steamboat), 182. Presq'Isle (Erie) recommended as place of embarkation, 35. Prices in 1800, 92. Putnam, General Rufus, advocates Pickering plan, 3-4. Q. Quebec, furs brought to, 20. Queen of the West (British steamer), 182. R. Railroads, 134 et seq.; see also names of railroads. Revolutionary War, plans for payment of debt of, 2-3. Rhodes, Mayor of Philadelphia, 30. Rideau canal system, 160. Rivers and harbors, government policy of improvement, 12; Chicago convention (1846), 169. Roads, 44 et seq., 83; tolls, 59-60; see also Cumberland Road. Robinson, Moncure, 139-140. Roosevelt, Theodore, quoted, 176. Rumsey, James, 12; general manager of Potomac Company, 32; steamboat experiments, 101, 102, 103, 106; Virginia grants monopoly to, 106; Fulton and, 108. Russell, Majors, and Waddell found Overland Stage Company, 189. Rutherfordton Trail, 19. S. Sacramento, stage line to, 189. St. Clair (brig), 76. St. Joseph (Mo.), stage line from, 189. St. Lawrence canal system, 160. St. Louis, shipbuilding, 180; headquarters for fur trade, 186; trade with Santa Fé, 187. St. Mary's River Ship Canal, 164, 167, 168. Salt Lake City, stage line to, 189. Samson (lake freighter), 169. Sandusky, port of entry, 74. San Francisco, Overland Trail to, 189. San Lorenzo, Treaty of, 75. Santa Fé, trade with, 187. Santa Fé Trail, 191. "Sapphire Country," 19, 152. Saturday Advertiser, Liverpool, on the Duane, 76-77. Schoph, J. D., crosses mountains in chaise, 66. Schuylkill-Susquehanna Canal, 35. Searight describes freight wagons on Cumberland Road, 123-124. Sellers, Captain Isaiah, 182. Shreve, Henry, builds double-decked steamboat, 79; invents flat-bottomed steamboat, 175. Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation, 31, 34-35, 39, 54. South, trade with, 65; demands for commerce, 174. Southern Belle (steamboat), 181. Southern Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, 29. Southern Railway, 19. Stanton, E. M., has model of J. M. White, 186. Stephenson, Robert, on Pennsylvania Canal, 140. Stevens, E. A., invents twin-screw propeller, 104. Sublette, fur trader, 186. Sultana (steamboat), 181. Superior (steamboat), 156, 167. Superior, Lake, copper and iron deposits near, 164; commerce from, 166-167. Susquehanna River, Washington foresees joining to West, 8. T. Taverns, 56-57, 82-83. Taylor, Acting-Governor of New York, and Erie Canal, 127, 128. Tennessee, trails to, 19; cotton exports, 180. Tennessee Path, Baily on, 96. Thackeray, W. M., quoted, 135. Thomas, P. E., and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 149. Thompson, Chief Justice of New York, and Erie Canal, 127. Toledo (O.), demand for transportation facilities, 164. "Toledo War," 164-165, 194. Tom Thumb, Peter Cooper's engine, 150. Transportation, Conestoga wagons, 57-58, 86; steamboats, 100 et seq.; stagecoaches, 122; "J. Murphy wagons," 190; see also Canals, Ferries, Horses, Railroads, Roads. Tupper, General Benjamin, 104. Twain, Mark, cited, 181. Tyson, Jonathan, 52. U. Unaka Mountains, see Alleghanies. Union Canal, 35, 139, 151; see also Pennsylvania Canal. Union Pacific Railroad, 191, 193. Uniontown (Penn.), growth of, 26. V. Vandalia (lake freighter), 168. Vesuvius (steamboat), 78. Virginia, Washington's vision of trade routes for, 10; Indian trails, 18; roads, 44-45, 49, 119; negroes, 85; tobacco, 85; canals, 136, 144. Virginia Road (Braddock's Road), 51. W. Walk-in-the-Water (steamboat), 132, 156, 167, 172. "Warrior's Path," 19, 20. Washington (D. C.), Baily at, 84, 85-86. Washington, first double-decked steamboat, 79, 175. Washington, Fort, 68. Washington, George, vision of inland navigation, 4 et seq., 193; doctrine of expansion, 6; journey to West, 7-9; letter to Harrison, 10, 53, 117, 127; Journal, 10; and river improvement, 31; president of Potomac Company, 32; and army roads, 50; and crop rotation, 85; prophecy regarding millstones, 87-88; Rumsey and, 100-101, 105-106. Watauga, Fort, 19. Waters, Dr., of New Madrid, builds schooner, 95. Watson, Elkanah, of New York, 31, 33, 36, 37, 54. Wayne, Anthony, 67. Webster, Pelatiah, and settlement of Northwest, 3. Weiser, Conrad, 26. Welch, Sylvester, 139. Welland Canal, 12, 155, 160, 168, 169. Western Engineer (steamboat), 186. Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, 31, 36-37. Western Maryland Railway, 18. Westfield River, Old Bay Path along, 16. Westover, stagecoach driver, 122-123. Wheeling, western terminus of Cumberland Road, 119. White, of Pennsylvania, 31, 40, 43. Wickham, Nathan, 49. Wilderness Road, 47, 50. Winchester (Va.), trail from, 18. Wisconsin, development of, 164. Woodworth, Samuel, The Hunters of Kentucky, 62-63; The Old Oaken Bucket, 62. Y. Yadkin River, trail on, 19. Yates, Judge, and Erie Canal, 127. Yoder, Jacob, 64-65. York Road, 52. Yorktown (steamboat), 181, 182. Z. Zane, Ebenezer, 47, 88. Zanesville (O.), grants to Zane near, 47. The Chronicles of America Series 1. The Red Man's Continent by Ellsworth Huntington 2. The Spanish Conquerors by Irving Berdine Richman 3. Elizabethan Sea-Dogs by William Charles Henry Wood 4. The Crusaders of New France by William Bennett Munro 5. Pioneers of the Old South by Mary Johnson 6. The Fathers of New England by Charles McLean Andrews 7. Dutch and English on the Hudson by Maud Wilder Goodwin 8. The Quaker Colonies by Sydney George Fisher 9. Colonial Folkways by Charles McLean Andrews 10. The Conquest of New France by George McKinnon Wrong 11. The Eve of the Revolution by Carl Lotus Becker 12. Washington and His Comrades in Arms by George McKinnon Wrong 13. The Fathers of the Constitution by Max Farrand 14. Washington and His Colleagues by Henry Jones Ford 15. Jefferson and his Colleagues by Allen Johnson 16. John Marshall and the Constitution by Edward Samuel Corwin 17. The Fight for a Free Sea by Ralph Delahaye Paine 18. Pioneers of the Old Southwest by Constance Lindsay Skinner 19. The Old Northwest by Frederic Austin Ogg 20. The Reign of Andrew Jackson by Frederic Austin Ogg 21. The Paths of Inland Commerce by Archer Butler Hulbert 22. Adventurers of Oregon by Constance Lindsay Skinner 23. The Spanish Borderlands by Herbert Eugene Bolton 24. Texas and the Mexican War by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson 25. The Forty-Niners by Stewart Edward White 26. The Passing of the Frontier by Emerson Hough 27. The Cotton Kingdom by William E. Dodd 28. The Anti-Slavery Crusade by Jesse Macy 29. Abraham Lincoln and the Union by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson 30. The Day of the Confederacy by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson 31. Captains of the Civil War by William Charles Henry Wood 32. The Sequel of Appomattox by Walter Lynwood Fleming 33. The American Spirit in Education by Edwin E. Slosson 34. The American Spirit in Literature by Bliss Perry 35. Our Foreigners by Samuel Peter Orth 36. The Old Merchant Marine by Ralph Delahaye Paine 37. The Age of Invention by Holland Thompson 38. The Railroad Builders by John Moody 39. The Age of Big Business by Burton Jesse Hendrick 40. The Armies of Labor by Samuel Peter Orth 41. The Masters of Capital by John Moody 42. The New South by Holland Thompson 43. The Boss and the Machine by Samuel Peter Orth 44. The Cleveland Era by Henry Jones Ford 45. The Agrarian Crusade by Solon Justus Buck 46. The Path of Empire by Carl Russell Fish 47. Theodore Roosevelt and His Times by Harold Howland 48. Woodrow Wilson and the World War by Charles Seymour 49. The Canadian Dominion by Oscar D. Skelton 50. The Hispanic Nations of the New World by William R. Shepherd Historic Highways of America 1. Paths of the Mound-Building Indians and Great Game Animals 2. Indian Thoroughfares 3. Washington's Road (Nemacolin's Path): The First Chapter of the Old French War 4. Braddock's Road and Three Relative Papers 5. The Old Glade (Forbes) Road: Pennsylvania State Road 6. Boone's Wilderness Road 7. Portage Paths: The Keys of the Continent 8. Military Roads of the Mississippi Basin: The Conquest of the Old Northwest 9. Waterways of Westward Expansion: The Ohio River and Its Tributaries 10. The Cumberland Road 11. Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers: Volume I 12. Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers: Volume II 13. The Great American Canals: Volume I The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and Pennsylvania Canal 14. The Great American Canals: Volume II The Erie Canal 15. The Future of Road-Making in America: A Symposium 16. Index Archer Hulbert completed a fifteen-part series from 1902-1905 on the historic highways of America, which he distilled into this one volume for the Chronicles of America Series. Project Gutenberg offers thirteen of the fifteen volumes in the historic roads series. We are also missing the sixteenth volume from our collection, which is an index of the other fifteen volumes. Transcriber's Notes Introduction: The Chronicles of America Series has two similar editions of each volume in the series. One version is the Abraham Lincoln edition of the series, a premium version which includes full-page pictures. A textbook edition was also produced, which does not contain the pictures and captions associated with the pictures, but is otherwise the same book. This book was produced to match the textbook edition of the book. We have retained the original punctuation and spelling in the book, but there are a few exceptions. Obvious errors were corrected--and all of these changes can be found in the Detailed Notes Section of these notes. The Detailed Notes Section also includes issues that have come up during transcription. One common issue is that words are sometimes split into two lines for spacing purposes in the original text. These words are hyphenated in the physical book, but there is a question sometimes as to whether the hyphen should be retained in transcription. The reasons behind some of these decisions are itemized. Detailed Notes Section: Chapter 2 On Page 28, pack-saddles was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. The word was used inside a quote, so prior references may not give us the right transcription. However, it is the best information that we have available. On page 22, packsaddle was not hyphenated and appeared in the middle of a line. A word with the same prefix, pack-horse, was consistently spelled with a hyphen. We transcribed the word without the hyphen, because the evidence suggests that the author intended packsaddles without the hyphen, but pack-horse and pack-horsemen with the hyphen. Chapter 3 On Page 32, stock-holders was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. On page 41, stockholders was spelled without a hyphen. Also, on page 56, stockholders was spelled without a hyphen. We transcribed the word without the hyphen. Chapter 4 On Page 57, stage-coach was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. In several other instances, stagecoach was spelled without the hyphen. You will find one instance of stage-coach with a hyphen, on page 135: it is from quoted text. We transcribed the word without the hyphen. Chapter 6 On Page 86, pack-horse was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. In many other instances, pack-horse was spelled with the hyphen. We transcribed the word with the hyphen. Chapter 7 On Page 101, iron-shod was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. There was no other use of the word in this book. We transcribed the word without the hyphen. On Page 109, stern-wheeler was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. On the same page, stern-wheeler was used again, hyphenated, in the middle of a line. We transcribed the word with the hyphen. Index On Page 210, stage-coach was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. We transcribed the word without the hyphen. See the note in this section under Chapter 4 for a further explanation. 
45563	----	DEEDS OF A GREAT RAILWAY [Illustration: Portrait of C. J. Bowen-Cooke, Esq., C.B.E., followed by his signature. [_Frontispiece._ CHIEF MECHANICAL ENGINEER, LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY.] DEEDS OF A GREAT RAILWAY A RECORD OF THE ENTERPRISE AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY DURING THE GREAT WAR BY G. R. S. DARROCH (CROIX DE GUERRE) ASSISTANT TO THE CHIEF MECHANICAL ENGINEER L. & N.W.R. WITH A PREFACE BY L. J. MAXSE _With Illustrations_ "The Railway Executive Committee have been too modest, the public do not know what they achieved."--_Engineering._ LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1920 _All rights reserved_ ERRATA. Page 120, footnote, _for_ said the Tsar, _read_ said of the Tsar. " 149, line 22, _for_ Walschaerte valve appertaining, _read_ Walschaerte valve gear appertaining. " 162, line 23, _for_ mileage of permanent available _read_ mileage of permanent way available. FOREWORD "Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent," is a golden and an olden precept, one moreover that may, or may not, impel the aspiring rhetorician to beware the pitfalls which ever and anon threaten to ensnare his footsteps; and in compiling this little work the present Author has not been unmindful of at least two dilemmas with which he has felt himself to be faced; one, the danger of toying with that "little knowledge" which in the course of his professional duties he has been at pains--in fact could hardly fail--to acquire; the other, the debatable policy of presenting to a public, however indulgent, a subject of which, at the moment of writing, and in common with the majority of people, he is heartily tired, namely that of Munitions of War. Prompted, however, by an ardent and innate love, dating from his earliest school-days, for railway-engines, trains, and everything appertaining thereto--a love, moreover, so compelling that at the romantic age of thirteen he applied for an engine-pass with which joyously to ride home for the holidays, and without which, owing to a polite but firm refusal, he suffered many a pang of disappointment--feeling, too, that railway enthusiasts, whether amateur or professional, cannot fail to evince a certain degree of interest in the truly amazing rôle enacted during the war by the locomotive departments of the great railway companies of the country, he has ventured to touch upon what may best, perhaps, be termed the "war effort" of the London and North-Western Railway, the premier British line, of which the locomotive G.H.Q. are, as is well known, to be found at Crewe. In treating this subject, the Author has, as will be seen, refrained as far as possible from wearying the reader with interminable statistics, with technical dissertations descriptive of methods of manufacture, and other tedious prosaics. His aim has been rather to recall the hair-breadth escapes to which the nation was subjected; to show by means of various and authentic extracts from public utterances recorded in the Press of the day, and from recent publications, the necessities which arose contingent upon the trend of military operations and upon the arena of political pantomimes; and to illustrate the manner in which the London and North-Western Railway, predominant amongst the great railway and industrial enterprises of the British Isles, not only was able, but did, rise to the occasion, providing those sorely needed and essential "sinews" of war which were so largely instrumental in extricating the country from an extremely awkward predicament, as well as from a situation that was both ugly and menacing. _Gratia gratiam parit_, but the Author regretfully feels that in the present instance he is debarred from showing, in any practical manner, his appreciation of the kindness of those who have assisted him in his task. Ingratitude is not infrequently held to be the "worst of vices," and undoubtedly "words are but empty thanks"; nevertheless the Author finds it a pleasure as well as a duty to acknowledge his deep sense of indebtedness to those members of the staff at Crewe Works for their spontaneous assistance in regard to information supplied. He also takes this opportunity of tendering his sincere thanks to the following Editors for their kind permission to reproduce various extracts from the columns of their respective newspapers: The Editors of the _Daily Mail_, of the _Morning Post_, of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, of the _Times_, of _Engineering_, of the _Engineer_, of _Modern Transport_. His best thanks are also due to the Managers of the following firms of Publishers, who have been good enough to allow reproductions of extracts from well-known books which, respectively, they have produced: Messrs. Blackwood, "An Airman's Outings," "Contact"; Messrs. Cassell, "The Grand Fleet, 1914-1916," Lord Jellicoe; Messrs. Constable, "1914," Lord French; Messrs. Flammarion, Paris, "Enseignements Psychologiques de la Guerre Européenne," M. Gustav Lebon; Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton, "Winged Warfare," Captain Bishop, V.C.; Messrs. Hutchinson, "My War Memories, 1914-1918," General Ludendorff. He is equally indebted to Mr. C. J. Bowen-Cooke, C.B.E., for permission to reproduce extracts from his work "British Locomotives"; also to Mr. L. W. Horne, C.B.E., M.V.O., and his personal staff at Euston, who so kindly supplied statistics in regard to war-time traffic. Last, but not least, are due the Author's thanks to Mr. L. J. Maxse, Editor and Proprietor of the _National Review_, whose readiness to pen a few prefatory remarks is now most gratefully acknowledged. Whilst in no way seeking to underrate the intelligence, or to disavow the knowledge, already possessed by those readers who may be sufficiently patient to bear with him, the Author would beg that at least they may not see cause to classify him with those who "wishing to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish." CREWE, 1920. PREFACE The British cannot be accused, even by their bitterest critics, of blowing their own trumpet. Indeed, they fail in the opposite direction, and, as a general rule, carry their modesty to a point when it positively ceases to be a virtue, because it causes credit to go where it is not due. If we are unpopular as a nation--of which we are continually assured, though whether we are more disliked than other nations may be doubted--it is certainly not on account of boasting by our men of action and achievement. Occasionally, it is true, we suffer under the extravagant claims of Talking Men--chiefly politicians--who are possibly inspired by the apprehension that unless they were their own advertisers mankind would remain oblivious and therefore ungrateful as regards the services they are supposed to have rendered. The events of the Great War will gradually emerge in proper perspective, and things will then seem somewhat different to what they do to-day, when there is a certain and inevitable reaction which both enables pretenders to pose as saviours of Society, and encourages us to overlook much of which we may be legitimately proud because it has demonstrated afresh to a world that was forgetting it that the British are essentially a great people with a genius for everything appertaining to war, however lacking in the supreme art of making durable peace. In that day we shall want to know a great deal more than we do at present concerning the origin of a conflict which has been to some extent obscured by interested parties on both sides of the North Sea who have enveloped the palpitating pre-war crisis in a curtain of misrepresentation. It is common ground that Germany willed the war for which she was super-abundantly prepared, while Great Britain willed peace for which she was no less eager. Not for the first time in our history were we taken completely unawares--neither Government nor public having the faintest inkling of any impending storm, still less that civilisation was on the eve of a cataclysm of which it would feel the effects for more than one century. As we look back on the Dark Ages of 1914, so graphically recalled by the author of this book, we can only marvel at our blindness and wonder how it could be that so many highly trained observers and experts on current events could entirely ignore a danger that, in the familiar French phrase, "leapt to the eyes." Of this strange phenomenon there has so far been no attempt at any explanation, no amende from those "great wise and eminent men"--not confined to any particular political party--whose business it should have been to see what stared them in the face, altogether apart from the fact that the Government of the day commanded that abundance of accurate inside information concerning international affairs, which, from generation to generation, is at the service of His Majesty's Ministers. It would be some consolation and compensation for all we have endured during this portentous period were there any guarantee that no such catastrophe could recur because the terrible lesson of 1914 to 1918 had been assimilated by Responsible Statesmen who ask so much from the Community that we are entitled to expect something from them in return. If we cannot afford to forget the political aspect of that crisis, it is infinitely more agreeable to contemplate the miraculous manner in which "England the Unready" buckled to and transformed herself into the mighty machine whose hammer blows on every element ultimately turned the scale, and with the aid of Allies and Associates converted what at the outset looked like "World Power" for Germany into her "Downfall." Of the part played by the Fighting Men we know a good deal, and the more we know the more we admire. Of the wonderful organisation largely improvised, that placed and kept vast forces in the field all over the world, we know next to nothing, partly because the more dramatic aspects of the war have naturally attracted the attention of its historians, partly because those with the necessary knowledge have been too busy re-converting the machine to pacific purposes to be able to write its war record. In this attractive volume, Mr. Darroch, Assistant to the Chief Mechanical Engineer in the Locomotive Department of the London and North Western Railway Company at Crewe,--who has enjoyed the advantage of two full years' active service overseas,--tells us in so many words how our premier Railway Company "did its bit." Every factor in that great organisation was subordinated to the common object, and the Works at Crewe as urgency arose became a Munitions Department. It is a wonderful and stimulating story--made all the more interesting because the author continually bears in mind that it is part of a still larger whole and breaks what is entirely new ground to the vast majority of the reading public. There is a desire in some quarters to banish the war as an evil dream--to bury its sacred memories, to forget all about it. If we followed this shallow advice, we should merely prove ourselves to be unworthy of the sublime sacrifice, thanks to which we escaped destruction, besides making a recurrence of danger inevitable. To our author, who is an enthusiast in his calling, this book has been a labour of love, and he has certainly made us all his debtors by this brilliant and entrancing chapter of the history of the London and North-Western. L. J. MAXSE. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE FOREWORD v PREFACE ix I. BEING MAINLY HISTORICAL 1 II. ARMOURED TRAINS 39 III. MECHANICAL MISCELLANEA 51 IV. THE GRAZE-FUSE 75 V. CARE OF THE CARTRIDGE CASE 88 VI. GUNNERY AND PROJECTILES (RUDIMENTARY NOTES AND NOTIONS) 93 VII. THE CREWE TRACTOR 127 VIII. "HULLO! AMERICA" 135 IX. THE ART OF DROP-FORGING 139 X. 1914-1918 PASSENGERS AND GOODS 153 XI. INDISPENSABLE 176 XII. L'ENVOI 200 APPENDIX A THE SYSTEM OF CONTROL APPLIED TO THE ARMOURED TRAINS MANUFACTURED IN CREWE WORKS 211 APPENDIX B EXPLANATORY OF THE GAUGE 212 APPENDIX C THE THREAD-MILLER, AND THE "BACKING-OFF" LATHE, AS APPLIED TO SHELL MANUFACTURE 215 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE C. J. Bowen-Cooke, Esq., C.B.E., Chief Mechanical Engineer, London and North-Western Railway _Frontispiece_ Armoured Train 45 Various Types of Artificial Limbs 68 The Protector, or Mine-sweeping, Paravane 70 Gauges made at Crewe and used for the Manufacture of Graze-Fuses 78 Reversible Mechanical Tapping Machine for Fuse Caps Designed at Crewe 78 The Graze-Fuse, shewn in section 80 Rolling out Dents in 4·5-inch Fired Cartridge Case 89 "Patriot."--A Typical Example of the "Claughton" Class of 6´ 6´´, Six Wheels Coupled Express Passenger Engine with Superheated Boiler; Four h.p. Cylinders, 15-3/4´´ bore x 26´´ stroke; Boiler Pressure, 175 lbs. per sq. inch; Maximum Tractive Force, 24,130 lbs.; Weight of Engine and Tender in Working Order, 117 tons 99 6-inch Shell Manufacture in the New Fitting Shop, Crewe Works 112 A Crewe Tractor in Road Trim 130 A Crewe Tractor as Light-Railway Engine on Active Service 130 Limber Hooks: Illustrating Duplex Method of Drop Forging 145 Trunnion Brackets for 6-inch Howitzer Gun, Drop Forgings 145 The 4-ton Drop Hammer 148 Naval Gun weighing 68 tons. A Typical Instance of War-time Traffic 173 Breakdown Crane and Lifting Tackle for Shipping Small Goods Engines 178 An Overseas Locomotive Panel "Severely Wounded" 178 Type of Overhead Travelling Crane, Built at Crewe and Supplied to the Overseas "Rearward Services" 180 "We, the Working Men of Crewe, will do all that is Humanly Possible to Increase the Output of Munitions, and Stand by our Comrades in the Trenches" 186 London and North-Western Railway War Memorial, Euston 210 Manufacture of a Hob-cutter, in "relieving" or "backing-off" lathe _Appendix C_ DEEDS OF A GREAT RAILWAY CHAPTER I BEING MAINLY HISTORICAL "England woke at last, like a giant, from her slumbers, And she turned to swords her plough-shares, and her pruning hooks to spears, While she called her sons and bade them Be the men that God had made them, Ere they fell away from manhood in the careless idle years." Thus it was that on that fateful morning of August 5th, 1914, England awoke, awoke to find herself involved in a struggle, the magnitude of which even the most well-informed, the most highly placed in the land, failed utterly, in those early days, to conceive or to grasp; in death-grips with the most formidable and long-since-systematically prepared fighting machine ever organised in the history of the world by master-minds, ruthless and cunning, steeped in the science of war. England awoke, dazed, incredulous, unprepared; in fact, to quote the very words of the Premier, who, when Minister of Munitions, was addressing a meeting at Manchester in the summer of 1915, "We were the worst organised nation in the world for this war." The worst organised nation! And this, in spite of repeated public utterances and threats coming direct to us from the world-aggressors, as to the import of which there never should, nor indeed could, have been any shadow of doubt. "Neptune with the trident is a symbol for us that we have new tasks to fulfil ... that trident must be in our fist"; thus the German Emperor at Cologne in 1907. "Germany is strong, and when the hour strikes will know how to draw her sword"; Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, in the Reichstag, 1911. Or to burrow further back into the annals of the last century, one recalls a challenge, direct and unmistakable, from the pen of so prominent a leader of German public opinion as Professor Treitshke, "We have reckoned with France and Austria--the reckoning with England has yet to come; it will be the longest and the hardest." The reckoning came, swiftly and with deadly purpose. Necessity knew no law, Belgian territory was violated, Paris was threatened, the Prussian spear pointing straight at the heart of France. Unprepared, taken unawares, and, but for the sure shield of defence afforded by her Fleet, well-nigh negligible, England awoke. Happily, the nation as a whole was sound; though hampered as it was by a Peace-at-any-price section of the Press, and honeycombed though it had become with the burrowings of the "yellow English," that "lecherous crew" who, naturalised or unnaturalised, like snakes in the grass, sought, once the hour had struck, to sell the country of their adoption, the man-in-the-street little knew, and probably never will know with any degree of accuracy, how near England came to "losing her honour, while Europe lost her life." To reiterate all that was written at the time with the one object of keeping England out of the fray, of making her desert her friends, and of causing her, "after centuries of glorious life, to go down to her grave unwept, unhonoured, and unsung," is naturally beyond the scope of this necessarily brief _résumé_ of the _status quo ante_. But, lest we forget, lest we relapse once again to our former and innate characteristics of sublime indifference and of complacent _laissez-faire_, heedless of that oft-repeated warning, "They will cheat you yet, those Junkers! Having won half the world by bloody murder, they are going to win the other half with tears in their eyes, crying for mercy,"[1] a cursory glance through one or two of the more glaring and self-condemnatory essays at defection from the one true and only path consistent with the nation's honour and integrity, may not be held amiss. [1] Carl Rosemeier, a German in Switzerland, to the Allies. Cp. _Daily Mail_, June, 1919. _Literæ scriptæ manent_, and so he who runs may still read the remonstrance of a high dignitary of the Church, to wit, the Bishop of Lincoln, as set forth in the _Daily News and Leader_, August 3rd, 1914--"For England to join in this hideous war would be treason to civilisation, and disaster to our people"; or this reassuring sop from the Archbishop of York on November 21st, 1914--"I have a personal memory of the Emperor very sacred to me." The strange views of a leading daily newspaper are typical of the "Party of dishonour." In its columns in August, 1914, we read, "The question of the integrity of Belgium is one thing; its neutrality is quite another. We shall not easily be convinced ... that the sacrosanctity of Belgian soil from the passage of an invader is worth the sacrifice of so much that mattered so much more to Englishmen." "Cold feet" was an affliction from which the same journal was evidently suffering on the same date, for "from all parts of the kingdom we are hearing of businesses that are about to close down if Great Britain goes to war. It is going to be an appalling catastrophe." In this respect, too, the Parliamentary correspondent of the _Daily Chronicle_ doubtless felt that the spilling of ink was likely to be more profitable than the shedding of blood, as evinced by his inspiring little contribution on August 3rd: "Whatever the outcome of the present tension, I believe the Cabinet have definitely decided not to send our Expeditionary Force abroad. Truth to tell, the issues which have precipitated the conflict which threatens to devastate the whole of Europe are not worth the bones of a single soldier." This policy of "scuttle" must ever remain as shameful as it is unintelligible to the ordinary self-respecting Britisher; but as to the nature of the plea put forward by the _Daily News_, August 4th, there can be no vestige of doubt: "If we remained neutral we should be, from the commercial point of view, in precisely the same position as the United States. We should be able to trade with all the belligerents (so far as the war allows of trade with them); we should be able to capture the bulk of their trade in neutral markets; we should keep our expenditure down; we should keep out of debt; we should have healthy finances." It has been said that "each country and each epoch has the Press which it deserves"; but although God may have given us our Press just as He has given us our relations, at least let us thank God that we can choose our Papers just as we can choose our friends. On "Black Saturday" (August 1st, 1914) the position was literally "touch and go," as may be gathered from the following:--"Powerful City financiers, whom it was my duty to interview this Saturday (August 1st) on the financial situation, ended the Conference with an earnest hope that Britain would keep out of it" (Mr. Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in an interview with Mr. Henry Beech Needham, _Pearson's Magazine_, March, 1915). Clearly, international finance had all but succeeded in winning the day for the Fatherland. S.O.S. must assuredly have been the signal subconsciously sent out by the staunch little minority in the Asquith Cabinet; for when the tide was at its lowest ebb, when England's honour literally hung in the balance, and while Mr. Asquith was still waiting and wobbling, there came Mr. Bonar Law's memorable letter as voicing the opinion of the Government Opposition, and of which the plain, outspoken meaning may be said to have had the effect of definitely turning the scale:--"Dear Mr. Asquith, Lord Lansdowne and I feel it our duty to inform you that in our opinion, as well as in that of all the colleagues whom we have been able to consult, it would be fatal to the honour and security of the United Kingdom to hesitate in supporting France and Russia at the present juncture, and we offer our unhesitating support to the Government in any measures they may consider necessary for that object. Yours very truly, A. Bonar Law." The tonic effect of this dose of stimulant was as immediate as it was invigorating, for "on Sunday (August 2nd)," as Sir Edward Grey announced the following day in the House of Commons (cp. the _Times_, August 4th, 1914), "I gave the French ambassador the assurance that if the German Fleet comes into the Channel or through the North Sea to undertake hostile operations against the French coasts or shipping, the British Fleet will give all the protection in its power." Further, although "we have not yet made an engagement to send the Expeditionary Force out of the country" we were not letting the grass grow under our feet, for "the mobilisation of the Fleet has taken place; that of the Army is taking place." All self-respecting Englishmen were able to breathe again; we were at least to be permitted to do our bare duty towards our neighbour; we could, in fact, once again look him in the face. But the Almighty indeed "moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform," and it needed the blatant blundering of the bullet-headed Boche, which throughout the prolonged agony has proved one of the greatest assets of the Entente cause, more often than not being instrumental in saving ourselves in spite of ourselves, finally to ensure that we fulfilled our treaty, as well as our moral, obligations. Our erstwhile "checker" of armament expenditure took very good care, subsequently, to remove the possibility of any doubt lingering on this score--"This I know is true.... I would not have been a party to a declaration of war, had Belgium not been invaded, and I think I can say the same thing for most, if not all, of my colleagues.... If Germany had been wise, she would not have set foot on Belgian soil. The Liberal Government then would not have intervened" (Mr. Lloyd George, in an interview with Mr. Harry Beech Needham, _Pearson's Magazine_, March, 1915). Wednesday, August 6th, is a day that will remain "momentous in the history of all times," for owing to the incursion within Belgian territory of German troops "His Majesty's Government have declared to the German Government that a state of war exists between Great Britain and Germany as from 11 p.m. on August 4th" (cp. the _Times_, August 5th, 1914). Thenceforth eyes became riveted on the North Sea, thoughts centred on Belgium. Liège, the first stumbling-block in the path of the invader, was holding at bay the oncoming enemy hordes, thousands of whom advancing in close formation were made blindly to bite the dust. Eagerly the newspapers were bought up; every fresh message ticked off on the "tape" was greedily devoured. A French success in Alsace, a German submarine sunk, fighting on the Meuse and in the Vosges, Lorraine invaded by the French--these and other announcements, acting as apperitiffs to whet the appetite, added to the excitement of the hour. Pressure of public opinion had ousted Lord Haldane from the War Office; Kitchener, "with an inflexible will, a heart that never fails at the blackest moments, a spirit that time and again has been proved unconquerable," becoming Secretary of State for War. With the approval of His Majesty the King, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe assumed supreme command of the Home Fleets, Field-Marshal Sir John French was nominated to the command of the British Expeditionary Force. Yet as day succeeded day and little or nothing became visibly apparent, vainly on all hands, but with increasing persistence, was asked the question, "Why did not England move?" Why this inaction, this seeming hesitation? The Fleet had been as if swallowed up by the waters. All was silence everywhere. At midnight on August 12th we were at war with Austria, and although "the general attitude of the nation is what it ever has been in time of trial, sedate, sensible, and self-possessed," the _Times_ of August 15th, anxious, no doubt, to ease the existing tension, openly commented on the fact that "all sorts of absurd and unfounded rumours have been circulated by light-headed and irresponsible individuals," throwing ridicule on "dire reports of mishaps suffered by the Allies, of German victories, of insurrections in the French capital, and even of heavy British casualties by land and sea." Three more days "petered out," however, before all doubts were dispelled, and these "dire reports" shown to be totally void and without foundation. On Tuesday, August 18th, or exactly a fortnight from the declaration of war, it was with mingled feelings of gratitude and of relief that we read in our morning paper, "The following statement was issued last night by the Press Bureau--'The Expeditionary Force, as detailed for foreign service, has been landed on French soil. The embarkation, transportation, and disembarkation of men and stores were alike carried through with the greatest possible precision, and without a single casualty.'" Only those who had been intimately connected with, or actually concerned in, this the first move in the great drama were aware of the intense amount of activity that had been crowded into the breathless space of those two short weeks. The ordinary man-in-the-street, the strap-hanger, the lady in the stalls, the girl in the taxi, all were purposely kept in the dark; the great British Public knew nothing. Those of us who happily foresaw the historical interest and value that must surely accrue in the years to come from the preservation of the newspapers of the day may yet ponder in reminiscent mood headlines and paragraphs, descriptive of events and portraying emotions, current and constraining, throughout those August days. On August 18th, the _Times_, habitually dignified, lucid and exemplary, touches on the occasion in a vein deserving as it is decorous: "The veil is at last withdrawn from one of the most extraordinary feats in modern history--the dispatch of a large force of armed men across the sea in absolute secrecy. What the nation at large knew it knew only from scraps of gossip that filtered through the foreign Press. From its own Press, from its own Government, it learned nothing; and patiently, gladly, it maintained, of its own accord, the conspiracy of silence." It was true, in fact inevitable, that "every day for many days now mothers have been saying good-bye to sons, and wives to husbands," but "until Britain knew that her troopships had safely crossed that narrow strip of water that might have been the grave of thousands, Britain held her peace." However, "now that we are at last allowed to refer to the dispatch of a British Army to the seat of war, we may heartily congratulate all concerned upon the smooth and easy working of the machinery. The staffs of England and France who prepared the plan of transport, the railway and steamship companies which carried the men, the officers and men who marched silently off without the usual scenes of farewell at home, and last, but not least, the Navy that covered the transports from attack, all deserve very hearty congratulations." Comparisons are odious, and it is obviously without any desire to detract from the laudable performances of others in the accomplishment of this, "one of the most extraordinary feats in modern history," that reference of a special character is here made to the singularly high state of efficiency obtaining on the great British railway companies, which alone rendered possible so remarkable an achievement as that of marshalling at a moment's notice, and dispatching, the many trains necessary for the conveyance to the different ports of embarkation within the United Kingdom of the four Divisions of all arms and one of Cavalry of which the original British Expeditionary Force was composed. It is true that on the outbreak of war, the State, at least in name, assumed control of the railways, and this by virtue of an Act of Parliament passed in 1871 (34 and 35 Victoria, c. 86) "for the Regulation of the Regular and Auxiliary Forces of the Crown," section XVI. of which enacted that "When Her Majesty, by order in Council, declares that an emergency has arisen in which it is expedient for the public service that Her Majesty's Government should have control over the railroads of the United Kingdom, or any of them, the Secretary of State may, by warrant under his hand, empower any person or persons named in such warrant to take possession in the name or on behalf of Her Majesty of any railroad in the United Kingdom ... and the directors, officers, and servants of any such railroad shall obey the directions of the Secretary of State as to the user of such railroad ... for Her Majesty's service." A previous "Act for the better Regulation of Railways, and for the Conveyance of Troops" (5 and 6 Victoriae 30th July, A.D., 1842, cap. LV. section XX.), similarly declares--"Be it enacted, 'That whenever it shall be necessary to move any of the Officers or Soldiers of Her Majesty's Forces of the Line, Ordnance Corps, Marines, Militia, or the Police Force, by any Railway, the Directors thereof shall and are hereby required to permit such Forces respectively with their Baggage, Stores, Arms, Ammunition, and other Necessaries and Things, to be conveyed at the usual Hours of starting, at such Prices or upon such Conditions as may from Time to Time be contracted for between the Secretary at War and such Railway Companies for the Conveyance of such Forces, on the Production of a Route or Order for the Conveyance signed by the proper Authorities." Hence it will be seen that, always subject to the provisions of the National Defence Act of 1888 (51 and 52 Victoriae, c. 31), which simply ensured that naval and military requirements should take precedence over every other form of traffic on the railways whenever an Order for the embodiment of the Militia was in force, the actual working of the various departments of the different railway companies when war was declared remained, to all intents and purposes, identical with that prevailing in the piping times of peace, that is to say in the hands of the individual "directors, officers and servants" of the respective railways, with the result that in the absence of all attempt at interference on the part of official bureaucracy, "all went merry as a marriage-bell"; staffs worked day and night; confusion was conspicuous by its absence; smoothly, yet unrehearsed, proceeded the unparalleled programme, until the last man had been detrained, the last gun hauled aboard the transport lying in readiness at the quay; and in due course, as has already been mentioned, "the Contemptibles" were landed in France without a single casualty. Whilst touching lightly upon the evident and praiseworthy preparedness and consequent ability of the great railway companies to deal with "the emergency" the moment it arose, it will perhaps not be uninteresting to inquire briefly into the circumstances dating back to the "fifties" of the last century from which were evolved and brought gradually to a state as nearly approaching perfection as is humanly possible the organisation necessary for the speedy and safe transport of troops by rail in time of war. History ever repeats itself, and it has invariably been the case that the imminent peril of invasion rather than any grandiose scheme of foreign conquest has been the determining factor in arousing that martial spirit, so prone to lying dormant, but which, handed down to us by our forbears, undoubtedly exists in the fibre of every true-born Britisher, and which has assuredly been the means of raising England to her present pinnacle of greatness. The three more obviously parallel instances in modern times of the manifestation of this trait so happily characteristic of the nation are to be found, first and foremost perhaps in connection with the present-day world conflict, when in response to the late Lord Kitchener's first appeal for recruits thousands flocked to the colours. Apposite indeed was the following brief insertion to be found in the personal column of the _Times_, August 26th, 1914: "'Flannelled fools at the wicket and muddied oafs at the goal' have now an opportunity of proving whether Mr. Kipling was wrong." They seized the opportunity in no uncertain manner; incontrovertibly they proved him wrong, "The first hundred thousand," or "Kitchener's mob" as they were affectionately termed, being speedily enrolled, and forming the nucleus of the immense armies which eventually took the field. Analogous to this effort may be taken the crisis occurring in the middle of the last century, when, in the year 1858, out of what may best be described perhaps as a "storm in a tea-cup," there loomed the threat of invasion by our friends from across the Channel, resulting in a scare the immediate outcome of which was the formation of the Volunteer Force, which quickly reached a total of 150,000 men. Although this particular crisis must be considered as bearing more directly on present-day matters of interest in view of the fact that the importance of steam-traction by rail relative to warlike operations commenced at that time to make itself felt, the extent to which the nation seemed likely to be imperilled was, nevertheless, scarcely to be compared with the danger that threatened during what may be termed the closing phase of the Napoleonic era, when in the year 1805 massed in camp at Boulogne was the flower of the French Army equipped with quantities of flat-bottomed boats ready for its conveyance across the Channel. To counter this formidable menace was mustered in England a force of 300,000 Volunteers, imbued with the same fervent ardour, the same spirit of intense patriotism and self-sacrifice that has ever been evinced by the country in her hour of peril. How the menace was in fact averted, and the last bid for world-domination by the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte frustrated, is common knowledge, the memorable action off Cap Trafalgar determining once and for all the inviolability of England's shores. "England," exclaimed Pitt, "has saved herself by her courage; she will save Europe by her example." The average historian of to-day, who mentally is as firmly convinced that the genius of Nelson won the Battle of Trafalgar as he is ocularly certain that the famous admiral's statue dominates Trafalgar Square, will, on the other hand, in all probability deny that the use of steam as a motive force was contemporaneous with the period in which Nelson lived. But although it is somewhat of a far cry from the latter part of the eighteenth century to the "eighteen-fifties" when steam was to become a factor of no mean importance in the waging of modern war, there is, nevertheless, conclusive evidence to show that dating so far back as the "seventeen-seventies" individual efforts of admittedly a most elementary, albeit utterly fascinating, kind were already being made with a view to solving the problem wrapt up in this "water-vapour," and so compelling the elusive energy to be derived therefrom as a motive agency for rendering facile human itinerancy. No sooner had the first self-propelled steam-carriage made its appearance on the road, than speculation became rife as to the range of potentialities lying latent in the then phenomenal invention; well-nigh limitless seemed the vista about to unfold itself to human ambition, and looking back over the past century and a half how strangely prophetic sound these lines from the pen of Erasmus Darwin, who died in 1802!-- "Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam! afar Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car; Or, on wide-waving wings expanded, bear The flying chariot through the field of air!" Evidently the "Jules Verne" of his day, Erasmus Darwin was physician as well as poet; his ideas, so we are told, were indeed "original and contain the germs of important truths," to which may, in some measure, be attributed the genius of his grandson, the famous Charles R. Darwin, discoverer of natural selection. It is true the petrol engine has latterly proved its more ready adaptability to the purpose of road locomotion and of aviation, but the fact remains that steam to this day eminently preserves her predominance in the world of ocean and railway travel. Seldom does one find the evolution of any one particular branch of scientific endeavour traced in so alluring as well as instructive a manner as proves to be the case, when, taking down from the nearest bookshelf that delightful little volume "British Locomotives," one pursues the author, Mr. C. J. Bowen-Cooke (now C.B.E. and Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North-Western Railway), with never-abating interest through his treatise on the early history of the modern railway engine. He tells us that "the first self-moving locomotive engine of which there is any authenticated record was made by a Frenchman named Nicholas Charles Cugnot, in the year 1769. It was termed a 'land-carriage,' and was designed to run on ordinary roads." Although we learn that "there are no particulars extant of this, the very first locomotive," this same Cugnot designed and constructed two years later, a larger engine, "which is still preserved in the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers at Paris." The French are a people ever prone to looking further than their noses, hence the fact that the French Government not unnaturally "took some interest in this notion of a steam land-carriage, and voted a sum of money towards its construction, with the idea that such a machine might prove useful for military purposes." Man proposes, but God disposes, and as luck would have it the vehicle seemed fore-ordained to end its brief career somewhat ingloriously, for after it "had been tried two or three times it overturned in the streets of Paris, and was then locked up in the Arsenal." A lapse of ten or a dozen years supervened before England began looking to her laurels, but "in 1784 Watt took out a patent for a steam-carriage, of which the boiler was to be of wood or thin metal, to be secured by hoops or otherwise to prevent its bursting from the pressure of steam"! It was not long, however, ere the steam road carriage was superseded by a locomotive designed to run on rails, of which the earliest "broods," embracing such "spifflicating" species as the Puffing Billies, Rockets, Planets, etc., and "hatched" from the brains of eminent men such as Stephenson and Trevithick, were necessarily original and quaint to a degree. It is, unfortunately, impossible here to do more than skim the copious wealth of interesting data through which Mr. Bowen-Cooke so admirably pilots us, and which evidently he has spared no pains to collect; suffice it to add that the succeeding years bear unfailing witness to that intense earnestness which, sustaining the early locomotive pioneers unwearying in their well-fading was so largely instrumental in the attainment of that perfection of which we, their beneficiaries, now in our own season reap the benefit. It was not until the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, when the directors of that line offered "a premium of £500 for the most improved locomotive engine," that any real tendency towards modern design and external appearance began to make itself apparent. The stimulus afforded by this offer, however, was rousing in effect, engines becoming gradually larger and more or less powerful, until in the year 1858 Mr. Ramsbottom designed and built for the London and North-Western Railway Company at Crewe an express passenger engine known familiarly as the "seven foot six," in that its single pair of driving wheels measured 7 feet 6 inches in diameter. Bearing the name of "Lady of the Lake" (for, whilst sacrificing perhaps a certain amount of power for speed, it was "certainly one of the prettiest engines ever built"), this engine and others of the same "class" remained in the service of the London and North-Western Railway until quite recently, thus forming a link between the earth-shaking events of the present day and that period of anxious calm, when the scare (to which reference has previously been made) became the occasion in 1858 for centring public opinion on the possibilities of, and the advantages likely to accrue from, transport by rail in time of war. The Crimean struggle of 1855 had done little enough to enhance England's military prestige, only to be followed, two years later, by the nightmare horrors of the Mutiny. Throughout the first and second Palmerston Ministries, the reading of the European barometer remained at "stormy," and an attempt in 1858 to assassinate the Emperor Napoleon III., which was believed to have had its origin in England, served as a prelude to the "blowing-off" of a considerable volume of steam, especially when a year later, the war between France and Austria having terminated and the kingdom of Italy being created, the French people found themselves free to devote their then bellicose attentions, as had so frequently been their misguided and regrettable wont, to our insular selves. It is, however, an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and the very fact that the tone, particularly of the military party in France, was violent and aggressive to a degree, had the salutary effect of serving as a mirror in which was accurately reflected our own deplorable unpreparedness for war. Commenting on the situation, the writer of a leading article in the _Times_ of April 19th, 1859, openly deplores the fact that "the Englishman of the present day has forgotten the use of arms"; not merely this, but "the practice of football or of vying with the toughest waterman on the Thames is of little service to young men when their country is in danger." Mercifully enough, perhaps, the pernicious sensationalism of the cinema, and the vacant thrills afforded by the scenic railway, were magic lures unknown in those mid-Victorian days, manly and open-air forms of sport already being considered sufficiently derogatory to the inculcation within the minds of the younger generation of that fitting sense of duty, of self-sacrifice, and subservience to discipline. The opinion was further expressed that "there can be only one true defence of a nation like ours--a large and permanent volunteer force supported by the spirit and patriotism of our young men, and gradually indoctrinating the country with military knowledge," the article concluding with this ominous reminder--"We are the only people in the world who have not such a force in one form or another." "Si vis pacem, para bellum" was the obvious corollary drawn by all sober-minded people and seriously inclined members of the community, and on the 13th of May, 1859, the _Times_ had "the high gratification of announcing that this necessity (that of home defence) is now recognised by the Government," for "in another portion of our columns will be found a circular addressed by General Peel to the Queen's Lieutenants of counties sanctioning the formation of Volunteer Rifle Corps." At the same time the war in Italy was made to serve the purpose of bringing out in full relief the importance of steam as a novel factor in strategical operations, for we further read (cp. the _Times_, May 13th, 1859) that "steam--an agency unknown in former contests--renders all operations infinitely more practicable.... Railroads can bring troops to the frontier from all quarters of the kingdom.... It is in steam transport, in fact, that we discover the chief novelty of the war." Thenceforward matters began to assume practical shape, and in the following year 1860, on September 15th, we come across a reference to the Volunteer movement "which has so signal a success as to produce a costless disciplined army of 150,000 marksmen," springing from "a unanimous feeling of the necessity of preparing for defence." Conspicuous amongst this "costless disciplined army" figure the 1st Middlesex (South Kensington) Engineer Volunteers, "numbering now," as we find, on October 23rd, 1860, "over 500 members," and "daily increasing in strength is making rapid progress in its drills, etc." The 1st Middlesex was evidently the original corps of Engineer Volunteers to be formed, and thus became the precursor of other and similar corps which sprang into being in other parts of the country; a fine example of which (although entirely distinct in that it was the sole Engineer Corps to embody railway engineers) was later to become apparent in the 2nd Cheshire Engineers (Railway) Volunteers. Formed in January, 1887, the battalion was recruited entirely from amongst the employés of the London and North-Western Railway, comprising firemen, cleaners, boilermakers and riveters, fitters, smiths, platelayers, shunters, and pointsmen. The nominal strength of the establishment was six companies of 100 men each, but in addition 245 men enlisted as a matter of form in the Royal Engineers for one day and were placed in the First Class Army Reserve for six years, forming the Royal Engineer Railway Reserve, and being liable for service at any time. During the South African War 285 officers and men saw service at the front, and the military authorities were not slow to appreciate the invaluable aid rendered by this picked body of men. On the inception of Lord Haldane's scheme of Territorials in 1908, the battalion was embodied therein, and continued as such until March, 1912, when for some inexplicable reason it was finally disbanded. How valuable an asset from the professional point of view were deemed, originally, these Engineer Corps, may be gathered from the _Times_ of November 23rd, 1860, which congratulates the 1st Middlesex, as being the parent corps, on having been "most successful in obtaining skilled workmen of the class from which are drawn the Royal Engineers. Every member of the corps goes through a course of military engineering in field works, pontooning, etc.," with the result that the Volunteer Engineers "will therefore form a valuable adjunct to the Royal Engineers in the event of their being called into the field." The ball once started rolling, it was not unnaturally deemed advisable to form some central and representative body of control, and the _Times_ of January 10th, 1865, gives an account of an "interesting ceremony of presenting prizes to the successful competitors of rifle practice of the Queen's Westminster (22nd Middlesex) Rifle Volunteers," when Colonel McMurdo, then Inspector-General of the Volunteer Forces, "who was received with loud and long-continued applause," in the course of a speech referred to the formation of a new corps, "a most important one both for the Volunteer Force and the Regular Army. He would tell the objects of this corps," which would consist of 30 Lieutenant-Colonels, and would enlist other members down to the rank of sergeants:--"In order that the Volunteers and the Army of England should be able to move in large masses from one part of the country to another they would have to depend upon railways. In all the wars of late years--as in the Italian war, the war in Denmark, and in the American war--the railway had been brought into service, to move armies rapidly from place to place, and this new corps, which at present consisted of the most eminent railway engineers and general managers of the great lines, had the task of bringing into a unity of action the whole system of railways of Great Britain; so that if war should visit England, which God forbid, this country would be placed on an equality with countries whose Governments possessed the advantage--if advantage it might be called--of carrying on the business of the railways. And the importance of this they might estimate when he assured them that with the finest army in the world, unless they had a system by which 200,000 men could move upon the railways with order, security, and precision, efficiency and numbers would be of no avail upon the day of battle; and that unless we had order, unless we had certainty in the moving of large masses, the day of battle, which might come, would be to us a day of disaster." Accorded the title of "The Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps," this select little group, combining some of the best brains and ability to be found in the engineering and managerial departments of the railways, acted in the capacity of consulting engineers to the Government, from the time of its formation until the year 1896, when a smaller body composed on similar lines and known as the "War Railway Council" was introduced for the purpose of supplementing, and to some extent relieving, the original Railway Staff Corps. As has already been seen, although in accordance with the provisions of the Act of 1871 the Government would assume control of the railways in the event of "an emergency" arising, the directors, officers, and servants of the different companies would nevertheless be required to "carry on" as usual, and to maintain, each in their several spheres, the actual working of the lines. The final adjustment of any minor defects that may have been apparent in the rapidly completing chain of organisation was speedily accelerated by the Agadir crisis of 1911, resulting in the inception in the following year of that unique and singularly thorough institution, the Railway Executive Committee, which in turn superseded its immediate predecessor, the War Railway Council. On the outbreak of the world conflict in August, 1914, and following on an official announcement by the War Office to the effect that Government control would be exercised through this "Executive Committee composed of General Managers of the Railways," Sir Herbert Walker, K.C.B., General Manager of the London and South-Western Railway, who was forthwith appointed Acting-Chairman of the Railway Executive Committee, issued in concise form a further and confirmatory statement, in which he drew attention to the fact that "the control of the railways has been taken over by the Government for the purpose of ensuring that the railways, locomotives, rolling-stock, and staff shall be used as one complete unit in the best interests of the State for the movement of troops, stores, and food supplies.... The staff on each railway will remain under the same control as heretofore, and will receive their instructions through the same channels as in the past." Indelibly imprinted though the memory of those fateful August days must remain in the minds of every living individual, days brimful of wonderings alternating with doubt, expectancy, ill-foreboding, and occasional delight, coupled with an all-pervading sense of mystery completely enshrouding the movements of our own forces, few indeed were aware of the extent of the task imposed upon the Railway Executive Committee. Yet so swiftly, so silently, was the entire scheme of mobilisation carried through, that it was with a sense bordering on bewilderment and with something akin to a gulp that the public found itself digesting the news of the safe transport and arrival in France of the Expeditionary Force. On the occasion of his first appearance in the House of Lords as Secretary of State for War, the late Lord Kitchener referred in brief, but none the less eulogistic terms, to the successful part played by the railway companies (cp. the _Times_, August 26th, 1914): "I have to remark that when war was declared mobilisation took place without any hitch whatever. The railway companies in the all-important matter of railway transport facilities have more than justified the complete confidence reposed in them by the War Office, all grades of railway services having laboured with untiring energy and patience. We know how deeply the French people appreciate the prompt assistance we have been able to afford them at the very outset of the war." Nor has Sir John French neglected to record his own appreciation of so signal a performance, for, in describing the events leading up to the concentration of the British Army in France, he writes (cp. "1914," p. 40): "Their reports (_i.e._ of the corps commanders and their staffs) as to the transport of their troops from their mobilising stations to France were highly satisfactory. The nation owes a deep debt of gratitude to the naval transport service and to all concerned in the embarking of the Expeditionary Force. Every move was carried out exactly to time." So far so good, it will be opined. Certainly from the chief points of disembarkation, Boulogne and le Havre, there were "roses, roses all the way," surely never before in the annals of warfare have troops from an alien shore been greeted with such galaxy of joy and enthusiasm, though perhaps most touching tribute of all was that of a wayside impression, the figure of an old peasant leaning heavily on his thickly gnarled stick, with cap in hand outstretched, his wan smile and glistening tear-dimmed eye indicating in measure unmistakable the depth and sincerity of his silent gratitude. "On Friday, August 21st, the British Expeditionary Force," Sir John French tells us, "found itself awaiting its first great trial of strength with the enemy," and the childish display of wrathful indignation evinced by Wilhelm the (would-be) Conqueror, who is credited with having slapped with his gauntlet the face of an all too-zealous staff officer, bearer of so displeasing an item of intelligence, is not devoid of humour. The nursery parallel is complete--"Fe, fi, fo, fum," roared the giant, "I smell the blood of an Englishmen." "Gott im himmel," snarled the Kaiser, "It is my Royal and Imperial command that you concentrate your energies, for the immediate present, upon one single purpose, and that is that you address all your skill and all the valour of my soldiers to exterminate first the treacherous English and walk over General French's contemptible little army." Head-quarters, Aix-la-Chapelle, August 19th, 1914, (cp. the _Times_, October 1st, 1914). "Up to that time," however, as Sir John French asseverates in his further reminiscences, "as far as the British forces were concerned, the forwarding of offensive operations had complete possession of our minds.... The highest spirit pervaded all ranks"; in fact "no idea of retreat was in the minds of the leaders of the Allied Armies," who were "full of hope and confidence." In this wise, then, did the Regulars, the flower of the British Army, enter the fray, little dreaming that the entire nation and Empire were to be trained in their wake, or that upwards of four years, instead of so many months, involving sacrifices untold, must elapse ere we were destined to emerge (or perhaps muddle) successfully from out the wood. For the moment, as it transpired, "nothing came to hand which led us to foresee the crushing superiority of strength which actually confronted us on Sunday, August 23rd"; neither had "Allenby's bold and searching reconnaissance led me (Sir John French) to believe that we were threatened by forces against which we could not make an effective stand." How completely the strength and disposal of the enemy forces had been veiled, no more than a few brief hours sufficed to disclose; disillusion quickly supervened. "Our intelligence ... thought that at least three German corps (roughly 150,000 men)[2] were advancing upon us," and following on a severe engagement in the neighbourhood of Charleroi in which the French 80th Corps on our left suffered heavily, a general retirement commenced. Namur had fallen on August 25th, and there was no blinking the truth, it was the Germans who were advancing, not we! Thenceforward, the retreat, the now historic Retreat from Mons, orderly throughout, set in along the whole line of the Allied Armies; of respite there was none, day in day out, 'neath the burning rays of an August sun the enemy pressure increased rather than relaxed. [2] The German army corps of two divisions has 44,000 men, and a combatant strength of 26,900 rifles, 48 machine guns, 1200 sabres, and 144 guns. The German army corps of three divisions is approximately 60,000 strong (cp. the _Times_, August 29th, 1914). The following narrative set down by an eye-witness, temporarily _en panne_ during the afternoon and evening of August 27th on the outskirts of the little provincial town of Ham, depicts briefly but with some degree of vividness the tragic nature of the scene that was being enacted. After making some slight preliminary allusion to the pitiable plight of refugees who everywhere helped to block the roads, "there commenced," so the narrative runs, "this other spectacle of which I speak; at first, as it were, a mere trickle, a solitary straggler here, a stray cavalry horseman there, until the trickle grew, grew into a strange and never-ending living stream; for, down the long straight route nationale from Le Cateau, and so away beyond from Mons, they came those 'broken British regiments' that had been 'battling against odds'; men bare-headed, others coatless, gone the very tunic from their backs; tattered, blood-stained, torn; now a small detachment, now a little group; carts and wagons heaped with impedimenta galore, while lying prone on top of all were worn-out men and footsore. And all the time along the roadside fallen-out, limping, hobbling, stumbling, came stragglers, twos and threes, men who for upwards of four days and nights, without repose, had fought and marched and trekked, till sheer exhaustion well-nigh dragged each fellow to the ground. Yet on they kept thus battling 'gainst the numbness of fatigue, that mates more broken than themselves should ease, in measure slight, their sufferings in the bare comfort of thrice-laded carts. All but ashamed to poke the crude curiosity of a camera in the grim path of war-worn warriors such as these, from where I stood, as unobtrusive as could be, I snapped three instantaneous glimpses of this gloriously pitiful review, stamped though it was already ineradicably in the pages of my memory. Twilight fell, and night, and still the stream flowed in and ever onward." The news in London, heralded by a special Sunday afternoon edition of the _Times_, came as a bolt from the blue, for not since the announcement of the landing of the Expeditionary Force in France had anything of an authentic nature been received as to its subsequent doings or movements; in fact, as the _Times_ pointed out on August 19th, "the British Expeditionary Force has vanished from sight almost as completely as the British Fleet"; further, as if to complete the nightmare of uncertainty, "British newspaper correspondents are not allowed at the front; ... the suspense thus imposed upon the nation is almost the hardest demand yet made by the authorities,--with some misgivings we hope it may be patiently borne." The British public, however, in spite of occasional qualms and momentary misgivings, ever confident of success and sure in its inflexible belief that the British Army could hold its own against almost any odds (the prevailing logic being that one Britisher was as good as any three dirty Germans), had bidden Dame Rumour take a back seat in the recesses of its mind. Incredible then the news that broke the spell: "This is a pitiful story I have to write," so read the message, dated Amiens, August 29th, "and would to God it did not fall to me to write it. But the time for secrecy is past. I write with the Germans advancing incessantly, while all the rest of France believes they are still held near the frontier." What had happened? How could it be true? Sir John French wastes no time in mincing matters:--"The number of our aeroplanes was limited." "The enormous numerical and artillery superiority of the Germans must be remembered." "It (the machine gun) was an arm in which the Germans were particularly well found. They must have had at least six or seven to our one." "It was, moreover, very clear that the Germans had realised that the war was to be one calling for colossal supplies of munitions, supplies indeed upon such a stupendous scale as the world had never before dreamed of, and they also realised the necessity for heavy artillery." The time for secrecy was past; but how to stem the tide? The situation was, and indeed remained, such that a year later Mr. Lloyd George (then Secretary of State for War) was moved to make this astounding admission in the House of Commons: "The House would be simply appalled to hear of the dangers we had to run last year." And again at a subsequent date when as Minister of Munitions he exclaimed in the House, "I wonder whether it will not be too late. Ah! fatal words on this occasion! Too late in moving here, too late in arriving there, too late in coming to this decision, too late in starting enterprises, too late in preparing. In this war the footsteps of the Allied forces have been dogged by the mocking spectre of 'Too late.'" In this connection it would be amusing, were it not so utterly tragic, to compare a slightly previous and public utterance from the lips of this same "Saviour of his Country":--"This is the most favourable moment for twenty years to overhaul our expenditure on armaments" (Mr. Lloyd George. _Daily Chronicle_, January 1st, 1914). Happily however, "il n'est jamais trop tard pour bien faire," and this good old adage as to it being never _too_ late to mend was perhaps never better exemplified than when, the Army Ordnance authorities having realised that the Government arsenals were in no position to cope fully with the demands likely to be made by the military authorities in the field, that other army of "Contemptibles," the staffs and employés of the great engineering concerns of this country, came forward in a manner unparalleled in the history of modern industry, and forthwith commenced to adapt themselves and their entire available plant to the process of manufacturing munitions of war. Foremost amongst firms of world-wide repute must be mentioned the great London and North-Western Railway Company, whose Chief Mechanical Engineer, Mr. C. J. Bowen-Cooke, C.B.E., realising from the outset the import of the late Lord Kitchener's forecast as to the probable duration and extent of the war, and in spite of ever-increasing demands on locomotive power which he found himself compelled to meet for military as well as for ordinary civilian purposes, threw himself heart and soul into the problem of adapting the then existing conditions and plant in the Company's locomotive works at Crewe to the requirements of the military authorities. Forewarned as it was to some extent by the hurricane advance of the Hun, the Government was also forearmed in that it was empowered by the provisions of the Act of 1871 not merely to take over the railroads of the United Kingdom, but, should it be deemed expedient to do so, the plant thereof as well. The Government might even take possession of the plant without the railroad; though how the railways could have been maintained minus their plant, any more than the Fleet could have remained in commission minus its dockyards, is doubtless a problem that was duly considered by those who framed the wording of the Act in the year of grace 1871. However that may be, as soon as the really desperate nature of the struggle began to dawn upon the Government, and it was seen to be a case of "all or nothing," the then President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Runciman, M.P., was not slow to espy the latent, yet none the less patent, possibilities which surely existed within the practical domain of railway workshops. In certain circumstances it may be regarded as fortunate that not a few of those happy-go-lucky individuals, whose leaning is towards politics, are gifted with the convenient art of adapting themselves and their views to that particular quarter whence the wind happens to be blowing. "I must honestly confess," as this same Mr. Runciman had expressed himself when in 1907 he was Financial Secretary to the Treasury, "that when I see the armaments expanding it is gall and wormwood to my heart; the huge amount of money spent on the Army is a sore point with every one in the Treasury." Particularly galling, therefore, must have seemed the rate at which expenditure on armaments was increasing by leaps and bounds in 1914; yet so ingenuous is the manner in which politicians are calmly capable of effecting a complete _volte-face_, that on October 13th we find Mr. Runciman positively engaged in seeking out the late Sir Guy Calthorp, then General Manager of the London and North-Western Railway, and Mr. Bowen-Cooke, for the purpose of eliciting their views as to the extent to which the railway companies might be relied upon to assist the Government in spending still more huge amounts of money (incidentally thus adding a further dose of wormwood to his heart), especially in regard to the output of artillery. Without knowing for the moment what actually were the more immediate and pressing requirements of the Government, Mr. Cooke suggested an interview with the late Sir Frederick Donaldson, then Director of Army Ordnance at Woolwich Arsenal, with whom he was personally acquainted; the result being that Sir Frederick was able to point out in detail the difficulties with which he was faced, handing over to Mr. Cooke a number of drawings of gun-carriage chassis, etc., which he (Mr. Cooke) went through, tabulating them in concise form, so that at a forthcoming meeting which had been called at the Railway Clearing House for Tuesday, October 20th, the Chief Mechanical Engineers of the Midland, Great Western, North-Eastern, Great Northern, and Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways who were present should have every facility for noting and deciding what they could best undertake in their respective railway workshops. The rapid growth of this Government work necessitated arrangements being made for orders to pass through some recognised channel, and in November 1914, an offshoot of the previously-mentioned Railway Executive Committee, consisting of the Chief Mechanical Engineers of the principal railway companies, together with representatives from the War Office, was created, to be called "the Railway War Manufacturers' Sub-Committee." Briefly the duties of this sub-committee were to consider, to co-ordinate, and to report upon various requests by or through the War Office to the railway companies, to assist in the manufacture of warlike stores and equipment. All applications for work to be done in the railway workshops, either for the War Department or for War Department contractors, were submitted to this committee by one of the War Office members. On receipt of any request the railway members of the committee decided whether the work was such as could be effectively undertaken by the railway companies, and if their decision was favourable, steps were taken to ascertain which companies could and would participate in the work, the amount of work they could undertake to turn out, and the approximate date of delivery. The War Office members decided as to the priority of the various demands made upon the railway companies. The actual order upon the railway companies to carry out any manufacturing work was given to such companies by the Railway Executive Committee. To detail the manner in which the London and North-Western Railway Company's locomotive Works at Crewe became, in great measure, as it were, a private arsenal subsidiary to the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich is the aspiring theme of the succeeding pages of this narrative. CHAPTER II ARMOURED TRAINS "The armourers, With busy hammers closing rivets up, Give dreadful note of preparation." SHAKESPEARE. Actually the first "job" to be undertaken in Crewe Works, with a view to winning the war and kicking the Hun away back across the Rhine whence rudely and ruthlessly he had pushed his unwelcome presence, was the hurried overhaul of a L. & N.W.R. motor delivery van which, destined for immediate service overseas and in conjunction with other and similar vehicles volunteered by such well-known firms as the A. & N. Stores, Bovril, Ltd., Carter Paterson, Harrod's Stores, Sunlight Soap, etc., _ad lib._, formed the nondescript nucleus, unique and picturesque, but none the less invaluable, of the mammoth columns of W.D. lorries which eventuated in proportion as the Country got into her stride. Thereafter the "fun" became fast and furious; orders succeeded one another in quick succession, and in ever-increasing numbers, with the result that men who till then had been accustomed to living, moving, and having their being solely and entirely in an atmosphere of cylinders, motion rods, valves, and all the like paraphernalia of locomotive structure, suddenly found themselves "switched over" on to then unknown quantities, such as axle-trees, futchels, wheel-naves, stop-plates, elevating arcs, trunnions, and other attributes of "war's glorious art"; until from bolt shop to wheel shop, fitting and electric shops to boiler shop, foundries to smithy and forge, one and all became absorbed in the tremendous issue which threatened the ordered status, the very vitals, of the civilised communities of the world. One, if not indeed _the_, centre of wartime activity within the extensive domain of Crewe Works may be said to have been the mill-shop; for, although of necessity "fed" in respect to integral parts by other--and for the time being subsidiary--shops throughout the Works, it was here that were assembled and completed in readiness for dispatch to that particular theatre of war for which they were destined numerous "jobs" of anything but "Lilliputian" dimensions, and evincing characteristics of exceptional interest and unmistakable merit. So immersed in munition manufacture did the shop become that, always--even in the everyday humdrum round of peace-time procedure--a source of delight and information to the visitor, professional and amateur alike, entry within its portals perforce assumed the nature of a privilege which Mr. Cooke, bowing to the dictates of D.O.R.A., but none the less regretfully, felt constrained to withhold from all save the few legitimate bearers of either Government or other similar and indisputably genuine credentials. Employing none but men possessed of considerable technical knowledge conjointly with the highest degree of mechanical skill and ability, the mill shop might, not without reason, be termed a "seat of engineering"; a "siége," that is, not simply productive of new machinery, but responsible for the repair and maintenance within the Works, as well as for the repair throughout the Company's entire so-called "outdoor" system, of a plant of infinite variety, embracing machinery evincing qualities so diverse as are to be found in air-compressors, gas engines, hydraulic capstans, lifts, presses, etc. Fitly enough, however, in spite of these habitually peaceful proclivities, the soul of the millwright from the very outset of the war became infused with the spirit of Mars, and pride of place should perhaps be accorded the two armoured trains which, during the late autumn and early winter months of 1914-15, claimed the combined energies and ingenuity of those who were called upon to construct them. Invasion was a bogey which, rightly or wrongly, undoubtedly throughout the whole period of the war never failed to exercise the minds, not only of competent military and naval authorities, but of amateur and would-be "Napoleon-Nelsons" as well, and right up to the spring of 1918, when every available ounce of weight was flung across the Channel to counter what was destined to prove the final and despairing enemy offensive, large forces had been kept at home, if merely as a precautionary measure. True enough, a certain degree of material damage accompanied not infrequently by a sufficiently heavy toll of human, and usually civilian, life resulted from perennial air raids, and an occasional _ballon d'essai_ smacking of "tip and run" on the part of some small detachment or flying squadron of enemy ships might momentarily upset the resident equilibrium of one or other of our East-coast seaside resorts; but nothing approaching the semblance of any actual or serious attempt at invasion was ever known to occur; in fact, Mr. Lloyd George, when speaking at Bangor in February, 1915, went so far as to "lodge a complaint against the British Navy," which, he reminded his hearers, "does not enable us to realise that Britain is at the present moment waging the most serious war it has ever been engaged in. We do not understand it." There was no disputing the fact, those at home never really understood the war; almost equally self-evident was the truism that they seldom if ever really appreciated to the full the natural beauty and charm of their native shores. It needed the grim reality of the former, and the aching sense of void created by enforced and prolonged absence from the latter, to bring home the unadulterated meaning of each in its true perspective, as may be seen from that poignant little plaint, pencilled from the hell of a front-line trench:-- "The wind comes off the sea, and oh! the air, I never knew till now that life in old days was so fair, But now I know it in this filthy rat-infested ditch, When every shell must kill or spare, and God alone knows which." Very similar, too, is the strain reflected by the French "poilu," who, drafted out to distant Macedonia, and languishing 'midst the fever-stricken haunts of the mosquito, plagued everlastingly besides by sickening swarms of flies, suddenly exclaims,--"Où est notre France? la chère France, qu'on ne savait pas tant belle et si bonne avant de l'avoir quittée?" From fighting men at the front and from them alone could realistic portrayals of pent-up emotions such as these emanate; they alone were capable of expounding the naked definition of the word "War;" the people at home "do not understand it." Whether it was by good luck or by good management that "this sweet land of liberty" of ours, England, remained unmolested, immune from the horrors that were being perpetrated just across the narrow dividing line afforded by the waters, within sound of the guns, within range of modern projectile, must be left to the realm of conjecture; although some idea of "the dangers we had to run" may very well be obtained by a perusal of a few of the several and extremely cogent observations which no less an authority than Admiral Viscount Jellicoe has to make on the subject in his notable work "The Grand Fleet, 1914-16." In comparing the relative strength of Great Britain and Germany he insists that "the lesson of vital importance to be drawn" is that "if this country in the future decides to rely for safety against raids or invasion on the Fleet alone, it is essential that we should possess a considerably greater margin of superiority over a possible enemy _in all classes of vessels_ than we did in August, 1914," and one of the four cardinal points which he cites as being the _raison d'être_ of the Navy is that of preventing "invasion of this country and its overseas dominions." Conditions had, moreover, undergone such a complete change since the Napoleonic era, that whereas one hundred years ago "stress of bad weather was the only obstacle to closely watching enemy ports, now the submarine destroyer and the mine render such dispositions impossible," with the result that "throughout the war the responsibility of the Fleet for the prevention of raids or invasion was a factor which had considerable influence on naval strategy." Thus although, as we learn, certain defined patrol areas in the North Sea were watched on a regular organised plan by our cruiser squadrons, it was not a difficult matter for enemy ships to slip through. For "the North Sea, though small in contrast with the Atlantic, is a big water area of 120,000 square miles in extent," and whilst the Fleet was based at Scapa Flow it was not only impossible to intercept ships, but equally impossible "to ensure that the enemy would be brought to action after such an operation" as that of a raid. [Illustration: ARMOURED TRAIN. [_To face p. 45._] Bearing these considerations in mind, it is not altogether surprising that the military authorities awoke to the fact that the policy of having two strings to one's bow is not usually a bad one; and so, rather than "rely for safety against raids or invasion on the Fleet alone," they bethought themselves of the secondary line of defence which would readily be afforded by armoured trains. Any serious attempt at landing by the enemy was, in Viscount Jellicoe's opinion, "not very likely in the earliest days of the war, the nights were comparatively short, and the Expeditionary Force had not left the country. It was also probable," so he thought, "that the enemy had few troops to spare for the purpose." But in proportion as "we denuded the country of men, and the conditions in other respects became more favourable," so did the anxiety of the home authorities increase, resulting in an urgent order being received at Crewe in October, 1914, for the first of the armoured trains. Even when so undoubted an authority as Mr. Lloyd George affirms (cp. the _Times_, July 1st, 1915) that "those who think politicians are moved by sordid pecuniary considerations know nothing either of politics or politicians," some people there may be who require a grain of salt wherewith to swallow so glib a declaration. Statesmen, possibly yes; but politicians--well, the least said is often the soonest mended. But even our belief in the sincerity of statesmen is apt to be a little shaken when we find a former Prime Minister, none other then the revered Mr. Balfour, devoting himself to the A.B.C. of the Little Navyites and solemnly declaring in the House of Commons (cp. the _Times_, May 11th, 1905) that the "serious invasion of these islands is not an eventuality which we need seriously consider." One has only to contrast this expression of a complacent and false sense of security with the dogma which has ever imbued the soul of the insatiable Hun:--"The condition of peaceableness is strength, and the old saying still holds good that the weak will be the prey of the strong" (Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg in the _Reichstag_, March 30th, 1911), and we can never feel too grateful for the knowledge that in spite of politicians and statesmen, the problem of home defence was never relegated to the dust-bin by those whose obvious duty it is to preserve our shores inviolate. As evincing the serious amount of attention devoted to the subject, a perusal within the library of the Royal United Service Institution of a paper read by--then 2nd-Lieutenant, now--Major-General Sir E. P. C. Girouard, K.C.M.G., R.E., on "The Use of Railways for Coast and Harbour Defence" as long ago as 1891, and published in the journal of the Institution, is of exceptional interest, as the following few extracts reproduced through the courtesy of the Librarian of that Institution tend to show. Speaking from the point of view of the "gunner-engineer," Sir Percy Girouard lays particular stress on the primary need for gun power. "Gun power to ward off the raider from our unprotected towns and ports; gun power to ward off any attack until the Navy reaches that point, and gun power to prevent landings upon our shores." Alluding next to the utter impossibility of extending "fixed fortifications of a modern type for the defence of every exposed point of our coast" for the obvious reason that "the cost of such an extension would be enormous," Sir Percy goes on to draw attention to the systems of railways in Great Britain and Ireland "which are the admiration of the world." These he contends "suggest the truest and most economical basis for resistance to any aggression or insult to our shores," for whereas "ships and fortifications under modern conditions rapidly become obsolete, our railways are always kept in excellent working order by the Companies concerned without any expense to the Government"; in fact "such would be the elasticity of the system that an enemy would have opposed to him at any exposed point of the coast the armament of a first-class fortress." Obviously a lapse of nearly twenty years cannot fail to witness the introduction of new methods, novel ideas, and alterations in design, and, just as the practical experience gained or bought at the expense of a few weeks of actual warfare went to prove in August, 1914, the worthlessness of modern forts and fortresses which literally crumbled and crumpled under the weight of high-angle high explosives and were quickly superseded by trenches and dug-outs, so, too, it would appear that the engineer and gunner experts were led to rule out of court anything of so cumbersome a nature as would be represented by a "first-class fortress" on wheels, which, too heavy and unwieldy a mass to travel at anything but a snail's pace, could not but afford a first-class target to an approaching enemy warship. Armoured trains were, to some extent, employed during the war in South Africa, chiefly for purposes of reconnoitring, and it was from photographs of these trains which they had in their possession that the military authorities asked Mr. Cooke to evolve a train on similar, though improved, lines; a train one might say more akin to a mobile "pill-box" than a fortress, in that bristling with maxims and rifles it could be relied upon to move at least with the speed of an express goods train, and be capable of extending a "withering" welcome to any venturesome and aspiring raiding-parties at whatever point of the coast they might select as suitable for an attempt at landing. Drawings were accordingly prepared, providing for a train which should consist of two gun vehicles, two infantry vans, and a "side-tank" locomotive; the latter a 0-6-2 type engine, with 18 inches by 26 inches inside cylinders, and 5 feet 8 inches diameter coupled wheels, supplied by the Great Northern Railway Company, was placed in the middle of the train. Both gun-vehicles and infantry vans were carried on ordinary 30-ton wagons with steel underframes and 4-wheel bogies. On each gun-vehicle at each end of the train was mounted a 12-pounder quick-firing gun (having an approximate range of 3 miles) which was fixed midway between the bogie wheels, thus ensuring an equal distribution of weight on each axle. Apart from the gun platform, which was protected by 1/2-inch steel plate (rolled in the mills at Crewe) with loopholes for maxim gun and rifle fire, the vehicle had two further partitions, one an ammunition store, the other fitted up as officers' quarters. The infantry vans were nothing less than luxuriously appointed caravans on (flanged) wheels, fitted with folding tables, lockers, hammocks, rifle racks, cooking stove and culinary apparatus complete, equipped with acetylene lighting and an extensive telephone installation. Loopholed with sliding doors near the top, these vans were also protected by 1/2-inch steel plating. Beneath the frames were four reserve water tanks, each of 200 gallons capacity, feeding to the engine side-tanks, and in one of the two infantry vans were two coal bunkers, holding each 1 ton of reserve coal supply for the engine. Access from one end of the train to the other was obtained by the provision of a suitable platform alongside the engine, but protected by armour plates, and by similarly protected connecting platforms from one vehicle to another. Formidable "fellows" as they were, cleverly camouflaged too with grotesque daubs and streaks of dubiously tinted paint, these armoured trains, although continually on the _qui vive_ within easy reach of the East Coast, were fated to be denied all opportunity of showing their mettle, and of giving the wily Hun "what for," for the very reason that the Hun was seemingly too wily ever to risk exposing himself to the sting likely to be forthcoming from such veritable hornets' nests. CHAPTER III MECHANICAL MISCELLANEA "I am more than grateful to you and your fellow-locomotive superintendents of the various railway companies for your readiness to help us in this time of pressure." In these brief but none the less straightforward and sincere terms, did the late Sir F. Donaldson, then superintendent of Woolwich Arsenal, address himself to Mr. Cooke in the early part of November, 1914, terms expressive, not merely of his own personal feelings of gratitude, but also of Government appreciation of the assistance so spontaneously proffered by the chief mechanical engineers of the great railway concerns of the country. Looking back over the four and a half years during which was fought out that "stupendous and incessant struggle," not without reason perhaps described as "a single continuous campaign," Sir Douglas Haig, in his final Despatch, under date of March 21st, 1919, whilst reminding us that we were at the outset "unprepared for war, or at any rate for a war of such magnitude," lays especial stress on the fact that "we were deficient both in trained men and military material, and, what was more important, had no machinery ready by which either men or material could be produced in anything approaching the requisite quantities." In short, "the margin by which the German onrush in 1914 was stemmed was so narrow, and the subsequent struggle so severe that the word 'miraculous' is hardly too strong a term to describe the recovery and ultimate victory of the Allies." There can be no gainsaying the fact that in spite of frequent and bombastic assurances to the contrary emanating from the All-Highest, the Almighty must indeed have been on our side, for surely never in the history of mankind did a people "ask for trouble" in quite the same barefaced manner as did the great British people in the early part of the twentieth century of grace? "Give peace in our time," might well be the prayer purred by the devout lips, year in year out, of innumerable comfortably-respectable, smug, and faithful citizens on each succeeding Sabbath day. Obviously, for there was "none other that fighteth for us but only Thou." There was never any attempt at denial; we were unprepared and well-nigh negligible, "deficient in trained men and military material." It will be argued, no doubt, that the practice of offering up prayer and supplication is a very desirable and eminently estimable form of procedure, but it is nevertheless a generally accepted theory that the Almighty helps those only who help themselves. Miracles do not perform themselves in these matter-of-fact work-a-day times, and we may pause to reflect both upon the cost at which, and the means by which, the miracle of our timely recovery and ultimate victory was performed. "To our general unpreparedness," writes Sir Douglas Haig, "must be attributed the loss of many thousands of brave men whose sacrifice we deeply deplore, while we regard their splendid gallantry and self-devotion with unstinted admiration and gratitude." This then was the cost, "the loss of many thousands of brave men," this the price in blood, the sacrifice upon the altar of unpreparedness. "Can the lesson," despairingly asks the writer of a leading article in the _Times_ of April 11, 1919, "of this great soldier's remarks be missed by the most reckless of politicians, or the most fanatical of 'pacifists'?" Can it be missed either, it may be asked, by those congregations of the faithful, who, repeating as of yore the old, old cry "Give peace," resemble rather the ostrich that buries its head in the sand, making no active endeavour to combat the approaching storm? Incredible that the lesson should be missed by any, and having marked the undying tribute which Sir Douglas Haig has paid to those thousands of brave men who for us paid the price, we may turn to that other tribute which this same great soldier unhesitatingly pays to those who supplied the means by which, miraculously enough, recovery was assured, and ultimate victory achieved. "The Army owes a great debt to science and to the distinguished scientific men who placed their learning and their skill at the disposal of their country." Such is the praise bestowed upon the distinguished heads of industry and of science as representing the vast mass of workers at the back, the backbone of the country, and undoubtedly, as the great Field-Marshal goes on to explain, "a remarkable feature of the present war has been the number and variety of mechanical contrivances to which it has given birth, or has brought to a higher state of perfection." But perhaps the most remarkable of all these remarkable features was that particular one evinced by that particular body of distinguished scientific men, to wit, the chief mechanical engineers of the great railway companies, in that, by their ingenuity and versatile ability, they succeeded in producing not the quantities only, but the varieties also, of all those mechanical contrivances which, as we know, added to the horrors of, as well as to the interest in, modern warfare. But just as is the case with a railway engine, of which the whole forms so commonplace, if majestic, a feature of everyday affairs that seldom, if ever, does one pause to consider the mass of detail and intricate parts which go to compose it, so, too, is it the case with a gun, an aeroplane, a ship, a road motor vehicle, or whatever other equally familiar object that chances to catch the eye. Little does one realise the extent of the detail requisite for the framing of each and every such mechanical contrivance in its entirety. It was, nevertheless, "the dauntless spirit of the people at home," as Sir Douglas Haig openly avows, which "strengthened and sustained the invincible spirit of the Army, the while their incessant toil on land and sea, in the mine, factory, and shipyard, placed in our hands the means with which to fight." Nowhere was this "dauntless spirit," the record of this "incessant toil," better exemplified than by the staff and employés of the London and North-Western Railway Company's Locomotive Works at Crewe, that great "factory" in which were manufactured those countless component parts essential to the whole: and without which the gun could not be fired, the aeroplane could not soar, the ship could not swim: without which, in short, the miracle of our recovery and ultimate victory could not have been performed. Let us take first the question of gun power; and we cannot do better than digest the further comments of Sir Douglas Haig. He says:--"The growth of our artillery was even more remarkable (than other remarkable developments alluded to in his Despatch), its numbers and power increasing out of all proportion to the experience of previous wars. The 476 pieces of artillery with which we took the field in August, 1914, were represented at the date of the Armistice by 6437 guns and howitzers of all natures." In order to stimulate this remarkable growth of artillery Crewe concentrated her endeavours upon 8-inch, 4·5-inch, and 6-inch howitzer guns; upon 12-pounder quick-firing guns, and in due course upon high-angle anti-aircraft guns. In conjunction with the guns themselves gun-carriages, carriage-limbers, wagon-limbers, ammunition-bodies--all were required with feverish haste. "Kultur," as has been pithily observed, "was working overtime to crush Civilisation;" Crewe Works responded by working twenty-four hours out of the twenty-four to beat the Hun; the spirit was indeed "dauntless," the toil "incessant." And what, it may be asked, were the countless component parts essential, not only to the manufacture of these "attributes of war's glorious art" when entirely new, but which were further turned out in their tens, twenties, fifties, hundreds, nay, even in their thousands, as "pièces de rechange," spares, all made to standard sizes and gauges, ready to replace at a moment's notice existing parts worn out or damaged in the field? Here, in motley assembly, are just a few: arcs, axles, bands, bearings, chains, collars, connectors, crank-levers, eyes, forks, futchels, guards, gussets, handles, hooks, keys, levers, loops, plates, rings, rods, sockets, springs, stays, trails, trunnions, tumblers, with a vast array of variously assorted bolts, nuts, pins, screws, studs and washers, one and all claiming the combined skill and energy of an army of smiths, forgemen, boiler-makers, fitters, turners, and machinists. Yet in spite of the "incessant toil" requisite for the supply of this military material, such was the extent of our unpreparedness that "it was not until the summer of 1916," as we read in Sir Douglas Haig's Despatch, "that the artillery situation (as regards material) became even approximately adequate to the conduct of major operations.... During the battles of 1917 ... the gun situation was a source of constant anxiety. Only in 1918 was it possible to conduct artillery operations independently of any limiting consideration other than that of transport." Once, however, the material was assured in sufficient quantity there was never any looking back, and "from the commencement of our offensive in August, 1918, to the conclusion of the Armistice, some 700,000 tons of artillery ammunition (equal to the weight approximately of 6,000 heavy express passenger engines) were expended by the British Armies on the Western Front," this prodigious expenditure of metal fully amplifying the opinion expressed by Napoleon, that "it is with artillery that one makes war." Before finally laying aside the question of guns, and turning our attention elsewhere, a few reflections on that popular little weapon known as the high-angle anti-aircraft gun may be not altogether lacking in interest, more especially in view of the fact that the price of our unpreparedness in this as in other respects was destined to be counted in the number of lives sacrificed, of which the civilian proportion was invariably very high. The gentle art of dropping bombs upon open towns was commenced by German airmen in the very early days of the war, and the French capital, perhaps not unnaturally, soon became an object of their attentions. Under the heading "German aeroplanes over Paris," the _Times'_ correspondent writing from Paris on September 2nd, 1914, records, perhaps, the first air-raid of the war, although at the moment "no bomb is reported to have been dropped." How irrepressible is the innate and inimitable _gaité_ of Parisien and Parisienne alike, even during the excruciating uncertainty of a raid, is delightfully brought out in the remark so typically French, "Comme il est dangereux de sortir sans parapluie." In this connection, too, one recalls the little ruse, pre-arranged between host and butler, for speeding the departure of guests, inclined to outstay their after-dinner welcome: "Messieurs, mesdames," announces the butler, suddenly appearing at the salon door, "on vient de signaler les Zeppelins." In comparison with our own, the measures adopted by the French authorities for defence against enemy aircraft were, from the outset, on a considerable scale; in fact, prior to the time when Admiral Sir Percy Scott took over the defence of London, in September, 1915, there had been, to all intents and purposes, no defence at all; any impartial observer might even have inferred that we were doing our best to live up to the lofty notions of the writer in the _Manchester Guardian_ of August 19th, 1915, who laconically decreed that we had "it in our power to turn every air-raid into a failure, simply by taking as little notice of it as possible." Whether this superior personage remained for the duration of the war so providentially privileged as to be able to take no notice of the air-raids that took place, history does not narrate. Suffice it to say that if we select at random two typical instances from the many which occurred--one on May 25th, 1917, at Folkestone, when 76 persons were killed and 174 were injured; the other on June 13th, 1917, in London, resulting in 157 deaths and 432 persons injured, without mentioning the amount of material damage effected--it is open to argument whether the public in general, and particularly those who were personally and in so tragic a fashion affected, were capable, even if they felt so disposed, of taking little or no notice of these attacks; it is also a moot point whether they or the perpetrators of these outrages regarded this particular form of "frightfulness" in the light of a failure, when attended by such undeniably telling results. Happily the boot was not always on the same foot, for, as we know, the marauders on occasion paid the supreme penalty themselves in the course of their aerial outings, and this, thanks in great measure to the determined energy of the gallant admiral, to wit Sir Percy Scott, who, far from taking no notice of air-raids, lost no time in organising a vigorous system of defence against them. But as he tells us in his reminiscences, "Fifty Years in the Royal Navy," from the very outset of his endeavours he was hopelessly handicapped; for, whereas "General Gallieni, who was in charge of the defence of Paris, had for the protection of his forty-nine square miles of city two hundred and fifteen guns, and was gradually increasing this number to three hundred; whereas, too, he had plenty of men trained in night flying, and well-lighted aerodromes, he (Sir Percy Scott) had eight guns to defend our seven hundred square miles of the metropolitan area, no trained airmen, and no lighted-up aerodromes." The amazing part of the whole business was, as Sir Percy Scott explains, and not without a touch of humour, the "War Office was as certain that a Zeppelin could not come to London as the Admiralty was that a submarine could not sink a ship"; hence the corollary that "London's defence was a kind of 'extra turn.'" Nothing daunted, however, and fully determined that London should be made to wake up to the dangers she was running, he succeeded in spite of all difficulties, and after procuring suitable ammunition, in increasing the number of his guns from the initial eight to one hundred and twelve. Herein it was that the locomotive shops at Crewe were once again called into requisition, for, as Sir Percy Scott tells us, "unfortunately mountings had to be made for these (guns)," mountings such as base rings, pedestals, pedestal pivots, as well as elevating arcs, sighting arms, etc., the manufacture of which necessarily "took a considerable time," but which were successfully evolved with a minimum of delay at Crewe. Then again, "the few guns we had for the defence of London were mounted permanently in positions probably as well known to the Germans as to ourselves. We had no efficient guns mounted on mobile carriages which could be moved about and brought into action where necessary." Being anxious to secure from the French authorities the loan, as a model, of one of their 75-millimetre guns, which as he knew were mounted on motor lorries, and in order to circumvent "Admiralty red-tape methods," Sir Percy Scott promptly took the law into his own hands, and very quickly obtained what he wanted. Owing, however, to the impracticability of adapting the British 3-inch gun to the French lorry mounting, a new design was got out, the gun platform being mounted on a single pair of wheels, which, with the axle, was detachable when the gun came into action, and of which component parts, such as plates, pivots, blocks, covers, catches, limber connections, were forthcoming from Crewe. Thanks once again to the courtesy of General Gallieni, who agreed to supply "thirty-four of the famous French 75-millimetre guns and twenty thousand shells with fuses complete," Sir Percy Scott finally had at his disposal a total of one hundred and fifty-two guns, which, although admittedly "rather a mixed lot," combined to frustrate the designs of those "airy devils" which so frequently were wont to-- "hover in the sky and pour down mischief." As time went on, however, and when, notwithstanding the constant alertness of our gunners and the shoals of "archies" spat heavenwards in search of these enemy marauders, the persistency of the latter showed little if any sign of abatement, the idea of retaliation, or the practice of paying the enemy back in his own coin, was mooted as likely to prove the most effective method of clipping his wings, and in spite of protests from that misguided section of the community, aptly designated the "don't-hurt-poor-Germany-brigade," the clamour for retaliation, emanating from an already-too-long-suffering public became so insistent that orders were at length placed for a supply of that special form of "mischief," or medicine, known as aerial bombs, in the manufacture of which, both petrol-incendiary and high-explosive, Crewe Works was requested to assist, and which our gallant airmen were commissioned to "pour down" on fortified positions on the further side of the Hindenburg Line. How efficacious were deemed to be the ingredients of this medicine may be gathered from the fact that in the autumn of 1917 the chief mechanical engineers of the great railway companies assembled in conclave at the request of the Air Board, and expressed their willingness to co-operate in the manufacture of aeroplanes of the bombing order. Owing, however, to the special conditions applying to the aeroplane industry, and to the fact that those responsible for the administration of our Air-policy decided, after mature consideration, that the scope for producing these machines was actually sufficient for dealing with every emergency, this additional strain was not imposed on the already heavily taxed capacity of the various locomotive workshops after all. Crewe, nevertheless, was not to be gainsaid the privilege of undertaking at least some share in the production of our heavier-than-air machines, and in the tinsmiths' and fitting shops respectively were turned out hundreds of tiny metal pressings or discs, and knuckle joints, essential for the piecing together of the wood fuselage, and on the quality of which depended so largely the lives of our pilots, to whose intrepid instinct undoubtedly "one crowded hour of glorious life" seemed at all times "worth an age without a name," but who nevertheless had no particular wish to come to grief owing to faulty material. The airman in common with the traveller-- "Cheerful at morn, wakes from short repose, Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes;" but unlike the latter, who moves in comparative safety on terra firma, the former, throughout the length of his flying hours, literally carried his life in his hands, illustrative of which fact may be taken those vivid and realistic sketches penned by Major W. B. Bishop, V.C., who, in his little volume "Winged Warfare," jots down a few impressions of his own breathless experiences. "In the air," for instance, he says, "one did not altogether feel the human side of it. It was not like killing a man so much as just bringing down a bird;" and yet in diving after an enemy machine, "I had forgotten caution and everything else in my wild and overwhelming desire to destroy this thing that for the time being represented all Germany to me." Undeniably the heart of an airman must be "a free and a fetterless thing" to brave the combination of risks incidental to his magnetic calling, and Sir Douglas Haig has not omitted to refer in brief but glowing terms to the "splendid traditions of the British Air Service," the "development of which is a matter of general knowledge," and the combining of whose "operations with those of other arms ... has been the subject of constant study and experiment, giving results of the very highest value." In every direction "much thought had to be bestowed upon determining how new devices could be combined in the best manner with the machinery already working," and in laying stress upon this question of "effective co-operation of the different arms and services," he alludes, for instance, to "increase in the power and range of artillery," which "made the maintenance of communications constantly more difficult." It was in order to assist in the maintenance of a highly efficient system of communications that Crewe was asked to supply quantities of cart cable-drums, the several parts of which required forging, machining, and accurately fitting, and by means of which, when completed as a whole, wires could be run out at a speed of 100 yards per minute; in fact, as Sir Douglas Haig points out, "something of the extent of the constructional work required, in particular to meet the constant changes of the battle-line and the movement of head-quarters, can be gathered from the fact that as many as 6500 miles of cable-wire have been issued in a single week. The average weekly issue of such cable for the whole of 1918 was approximately 3300 miles." Summing up his observations on mechanical contrivances in general, Sir Douglas Haig urges that "immense as the influence of these may be, they cannot by themselves decide a campaign. Their true _rôle_ is that of assisting the infantryman, which they have done in a most admirable manner. They cannot replace him. Only by the rifle and bayonet of the infantryman can the decisive victory be won." But surely the rifle itself, it may pardonably be contended, is nothing if not a mechanical contrivance? Granted always that without the pressure of the infantryman's finger on the trigger, the thrust of his arm behind the bayonet, the rifle is incapable of deciding a campaign, equally self-evident is the fact that the infantryman is helpless to win the decisive victory without the aid of the rifle. Side by side, too, with the rifle, and yet another mechanical contrivance to receive "a mention," is the machine-gun, of which the "immense influence" as an injunct indispensable to the infantryman may be gauged from the statement that "from a proportion of one gun to approximately 500 infantrymen in 1914, our establishment of machine guns and Lewis guns had risen at the end of 1918 to one machine gun or Lewis gun to approximately 20 infantrymen." It was in order to bring about this enormous increase in the number of machine guns, that millwrights were sent from Crewe in the summer of 1915 at the urgent request of Mr. Lloyd George (then Minister of Munitions) to install in some newly erected works in Birmingham the machinery necessary for their manufacture. Crewe may therefore be permitted to claim a certain degree of credit for the final issue; for, in addition to furthering the output of Lewis guns which, as we know, assisted the infantryman in so admirable a manner, she was also responsible for the various extremely delicate gauges necessary for the manufacture of rifles, which in turn enabled the infantryman to win the decisive victory. Invaluable as mechanical contrivances have been in giving "a greater driving power to war," their sinister aspect cannot in any way be veiled; for, as has been only too apparent, "the greater strength of modern field defences, and the power and precision of modern weapons, the multiplication of machine guns, trench-mortars, and artillery of all natures, the employment of gas, and the rapid development of the aeroplane as a formidable agent of destruction against both men and material, all combined to increase the price to be paid for victory." Sir Douglas Haig estimates the total number of British casualties "in all theatres of war, killed, wounded, missing and prisoners, including native troops, as being approximately three millions (3,076,388)." The killed, as Napoleon has said, "are the only loss that can never be replaced." The missing--one invariably shudders when considering what may have been their fate. Significant, for instance, is the reproduction of a letter from an enemy officer who writes--(cp. the _Times_, April 11th, 1917)--"I have been entrusted with a task of which every good German should be proud. Eight days ago we left France with 400 British.... On arriving at Frankfurt we discovered that we had lost on the journey 380." As to the lot of those who, taken prisoner, were nevertheless permitted to exist, we have only to refer for enlightenment to the report of the Government Committee on Wittenberg Camp, dated April 6th, 1916. Two extracts only may be allowed to suffice. "The state of the prisoners beggars description. Major Priestley (one survivor of six sent to replace the German medical staff who abandoned the camp on the outbreak of typhus) found them gaunt, of a peculiar grey pallor, and verminous. Their condition, in his own words, was deplorable." Ultimately the Committee were "forced to the conclusion that the terrible sufferings and privations of the afflicted prisoners during the period under review are directly chargeable to the deliberate cruelty and neglect of the German officials." [Illustration: VARIOUS TYPES OF ARTIFICIAL LIMBS. [_To face p. 68._] Of the wounded, those who merit the largest share of commiseration are undoubtedly the blind. But whatever the nature of the misfortune of those afflicted, "in spite of the large numbers dealt with, there has been," as Sir Douglas Haig reminds us, "no war in which the resources of science have been utilised so generously and successfully for the prevention of disease, or for the quick evacuation and careful tending of the sick and wounded." The experience acquired, over a period of 35 years in the joiners' shop at Crewe Works, in the manufacture of artificial limbs, for the use of the Company's own employés crippled as a result of accidents sustained in the performance of their duties, was destined to become a national asset of inestimable value during the war; models of the most approved design being demonstrated to the War Office authorities, and subsequently adopted for the use and benefit of men crippled in the service of their country. In the years preceding the war, while the common enemy was busily engaged in sharpening the sword and toasting _Der Tag_, amongst the few so-called cranks who, even as voices crying in the wilderness, ventured to dispatiate upon self-defence, defence of country, invasion, and other similar bogies in the cupboard, one may recall the theory of "one of the most distinguished of that younger school of sea-officers who kept urging in and out of season that we must get out of the idea that naval defence is one thing and army defence another; for when war comes, success will depend upon their perfect co-ordination and co-operation." If in only a minor degree--for those who go down to the sea in ships are necessarily many in number, and the business which they do in great waters is of an extremely varied nature--Crewe was nevertheless called upon to put this theory into practice in the land and sea war that burst upon us in 1914; and one of the mechanical contrivances which was destined to play an inordinately important part in securing this "perfect co-ordination and co-operation" as between the land and sea forces of the country, and for various essential component parts of which Crewe became responsible, was the "Paravane;" and the paravane, being by nature something entirely novel, was _ipso facto_ one of those devices which had to fight the War Office, or the Admiralty, as the case might be, before it got a chance of fighting the enemy. Primarily devised for the purpose of subverting the submarine peril, the paravane (the invention of Acting-Commander Burney) was later adapted for the protection of vessels against mines. An extremely interesting and lucid account of this mechanical contrivance, from the pen of Mr. R. F. McKay, is to be found in _Engineering_, under date of September 19th, 1919. [Illustration: THE PROTECTOR, OR MINE-SWEEPING, PARAVANE. [_To face p. 70._] Mr. McKay tells us that there were various types of paravanes, known respectively as the explosive, the protector, and the mine-sweeping paravane. Briefly, the device was a torpedo-shaped body, which, towed by a suitable cable either from the bows or stern of a ship, maintained its equilibrium in the water by means of a large steel plane near its head, and horizontal and vertical fins near its tail, the thrust of the water on the plane when the vessel is in motion carrying the paravane away from the fore and aft centre line of the vessel. Depth mechanism was fitted in the tail of the paravane, and consisted of a horizontal rudder actuated by a hydrostatic valve, _i.e._ a valve which is operated by difference in water pressure due to any change in depth. The explosive paravane was towed from the stern, and the charge of T.N.T. which it contained could be detonated either by impact, or by an excessive load coming on to the cable, or by a current of electricity controlled from the ship. The protector or mine-sweeping paravanes were similar contrivances in that they were towed, and maintained their position in the water by similar means. They were, however, towed from the bows of the ship, and instead of carrying an explosive charge, they were fitted with a bracket resembling a pair of jaws, in which were fixed two saw-edged steel blades; and it was in the manufacture of these brackets, which were forged under the drop-hammer, that Crewe was engaged. "Two paravanes," as Mr. McKay explains, "are towed, one on either side of the vessel, ... and the action of the protector-gear is simple. The paravane towing-wires foul the mooring-wire of any mine which might strike the vessel, but misses any mine which is too deeply anchored. The speed of the vessel causes the mine and its sinker to be deflected down the 'wedge' and away from the vessel until the mine mooring-wire reaches the paravane," which wire "passing into the cutter-jaws is speedily severed; the sinker drops to the bottom of the sea, whilst the mine floats to the surface well clear of the ship, where it can be seen and destroyed by rifle fire." The jerky sawing action of the mine mooring-cable, on reaching the jaws of the paravane, was, perforce, extremely detrimental to the teeth of the cutter-blades; consequently it was invariably the practice to haul the paravane aboard the ship and examine the blades immediately after a mine had been trapped and destroyed. The peril of pottering about, unprotected, in a mine-field must be patent to all, particularly to those who happen to be doing the pottering; hence it was absolutely essential that brackets and blades should be so accurately machined and fitted that the latter, on being removed, could be replaced in an instant by "spares" and the paravane dropped straight back into the sea. Speaking in the House of Commons (cp. the _Times_, March 21st, 1918), Sir Eric Geddes, then First Lord of the Admiralty, said that for the twelve months of unrestricted warfare from February 1st, 1917, to January 31st, 1918, the actual figures of vessels sunk by submarine action, including those damaged and ultimately abandoned, amounted to roughly six million tons; that the (then) total world's shipping tonnage (exclusive of enemy ships) was forty-two millions; and that the percentage of net loss to British tonnage was 20 per cent. Mr. McKay, too, in his article previously quoted, gives some interesting figures which tend to recall the gloomy days of rationing cards, and help us to realise how deeply we are indebted to Commander Burney and his paravanes for assuring us to the bitter end our daily, if slightly curtailed, means of subsistence. "It is computed," writes Mr. McKay, "that the total loss in shipping due to submarine warfare is about £1,000,000,000. Hence, working on the certainties, each submarine destroyed was responsible for about £5,000,000 worth of damage. Accepting this figure as a basis, it may be said that the explosive paravanes saved further damage being inflicted on our shipping to the extent of about £25,000,000." Reverting next to the protector paravane, "there were," we are told, "about 180 British warships fitted with the installation. Assuming that the value of warship tonnage is placed at the very low average figure of £100 per ton, the value of the ships saved was above £50,000,000;" and a further point which cannot be ignored is that undoubtedly "the moral effect of the loss of these vessels would have been stupendous." Again, in regard to merchant ships, "if the ratio mines cut ------------ ships fitted for these were only one quarter the ratio for warships, the saving to the nation would be about £100,000,000 sterling's worth of merchant ships and cargoes." Finally, "from all the records available, the Allied countries are indebted to the paravane invention for saving ships and cargoes to the value of approximately £200,000,000. In addition, the number of lives saved must be a very large figure." Few and far between are the prophets who have any honour in their own country, and Admiral Sir Percy Scott proved no exception to the rule when, prior to the war (cp. the _Times_, June 5th, 1914), he wrote that "the introduction of vessels that swim under the water has, in my opinion, entirely done away with the utility of the ships that swim on the top of the water." So comprehensive a contention was bound to come as something in the nature of a shock to those who were accustomed to regard the Royal Navy of England as "its greatest defence and ornament; its ancient and natural strength; the floating bulwark of our island," and certainly the attribute "entirely" must be considered as being of rather too sweeping a nature, for, serious though the submarine menace became during the world-war, the under-sea boat cannot claim to have swept the face of the waters of anything approaching the total number of ships that swam on the top. There is no doubt, however, but that, not only from the German point of view, but from our own as well, the submarine became an adjunct of the very first importance, and herein, again, was the all-round practical ability of Crewe Works called upon to assist. Bearings for submarine propeller-shafts (commonly known as reaper-bearings) were urgently required, each shaft working in no fewer than sixteen bearings, of which the caps were to be made not only interchangeable, but reversible as well, so exacting were the demands in the Admiralty specification. Indisputably Crewe was "doing her bit," and by their "dauntless spirit," by their "incessant toil," did the mass of employés engaged within the Works enable Mr. Cooke to convince the world at large that England, no longer "la Perfide Albion," was worthy rather to be named "la Loyale Angleterre." CHAPTER IV THE GRAZE-FUSE "A world of startling possibilities." DOLE. Graze-fuses (so called from the fact that the very slightest touch or shock imparted to the fuse or foremost part of the shell by any intervening object, and against which the fuse grazes whilst in flight, is sufficient to cause the spark necessary for igniting the explosive charge) were first taken in hand at Crewe in March, 1915. It was at this time that the late Earl Kitchener, then Minister of War, first drew attention in the House of Lords to the alarming position, generally, in regard to munitions of war, "I can only say (cp. the _Times_, March 15th, 1915) that the supply of war material at the present moment, and for the next two or three months, is causing me very serious anxiety." The persistent inconsistency of the "talking men" may here well be exemplified by the fact that in the following month of April, Mr. Asquith promptly retorted in the House of Commons that he had "seen a statement the other day that the operations, not only of our Army, but of our Allies, were being crippled or at any rate hampered, by our failure to provide the necessary ammunition. There is not a word of truth in that statement." However, as if to give an irrefutable _démenti_ to this assertion, it was only a month later that there came the sensational _exposé_ from the pen of the _Times_ military correspondent at the front, who wrote to the effect that "the want of unlimited supply of high-explosive was a fatal bar to our success" in the offensive operations round Ypres. _Per contra_ it was pointed out from the same source that "by dint of expenditure of 276 rounds of high explosive per gun in one day, the French levelled all the enemy defences to the ground." Hence it came about that, emanating from a modest little side-show claiming the energies of one or two apprentices and a few highly-skilled and highly-paid mechanics, the manufacture of graze-fuses developed into quite an industrial main-offensive (destined within the space of a few weeks from its inception to be entrusted to a bevy of local beauty, which became augmented as time went on in proportion as the seriousness of the military situation became apparent), pushed forward with a zeal and enthusiasm worthy of the highest praise, as the supply of shells and consequently of fuses fell hundreds per cent. short of the demand. Trim in their neat attire of light twill cap and overall, with a not infrequent hint of black silk "open-work" veiled beneath, the ladies (God bless 'em), no sooner enlisted, lost no time in adapting themselves in a remarkable manner to the exigencies of their new surroundings. In some respects, certainly-- "Women's rum cattle to deal with, the first man found that to his cost; And I reckon it's just through a woman the last man on earth'll be lost," but however that may be, in respect at least of the manufacture of munitions of war the girls in Crewe Works showed themselves, not only amenable to reason and discipline, but became regular enthusiasts in the work on which they were engaged. Idling and indifference were qualities unknown, patience and perseverance became personified, and thanks to a highly efficient and praiseworthy organisation, coupled with a system of three consecutive eight-hour shifts, the output of fuses rapidly rose from a mere 150 per week to as many as 4000, or a steady weekly average of 3000, finally reaching a grand total of 250,000 on the cessation of hostilities. A portion of the locomotive stores department, comprising an upper storey of the old works' fitting shop, familiarly known as the top shop--that one-time nursery of juvenile and maybe aspiring apprentices, many of whom have blossomed forth into full-blown engineers occupying positions of prominence in the four corners of the globe--was speedily transformed. Overhead shafting was fixed; lathes, drilling and tapping machines, and benches were lined up in positions convenient for the quick transition of the fuses, and their tiny components, passing in regular sequence through the many operations necessary for their fashioning. [Illustration: GAUGES MADE AT CREWE AND USED FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF GRAZE-FUSES.] [Illustration: REVERSIBLE MECHANICAL TAPPING MACHINE FOR FUSE CAPS. DESIGNED AT CREWE (_cp._ P. 81). [_To face p._ 78.] The graze-fuse itself is an intricate and cleverly thought-out little piece of mechanism, demanding a degree of accuracy in machining such as one might reasonably have assumed would suffice to baffle even the most knowing and perspicacious little minds attributable to the fair sex. The requisite delicacy of touch may perhaps be exemplified by the fact that the pellet plug flash-hole must be drilled dead-true to a depth of almost an inch with a drill no bigger than ·062, or 1/16 of an inch. Mr. Lloyd George, when addressing the House of Commons in June, 1915, in his capacity of Minister of Munitions, held up a fuse for members to see. "This," he said, "is one of the greatest difficulties of all in the turning-out of shells. It is one of the most intricate and beautiful pieces of machinery--before it explodes, (laughter). It indeed is supposed to be simple, but it takes 100 different gauges to turn it out." It was not, however, quite so much a question of the number of gauges required (considerable though the above-quoted figure may sound to those uninitiated in the art of fuse-making) as of the minuteness of the limits or tolerances allowed in the manufacture of these gauges. Some reference to, or explanation of, gauge-making will be found on a later page, so that it may perhaps here be sufficient to remark _en passant_ that whereas in the case of shell-body gauging, tolerances ran into fractions approximating 10/1000 parts of an inch, those of fuse-gauging were of an infinitely more exacting nature, being measured in fractions so minute as 3/1000 parts of an inch. Since the ultimate success or failure of the entire shell depended to a very great extent on the combined and unfailing action, or lightning series of movements, of the tiny internal component parts of the fuse (action which was initiated by the motion of the shell itself), the _raison d'être_ of dimensions measured in infinitesimal fractions of an inch becomes somewhat more apparent. The beauty of this little piece of mechanism is illustrated to some extent by the fact that it can be assembled or put together complete with its tiny internal components to the number of 10 or 12 all told, in less than a minute. Cast in bars of brass, sections of the length required for each fuse body are cut off, and drop-forged, the probability of blow-holes being by this method eliminated as far as possible. For the various machining operations, such as turning, boring and screwing, drilling, automatic and turret lathes played a prominent part, whilst an eminently suitable machine known as a "Sipp three-spindle drill" to which were fixed special jigs, designed for the purpose, was extensively used for the numerous small holes required. Grooves were turned on a turret lathe round the taper-nose, these affording a grip for the fingers, when lifting the fuses out of the boxes in which they were supplied. [Illustration: THE GRAZE-FUSE, shewn in section. [_To face p._ 80.] Briefly, the mechanical action of the graze-fuse is regulated on the following lines: A central pellet which creates the igniting spark by striking the percussion needle, is held in position by a tiny plug, which in turn is secured by a ball-headed pin, called the detent, kept in place by a spring. On the gun being fired the sudden forward impetus of the shell causes the detent pin to exert a backward pressure of 8-1/2 lbs. on the spring, this being sufficient to enable the detent pin to withdraw itself from the plug controlling the ignition pellet. The motion of the shell once launched in flight is rotary or centrifugal, with the result that the pellet-plug flies outward, leaving the pellet itself free to strike the percussion needle the moment the fuse-nose hits or grazes the first intervening object. The fixing of the percussion needle securely in the fuse-cap was an erstwhile stumbling-block in not a few machine shops, it being no exaggeration to say that in numerous instances at least 50 per cent. of the fuse-caps were rejected owing to the needle not being sufficiently securely fixed in the seating. At Crewe a simple method ensuring absolute rigidity was devised, the fuse-cap being so turned in the lathe that a slightly outstanding lip was formed, which after the needle had been inserted in the recess was spun or pressed, whilst revolving in a turret lathe, round the taper profile of the needle, the metal being in this way packed so closely and tightly all round that the protruding end of the needle, if subsequently gripped in a vice, would sooner break off than allow itself to be extracted or even disturbed in the slightest degree whatever within its metal bedding. "Solid as a rock" is the only description applicable. In spite of this, however, the Government either could not or would not insist on the universal adoption of so sound and simple a practice, preferring rather to standardise an entirely new method involving a more complicated and so more costly fitting, both as regards the needle itself and the fitting of it in the fuse-cap. The cap was thenceforward drilled and tapped, and the needle which was a longer one than hitherto was screwed into the hole and joined with petman cement. Crewe, in compliance with Government specifications had perforce to toe the line, but very quickly rose to the occasion by devising an extremely neat and efficacious little tapping machine, belt driven, and reversible through the medium of a couple of hand-actuated friction clutches. The spindle of the machine ran through a guide-bush bolted to the bed of the lathe, and screwed to the pitch of the needle thread. The hole through the fuse-cap was by this means certain of being tapped to the correct pitch, without any risk of stripped or "drunken" threads ensuing. The tap itself was of a "floating" disposition; that is to say, it was held in a socket which permitted a slight amount of freedom in action, thereby ensuring perfect alignment with the fuse-cap hole. The final operation of lacquering (or varnishing with a mixture of shellac and alcohol which imparted a saffron or orange colour to the metal and acted as a preservative) was effected by mounting the fuse on a metal disc, which, acting in conjunction with a second disc and an intermediary ball-race, was kept spinning round by hand, the operator applying the varnish with a brush the while the fuse was kept spinning. It was noticed at one time that a fairly large percentage of shells were "duds," that is to say they were failing to explode, and the reason for this was attributed to the supposition that on being released by the plug the pellet tended to creep towards the percussion needle, thenceforward remaining closely adjacent to it, with the result that it was no longer in a position to jerk forward and strike the needle with sufficient impetus to cause a spark. An additional spring called a "creep" spring was consequently inserted, of sufficient tension to prevent the pellet from creeping forward, and yet not strong enough to prevent the sudden contact of pellet and needle, on the shell reaching its objective. This overcame the difficulty. CHAPTER V CARE OF THE CARTRIDGE CASE "As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascinations. When it is looked upon as vulgar it will cease to attract." WILDE. All good sportsmen know what is a cartridge, whether for gun or rifle; they know too that the nice brightly-polished little disc on the end of it contains the percussion cap by means of which the shot or bullet, as the case may be, is fired. Beyond this they do not worry. They load their gun or rifle; if the former, they are naturally pleased supposing forthwith they wing their bird, a "right and left" raises themselves in their own estimation no end of a great deal; if the latter, and they succeed in laying low the quadruped object of their strenuous quest, a haunch of venison, maybe, is their reward, their trophy a particularly fine head, a "Royal" displaying no fewer than a dozen "points." In either event, the little cartridge once having served its purpose is in due course extracted from the breech and flung unceremoniously away to be trodden with scant courtesy underfoot, carelessly consigned to oblivion. So too in war, or at any rate during the early phases of the Great War, when questions of expense and of economy were seldom, if ever, mooted, and when, during the great retreat and the subsequently feverish advance to the Aisne heights, transport was more or less improvisatory and problematical and every moment precious, ammunition cartridge cases (turned and finished to thousandth parts of an inch and beautifully polished), no sooner having served their immediate purpose, were hastily extracted from the smoking breech of the gun and inconsequently thrown aside. Distorted and not infrequently cracked or split, of what further use could they be? An occasional enthusiast would pick one up. At home, at least, it would be regarded as an authentic relic of the battle-field. Besides, any one with a spark of inventive genius could see quite a number of uses to which a cartridge case could be put; articles of domestic ornament and convenience could be evolved--anything, for instance, from a flower-vase to a lady's powder-pot. Those were early days however, and few there were, whether at home or at the front, who realised the extent to which "the war could be protracted" or "if its fortunes should be varied or adverse" were able to grasp the import of the warning that "exertions and sacrifices beyond any which had been demanded would be required from the whole nation and empire" (Lord Kitchener, House of Lords, August 25th, 1914). When, however, it became increasingly apparent that "the operations not only of our Army but of our Allies were being crippled or at any rate hampered by our failure to provide the necessary ammunition," and since the cartridge was one of those "particular components which were essential" to the firing of the shell, the edict in due course went forth to the effect that "all fired cases should be returned at the first opportunity," for the very reason that with comparatively little trouble and at a minimum of cost (especially when the railway companies began devoting their attention to the task) these cases could be repaired, and that not only once, but frequently as many as half a dozen times before they were finally rejected as being totally and permanently unfit for further military service, in fact dangerous. Cartridge cases varied, of course, in depth and diameter according to the type of shell, whether shrapnel or H.E., to which they were destined to be fitted, and to the type of gun, whether field gun or howitzer, within the breech of which they were to be fired. Thus the field gun with its long range and well-nigh flat trajectory (_i.e._ the curve described by the shell on its flight) required a heavier propellant charge with a high velocity than did the howitzer or high-angle gun, which throws a shell at a shorter range and with a high trajectory. The "marks" of cartridge cases treated in Crewe Works were those appertaining to the 18-pounder gun and the 4·5 howitzer, and it so happened that just at the time of the formation of the Coalition Government in May, 1915, when, under the auspices of Mr. Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions, in the words of Sir J. French, "to organise the nation's industrial resources upon a stupendous scale was the only way if we were to continue with success the great struggle which lay before us," cartridge cases, bruised, and mud-bespattered, first commenced to make their appearance at Crewe. The earliest arrivals were the 18-pounder long or shrapnel shell cartridge cases, and the 30,000 odd of these cases which were repaired may be regarded as a foretaste of what was to follow, and were to some extent indicative of the then prevailing position in regard to the supply of ammunition to the B.E.F. in France. "As early as the 29th of October," writes Sir John French in his remarkable production entitled "1914," "the War Office were officially told that during the most desperate period of the first battle of Ypres, when the average daily expenditure of 18-pounder ammunition had amounted to 81 rounds per gun, and in some cases the enormous total of 300 rounds, the state of the ammunition supply had necessitated the issue of an order restricting expenditure to 20 rounds, and that a further restriction to 10 rounds would be necessary if the supply did not improve." Actually during the winter 1914-1915 the number of rounds per 18-pounder gun fell to less than five! Shrapnel (which it is interesting to remember was first used in the Peninsular War of 1808-14, and of which the older form of shell was filled merely with gunpowder as compared with the modern filling of bullets) was, however, "ineffective against the occupants of trenches, breastworks, and buildings," consequently guns required 50 per cent. of high-explosive shell "to destroy many forms of fortified localities that the enemy constructs, more particularly his machine-gun emplacements"; and in a secret memorandum despatched by Sir John French to the War Office in the spring of 1915 it was urged that "large quantities of high-explosive shells for field guns have become essential owing to the form of warfare in which the Army is engaged." Evidently the "Talking Men" at the back were beginning to feel a little uncomfortable, if nothing else, in face of the reports which the "Fighting Men" at the front were sending home with a firm persistence, for in spite of "the disinclination of the War Office prior to the war to take up seriously the question of high explosives" due to the assumption that their true nature and the correct particulars which govern their construction were not properly understood, as they (the War Office) "had too little experience of them," and perhaps because of the fact, for instance, that "the battle (of Neuve Chapelle) had to be broken off after three days' fighting because we were brought to a standstill through want of ammunition," occasional consignments of 18-pounder long cases at Crewe grew less and less until they finally ceased altogether, being thereafter superseded by the shorter cases of the 4·5-inch high-explosive shell, which, as time went on, were showered on the Works in ever-increasing quantities; in fact, a total of close on two million had been dealt with when the All-Highest finally "threw up the sponge" and accomplished his memorable "bunk" into Holland. To pick a cartridge case up and look at it, one would say that there was literally nothing in it; yet on second thoughts it is surprising what a number of features are embodied in its hollow and simple form. It is solid drawn, of a substance the colour of brass called yellow metal, which is composed of 60 per cent. electrolytic copper and 40 per cent. zinc, and which costs actually £25 per ton less than brass. The base is integral and thick, with an external rim, behind which a clip automatically engages as the breech of the gun closes, for the purpose of extracting the case after the gun is fired. Into a hole in the centre of the base is screwed the percussion cap, which acts virtually in the capacity of a "sparking plug" to the gun, differing only from the familiar petrol-engine sparking plug, in that the spark which fires the propellant charge inside the cartridge case is created, not by the break of an electric current, but by the sudden shock or percussion of a striker against a cap in which is contained a thin, albeit highly explosive layer of fulminic acid and gunpowder. The walls of the case are thin, thereby expanding against the walls of the breech of the gun, and preventing any escape of the propellent gases; and for the purpose of easy extraction they (the walls of the case) are slightly tapered to within about 1/2 inch of the mouth which fits parallel over the end of the shell. [Illustration: ROLLING OUT DENTS IN 4·5-INCH FIRED CARTRIDGE CASE. [_To face p._ 89.] Upon receiving a returned, or fired, cartridge case in the Works, the primer is first of all removed, then the case is boiled in a solution of caustic soda for the purpose of removing grease and dirt. What is known as a "hardness" test follows next in order of sequence, this to determine whether the metal of the case is still good for further service, and is performed by a little instrument known as a sclerometer (derived, as our classical contemporaries will tell us, from the Greek word [Greek: sklêros], hard), consisting of a tube marked with a graduated scale down which a tiny metal ball is dropped on to the side of the case; the ball should rebound to a point on the scale approximating a height of two inches, anything below this proving that the metal has become too soft for further use, when the case is accordingly scrapped. The cases which show a requisite degree of hardness are then annealed or suitably tempered round the mouth, this process ensuring a subsequent loose fit round the end of the shell. Rolling the mouth to internal limit gauges is effected by means of a specially improvised apparatus rigged up on the bed of an engine lathe, consisting of two fixed housings inside which runs a belt-driven sleeve bored to the correct taper of the cartridge case, and in which the latter is carried. A duplex ball-bearing roller running on a central spindle secured in a pad fixed to a cross-slide, and operated transversely by a pedal, applies pressure against the walls of the cartridge case, the dents and bruises being thus gently removed and an even surface obtained. It should be borne in mind that the entire process of repairing these cartridge cases (with the exception of brazing by coppersmiths with an acetylene flame any cracks or splits which already existed or became apparent in the repairing operations) was carried out by female labour working three eight-hour shifts, and one of the neatest of the diverse mechanical requisites which the girls were called upon to operate and which was the immediate outcome of managerial forethought and ingenuity was an adaptation of an hydraulic press for the purpose of correctly reforming the taper walls of the cartridge case to the true form of the gun chamber or breech. A cast-iron block with recesses cored in (in which are fitted a rocking lever pivoted in the centre, and two hardened cast-steel dies, one on either side) repose on rolling bearings arranged on the bed of the press. At each end of the rocking lever is attached an adjustable ejector ram acting centrally inside the cast-steel dies, which latter are bored taper to the required shape of the cartridge case. Upon inserting a cartridge case in each die, the cast-iron block is pushed transversely by hand across the bed of the press, bringing one of the cases central with the ram, which, when applied, forces the case home into the die, thereby pressing and reforming the walls to their true and original shape. The ram being withdrawn, the cast-iron block is pulled back so that the second cartridge case in its turn comes central with the ram and the effect of pressing it home in its own particular die is to push back the pivoted arm, the other end of which, advancing automatically, expels the previous and finished case; cartridge cases being inserted and ejected in this manner _ad infinitum_. The cast-steel dies naturally become affected by constant use, more especially on the protruding shoulder against which the thickest part of the case (_viz._ where the walls rounded into the base) is pressed, this necessitating the shoulder being re-radiused perhaps every fortnight, and a slight readjustment of the die in the block. To allow for expansion of the walls of the case when being ejected after compression, the dies are turned slightly smaller (say 3/1000 parts of an inch) than the required finished size. After being pressed, the primer holes of the cartridge case (known as the plain and platform holes respectively) are rectified by a double-reamer, the case revolving in a sleeve bored to correct taper of the outside diameter of the case, this assuring concentricity of the two holes, and ensuring that the primer face and percussion cap lie flush with the base of the case. A forming tool, having a non-cutting face which acts as a depth guide against the base, corrects the outer rim and shoulder. A hand-tapping machine clamped centrally to a suitable fixture on a bench was devised for re-tapping primer-holes. This consists of a floating bracket which accurately guides the tap into the existing thread, at the end of the tap being fixed a hand-operated capstan wheel, and on the tap a stop to regulate the depth of the screw. A similar apparatus fitted with a sliding screw-driver removes the primers; the cartridge case in either event being securely held and easily fixed or released in a central clamp. Finally, after being immersed for a couple of minutes in a solution of sulphuric acid, the cartridge case is polished with sand and sawdust on a wooden pad covered with tapestry and revolving in a lathe at 300 or 400 revolutions per minute. The result of garnering in and renovating these cartridge cases instead of turning them adrift in the battle area, reckoned in figures of pounds, shillings, and pence, was undoubtedly very considerable; for apart altogether from the saving effected in the cost of labour when repairing old cartridge cases as compared with the manufacture of new ones, the weight of metal alone contained in a couple of million cases may be taken at approximately 1500 tons; and with yellow metal costing £82 12s. 0d. per ton, the saving in metal alone amounts to no less than £123,900. CHAPTER VI GUNNERY AND PROJECTILES (RUDIMENTARY NOTES AND NOTIONS) "The Prussian was born a brute, and civilisation will make him GOETHE. The apposite nature of this moral dictum could have been exemplified in no degree more accurately, nor indeed remarkably, than in the light of events which transpired during the forty odd years intervening between the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the present-day world conflict; events which may, perhaps, best be summarised as comprising a persistent policy of unremittant and so-called peaceful penetration, intense warlike preparation, and provocative "braggadocio," or diplomatic bluff. Born in an atmosphere of arrogance and lust, imbued with a spirit of savagery, the Hun stood forth at last in the blood-red dawn of "Der Tag," naked, stripped of his pharisaical veneer of social development. "Vous ne devez laisser," wrote Bismarck in 1870, "aux populations que vous traversez que leurs yeux pour pleurer," and clearly a decade of "Civilisation" had sufficed to make his countrymen indeed ferocious, to prove them obedient, albeit enthusiastic, disciples of the bestial doctrine which he had expounded. No longer was the soldier alone to be called upon to pass "half his time on the field of battle, and half of it on a bed of pain"; civilian populations too, innocent old men, defenceless women, young girls, and little children, all were to be drawn alike, pitilessly, into the vortex; naught but their eyes wherewith to weep remaining to them. One has but to refer again to that arresting little volume "Enseignements Psychologiques de la Guerre Européenne" (M. Gustave le Bon) to be reminded of the pre-determined methods that were to be adopted. "Notre principe directeur," Bismarck goes on to declare, "est de rendre la guerre si terrible aux populations civiles, qu'elles-mêmes supplient en faveur de la paix." Four years of uncivilised warfare, of barbarity unprecedented in the annals of modern history, have since taught us how terrible was the meaning of these words, and if the possibility is conceded that tragedy and comedy may, on occasion, run riot hand in hand together, the climax was perhaps never more nearly approached that when in August, 1914, the arch-criminal himself, Wilhelm II, that "born actor and master of mis-statement,"[3] indited an agonising epistle to his doddering confederate the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria: "My soul is torn," so ran this apostolic lamentation--"my soul is torn, but everything must be put to fire and sword. Men, women, children, and old men must be slaughtered, and not a tree or house left standing. With these methods of terrorism which alone are capable of affecting a people as degenerate as are the French, the war will be over in two months, whereas if I admit humanitarian considerations it will last years. In spite of my repugnance, I have been obliged to recommend the former system." [3] A comment of King Edward's on the German Emperor, 1906. "In spite of my repugnance," however, or perhaps because of it, in spite of or because of this recommended system of terrorism, the more difficult it became to affect, to demoralise the "degenerate" French people, the more seemingly impossible became the task of breaking "those proud English hearts"; the war was not over in two months, in fact, contrary to the prognostications of the "All Highest," it lasted several years! The nation, as it so happened, was never in more determined "bull-dog" frame of mind; this determination moreover to "see things through" "coûte que coûte" was amply voiced by Mr. Asquith, then Prime Minister, at the Guildhall on November 9th, 1914--"We will never sheath the sword until the military domination of Prussia is wholly and finally destroyed," and floating back on the breeze away from the stricken fields of France came echoing the refrain:-- "When the strife is fierce, the warfare long, Steals on the ear the distant triumph-song, And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong." Dimly distant though the final victory might seem, fierce and protracted though the strife, England continued unflinchingly pouring forth her bravest and her best, while she herself, with a determination grim and set, was of a truth turning "to swords her ploughshares," for experience had taught her that the Prussian was born not only a brute but a bully, and that the only way to deal with bullies was to hit them back, to keep on hitting until they were down, and once down to keep them there and prevent them from getting on their feet again. But the maxim that "hesitation and half-measures ruin everything in war" had never been lost upon the "Great General Staff of (German) Imperial Supermen," who it might be opined had probably forgotten more in the gentle art of preparation for war than we ever set ourselves to learn. Gas shells, incendiary shells, tear shells, liquid fire, clouds of poison gas, aerial torpedoes, floating mines, submarines, mystery long-range guns, such were a few of the more obvious and less humanly unspeakable horrors in which the common enemy had specialised. Taken unawares, the question consequentially arose "How to hit them back?" Man for man, fist for fist, we were sure of giving as good as we received, and better. "In bravery the French and English soldiers are the only ones to be compared with the Russians," was the verdict of Napoleon. Bravery, however, whilst being undoubtedly magnificent, is, on the other hand, in modern warfare liable to become a constraining source of suicide unless backed by commensurate means both of offence and of defence. "The machine," as Mr. Lloyd George pointed out, when reviewing on December 20th, 1915, the progress of events of the preceding months, "the machine is essential to defend positions of peril, and it saves life, because the more machinery you have for defence, the more thinly you can hold the line. On the other hand it means fewer losses in attacking positions of peril, because it demolishes machine-gun emplacements, tears up barbed wire, destroys trenches." Again, "What we stint in material we squander in life." How criminal had been the lack both of prevision and of provision in regard to meeting possible contingencies may be gathered from the fact that on March 15th, 1906, Major Seely, M.P., in the House of Commons, in moving a reduction in the Army Estimates (estimates which at that time did not exceed the modest sum of sixty millions per annum), said, "We could not afford to continue the present establishment, for the House would not grant the money, and the country would not provide the men." The folly of it all was coming home to us with a vengeance. Proportionate to the former mean and niggardly "cheese-paring" was the resultant appalling rate at which life was now being squandered. "We were short of all kinds of military weapons," Mr. Lloyd George was forced to confess, "but the lack of high-explosive shell was paralysing"; then as if in condonation of all former sins of omission, "we believe that what is being done now to provide a supply of munitions equal to all possible requirements will astonish the world when it becomes known." In this respect, therefore, it is, perhaps, not unnatural that interest of a widespread nature should centre round Crewe, in virtue of the quota of munitions which she, albeit unobtrusively, contributed to the "world's astonishment"; indeed a certain sense of bewilderment not untinged with pride cannot fail to supervene in the minds of that vast section of the community, to wit the travelling public, and in particular the great North-Western-loving public, when, the official veil of secrecy being drawn aside, the mental faculty is free to note and to assimilate the degree of resourcefulness, the versatility of the locomotive engineer. There is no concealing the fact that "the place acquired by machinery in the arts of peace in the nineteenth century has been won by machinery in the grim art of war in the twentieth century," but the anomaly was strange indeed when Crewe, essentially the cradle of what may perhaps be termed the _haute noblesse_ of locomotive progeny, bowing to the dictates of stern necessity, extensively adapted her domain to the novel effort of high-explosive shell production. Manifold and great as are the instances which may be cited as evidence of the strides made during the last decade in engineering science, no other branch of that science has surely ever made appeal more alluring alike to schoolboy as to popular imagination, than that embodied in the modern British locomotive. Who in the course of his travel experience has not happened at that "Mecca" of railway bustle and romance, "Euston," the epic terminus of Britain's premier line, and focussing with his eye the hazy limit of a far-receding platform, has not traced the tapering profile of some distant-bound express, marvelling the while that, harnessed on ahead, should be pent up a force eager, impatient, yet withal so mighty that of a sudden, subservient to its call, this elongated span of motionless inertia laden with living freight should smoothly glide away, and gathering momentum on its path with ceaseless rhythm, ever along, along and along, sweep towards the far elusive line of the horizon? Yet this, in plain prosaic English, was the ennobling vista opened through peaceful years of patient toil and perseverance to the public ken, and dull must be the mind which contemplates unmoved that splendid emblem of the locomotive world, the awe-inspiring "Claughton" of that ilk, noble of mien and black of tint, with breast-plate red, toying with trains the equal of 400 tons and more, ticking aside the minutes and the miles alike. [Illustration: "PATRIOT."--A TYPICAL EXAMPLE OF THE "CLAUGHTON" CLASS OF 6 FEET 6 INCH, SIX WHEELS COUPLED EXPRESS PASSENGER ENGINE WITH SUPERHEATED BOILER; FOUR H.P. CYLINDERS, 15-3/4 INCH BORE × 26 INCH STROKE; BOILER PRESSURE, 175 LBS. PER SQ. INCH; MAXIMUM TRACTIVE FORCE, 24,130 LBS.; WEIGHT OF ENGINE AND TENDER IN WORKING ORDER, 117 TONS. [_To face p. 99._] Figuratively speaking, Crewe may perhaps be referred to as the "spill" on which the face of the London and North-Western compass pivots; the four points, north, south, east, and west, extending respectively to Carlisle, London, Leeds and Holyhead; but familiar as are the scenes of everyday activity throughout the entire length and breadth of the Company's system, foggy, for the most part, are the notions as to the phenomenal whirl of industrial enterprise daily in progress within the precincts of Crewe Works. Yet in these great engine Works (so menacing and unprecedented were the exigencies created by this voracious war), 'midst all the multifarious machinery and up-to-date appliances whereby is fashioned and evolved in all its amazing detail that complex piece of mechanism, the very essence of railroad itinerancy, the modern locomotive, was improvised with a speed approximating that of the mushroom which springs up in the night, a model and comprehensive plant, correlative with the multiform processes involved in the manufacture of that swift harbinger of death, the high-explosive shell, and its complement of grim appurtenances. How paralysing was the lack of these shells may be gathered from the fact that[4] "in the month of May (1915), when the Germans were turning out 250,000 shells a day, most of them high-explosive, we were turning out 2500 a day in high explosive and 13,000 in shrapnel." This gentle reminder to a lethargic House did actually (so we are told) evoke cries of "Oh," which latent degree of enthusiasm cannot be considered exactly vulgar or ultra ebullient, when side by side with so depressing a situation at home we endeavour to grasp the staggering figures as set forth in the following French official statement:--"Our artillery to the north of Arras fired in twenty-four consecutive hours 300,000 shells, that is to say, very nearly as many shells as were fired by the entire French artillery in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The weight of these 300,000 shells can be put at 4,500,000 kilos; or nearly 4435 tons. In other words, more than 300 large trucks were required for carrying them by rail, or roughly half a dozen complete goods trains; by road this would have meant 4000 waggons, each with a team of six horses. The monetary value of these projectiles may be put at something like £374,800." [4] Mr. Lloyd George, House of Commons, Dec. 15th, 1915. Prior to the summer of 1914, a shell, if not exactly an unknown quantity, was at any rate one of these obvious, even if somewhat curious things that might conceivably (in fact probably did) claim a certain amount of attention from that rather spoilt and very exclusive little clique, the professional army people. One read in the papers, too, from time to time, that the Navy (that immensely popular though slightly enigmatic asset of the Empire) was indulging in a little target practice somewhere out at sea; this would mean the firing of a few projectiles; but that was as it should be; we all liked the comfortable assurance that we could "sleep quietly in our beds;"[5] with an innate and justifiable sense of pride we liked, when occasion permitted, solemnly to stand up and join in the refrain "Britannia, rule the waves." [5] The late Lord Fisher, Nov. 9, 1907. Latterly, however, the "shell" has acquired so widespread a degree of prominence, proportionate to the toll of human life and of material damage that it has exacted, it has become in effect so commonplace an object, hackneyed as the very chimney-pots of a jerry-built row of houses, that a word of apology should perhaps be prefaced to any additional allusion to a subject already so often cited, which might otherwise and pardonably be regarded as superfluous. Before diving, however, into any details as to the methods of manufacture, it may be interesting to pause for a few moments and to inquire into the nature of the mysterious movements of the shell when, deposited by the artilleryman with tender and loving care safely and securely within the breech of his gun, it flies away, the unerring intermediary between him and the hated foe of an argument deadly and convincing. Our gunner experts (armchair no doubt as well as professional) will, of course, tell us that the flight of a shell is gyroscopic, this possibly in lucid contradistinction from that of the convex-shaped boomerang, which, according to reliable information, is gifted with the graceful, albeit inconvenient, art of returning to its original point of departure. The shell, however, ere it quits the muzzle of the gun, thanks to what is known as the rifling or grooving of the bore of the gun, thanks, too, to the action of that indispensable little adjunct familiarly known as the copper band, is imparted with the vigorous twist, and once launched in mid-air spins round its longitudinal axis, undeterred, like the gyroscope, either by force of gravity or by atmospheric pressure. This longitudinal spin is rendered eminently desirable, in fact imperative, for various reasons, of which length and explosive capacity of the projectile, accuracy in flight, diminished air-resistance in proportion to weight, and finally range, may be quoted as the more obvious desiderata. The old ancestral cannon-ball, fired as it was from a smooth-bore gun, had no means of acquiring this sudden longitudinal twist, and no sooner clear of the muzzle, it found itself involved in the performance of antics whimsical and capricious, turning over and over on its transverse axis, head over heels, side slipping, looping the loop. Again, the cannon-ball, being round, was limited in size to the bore of the gun, so that in addition to the disadvantage just mentioned of possessing no definite material degree of accuracy whilst on its headlong course through the air, it offered the further disadvantage of containing but a comparatively small explosive charge, and the air-resistance it afforded in proportion to its weight affected adversely, and in marked degree as compared with the modern longitudinal shell, its range and potential destructive energy. Reverting then to the modern projectile, and taking as a suitably illustrative example the 6-inch high-explosive shell (for it was on this particular type that Crewe was asked to concentrate), bearing always in mind, too, that the modern gun is rifled or grooved and that the effect of this grooving is to impart a vigorous longitudinal twist or spin to the shell as it flies away, making it gyroscopic and almost uniformly accurate, we notice that the length of this shell is eighteen inches, thus exceeding the diameter in the proportion of three to one, whence it becomes obvious that the capacity available for explosive charge is proportionately greater than that of a cannon-ball of the same diameter. We next find that in place of the rounded wind-resisting surface of the cannon-ball, the front end of the modern shell is pointed like a pencil, the atmospheric resistance being in this way reduced to a minimum. Decrease of wind-resistance naturally spells increase of range, and in this connection tests have in the past been carried out with shells having their bases as well as their noses pointed with a view to obviating the vacuum which is necessarily created by the usual flat base. A cigar-shaped shell, however, never proved satisfactory, for like the Rugby football it was decidedly wobbly in mid-air. How requisite was a superlative degree of accuracy and consequently of skill in the manufacture of the modern high-explosive projectile may, to some extent, be gathered from these briefly stated considerations, and will become more apparent still when we come to glance at the series of component parts of which the whole is built up. Premature explosions, involving loss of life amongst the gun-crew, the wrecking of the gun itself, not to mention resultant immunity from dismemberment of those previously destined to be the recipients of this unique form of greeting, are _primâ facie_ contingencies to be guarded against; thus, owing to the sudden stresses to which a shell is subjected on the firing of the propellent charge whereby inertia becomes transmuted into velocity both forward and rotary, the steel of which the shell is made must be of such tensile strength that not only will the base-end withstand this transmutation, but the walls of the shell must be capable of overcoming the inertia of the front end of the shell, otherwise they will collapse, and a "premature" will be the immediate outcome. An output of steel adequate for all munition purposes was already a problem sufficiently acute, and there were genuinely orthodox reasons why the home output, in particular, should be maintained at as high a level as possible. For one thing, it was eminently desirable that America should keep supplied our Allies who were less well equipped in "industrial and engineering resources than ourselves." "By home manufacture," too, "we had saved in the course of a single year something which is equal to 6_d._ or 7_d._ in the pound of income tax in the metal market alone." Besides "when you order a very considerable quantity of war material abroad, there is always a difficulty which arises with regard to the exchanges and the gold supply." There was also "the difficulty that you have not the same control over the manufacturers of material abroad as you have got here" [Mr. Lloyd George, House of Commons, December 20th, 1915]. Influenced by considerations such as these, Mr. Cooke undertook not merely to machine _in toto_ a given quantity per month of rough shell forgings, but proffered the extensive steel-making plant in Crewe Works, comprising several furnaces of 20 and 30-ton capacity, both for the supply of steel requisite for the initial manufacture of these rough forgings, and if desired, for a further output of steel wherewith to supply forgings to other firms engaged exclusively in shell manufacture. The output of 6-inch high-explosive shells from Crewe Works had, at the time of the Armistice, reached, approximately, a total of 100,000, and the corresponding weight of steel forgings may be estimated, approximately, at 6500 tons. Government specifications in regard to tensile strength and cold fracture tests were not unnaturally exacting in the extreme, and the casts obtained at Crewe came fully in these respects up to the standard ordained. But amazing though it may seem (so tightly can the reel of official red tape be wound), notwithstanding Mr. Cook's offer and ability to furnish this supply of special high-grade steel, further Government regulations to the number of seventeen and covering three pages of foolscap demanded the observance of formalities, petty and extraneous, designed solely for the purpose of securing the right of incursion within Crewe Works of every Smith, Jones, and Robinson who under the pseudonym of "Government Inspector," and as units of a hugely overstaffed officialdom, sought by hook and by crook any and every means wherewith to justify their overpaid existence. "Nobody but managerial and supervising engineers can quite realise what a handicap these people have been upon efficient production," writes a student of bureaucracy in the _Morning Post_, April 21st, 1919. "How the engineering industry has survived in spite of it is almost a miracle; how it has produced in spite of it is quite a miracle. At one time the Ministry of Munitions could boast of no fewer than 27,000 officials, nearly all of whose positions might be reasonably defined as "jobs." There were inspectors and inspectors of inspectors, super-inspectors, and inspector-generals, munition area dilution officers, munition area recruiting officers, recruitment complaints officers, and committees, directors, sub-directors, information bureaux, with all the usual paraphernalia; officials with and without designation, priority officials whose duties were as nebulous as their qualifications, besides an unnumbered crowd of arrogant but grossly inexpert experts. It is a splendid tribute to the industry that it triumphed over this deadly deterrent and redeemed its obligation to the nation under so cruel and undeserved a burden." How Crewe Works survived in spite of this "handicap," this "deadly deterrent," is explained by the fact that Mr. Cooke would have none of these things; in fact, sooner than conform to the caprice and tyranny of these "inexpert experts" from without, he very promptly withdrew his offer of steel manufacture, politely but firmly consigning "Major MacMarkfour" and "Captain Fitzgrazefuse" elsewhere, their correspondence to the nearest wastepaper basket; a friendly chat with the late Sir F. Donaldson, then Director of Army Ordnance at Woolwich, sufficing to make it clear that at Crewe everything was strictly "above board," and that the little entourage of professional experts within justified the full and complete confidence which he, their chief, reposed in them. Not a few of the smaller engineering firms up and down the country, faced with previously unconsidered problems created by the unlooked-for transition from peace to war conditions, welcomed the call for shells and yet more shells, as a ray of sunshine peeping from out the lowering clouds of commercial stagnation. Hardly appreciating the fact that a shell's a shell for a' that, and approaching the task with a flippant disdain, akin to that of "selling seashells upon the seashore," some of these good people, ostensibly patriotic and avowedly disinterested, were soon asking themselves whether after all they had not bitten off as much as, if not actually more than, they could reasonably chew. The requisite degree of perfection in material, and of accuracy in machining, was at the outset a sore puzzle to the many who had never seen a field-battery in action, who had never inquired as to the why and wherefore of the flight of a shell, who, by virtue of their exemption from military service, never had occasion to congratulate themselves personally on the subtle and unfailing precision of a creeping "barrage"; and great was the vexation of spirit, many the hours thrown away, legion the shells definitely consigned to the scrap-heap (or perhaps at best set aside pending some seemingly trifling rectification), ere aspirants to this novel and exacting sphere of machine-shop art attained anything approaching the acmé of perfection. "It is better," wrote Napoleon, "to have no artillery at all than a bad artillery that endangers the lives of men and the honour of the nation," and selecting this fundamental principle as a basis on which to build the fabric of his excursion into the then untravelled paths of shell manufacture, Mr. Cooke made arrangements at the very outset for his leading representative of the machine-tool department to visit Woolwich, for the purpose, not only of acquiring first-hand knowledge as to the most approved Government methods of producing shells, but of making detailed dimensioned sketches from which to manufacture, in the Company's own tool department at Crewe, the multifarious gauges, or instruments, designed to verify in the most minute manner imaginable the diverse form of the shell. The consecutive operations through which the shell passes number some thirty all told, and for each separate operation separate gauges are required. As emphasising not merely the delicacy of these all-important little instruments, but the delicate proposition "up against" which he found himself in his endeavour to discover firms who were capable of their manufacture, Mr. Lloyd George confessed that "we found that some of the shortage (of shells), if not a good deal of it, was due to the fact that, although you turn out shell bodies in very considerable numbers, you were short of some particular component which was essential before you could complete the shell. It might be a fuse, it might be a gauge. There was always some one thing of which you had a shortage!" Evidently gauges were a source of considerable anxiety because "we therefore had to set up two or three national factories in order to increase the supply of these components." By already possessing the necessary machinery for, as well as considerable experience in, the art of gauge-making, Crewe was in a position to ease very materially the burden of those Government departments, those newly created "national factories" directly responsible for the manufacture and the issue of gauges in quantities sufficient to meet all demands, having merely to submit on completion any inspecting gauges to the National Physical Laboratory at Teddington for testing and stamping, prior to putting them into commission in the Works. Further, Mr. Cooke, as a member of a "strong committee of machine-tool makers" who were then "sitting constantly at Armament Buildings in London," was specially qualified, in view of his inside technical knowledge and practical experience, to assist in "directing the operations of the whole of the machine-tool manufacturers of the kingdom"; and finally, as Mr. Lloyd George went on to say, "the result of all this" was "to increase very considerably not merely the output of shells, but also the power at the disposal of the nation at short notice to turn out even more than we have ordered if the emergency demands" (The _Times_, July 29th, 1915). The rough forging of a shell body, rolled and pressed to suitable dimensions from a steel billet, is an uncouth-looking object, resembling as much as anything one of those upright earthenware umbrella-stands to be found in any cheap furnishing store; and with a view to licking it into shape, to turning it as quickly as possible into the smoothly finished article it was destined to become, Mr. Cooke's representative, on his return from Woolwich, having, as a preliminary, set in motion the machinery necessary for a supply of gauges, forthwith proceeded to improvise a further series of machines and tools, calculating the nature and number required for a given output of shells per month, and mapping out a plan whereby the various operations should follow one another from start to finish in correct and regular sequence. How important is the strict adherence to a regular sequence of operations is borne out by the fact that a shell might easily be ruined in the event of any operation being performed out of its turn. A convenient and suitable _locale_ in which to lay out this shell-manufacturing plant was found available in a previously unoccupied extension of the new fitting shop; and as in the case of fuse manufacture at the old works fitting shop, so in the present instance, members of the fair sex were destined to figure prominently--a little band of neatly attired novices, some 150 strong, speedily responding to the call, and ranging themselves under the immediate supervision of a suitable quorum of expert mechanics of the sterner sex. [Illustration: 6-INCH SHELL MANUFACTURE IN THE NEW FITTING SHOP, CREWE WORKS. [_To face p. 112._] A multiple cutter-milling machine, formerly habituated to the peace-time art of facing locomotive cylinders, suddenly found itself saddled with a row of a dozen shell forgings, the open ends of which it faced to a correct distance from the inside of the base. Thenceforward, engine and turret-lathes deftly manipulated by our little friends of the fair element bore the onus of the succeeding operations. Ordinary engine lathes were eminently suitable for operations such as centring, rough and finished turning, grooving and external blending and turning copper bands. Then, thanks to the facility with which the various tools can be swung round in the lathe-turret and brought to bear on the work, turret-lathes were employed on operations such as rough and finished boring, internal blending, recessing and facing. Rough turning on a fluted mandrel, rough and finished boring, and internal blending, in a concentric chuck secured to the face-plate of the lathe, are operations quickly disposed of. "Blending," needless to say, produces in the mind an impression of smoothness and of harmony: smoothness unscored, that is, of the walls and base; harmony complete between the two, and indispensable. Into the finished and concentric bore of our projectile is now forced a cleverly and home-designed expanding mandrel, a taper mandrel in fact, which expands a hollow (and again concentric) bush, and on this the base is centred. Transferred to an adjacent engine-lathe the shell is fixed on a shorter three-bush expanding mandrel, and turned to the correct and finished diameter. Removed to a turret-lathe, a slight operation of counter-boring the mouth is performed; this is necessary, as medical practitioners may be astonished to learn, for the purpose of receiving the nose. The mouth is also faced, and screwed, but screwing is effected on another instrument of torture, styled a thread-milling machine; so prior to lifting the shell from the turret-lathe a recess is cut in the far cavity of the mouth, this forming a clearance for the thread-milling tool. The turret of the lathe having no transverse travel, an ingenious little tool was designed and fixed into the turret-head by means of which a transverse travel, actuated by a hand-rachet and sufficient for the required depth of the recess, was obtained. Anything which is at all conducive towards the saving of time, especially in war, is _ipso facto_ a device of the utmost strategic and economic value. "Ask anything of me but time," once said Napoleon, "it is the one thing I cannot give you." So, in the case of our thread-milling machine, the saving of time effected is considerable. The shell is as incomplete without the screw-thread in its mouth, as it is without its nose; the thread has to be cut somehow; and by the employment of a milling-machine and thread-cutter the job can be done in about ten minutes as against an hour or more if done in an ordinary screw-cutting lathe. Having recourse once again to an engine-lathe, we attach a "form" (or guide) plate to the slide-rest, to the profile of which the nose and shell-body together are blended externally. As we are now nearing completion, the next item on the programme is to see how we stand for weight, and in the event of the shell being a trifle on the heavy side, we either take a light cut off, reducing ever so slightly the diameter, or else we shorten the base. There remain now the base-plate and the copper band to complete the whole; the former is either screwed or slipped with a plain circumference into a recess in the base, riveted over with a compressed air riveter, and faced to the required thickness; the latter is pressed hydraulically into a groove, then turned and grooved to the required diameter. A kind of miniature Turkish bath now awaits the long-suffering object of our commiseration, in which it is steamed and cleaned, then placed nose downwards over a tank. In this unenviable position a stream of varnish is generously sprayed with a hand pump up its inside. Thereafter it reposes in an adjacent chamber or stove until the varnish is thoroughly dried and baked; whence emerging, a pneumatic tapping machine is waiting to clear the varnish from the thread of its nose. It is then "boarded" both in regard to weight and overall dimensions, and if passed "A1" by the inspector proceeds into bond, where it remains until "called up," "reporting" at a filling factory, and in due course being "drafted over-seas." Prior to quitting the workshop's busy hum and reverting with our mind's eye to the "battle's magnificently stern array," where we may compare to further, if superficial, purpose the projectile and its mathematically proportioned features with the somewhat violent form of gymnastic exercise in which it is about to delight, a word or two in reference to the evolution of the copper band may not be held amiss, in view of the important _rôle_ it plays relatively to the shell as a whole. The process by which these copper bands or discs were evolved was unique, and inasmuch as it was possible to effect a considerable economy by the evolution of three separate and distinct bands from one original sheet or square of copper, Crewe became responsible not only for the bands components of the 6-inch shell, on the manufacture of which she was exclusively concentrating her endeavours, but was able concurrently to produce for other firms further bands components of both 8-inch and 4·5-inch projectiles. Equally with the fuse or gauge, the copper band ranks as one of those "particular components which are essential before you can complete the shell," and in order to preclude in so far as lay in his power to do so the possibility of any shortage of this particular component, Mr. Cooke put in hand and had completed within a fortnight from the date of commencement an entirely new hydraulic press having a capacity of 130 tons and a working pressure of 2000 lbs per square inch, by means of which copper cups were pressed out to approximately 700 per day, and from these cups were cut and turned bands of different diameters according to the size of shell for which they were required; the total number of copper bands thus manufactured at Crewe at the time of the Armistice being upwards of 700,000. The method was simple when once evolved. The 8-inch band being of the largest diameter of the three was the first to be dealt with, then the 6-inch and finally the 4·5-inch. A piece of flat, square copper plate was first dished in the press by means of a solid punch, to the shape of a shallow bowl; annealed, it was pressed a little deeper; annealed again, the process was repeated a third time, but deeper still, the dish becoming a cup; and in order to obviate the drawback of the walls of the cup clinging to the circumference of the solid punch, a cleverly contrived split and collapsible punch was introduced, that is to say a punch which, on being pressed downwards, was expanded by a taper wedge to the full diameter required, and which, on being withdrawn, collapsed or shrank inwardly in proportion as the taper wedge preceded and automatically withdrew the expanded and circular sides, the latter disengaging simultaneously from the walls of the cup. Transferred to the fitting shop, a band or disc 8-inch diameter was turned and cut off from the cup, the latter returning to the press, where through the medium of similar punches of requisite and correspondingly smaller diameters further operations resulted in the evolution of cups from which were turned 6-inch and 4·5-inch bands respectively and in sequence. The proportionate number of bands cut from the three sizes of cups were, as a general rule, three from the smallest or 4·5-inch, eight from the intermediate or 6-inch, and one only from the largest or 8-inch, and it was in some measure due to these circumstances, due, no doubt, too, to a certain difficulty in obtaining delivery of copper sheets in sufficient quantities, that for the purpose of increasing the output of 8-inch bands and of maintaining this output on a level with that of the two smaller sizes, recourse was had to the brass foundry, where it was considered practicable to cast the bands, especially in view of the amount of copper scrap of both shearings and turnings that was available for melting-down purposes. A certain amount of preliminary experimental work was perforce entailed, both for ensuring that the band, when cast, should exhibit an estimated degree of shrinkage (for the greater the shrinkage the sounder the casting, a shrinkage of 1/4 inch being usually accepted as a minimum), and that the metal should be capable of withstanding certain specified Government tests, the one condition, of course, being contingent on the other. Tests which were actually made proved wholly satisfactory, the average results being an elastic limit of 7·5 tons per square inch, an elongation of 45 per cent. on two inches, and finally a breaking stress of 14·5 tons. De-oxidisation, that is to say the process of removing oxygen from the metal for the purpose of obtaining castings that were sound, free of blow-holes and of oxide of copper, was effected by mixing a small percentage of phosphor-copper with the molten copper in the crucible. Boron-copper was also tried as a de-oxidiser, but no real advantage was noticeable. Comparative tests, too, were made for the purpose of ascertaining the percentage of loss of copper when melted in crucibles and again in a reverberatory furnace. The former process resulted in a loss not exceeding 3/4 or 75 per cent.; whereas the latter was responsible for a 7 per cent. loss. Any saving which came within the meaning of the word "economy" as completely removed and distinct from that of "parsimony" was a precept not merely preached but extensively practised throughout the locomotive department at Crewe, and as an illustrative instance of this praiseworthy, and therefore patriotic, policy the casting of copper bands may be cited. Although cheaper and possibly less reliable methods of producing copper bands may have conceivably come into being during the final stages of the war, it was obvious to even the least well-informed in such matters that, provided a mixture could be obtained whereby the metal could be relied upon to pass the Government tests, the process of pouring molten copper from a crucible into a sand-cored cast-iron chill was likely to be at any rate cheaper than that involving the employment of presses, rolls, shears, and punches. On comparing the estimated cost of manufacturing copper bands by the pressing and casting processes respectively, a difference of one shilling per finished band was shown in favour of the latter system; and although it may seem a mere bagatelle, a drop in the ocean of squandered millions, to those who not merely are encouraged, but who encourage others, in the art of reckless and profligate extravagance when handling the public purse, this modest shilling per copper band saved represented an aggregate of £1750, a sum not altogether to be sneezed at when we consider that the value of the 35,000 bands cast in Crewe Works was but an infinitesimal fraction of the total munition expenditure during the war. We are told that "the use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are." Hence it has been, we may confidently aver, for the purpose of seeing things as they are that we have availed ourselves of this opportunity to fathom in some measure for ourselves the abstruse art of shell-manufacture as practised in Crewe Works. The imagination, however morbid and obtuse, can hardly fail to be stirred when pondering the rotund and rudimentary profile of the rough shell-forging lying with all its latent possibilities, recumbent in the lathe; ultimately in its finished form _c'est cela_,[6] the shell we meditate, _qui va nous débarrasser des Prussiens_; thanks now to that generous impulse which prompts our gallant gunner-men, good fellows all, possessed of "mildest manners with the bravest mind," to unravel for us the all-absorbing mysteries of that sphere of "war's glorious art" in which they themselves excel, reality will regulate our questioning imagination as we follow them to the dim seclusion of some cleverly camouflaged gun-emplacement. [6] _C'est celui-la_, etc., said of the Tsar, Nicholas II., when visiting Paris in 1896. We have already seen that the motion of a shell is rotary as well as forward, this rotary motion being brought about by the joint instrumentality of the grooving of the bore of the gun and of the copper band on the shell. Another and very important function performed by the copper band approximates to that of the piston-ring of a locomotive cylinder, which prevents the passage of steam from one side of the piston to the other. Concomitantly, the copper band, turned a fit in the bore of the gun and jammed into the rifling, is designed to obstruct the passage of the propellent gases beyond the base-end of the shell; these gases are naturally imbued with a habit or hobby of gnawing away, or eroding, any metal surfaces with which they can come into contact, so that the further they can penetrate up the bore of the gun, the more material damage that will ensue, and the rifling becomes proportionately erased or eaten away. Further, owing to the fact that the degree of heat generated by the ignition of the propellent charge is obviously most intense in the area most adjacent to the base of the shell, erosion becomes patently more pronounced here than in other directions; consequently as the area in which the propellant gases are exploded increases, so the pressure exerted by these gases decreases, the net results of these considerations being loss of accuracy and of velocity. Different civilised communities favour different kinds of explosives as a gentle means of attaining their ambitions, and these explosives may be solids, liquids, or gases. In this country picric acid (or, tri-nitro-phenol), and tri-nitro-toluene (or in its abbreviated and more easily pronounced form "T.N.T.") are the two kinds most extensively adopted for the filling of high-explosive shells. Owing, however, to certain unexplained caprices in which it is known to indulge, owing, too, to the fact that persons employed on its manipulation have died from the effects of trotyl poisoning, T.N.T. is less extensively employed, in spite of certain known and obvious advantages which it possesses over picric acid. Picric acid solidifies after being run in a molten condition into the shell, and every precaution has to be taken in order to prevent, during solidification, the formation of cavities, because the least tendency to friction that might occur due to the "setting back" of this hard explosive mass resultant on the sudden forward movement of the shell might easily give rise to a "premature." Herein we recognise the vital importance of wholly harmonious internal blending, absence of which might prove a further source of friction entailing imminent peril to ourselves as we stand beside the gun. Again, picric acid is ever seeking opportunities for combining with metal, whereby compounds of a nature most sensitive, and styled "picrates," are created, and of which the most sensitive is the lead-picrate. Hence we breathe a silent prayer that not only has the shell's inside been sprayed in the most efficacious and thorough manner possible, but that the composition of the varnish itself is entirely lead free. Our wives, our families, our friends, we fain would turn to them as of a sudden a fresh suggestion, fraught with peril dire, creeps from out some hidden corner of our timorous mind. On the firing of the propellent charge, the expanding gases, we are told, cause expansion of the gun, thereby simultaneously allowing proportionate expansion of the shell. We know already that erosion is most pronounced round the area within which the propellent charge is fired, that is to say, just at the commencement of the rifling of the bore; hence we see that in all probability the bore decreases gradually, even if imperceptibly, in the direction of the muzzle. We have, however, had experience of these varying and imperceptible degrees of graduation at Crewe, measuring them with our plus and minus gauges. What, therefore, if the shell, expanded in the commencement of the rifling, jams, or is momentarily checked, in its passage up the bore? A "premature"; for the pellet in the fuse is probably already free to jump forward against the detonating needle. These nightmare prematures! Thank goodness, after all, in one direction, at least, assurance has been rendered doubly sure; we used to wonder why all this fuss and trouble about a base-plate? Now we understand. Imperceptible must be our attribute again; metals are porous, imperceptibly so. Now imagine a sieve trellised with wires finely drawn as the threads of a spider's web, threads so closely woven and interlaced that only the most minute "teeny weeny" holes remain, a sieve in fact which though porous is not even transparent. Figuratively speaking this is the base of a shell-forging; a porous partition, the sole dividing line between the ignited propellent gases behind, and the high explosive bursting charge within the shell; in other words, between ourselves and "kingdom come"; hence our supplementary or protecting plate, the grains of whose metal run crosswise to those of the shell-forging base. By this method of reinforcing the shell-base, the odds in favour of a "premature" due to the penetration of the propellent gases to the explosive charge are reduced to a further irreducible minimum. The gun is, of course, designed to withstand the pressure within the breech and behind the shell, exerted by the firing of the propellent gases; this pressure naturally varies according to the size of the gun, and decreases proportionately as the shell shoots forward towards the muzzle with rapidly increasing velocity. When, however, we come to consider the pressure exerted by the detonation of the high-explosive charge within the shell itself, and the velocity acquired by the resultant explosive gases, we are apt to fidget about a trifle uneasily in spite of our efforts to remain at least outwardly cool and nonchalant. All the same, a matter of 300 tons per square inch, which is the pressure liable to be exerted by the detonation of an average charge contained within the high-explosive shell, can only be explained as "splitting"; and when our genial gunner-friends further assure us that 7000 metres or 21,000 feet per second is the velocity resulting from the detonation of "Trotyl," "staggering" is perhaps the most fitting epithet, and an American "Gee whiz" the only coherent sign of comprehension of which we are capable at the moment. For supposing a "premature" did chance to occur; well...! Mercifully enough perhaps for them and for their peace of mind, these intrepid individuals the gunners have little or no time, as a rule, to reflect upon the naked meaning of these figures and their attendant possibilities; for as Kipling has sung-- "The moril of this story, it is plainly to be seen, You 'avn't got no families when serving of the Queen-- You 'avn't got no brothers, fathers, sisters, wives or sons-- If you want to win your battles take an' work your bloomin' guns." The success emanating from the working of our "bloomin' guns" has been, it may be fairly argued, in no small measure due to the excellent qualities of the high-explosive shell, and some interesting figures in this respect may be usefully quoted from the _Daily Mail_ of May 16th, 1919: "Remarkable comparative tests," runs the briefly worded paragraph in question, "have been carried out by British gunnery experts with the high-explosive shells used by both sides in the war. The shells from captured and Allied dumps were fired from the guns for which they were made at specially prepared targets. The official record of 'duds' (shells which failed to explode) was-- United States 50 per cent. German (1918) 38 " " French 32 " " Italian 25 " " Austrian 25 " " British 8 " " " The remarkable results obtained from the British standpoint as compared with that of other and competing nationalities confirm once again the service rendered by our modest little friend the shell "gauge"; and without in any way disparaging the imperturbable _sang froid_ of our gunners, or the indomitable courage and the unquenchable _flair_ of our splendid infantry, it is no exaggeration to say that the superlative degree in the art of shell manufacture attained by British exponents has been largely instrumental in enabling us to fulfil the pledge that "however long the war might be, however great the strain upon our resources, this country intended to stand by her gallant Ally, France, until she redeemed her oppressed children from the degradation of a foreign yoke" (Mr. Lloyd George, October, 1917). CHAPTER VII THE CREWE TRACTOR "We often discover what will do by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery." SMILES. A year or two prior to the war, the present writer remembers one occasion, in particular, on which he was discussing with a friend, possessing considerable knowledge and experience, the well-worn subject relating to the merits and demerits of the various leading "makes" of motor-cars. To a direct question as to what particular "make" he considered as being _the_ best _par excellence_ came the somewhat startling reply, "The Rolls-Royce and the Ford." Whether at the period referred to, and with expense no object, the average intending purchaser would have "dumped" for a Ford with the same enthusiasm as for a Rolls-Royce must remain an open question; suffice it to say that, comparisons remaining, as they always have been, distinctly odious, the two examples of automobile science just mentioned have, during the Great War, each in their respective spheres, performed prodigies of prowess, the Rolls-Royce more particularly in the matter of important Staff work, as well as in armoured car activity, the Ford in a variety of rôles, embracing the functions of anything from a compact and speedy little motor-ambulance to a water-carrier in the wilderness. One _rôle_ allotted to the Ford, however, although of necessity accorded little or no prominence in the public Press at the time, proved far-reaching in its effects in regard to practical utility from the strictly military point of view. Without in any way paralysing its _fons et origo_ as a road vehicle, but embodying all the potentialities of a light-railway engine, there was evolved from a simple Ford chassis an entirely novel and mechanical species of animal, which one might almost say combined the respective physiologies of the proverbial hare and tortoise, and which in due course was christened the "Crewe Tractor." The brain-wave to which this cunning little contrivance owes its existence is directly attributable to the inventive genius of one of Mr. Bowen-Cooke's talented daughters, and the incidence of the project almost whispers of romance, in that a chance encounter, a _rendezvous_ continental and cosmopolitan, a cup of coffee, and an exchange of confidences, duly culminated in a conception which had as its outcome a very perceptible reduction in casualties, the percentage of which, at least in one particular respect, had tended to reach a figure lamentably high. On the occasion in question, towards the end of 1916, having as her _vis-à-vis_ a British officer (on leave in Paris at the time), Miss Cooke was digesting a dissertation on the inherent difficulties, dangers and fatigues to which men were incessantly subjected when relieving one another in the trenches; by day, an open and exposed target to alert enemy marksmanship; by night a prey to pitfalls, victims to unnumbered and water-logged shell-craters, in which, encumbered with personal impedimenta, they were often engulfed, never to appear again. Obviously the easiest solution would be a means of transit, a tiny metal track, ubiquitous, traceable under cover of darkness across the trackless waste, with diminutive rolling-stock available at any point. But how to achieve this end? No one could deny but that the need was both immediate and pressing. Seemingly happy inspirations, as all the world knows, succeed more often than not in theory rather than in practice, and for this reason all credit is due to Miss Cooke in that the happy notion of utilising a Ford car, pure and simple, and of converting it into a light railway tractor materialised in as short a space of time as is humanly possible to convert thought into being, to fashion fact from fancy. Moreover, the advantages accruing from the idea were not limited to this one extent only, for quick to perceive the essential, Miss Cooke further devised a scheme whereby the vehicle, remaining entirely self-contained, was both convertible and re-convertible; that is to say, like the hare it could speed along the high-road to any given point or locality, where quickly transformed it would, like the tortoise, commence its slower and uneven progress on a diminutive line of rails, laid haphazard across some devastated area, unballasted, lop-sided, up and down, this way and that way. _Per contra_, its immediate task accomplished, and in proportion as the exigencies of modern strategy demanded further changes of _venue_, off would come the little tractor from its erst-while _voie-ferrée_, and shodding itself anew with road wheels and rubber tyres, away along the high-road once again to its ensuing sphere of tortuous rail-activity. [Illustration: A CREWE TRACTOR IN ROAD TRIM.] [Illustration: A CREWE TRACTOR AS LIGHT-RAILWAY ENGINE ON ACTIVE SERVICE. [_To face p. 130._] At first sight the casual observer might reasonably have been excused for puzzling his brain as to the exact nature of the contrivance, curious if compact, and neatly secured on the familiar Ford chassis. But on closer inspection, the salient features would resolve themselves into a fairly obvious entity; nor should a due meed of praise be withheld from the draughtsmen and engineers responsible for the successful evolution of the tractors on a sound and practical basis. At the outset, considerations such as height of centre of gravity contingent upon the loads likely to be carried over an uneven, narrow and diminutive track measuring but 1 foot 11-5/8 inches wide, length of wheel-base and corresponding ability to safely negotiate sharp curves, available tractive effort depending upon a coefficient of sliding friction between tyre and rail, all these appeared as obstacles not altogether easily surmountable. Official cynicism, too, coupled with an amount of adverse criticism, had, perhaps not unnaturally, to be faced and met. How for instance could a "flimsy" Ford chassis be expected to withstand loads and stresses for which evidently it had never been designed? Unlike that Government, however, which "foresaw nothing and only discovered difficulties when brought to a standstill by them," Mr. Cooke, with a quiet assurance bred of innate knowledge and experience, could well afford to go ahead "on his own"; official disdain should wait and see. Probably but few were aware for example that, whereas in regular locomotive practice a tensile strength of twenty-eight tons per square inch is considered ample margin for special axle steel, the "flimsy" Ford is built up of Vanadium steel, having a tensile or breaking strength of no less than seventy-five tons per square inch! The somewhat undue height of a Ford chassis for light railway purposes was a preliminary problem to be tackled, and it was decided to substitute the driving road wheels with sprockets and perforated steel rail-wheels, drop-forged with flanges. The question of a suitably short wheel-base was quickly determined by the introduction of a pressed channel steel underframe of 5/32 inch plate on which the Ford chassis was secured; the leading and driving rail-wheels and axles being so arranged that a rail wheel-base of 4 feet 5 inches was obtained, as against the 8 feet 4 inches wheel-base of the road-chassis. Radius rods ensured a nice adjustment of the driving chains, and as a measure of precaution against any possible failure of the Ford back-axle supplementary band brakes of generous dimensions were fitted to the driving rail axles, these being additional to the standard Ford brakes. A "skefko" type of ball-bearing fitted to the original tractors, had perforce to be superseded by brass floating bushes owing to ever-increasing demands in connection with the manufacture of aeroplanes. These bushes were merely a temporary rather than a permanent substitute, for very speedily there was introduced an approved type of roller bearing, which, thanks once again to the ever-ready adaptability of the fair sex element in Crewe Works, was duly forthcoming in all-sufficient quantities, and of a quality leaving nothing to be desired. Numerous experiments were carried out with a view to determining a rail-wheel diameter calculated to give the most satisfactory results. It was assumed that the average Ford car attained a maximum degree of efficiency when running at a speed of 25 m.p.h. with the engine turning over at 1500 r.p.m. With a diameter of 2 feet 6 inches at the tread of the tyres, the road wheels and back axle would be revolving at the rate of 280 r.p.m. A further calculation went to show that with sprockets having a gear ratio of 30 to 40, and with the rail-wheels having a diameter of 18 inches, the latter would revolve at the rate of 210 r.p.m. as against the 280 r.p.m. of the Ford back axle, this resulting in the tractor averaging a speed of 987 feet per minute, or 11 to 12 m.p.h. which was considered adequate and suitable for the varying conditions to which it was likely to be subjected. In addition to ensuring a systematic means of transport for men proceeding to and from the trenches, the Crewe tractor was further requisitioned for taking supplies of ammunition to artillery emplacements in the forward areas. Suitable trolleys were attached, and the little tractor, prior to going into commission, was required to prove itself capable of hauling a dead-weight minimum load of 5 tons, not only on the level, but on an upward gradient of 1 in 20, halfway up which gradient it was further required to stop and re-start, there being in Crewe Works a track specially laid for the purpose of subjecting every tractor to this crucial test. It was found, by experiment, that by doubling the diameter of the trolley wheels, from 7 inches to 14 inches in diameter, double the load could be hauled. "Slipping," an inherent difficulty due to greasy rails, had to be reckoned with, and was in no small measure counteracted by the addition of a central driving chain, coupling rear and front axles through the medium of sprockets. The frictional resistance (_i.e._ the force at the rails when the wheels are on the point of slipping) was found to be 448 lbs. with a load of 1 ton on the carriage of the tractor, this being sufficient to enable the tractors to pass the required test. The Ford transverse rear spring was supplemented by two helical springs placed vertically between the Ford and tractor frames. To obviate the necessity of turning at the various termini of the track, and to enable the tractor to always proceed in forward gear, an ingenious method was devised, whereby, with the aid of a screw and ratchet, working on a transverse beam and socket laid across the rails, the tractor was raised bodily clear of the rails, and swung round, ready to proceed in the opposite direction. Fitted with a high gear, several tractors were specially adapted for inspection purposes; in short, the extent of the ubiquitous utility, and of the universal popularity of these remarkable little machines, may be gauged by the fact that their appearance was welcomed on fronts as divergent as were those of France, Macedonia, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. CHAPTER VIII "HULLO! AMERICA" "A world where nothing is had for nothing." CLOUGH. In the summer of 1917, at the urgent request of the Railway Executive Committee, Mr. Cooke, in conjunction with Sir Francis Dent and Mr. A. J. Hill, chief mechanical engineer G.E.R., undertook, personally, a "mission" to the Government of the U.S. of America, as representing the unprecedented straits to which the leading railway companies of Great Britain had become reduced, and for the purpose of enlisting the practical sympathy of the great republic of the Western hemisphere, at that time but recently united to the allied cause. Doubts were indeed entertained originally as to whether America could in fact supply material to England in view of her own entry into the arena of European conflict, and so in view of her own requirements; consequently, as will be seen from the following briefly stated remarks, the outcome of the "mission" proved to be eminently satisfactory, and this in no small measure due to the friendly intervention of the U.S. Advisory Committee, acting throughout, primarily, in the interests of the British as opposed to those of individual American railway companies. A few cogent reasons may plausibly be advanced to account for the _impasse_ to which the British railways had been brought. One cannot fail, for instance, to recall the stigma which, in the pre-war and piping times of peace, invariably attached to the despised 1s. a day man of the British fighting forces; but although, as in Kipling's immortal stanza, it was-- "Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Chuck him out, the brute," all this sort of antiquated "flap-doodle" very shortly underwent a complete "right-about-turn," when the great ordeal came to be faced, and very speedily it became a case of-- "Please to step in front, Sir, When the guns began to shoot." Consequently it is eminently satisfactory to remember that within the first 365 days of the outbreak of hostilities, British railways had contributed more men to the fighting forces of the Empire than either French or German railways had done in their respective spheres. Further, prior to the introduction of universal compulsory service in Great Britain, employés of the L. & N. W. R. locomotive department had voluntarily enrolled to the number of 4,002; Crewe Works being responsible for 1,142 names on the Roll of Honour.[7] Depletion of staff, plus a steadily increasing volume of traffic, could only spell "maintenance un-maintained." In addition, it was found necessary to adapt rolling stock for use overseas, and prior to the inauguration of the Ministry of Munitions British locomotive works and plant had been depended upon very largely for supplementing the undeniable shortage of munitions of war, which may literally be described as "legion" in quantity as well as in variety. [7] The total number of employés in all departments of the L. & N.W.R. who joined the colours during the war was 37,742, or 34 per cent. of the entire staff. Of these, three won the V.C., and numerous others were awarded various British and foreign decorations. Worse was to follow, for upon the tardy inauguration of munition factories throughout the country, the long-suffering railway companies of the United Kingdom not only found their own supplies of material very considerably curtailed, but they were called upon to perform the seemingly impossible, viz. that of maintaining a regular and ever-increasing supply of munitions in addition to contributing a novel "expeditionary force" in the shape of locomotives and tenders, wagons, and complete up-to-date workshop machinery for overseas service. In response to the call "Hullo! America," castings, forgings, steel, and copper plates, tubes, blooms, billets, springs, etc., were spontaneously forthcoming, in all a grand total of some 15,000 tons (tyres alone accounting for 2,848 tons), involving an approximate expenditure of 3,847,042 dollars, or £800,000. It was admitted that the prices ruling the contracts for this material were abnormally high, but at the same time it was conceded that the national urgency of British claims far outweighed in the then existing circumstances those of American railway companies, who, it should be added in fairness, would have found themselves "up against" identical prices, had they been purchasing the same material themselves. Finally, it only remains to be noted that no sooner had the financial details of this truly vast transaction been determined (a transaction that may frankly be said to have saved the situation in so far as British railways were concerned in contributing towards the winning of the war), than Mr. Cooke promptly evolved and set in motion a system of delivery at Liverpool, or any other port of discharge, whereby consignments of material on arrival were distributed carriage free by the various railway companies to their respective works. The subsequent success of this intricate scheme of distribution may fairly be attributed to the unfailing measure of tact and resource available in the person of Mrs. Harris, M.B.E., (_née_ Miss Faith Bowen-Cooke), a lady on whom devolved the exceptional and delicate task of receiving and allotting these 15,000 tons of railway equipment, and who previously, as secretary to the "mission," as much by her business acumen and practical ability as by her own personal charm, won a sure place for herself in the admiration and esteem of many of the leading personalities in the railway world of the United States of America. CHAPTER IX THE ART OF DROP-FORGING "Who made the law that men should die in meadows, Who spake the word that blood should splash in lanes, Who gave it forth that gardens should be boneyards, Who spread the hills with flesh and blood and brains? Who made the law?" Seldom, perhaps, does a plain question receive so plain an answer as that coming direct from so qualified an authority as Prince Lichnowsky, former German Ambassador to the Court of St. James, who, in the course of his confessions, which he entitles "My Mission to London," says, simply and quite candidly, "We insisted on war." Herr Harden, too, writing in _Die Zukunft_ in November, 1914, even if a trifle more impetuous, more brutal, is none the less frankly outspoken: "Let us drop," he protests, "our miserable attempts to excuse Germany's action.... Not against our will, nor as a nation taken by surprise, did we hurl ourselves into this gigantic venture. We willed it ... it is Germany that strikes." And having fixed the blame, the moral responsibility, equally plain-sailing is it to establish the blood-stained guilt; evidence of it fairly "stinks" no matter where one turns to look; from emperor to general, from statesman to author, exudes the _credo_ of Teuton Kultur; no more lurid interpretation of which can perhaps be found than in the words of Herr Hartmann, a native of Berlin, who, after serving as an artillery officer, turned his attention to matters literary, being _inter alia_ a believer in evolutionary progress. "The enemy country," he insists, "should not be spared the devastation, the profound misery engendered by war. The burden should be and remain crushing. Immediately war is declared, terrorism becomes a primary essential absolutely imperative from the military standpoint." There is, however, all the difference in the world between the transitive and intransitive senses of a verb, and if we take the verb to "terrorise" as an apposite example, the transition from the former sense to the latter, _i.e._ from terrorising to being terrorised, is apt to be very noticeable, indeed unpleasant. Granted that British and Boche ideas on the particular subject in no way harmonise, the British method ultimately of diffusing an unlimited supply of high explosive over the Boche lines nevertheless had the desired effect of "putting the fear of God" into the right individuals, at the right time, and in the right place. One employs the prefix "ultimately" of necessity, for obviously the diffusion of metal prior to the latter phases of the war was, except upon certain occasions which were few and far between, anything but unlimited; it was, in fact, at one particular period of the war of so limited a nature as to infuse into the mind of the late Lord Kitchener a fear of stalemate on the Western Front, sufficient to impel his acquiescence in that diversion, so ardently advocated by "amateur strategists" but destined to prove nothing but a prodigious and costly failure, to wit the Dardanelles expedition. Thanks, however, to the staying powers of the workers, to the inflexible will to win by which they were animated throughout, the crushing superiority, early attributable to the enemy, gradually became less and less apparent; in fact, after hanging for a time evenly in the balance, the scales indeed tipped the other way, eventually dipping to such an extent in Entente favour as to become a source, at first of no little astonishment, then of concern, to the German "Imperial Staff of Supermen." General Ludendorff in his memoirs ["My War Memories," 1914-1918, Vols. I. & II., Hutchinson & Co. 39s.] makes no attempt to conceal his surprise, if not indeed his dismay, at the awkward trend of events. "Whereas we had hitherto been able to conduct our great war of defence" (_sic_), so he writes (cp. page 240, Vol. I.), "by that best means of waging war--the offensive--we were now (by the autumn of 1916) reduced to a policy of pure defence.... The equipment of the Entente armies with war material had been carried out on a scale hitherto unknown"; the boot was plainly on the other leg, for (cp. page 242, Vol. I.) "the Battle of the Somme showed us every day how great was the advantage of the enemy in this respect." Evidently the one and only Ludendorff no longer had any doubt in his own mind as to the "writing on the wall," its lettering was clear, its meaning ominous and unmistakable; from the German point of view things were going from bad to worse; "At the beginning of June (1917)," he continues (cp. pages 428, 429, Vol. II.), "the straightening of this (the Wytschaete) salient really ushered in the great Flanders battle.... The heights of Wytschaete and Messines had been the site of active mine warfare," and ultimately, "The moral effect of the explosions was simply staggering." Again in August of the same year (cp. page 480, Vol. II.), "In spite of all the concrete protection, they (the Germans) seemed more or less powerless under the enormous weight of the enemy's artillery," and "With the opening of the fifth act of the great drama in Flanders on the 22nd October (cp. page 491, Vol. II.) enormous masses of ammunition, such as the human mind had never imagined before the war, were hurled upon the bodies of men who passed a miserable existence scattered about in mud-filled shell-holes. The horror of the shell-hole area of Verdun was surpassed. It was no longer life at all. It was mere unspeakable suffering. And through this world of mud the attackers dragged themselves, slowly, but steadily, and in dense masses.... Rifle and machine-gun jammed with mud. Man fought against man, and only too often the mass was successful." The long and the short of it, in a word, amounted just to this, the Hun had "insisted on war," and now he was "getting it in the neck." Napoleon is credited with the opinion that "Good infantry is beyond question the soul of an army, but"--and no doubt it is a big "but," as will be seen from the way in which he goes on to qualify his opinion--"but if it has to fight any considerable time against a very superior artillery, it becomes demoralised and is destroyed." In order to determine how completely has been justified this view in the light of modern warfare, one has but to turn again for the space of a brief instant to the memoirs of Ludendorff--Ludendorff who "lived only for the war," whose life had been one of work for his "Country, the Emperor, and the Army,"--the note of bitter chagrin cannot be mistaken. "Against the weight of the enemy's material" (cp. page 542, Vol. II.) "the troops no longer displayed their old stubbornness of defence; they thought with horror of fresh defensive battles." Such in effect, then, was the net result obtained by an intense application by the Entente Armies of "a very superior artillery," rendered possible by the untiring efforts of the workers, by the plant at their disposal, and by the brains which created and controlled. There can be no parallel in the whole history of international warfare to compare even approximately with the abnormally severe conditions imposed upon pieces of artillery during the present-day conflict, conditions which perforce had a considerable bearing not only on the design of integral parts, but also on the nature of the material employed in the manufacture of those parts. One of the most remarkable features in this latter respect was the frequent necessity to substitute a steel forging where a casting had previously been considered "the last word," and if we take as a convenient and typical example so ordinary and obvious a part as is the trunnion bracket of a howitzer gun, this will afford a very good idea of the difficulties which present themselves when in compliance with Government specifications recourse must needs be had to the hammer as opposed to the mould, difficulties, in fact, which could only be overcome by the employment of what is commonly known as the drop-hammer. If proof positive were ever needed in support of the argument that bread may be found again which has been cast upon the waters, not merely many days previously, but weeks, months, and years, the money sunk by the London and North-Western Railway Company in their drop-hammer plant at Crewe affords the proof; for, thanks to the existence of this plant, thanks too to the invaluable experience gained during the years following upon its installation, not only were the staff engaged in operating the hammers able, figuratively speaking to forge right ahead, literally speaking to commence drop-forging, directly they were required to do so, those sorely needed "sinews of war" which a pre-war generation of feeble-gutted politicians had neglected to provide against the evil day of reckoning, but Mr. Cooke found himself in the unique position of being able to undertake forgings which were admittedly altogether beyond the scope of firms whose speciality was none other than that of drop-forging, and of which the Directors of Army Ordnance were well-nigh at their wits' end to secure an adequate, if indeed any, supply at all. [Illustration: LIMBER HOOKS: ILLUSTRATING DUPLEX METHOD OF DROP FORGING.] [Illustration: TRUNNION BRACKETS FOR 6-INCH HOWITZER GUN, DROP FORGING. [_To face p. 145._] Significant, and sufficiently expressive of appreciation, if not of actual open-mouthed astonishment, is the following letter received by Mr. Cooke from a well-known Government Department: "I have to thank you and your staff on behalf of the Ministry of Munitions for the excellent work you have done in producing stampings of trunnion brackets. The part in question has hitherto been considered almost impossible to produce as a stamping, and the work you have now produced will add materially to the efficiency of this important equipment. I should be glad if this letter could be brought to the notice of your subordinate staff who carried out the work." From the same source, but at a later date, came this further little note of esteem: "Your previous production of the trunnion bracket has been the means of great saving to the State, and it is with great satisfaction that I am able to again congratulate your operating staff on a renewed success in your stamping department." For the benefit of those uninitiated in the fascinating art of drop-stamping or forging, it may not be considered superfluous if a brief explanation is given of the principles embodied in the system, and for this purpose one cannot do better than read and inwardly digest the opinion which has been advanced by Mr. Brett, founder of the Brett Patent Lifter Company of Coventry and inventor and patentee of the hammer in question.[8] "Having in mind," he says, "that the plastic or forgeable condition of wrought-iron or steel, when obtained, cannot be retained beyond limited periods, especially in the case of articles having thin or light parts, when its duration is very brief," it rests with the engineer "to provide for the forger a suitable form of power for actuating the dies or tools by means of which properly-formed forgings may be obtained." Further, "this power must be capable of instantaneous application," similar in all essentials to that produced by the smith "with hand hammer or sledge; that is to say, a perfectly elastic blow of sufficient force to produce an immediate and substantial effect upon the material." [8] [Extract from Paper read by Mr. Brett before the Engineering Conference of the Institution of Civil Engineers, June, 1899, and published in _Engineering_, June 30th, 1899.] The secret of providing this particular form of power lies obviously in the Brett drop-hammer, and in it alone, and the method evolved consists in the raising of the hammer-head or "tup" between a pair of parallel and vertical guides to a certain height by pressure of steam exerted within an overhead cylinder; no sooner is this pressure shut off than the "tup" automatically descends by force of gravity, delivering the hammer-blow simply with the weight of its falling mass, and rebounding, is lifted once again by re-admission of the steam into the cylinder, preparatory to the next descent and the delivery of a further succession of blows. It is largely thanks to a flexible cord and strap connection between the "tup" and the piston and piston-arm working in the overhead cylinder that the blow delivered is not only "smashing" in effect, but altogether resilient, in direct contrast to that of a steam-hammer, the blow of which is more in the nature of a dull thud or a rigid push. It is obvious, as Mr. Brett goes on to point out, that "the vibrations from blows of sufficient power and elasticity (or sharpness) to cause metal at a moderate heat to flow completely into the impressions of the dies," _i.e._ the blocks in which are cut the impression of the required forging, "and to make clean work, are calculated to destroy any rigidly built machine." Hence the fact, which a cursory glance at the hammers cannot fail to establish, that nothing has been overlooked or omitted in regard to detail in design, "not any of the parts affected by the work are bolted together or in any wise rigidly fixed; the guides are held and the dies set in position by flexible means, _i.e._ the lower end of each guide fits into a recess into the base block, the top end passes up into a socket having sufficient clearance for wood packing, the wood is intended to absorb the vibrations which pass up the guide-rod." The plant at Crewe as originally installed in 1899, by the late Mr. F. W. Webb, of "compound" fame, consisted merely of one "battery" of hammers, comprising two 7-cwt. stamping hammers, and one 5-cwt. "dummying" or roughing-out hammer, and although the production of small stampings for signal apparatus etc., was all that was attempted in those early days, little by little the variety of work became extended, embracing, ere long, locomotive parts of small dimensions such as brake-rod ends, joints, levers, handles, etc., with the result that as time went on and as ever-increasing experience with confidence proportionate accrued to the staff employed, jobs of still greater variety were successfully tackled. [Illustration: THE 4-TON DROP HAMMER. [_To face p. 148._] There are at the present time no fewer than eight "batteries" of hammers "in action" at Crewe, the actual number of hammers being twenty-two, and some idea of the extent of the progress made may be gauged by the fact that the yearly tonnage output of stampings rose from 400 tons in 1902 to 1450 tons in 1917, a time when the plant was largely devoted to the manufacture of a regular "pot-pourri" of essential munitions of war. It was primarily due to the urgent demands of the Ministry of Munitions for a supply of trunnion brackets, which, cast in steel, were proving defective, and which had "been considered almost impossible to produce as stampings," that Mr. Cooke determined on the course of laying down an additional hammer, having a "tup" weighing no less than four solid tons. Complete with gas-producers, stationary boiler, gas reheating furnaces and cranes, the estimated cost of installation was £15,100. The hammer foundations necessitated a cavity being dug to a depth of 18 feet, which was filled in with 321 tons of granite and cement, and upon which repose the base blocks, cast in steel and weighing a further 58 tons. This veritable monster commenced operations during the critical days of the early spring of 1918, and no sooner had the seemingly impossible been shown to be possible and the successful production of trunnion brackets had become "the means of great saving to the State," than there followed in quick succession orders for other and indispensable gun-mountings, such as front stiffening bands, upper sight brackets, trunnion-seatings, etc., etc. "Peace," as we know, "hath her victories no less renowned than war," and no sooner was the mantle of munition manufacture laid aside than efforts were once again concentrated on the production of locomotive parts, the whole of the Walschaerte valve gear appertaining to Mr. Cooke's latest express passenger engines, the well-known "Claughton" class, being now produced under the 4-ton drop-hammer. Standing in the immediate vicinity of the hammers ranged in convenient positions in regard to gas furnaces, "dummying" hammers, and "finning" or "trimming" presses, the average and intelligent visitor never fails to be impressed as he witnesses the operations in process, and notes the lightning rapidity with which, as if by the magic of a magician's wand, a bar or billet of gleaming, glistening whiteness is battered and transformed into some previously determined shape, curiously contorted, maybe, with corners, elbows, and recesses, ere the dazzling brilliance dims and fades, paling imperceptibly to lemon tint and orange hue, till finally the blood-red flush of angry sunset supervenes, and nothing remains but that the finished stamping should be trimmed and laid aside, gradually to resume the slate-grey cool of dawn. How natural it all seems, how almost childish in simplicity! And yet on second thoughts, how come these various shapes and forms, these corners, elbows, and recesses, these well-nigh perfect surfaces, pure and clean, free from blow-holes, dirt and scale? True, we know the crashing and resilient hammer blow is there, and then a little closer acquaintance with, or examination of, the hammer is all that is necessary, for this will reveal the fact that it is the effect of the blow on a pair of "dies," one of which is held rigidly in the "tup," the other on the base-block, that causes the metal at a moderate heat to "flow" completely into the impressions which are in the dies, and which ensure the fashioning of the article required. To cut an impression in a pair of "dies," to put the "dies" in the hammer, and to obtain a forging, sounds the simplest thing in the world. Yet in actual practice, so many are the problems which present themselves, so diverse are the obstacles to be overcome, that a volume might be written on the craft of the die-designer, whose efforts result in work of so great beauty, and whose "dies" must be capable of withstanding the punishment, and of enduring the wear, which the crashing blows of the "tup" inflict and are ever striving to induce. What is the most suitable metal to employ in the manufacture of the dies? and having found that metal, what is the best process of hardening? are two of the first questions to be decided. Will the forgeman bestow every care in the use of his "dies," and will he set them accurately in the hammer? Much depends on answers being in the affirmative. Whether to cast the impressions in the die-blocks, or to machine them out _in toto_, and if machined out how to do so, are further knotty propositions. Correct taper on the walls of holes, bosses, and recesses; egress for imprisoned air; size of bar or billet to be stamped, after making suitable allowance for contraction and waste; control of waste metal or "fin"; method of duplex stamping. Such are the more potent problems with which the die-designer is faced, and whilst lack of insight will assuredly foreshadow failure, ability to grasp their import cannot fail to spell success. Obviously the mind of the die-designer must ever be planning, plotting, scheming how best to make his metal "flow;" and concentrated attention, and study extending over years, are the only means of approaching that degree of perfection which in the art of drop-stamping, as in all other branches of mechanical science, the engineer is ever striving to attain. Incredible, then, that public money should have been continuously lavished on that legion of "inexpert experts," more than one of which worthless clan, gloriously clad in khaki, was known to claim admission to Crewe Works for the avowed purpose of "satisfying himself" (_sic_) that the engineers of the London and North-Western Railway locomotive department were "making the best use of the drop-hammer plant." Even if we generously assume that these gentlemen were the exception rather than the rule, such glaring exhibitions of ignorance and impudence combined could not but tend to bring out in full relief the anomalies which, although possibly unavoidable, existed none the less in a system of universal and compulsory service; and with every apology to the talented soldier poet, author of the initial stanza introducing this chapter, one may be pardoned if, in conclusion, one feels constrained to put this further little conundrum:-- "Who made the law that nincompoops and asses Should 'cushy' jobs, immune from risk, infest, While other 'blokes,' undaunted--aye in masses,-- Naught asking, bit the dust, and so--'went west'? Who made the law?" CHAPTER X 1914-1918 PASSENGERS AND GOODS "Unless we had order, unless we had certainty, in the moving of large masses, the day of battle, which might come, would be to us a day of disaster."--Colonel McMurdo, late Inspector-General of the Volunteer Forces, January 9th, 1865. _Der Tag_, which came on August 4th, 1914, was not fated after all, as we know, to be a day of disaster. That it was not so is perhaps attributable in the main to two causes. "Miraculous" is the manner in which escape from disaster has been described; but as we have already seen (and of this fact we cannot remind ourselves too often), the miracle was performed primarily and essentially by the loss of those "many thousands of brave men whose sacrifice we deplore, while we regard their splendid gallantry and self-devotion with unstinted admiration and gratitude." A secondary, but by no means inconsiderable, cause contributory to the successful working of the miracle lay in the fact that we did possess the "order," the "certainty," in regard to the moving--not exactly of "large masses" in the more recently accepted meaning of the term, but at any rate--of that part of the Army which was detailed for home defence, and of the six divisions of which the original Expeditionary Force was composed, and which were flung across the Channel to assist in stemming the initial German onrush. And it is with regard to this "order," this "certainty," and the attendant successful working of the railways that the ensuing pages are concerned. We have already traced in some degree of detail the antecedents of the Railway Executive Committee, that body of distinguished civilian railway experts, who, from the time that the Government assumed, under provisions of the Act of 1871, nominal control of the railways, became, and throughout the war remained, responsible to the Government for the maintenance and the efficient working of the entire railway systems of the British Isles; and in order to acquire some insight into the amazing and complex detail involved in this efficient working, we cannot very well do better than probe a few of the more salient facts concerning the London and North-Western Railway, which, on the outbreak of hostilities, and appropriately enough, was deputed to act as the "Secretary" Company to the Western and Eastern Commands and afterwards to the Central Force, that is to say, the Company specified by the Army Command Headquarters, for the purpose of making arrangements with the other railway companies concerned in the Commands named for the main troop movements during the first two months of the war. In an extremely interesting report, dated October 1st, 1914, Mr. L. W. Horne, who, prior to his appointment as secretary to the "Secretary" Company to the Commands previously mentioned, was acting secretary to the Railway Executive Committee, describes the measures that were adopted both prior to and during mobilisation, in conformity with the War Office programme. A Communications' Board "consisting of representatives of all Government departments and also the Railway Executive Committee," was instituted to consider Government "recommendations to meet their various requirements so far as the railways were concerned." Owing to the "very drastic alterations in the mobilisation time tables" made by the War Office, a staff was specially appointed to deal with the matter, and as a result of herculean efforts on the part of this devoted body of enthusiasts, involving many hours of overtime, "on mobilisation being ordered, not only was our scheme complete, but time tables and sheets numbering many thousands were ready for immediate issue." Existing accommodation at certain stations on the line, where large concentrations of troops were foreshadowed, was totally inadequate, so that plans and estimates were at once prepared for the necessary extensions, and the Company arranged to carry out the work with all possible speed. Special troop trains, of which 1465 (exclusive of "empties" to and from entraining and detraining stations respectively) were run between August 4th and September 30th, 1914, were "signalled by a special code of 4-4-4 beats," this code signifying "precedence over all other trains," the ordinary passenger service being curtailed as occasion demanded. Seven hundred and fifty-one was the total of special trains required for the "large quantities of stores, equipment, etc.," and "in order to ensure that such consignments should be worked forward without delay," it was agreed that "they should be given 'Perishable transit.'" As will doubtless be within the memory of most of us, already on August 3rd, 1914, Sir Edward Grey was in a position to inform the House that "the mobilisation of the Fleet has taken place," the credit for the promptitude of this precautionary measure being in due course claimed by Mr. Winston Churchill, and resulting shortly afterwards in the resignation from his post as a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty of Prince Louis of Battenberg, eldest son of Prince Alexander of Hesse; and "at this grave moment in our national history," so ran the message spontaneously addressed by His Majesty the King to Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, "I send you, and through you to the officers and men of the Fleets of which you have assumed command, the assurance of my confidence that under your direction they will revive and renew the old glories of the Royal Navy, and prove once again the sure shield of Britain and of her Empire in the hour of trial." To enable officers and men to "revive and renew the old glories of the Royal Navy," coal, not canvas, was needed, this entailing the provision forthwith of six hundred and fifty-one special trains for the conveyance of approximately 150,000 tons of Admiralty coal from the South Wales collieries to certain points on the East Coast. Various difficulties presented themselves in regard to the "supply of rolling stock, and the making-up of the troop trains of the required composition"; in regard to the working of Westinghouse and Vacuum stock, as the case might be; in regard to congestion of traffic, necessitating the diversion of trains by alternative routes; and in regard to the requisitioning by the Government of certain steamers, goods-vans, horses, motors, etc., belonging to the Company. But, as Mr. Horne points out, "no hitch whatever occurred so far as the London and North-Western Company was concerned in carrying out, not only the pre-arranged programme, but also the additional movements which have been arranged at short notice. The time-keeping of the trains has been excellent both from a traffic department and locomotive department standpoint, and the entraining and detraining at the various stations on the London and North-Western line were successfully carried out in every case." Apropos of all of which data, one cannot but call to mind once again the ungrudging acknowledgment which the late Lord Kitchener saw fit to make on the occasion of his first appearance in the House of Lords as Secretary of State for War: "I have to remark that when war was declared, mobilisation took place without any hitch whatever.... We know how deeply the French people appreciate the prompt assistance we have been able to afford them at the very outset of the war." The official announcement, too, issued by the Press Bureau on Tuesday, August 18th, 1914, itself remains a landmark in the epic chapter of events: "The Expeditionary Force as detailed for foreign service has been landed in France ... and without a single casualty." It is a matter of common knowledge that during the initial stages of the war the French authorities undertook the whole of the transport by rail of the British Army in France, basing their decision and ability to do so largely, no doubt, upon the opinion prevalent at the time, which was to the effect that for various seemingly obvious reasons--of which perhaps the most palpable was the unprecedented and unparalleled strain necessarily imposed upon the human and material resources of the belligerent nations--the war could not continue for a period exceeding a few weeks, or months, at the outside. We even find it stated in the _Times_ of August 20th, 1914, under the heading "Peace Insurance Rate," that "for a premium of 25 per cent., underwriters yesterday undertook to pay a total loss claim should Germany ask for peace on or before September 30th next." When, however, it began to dawn upon the parties engaged that the struggle, far from diminishing in intensity, was becoming increasingly bitter and severe, the advisability of, or perhaps rather the necessity for, easing the onus devolving upon the French railways was obvious to all. In the early part of 1915, therefore, rolling stock on a small scale was sent over from England; but in proportion as the numerical strength of the British overseas forces rose, so did the requirements in respect of means of transport increase, until towards the winter of 1916, a period synchronising with the British offensive on the Somme, matters reached such a pitch that the only solution to the difficulty seemed to lie in the appointment of a "mission" of home railway experts for the purpose of investigating the situation on the spot. With this end in view the more prominent of the two world-renowned "Geddes-Goddesses," to wit, Sir Eric, was nominated the responsible head, and as a result of his inquiry and subsequent report, there came into being the office of "Director-General of Transportation," the sound principle underlying this new departure being that of employing "individuals in war, on work which they have been accustomed to perform in peace," the immediate outcome, too, being that the important position was filled _au début_ by none other than Sir Eric Geddes himself, who, as the Earl of Derby was at some pains to impress upon his noble confrères in the House of Lords (cp. the _Times_, November 30th, 1916), undertook the work only "from purely patriotic reasons." In the issue dated September 6th, 1919, of that practical and very-much-up-to-date weekly journal, _Modern Transport_, is to be found tabulated in full and comprehensive form the "pedigree stock" emanating from the Director-General of Transportation; numerous personalities, bearing awe-inspiring affixes such as D.G.M.R., I.G.T., A.D.G.M.R., D.D.R.T., etc., _ad lib._; appearing on the scenes as representing the direct lineal descent of the great D.G.T. himself. And subsidiary to these personalities, or heads of sections and sub-sections, was enrolled a galaxy of assistants, engineers furnished in part by the British railway companies on recommendation from the Railway Executive Committee, in part by colonial or foreign railways, and under whom, in turn, there served a numerous personnel, whose name was "legion," recruited mostly from the home railways. And the reason for this gigantic scheme of organisation cannot be explained in any manner more convincing than in the words of Sir Douglas Haig, who, dealing in his final despatch with the "Rearward Services," insists that "the immense expansion of the Army from 6 to over 60 infantry divisions, combined with the constant multiplication of auxiliary arms, called inevitably for a large increase in the size and scope of the services concerned in the supply and maintenance of our fighting forces." Some staggering statistics now stare us in the face. "By the end of November, 1918," for instance, we learn that "the number of individual landings in France at the various ports managed by us exceeded 10-1/4 million persons," and "during the eleven months, January to November, 1918, the tonnage landed at these ports averaged some 175,000 tons per week." One can easily imagine the resultant effect upon these different ports situated on the northern coast of France. Let us take Boulogne, as being, perhaps, one of the most familiar of all, and any one who has chanced upon a little volume, bearing as its title "An Airman's Outings," cannot fail to recall the distinctly happy vein in which the author, writing under the _nom-de-plume_ of "Contact," describes the inevitable change which came over the place during the war. "It (Boulogne)," so he tells us, "has become almost a new town. Formerly a head-quarters of pleasure, a fishing centre, and a principal port of call for Anglo-Continental travel, it has been transformed into an important military base.... The multitude of visitors from across the Channel is larger than ever; but instead of Paris, the Mediterranean, and the East, they are bound for less attractive destinations--the muddy battle area and Kingdom Come." Small wonder, then, that the strain of supplying the means of transit, not only for these multitudes of visitors but for their personal impedimenta and food supplies as well, became too great for the French camel's back. The whole business, if such it may be termed, was assuming a degree of which the proportions were verging on the prodigious. Thus, "for the maintenance of a single division for one day, nearly 200 tons dead-weight of supplies and stores are needed," and "for an army of 2,700,000 men (the total feeding strength of our forces in France) the addition of one ounce to each man's daily rations involves the carrying of an extra 75 tons of goods." Again, "in the six months May to October, 1918, a weekly average of 1,800 trains were run for British Army traffic, carrying a weekly average load of approximately 400,000 tons, while a further 130,000 tons were carried weekly by our light railways." Kolossal, indeed, with a capital K, are the figures which the Field-Marshal asks us to digest. And in order to cope with this vast volume of traffic, in order that it might move freely and speedily to the various points of distribution on the British Front, "the number of locomotives imported ... rose from 62 in 1916 to 1200 by the end of 1918; while the number of trucks rose from 3,840 to 52,600," and in addition to the already-existing mileage of permanent way available in the rearward areas, during 1918 "were built or reconstructed 2,340 miles of narrow-gauge railway." As was reasonably to be expected, "the introduction of new weapons and methods of war" accounted largely for the "huge bulk of the supplies to be handled," and another factor further responsible for the gigantic nature of the task imposed was to be found in "the establishment of a higher standard of comfort for the troops." The force of the logic in regard to "feeding the brute" may be said to apply equally to the soldier as to the husband; "_Une bataille ne se perd matériellement_," in fact, Napoleon is said to have expressed the view that "the moral is to the material in war as three to one." Consequently "great installations were set up," not merely for the repair of damaged material, but "installations of all kinds," embracing "hutments, camps, and hospitals," and "the Expeditionary Force canteens made it possible to obtain additional comforts close up to the Front." Without any shadow of doubt "no war has been fought with such ample means of quick transportation as were available during the recent struggle.... It was possible to effect great concentrations of troops with a speed which, having regard to the numbers of men and bulk of material moved, has never before been equalled." Having noted, therefore, the more salient facts and figures, set out in so lucid a manner by Sir Douglas Haig, it is only natural, perhaps, that there should follow in direct sequence a desire to fathom, in some respect, the influences which rendered animate this gigantic scheme or organisation, this mammoth conglomeration of machinery, admirably planned no doubt, then set and kept in motion; to trace the sources whence flowed these "ample means of quick transportation"; and to become acquainted with the responsible practicians by whom they were provided. The influences at work--as a brief reflective glance through the pages of our mind will suffice to recall--are surely to be found in that "dauntless spirit of the people at home," and in "their incessant toil." The sources are clearly indicated by the "mine, the factory, the shipyard." The responsible practicians are personified by those "distinguished scientific men" who "placed their learning and their skill at the disposal of their country." Briefly, the position amounted to this; the fighting line could not be held without the support and replenishment afforded by the rearward services; the rearward services could not perform their part unaided by the people at home, and, as was only to be expected, the London and North-Western Railway Company was second to none in stepping forward and rendering that aid which was vital to the continued sustenance of the rearward services. But charity, as we know, begins at home, and even though no effort was spared in regard to supplying the wants of the overseas forces, the Company obviously could not afford so to denude itself of its available working resources as to court the risk of failure to "carry on," to carry out the task imposed upon it by the State at home. A further report issued from the office of the Superintendent of the Line, dated July 8th, 1919, and retrospective of the strenuous times experienced by the Company during the war, describes how "the ramifications of the London and North-Western Railway system were quickly appreciated by the naval and military authorities," for being, as it was, "the main trunk line, the direct route to and from London and the west of England (viâ Crewe) with the west, north and north-east of Scotland," it also afforded every facility to passengers travelling "between the north-east of England and the west and south-west of England." But apart from this it is an incontrovertible fact that the Company did absolutely "lay itself out," and in a manner unparalleled in any other quarter, to study the convenience, and to relieve the anxieties, of the military from the lordly "Brass Hat" to the humble Tommy with his tin helmet; with the result that, instinctively as it were, Euston became the quest of all, a haven of refuge to many thousands of war-worn warriors, home for a few days' leave. As evidence of this, we may note that a total of 7,300,000 officers and men "on leave" were conveyed in "special trains"; that a further 2,864,000 specified as "small units of troops and pre-arranged by ordinary services," were accommodated in the ordinary trains; and that, in addition to these figures, there were many thousands of troops conveyed "every week in small units by the ordinary existing services, of which actual figures are not available," but of which most of us, retaining vivid recollections of overcrowded compartments and the crush of corridors, will no doubt be able to form some vague if inadequate estimate. Luggage evidently was not in the habit of getting lost or left behind, as the figure "89,745 tons of baggage conveyed" will go to prove; 45,517 cycles received careful handling in transit, and the necessary accommodation was provided for the safe journeying of 500,000 horses, plus the rolling-stock necessary for the conveyance of 5,476 guns. Then, in spite of a number of the vessels comprising the London and North-Western fleet being commandeered by the Admiralty, "a fairly regular service both for passengers and cargo" was maintained viâ Holyhead and Dublin, "the principal route between England and Ireland"; the two other sea routes viâ Fleetwood and Belfast, and Larne and Stranraer, respectively, assisting materially in the working of this "very heavy passenger and cargo traffic." Turning next to "the requirements of the Fleet on the east and north-east coast of Scotland, there was a continuous coming and going of personnel, and movement of supplies, between the depôts in Scotland and those in the south and west of England, and the Admiralty concentrated the whole of this traffic on the west coast route." In this connection (and incidentally we may note the strict observance by the naval authorities of the Fourth Commandment) for two consecutive years, and on every day of the week except the seventh, which is the Sabbath, a special train provided exclusively for the use of the Admiralty, was run "between Euston and Thurso (serving the Rosyth depôt), the total number of men so conveyed being 500,000 and the mileage incurred over the L. & N. W. system alone being 388,700 miles." Then, "owing to the position of the Fleet, rail-borne coal was conveyed from the South Wales coalfields to such points as Newcastle, Grangemouth, Burntisland, etc., entailing an average of about twenty trains per day, in each direction, of loaded and empty wagons." A further, and by no means inconsiderable, call to be made upon, as it was gladly accepted by, the Company, was that of tending the wounded on arrival in "Blighty." Special ambulance trains of the most approved design were supplied, and run with unfailing precision and regularity. Refugees were catered for; and in direct contrast to the treatment meted out by the enemy to our own men, enemy prisoners and captives in our own hands were shown such pity that special trains were actually provided for their conveyance by rail. When all is said and done, however, "Be England what she will, With all her faults she is my country still." Fresh still in the minds of most of us must be Mr. Lloyd George's memorable "for-God's-sake-hurry-up" message, calling upon the United States of America, at the time when the hammer blow of the final and despairing German offensive fell with full force upon the British Army in France, "to send American reinforcements across the Atlantic in the shortest possible space of time," and whatever may be the opinion held "pace" Mr. Wilson and his famous "too-proud-to-fight" utterance, there is no doubt but that at long last the great American people realised to the full the nature of the menace which threatened from the German aspiration to world-domination. Speaking at Spartanburg (cp. the _Times_, March 26th, 1918), General O'Ryan declared that "the only distressing feature of the news (of the German offensive) was the fact that the British had been obliged to make such enormous sacrifices because American assistance was not yet fully at hand. We have been galvanised now," he said, "into realising the immensity of our obligations." Telegraphing to Sir Douglas Haig on the same date, President Wilson deigned to express "to you my warm admiration for the splendid steadfastness and valour with which your troops have withstood the German onset." And in the meantime, the complicated problem of transportation was occupying the keenest brains on the other side of the Herring-pond, for as the _New York World_ (cp. the _Times_, March 30th, 1918) pointed out, "it (transportation) certainly cannot be solved by the kind of people who for ever wring their hands crying, 'For God's sake do something.' Godsaking will not drive a single rivet in a ship, or transport a solitary soldier across the Atlantic." Having realised, then, the menace, "the Yanks" without doubt set to work and responded with a will, and the effect of their coming was felt, not only by the enemy, but--even though in a different manner--by the London & North-Western Railway Company as well, for "the majority of American troops which passed through England," as Mr. Home goes on to narrate, "were dealt with through the Port of Liverpool, the whole of the arrangements being in our hands," these necessitating "the running of 2,333 special trains (of which 1,684 were provided by the London & North-Western Railway) which conveyed a total of 1,182,505 officers and men, and 25,978 tons of baggage"; the record or heaviest day, August 28th, 1918, witnessing the dispatch of no fewer than 35 special trains with 17,274 officers and men, with 245 tons of baggage. The conclusion drawn by the majority of level-headed Americans may perhaps best be summed up in the words of Mr. Taft, who, writing in the _Public Ledger_ (cp. the _Times_, March 30th, 1918), says:--"We have been living in a fool's paradise.... This drive has been a rude awakening. We are rubbing our eyes and asking if they (the Germans) break through, then what the answer is. We shall be left naked to our enemies." Reference has previously been made to Crewe being, figuratively speaking, the pivot of the London and North-Western Railway compass: and the Company's system being, as Mr. Horne points out in his report, "the main artery running through the centre of England, and serving so many of the important centres of industry in the country," necessarily "carried an immense amount of traffic of varying character." [Illustration: PASSENGER TRAIN MILEAGE--L.N.W.R.] In this respect the two accompanying diagrams are of no little interest, showing as they do in manner unmistakable how, in proportion as the volume of passenger traffic decreased, as a result of the abolition of excursion trains and cheap tickets, the general curtailment of services, and the increase of ordinary fares, so, owing to the exigencies of the war, did the amount of goods traffic show in direct contrast an enormous increase. Increase of mileage obviously implies a corresponding increase of tonnage carried, and in this connection we may select at random a few out of many "interesting facts and figures," which have been compiled in regard to the "new traffic created, which passed in goods trains over the L. & N. W. system," facts and figures, in short, which clearly speak for themselves. [Illustration: GOODS TRAIN MILEAGE--L.N.W.R.] Over 100,000 tons of timber and sawdust were put on rail at Penrith by the Canadian Forestry Corps. Leeds, Huddersfield, and Manchester were responsible for the delivery of immense quantities of raw material, in addition to manufactured articles, such as army clothing and blankets, and other kinds of munitions. From Warrington were sent 323,188 miles of wire, barbed, telegraph, and telephone. Runcorn supplied 630,000 vessels containing poison and weeping gas; also 384,000 cylinders containing 150 million feet of compressed hydrogen gas, used both for the inflation of airships and for a new process of metal-plate cutting. At Liverpool, in addition to the traffic entailed by the arrival of American troops, and the receipt of railway material from America, there was the question of "the allocation of Military Meat Traffic," which during a period of nine months alone meant the ordering and disposal of 21,989 refrigerator cars. A Government factory near Chester, engaged in the manufacture of gun-cotton and T.N.T., handed over for transit a tonnage of 1,513,000 tons. At Crewe, a great part of the locomotive paint shop, and of the carriage sheds, devoted to the storing of shells, resulted in traffic being created to the extent of 330,000 tons, in addition to the output from the Works of the many mechanical contrivances previously mentioned. In the Birmingham district, one firm alone turned out 965 large tanks, each "over gauge" and approximately 30 tons in weight. Another firm being responsible for an output of about 1800 sea mines. Sheffield was busy with the supply--_inter alia_--of 2000 tons of knives, forks, and spoons. [Illustration: Naval Gun weighing 68 tons. A Typical Instance of War-time Traffic. [_To face p. 173._] The Coventry Ordnance Works dispatched 40,000 tons by the London and North-Western route, and the town of Coventry, being the centre of sixty-two Government owned and controlled establishments, sent out 300,000 tons of war munitions and Government stores. Northampton forwarded an aggregate of 11,641,920 pairs of boots, weighing 36,881 tons. In the London area "practically every firm of any size was engaged upon the manufacture of war stores of various descriptions, involving in most cases enlarged premises and increased output; and herein the North London Line--an offspring of the London and North-Western Railway--was destined to fulfil a _rôle_ of no mean importance"; it was, in fact, "throughout the whole of the war an exceptionally busy section of the railway systems of the country," being "the main artery between the northern trunk lines and the railway system south of the Thames, in addition to forming the connecting link between the Great Eastern and the Great Western Companies." Speaking generally, amongst "exceptional articles of national importance" which were conveyed by the London and North-Western Railway may be said to figure heavy guns; large cases of aeroplanes; ships' boats, propellers, frames, rudders, booms; armour plates; boilers; tanks; tractors; girders; etc., etc., and a vague idea of the truly enormous amount of goods traffic dealt with may perhaps be had when it is stated that the "approximate number of munition works, Government factories, aeroplane depôts, and camps," situated on the London and North-Western system was 1269, in addition to which there were a further "1237 factories, quarries, shipbuilding yards, etc., opened or extended during the war." Such in brief outline was the task performed at home by the London and North-Western Railway Company during the world struggle, and in face of everything the marvel perhaps was that the indefatigable staff never ran the danger of "ruining all, by trying to do too much." The force of the argument, however, that "a wise man can ask more questions in a minute than a fool can answer in a year," becomes apparent when we reflect that, although nominally under State control, the staff on each railway remained during the war under the same control as prior to the war, and received their instructions as previously also; the result being that, undisturbed by an "unnumbered number of inexpert experts," and free from any such "deadly deterrent," unmolested, too, as they were by any kind of official bureaucracy, the railway companies were able to, and did, carry through the stupendous programme apportioned to them by the State. In the knowledge of this happy circumstance, the country may indeed congratulate itself, for not only did the London and North-Western Railway perform its allotted task at home, but, as will now be seen, the staff of the Company's locomotive department at Crewe further succeeded by their "incessant toil" in rendering a very large proportion of that material aid, without which the "rearward services" of our overseas forces could never, in their turn, have enabled the fighting men at the front to bring the war to a successful conclusion. CHAPTER XI INDISPENSABLE "With the rearward services rests victory or defeat." SIR DOUGLAS HAIG. In the preceding chapter we have been able to digest a few of the more interesting facts and figures gleaned, in the one case from Sir Douglas Haig's final dispatch, and having reference to the task performed by the rearward services of the British Army in France; in the other, from the two reports issued by Mr. L. W. Horne, and dealing with the working of the London and North-Western Railway in the interests of the State, at home. Most of us will probably retain some recollection of the scriptural parable of the virgins, five of whom were wise, and five foolish. Whilst hardly being perhaps quite fair to liken the rearward services of the Army to the latter five, who, lacking oil in their lamps, begged the necessary illuminant from the former, the London and North-Western Railway Company's locomotive department may nevertheless be said to resemble the wise virgins, in that, figuratively speaking, lamps were kept trimmed and full of oil, ready for any emergency; not only this, however, but going one better than the wise virgins, who, seemingly a trifle selfish and stony-hearted, turned a deaf ear to their foolish sisters in distress, the London and North-Western Railway locomotive department never hesitated to extend a helping hand to the rearward services of the Army, rendering possible in part that "wonderful development of all methods of transportation," which, as Sir Douglas Haig avers, "had an important influence upon the course of events." We have noted the extent of the goods traffic which was dealt with at home during the fateful years of the world war, and of which the mileage rose from eighteen and a half millions in 1914 to no less a figure than twenty and a half millions in 1917, and it was during this period, when Mr. Bowen-Cooke, in his capacity as chief mechanical engineer of the premier British railway company, was concentrating his endeavours on the maintenance of a supply of locomotive power sufficient to cope with this ever-increasing figure, that he was called upon to assist in that other and extraneous supply of similar power, by means of which the rearward services of our overseas forces were enabled to solve the immense problem of transportation by rail in the various theatres of war in which we were engaged, a problem which as we know, ultimately involved on the Western Front in France alone the running of "a weekly average of 1,800 trains, carrying a weekly average load of approximately 400,000 tons." [Illustration: BREAKDOWN CRANE AND LIFTING TACKLE FOR SHIPPING SMALL GOODS ENGINES.] [Illustration: AN OVERSEAS LOCOMOTIVE PANEL "SEVERELY WOUNDED." [_To face p. 178._] Obviously the only method by which locomotive power could be made available for the rearward services lay in the transference of engines overseas, in other words, depletion of available stock at home, depletion which was effected in compliance with Government demands, and in spite of the many difficulties which presented themselves and were contingent upon so unprecedented a situation. The first batch of recruits to be "called up" at Crewe was selected from that very stable little group, or "class," known as the "4 feet 3 inch, six wheels coupled coal engine"; these engines were specially fitted with tenders having a water-tank capacity of 2500 gallons, and nine were sent originally to serve on the Western Front, further recruits of this "class," numbering seventy-six altogether, seeing overseas service in Egypt, Salonica, and Mesopotamia respectively. These hard-working little engines, which in ordinary practice do not refuse a load of fifty-five wagons or approximately 600 tons, were nevertheless deemed incapable of contributing sufficient power in proportion as the size, or "feeding strength," of our overseas forces increased; the result being that the "power" limit was raised, and a sturdier form of recruit, found available in the well-known "G" class, or "4 feet 3 inch, eight wheels coupled coal engine," was summoned to the colours. These engines, of which a total of twenty-six found their way across the water, were fitted with tenders of 3000 gallons capacity, in addition to having (as was the case with the smaller engines) a special form of water lifter whereby water could be obtained from wayside streams or other occasional sources of supply. Capable of "walking away" with a load of eighty wagons, or approximately 900 tons, these powerful goods engines proved themselves a valuable asset, and so a determining factor in influencing the course of events. Hand in hand with "running" goes the question of maintenance and repairs, and in this connection installations on a large scale were set up in France as elsewhere, Audricq, Berguette, and Borre, situated in the Pas-de-Calais and Nord districts, being the main depôts for the repair of carriages and wagons, light railway engines, and locomotives, respectively; and in this connection Crewe once again was well to the fore in the provision of the requisite machinery and plant incidental to the fitting out of the modern railway repair shop. Briefly, a few of the outstanding features of this plant may be said to have comprised mechanical contrivances such as hydraulic pumps and accumulators, stationary boilers, electric motors, overhead travelling cranes, Goliath cranes, an hydraulic wheel-drop, a wheel turntable, a case-hardening furnace, a boiling bosh, levelling blocks, and a great variety of machine tools, details of all of which would in themselves suffice to complete an entire volume. It was entirely thanks to the provision and installation of this machinery and plant that during the year 1917, for instance--as we learn from statistics published in the issue of _Modern Transport_ of September 20th, 1919--143 heavy and 675 light repairs were carried out on locomotives; and in the following year, 1918, these figures were increased to 246 and 809 respectively; while the number of ordinary shed, or "running," repairs amounted to no less a figure than 5,487. [Illustration: TYPE OF OVERHEAD TRAVELLING CRANE, BUILT AT CREWE AND SUPPLIED TO THE OVERSEAS "REARWARD SERVICES." [_To face p. 180._] The complex and duplex task of maintaining simultaneously both the home and the overseas rail services was further augmented by the acceptance within Crewe Works, for general repairs, of numerous engines doing duty in the various military camps which sprang up in different parts of the country, namely those situated at Kimmel Park, Oswestry, Prees Heath, Cannock Chase, Milford and Brocton, etc., etc. Heavy repairs were also effected in the case of two massive Belgian engines, which were sent to England, and in addition to this superabundance of work which was undertaken conjointly with the repair programme incidental to the London and North-Western Railway Company's own requirements, there was a continuous demand for the supply of locomotive spare parts incidental to the working of the overseas services. In yet another respect was Crewe in a position to hold out a helping hand to that friend in need, the overseas rearward services. Enemy aircraft activity necessitated special precautions being taken to ensure the maintenance of communications, precautions which involved the construction of certain "deviation" lines of railway. Further, additional permanent way was required for sidings, and for double and quadruple tracking: and during the final Allied offensive many miles of new line were laid for the purpose of following up the enemy, and of bringing relief to the civilian populations left destitute in the districts which the enemy had evacuated. The London and North-Western Railway Company claims, and is renowned for, the finest permanent way in the world, and the rails are for the most part rolled in, and supplied from, Crewe Works. During the war the customary relaying of track was considerably curtailed, as may be gathered from the fact that, whereas during a normal year an average of 32,500 tons of rails are supplied, approximately half that tonnage only was supplied per annum while the war lasted. Consequently the average relaying of track during a normal year was reduced from roughly 140 to about 54 miles per annum. At the same time, rails sufficient for 56 miles of track were taken from stock and sent for use overseas. The rail-mill in Crewe Works was, however, kept busy in other directions as well, turning out in the four years 1914-1918, partly for British railway companies, partly for use overseas, 38,844 tons of rails, equal to a length of 260 miles, besides which were supplied a considerable number of points and crossings complete. Certain crises of the war will surely never fade from the memory of living man or woman, crises during which it may be said that-- "There was silence deep as death, And the boldest held his breath, For a time," the while the fate of the Empire, of the whole civilised world, hung in the balance. Such a crisis, and one that had far-reaching effects upon the organisation of the rearward services, occurred in the spring of 1918, consequent upon the collapse of Russia. Dwelling on the issues at stake, devolving the necessity on the German people to give "all it had," General Ludendorff claims [cp. "My War Memories," 1914-1918, page 600, Vol. II.] that their (the German) offensive was a brilliant feat, and will "ever be so regarded in history." Such it may have been, "for a time," backed as it was [cp. page 577, Vol. II.] by "twenty to thirty batteries, about 100 guns, to each kilometre (eleven hundred yards) of front to be attacked," which were "figures such as no man had ever credited before." But "the battle was so vast that even these quantities of steel," which the German guns discharged, "did not destroy all life" and although the effect on the Borre locomotive repair Works in the end was crushing to a degree, there as elsewhere, as Ludendorff finds himself forced to confess, "the infantry always found far too much to do," the result being that, thanks to the heroic resistance put up by our own men, and in spite of the fact that the Boche was within 1,500 yards of the place before the evacuation of the shops was commenced, nearly the entire plant and machinery were safely got away, and forthwith installed in some newly erected shops at Rang-du-Fliers, a tiny hamlet situated on the main Paris-Boulogne line, a few miles south of Étaples. It was about this time that the warrior War Lord, flushed with momentary success, saw fit to dispatch what was probably destined to be the final of his many "victory" telegrams. "My victorious troops," so he wired to the Empress at Berlin (cp. the _Times_, March 26th, 1918), "are pressing forward from Bapaume westwards.... The spirit of the troops is as fresh as on the first day. Over 45,000 prisoners, over 60 guns, 1000 machine-guns, and enormous quantities of ammunition and provisions, have been taken. May God be with us!" (signed Wilhelm). Whether this royal and auspicious message, when published officially, had the desired effect upon a war-weary and demoralised people, it is hard to say; but even Wilhelm, the would-be Conqueror, must surely have begun to realise at long last that even if "you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." Getting down to solid facts then, the battle, in Ludendorff's opinion, "was over by April 4th," and although "thereafter there was bitter fighting ... our (the German) war machine was no longer efficient" [cp. page 684, Vol. II.].... "The Entente began the great offensive, the final battle of the world war, and carried it through with increasing vigour as our decline became more apparent." It is not uninteresting to note the second-in-command, or, as some believe him to have been, the actual commander-in-chief, of the great German fighting machine paying a tribute to the energy of the foe, the one foe hated and feared of all others by the entire German people, namely England; and this energy was at the time in question very properly brought to the notice of a representative gathering of Colonial, American, and English journalists by Mr. Winston Churchill, who, speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Munitions (cp. the _Times_, March 27th, 1918), told these gentlemen of the Press that they must "recognise that the strength of the British armies rests not only on the superb courage of the soldiers, but on the gigantic output which their countrymen at home are contributing from week to week, and from hour to hour, after all these years of strain, never at such a pitch of efficiency and energy as at the present time." Few people there are, probably, who have ever realised what "the years of strain" have meant to the workers in mine, factory, and shipyard; it is in fact the exception rather than the rule to find in public utterances reference to the drudgery, the monotony, involved in the manufacture, frequently of a repetition nature, hour after hour, week after week, month after month, of all those countless mechanical contrivances of which the diverse component parts are essential to the whole. The tendency has been rather to decry these people as shirkers, money-grubbers, worthy only to be labelled with epithets unsavoury to the palate. In every branch of a profession or trade, in every walk in life, there are of course bound to be exceptions, but in common fairness to those innumerable and genuine "indispensables" who perforce remained at home, let us not forget that to the many of these who would gladly have gone was denied the experience, the excitement, the novelty, attaching to the open-air life of movement incidental to an overseas campaign. Obviously enough, closely allied to, in fact interwoven with, production is the question of cost, a question which in war as in peace could not fail to afford a loophole for difficulties and disputes, either of a minor character, or aggravated perhaps by the continued years of strain and monotony. Mr. Churchill, however, was undoubtedly on the right tack when he went on to insist that we should "not assume that because from time to time they (the workmen) put forth their sectional aims, these aims were the only things they care about. They have a sort of feeling," he declared, "that they have to push forward their class interests, and I am not blaming them for it, but in the main our strength rests upon their loyal, resolute support, and we can count on that." As a single instance of the reliance which could be placed in the work-people's resolute support, we have only to note the loyal adherence by the men in Crewe Works, which they maintained to the bitter end, to a resolution which they passed themselves, to the effect that "We, the working men of Crewe, will do all that is humanly possible to increase the output of munitions, and stand by our comrades in the trenches"; and this resolution was the outcome of a series of meetings organised and held in the summer of 1915, in the various shops within the Works, when Mr. Cooke, having emphasised the paramount importance of keeping up the great railways, "which have to deal with the transport of soldiers and munitions, that keep together the life of the country," went on to remind his hearers that "it is to those who produce the material for the making and repairing of locomotives who have this all-important matter in their hands." [Illustration: "WE, THE WORKING MEN OF CREWE, WILL DO ALL THAT IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE TO INCREASE THE OUTPUT OF MUNITIONS, AND STAND BY OUR COMRADES IN THE TRENCHES." [_To face p. 186._] Appropriately enough, Mr. Craig, M.P. for the constituency, having already wired the terms of the resolution to Mr. Lloyd George, was able on behalf of the latter to "thank you, the men of Crewe Works, for the splendid efforts you have put forward in the past;" adding, that he had peculiar satisfaction in so doing, for "never either in the House of Commons or out of it have I heard a word of reproach levelled against the men of Crewe. Their patriotism has never been impeached." That this outspoken tribute contained nothing from which could possibly be construed anything in the nature of what is commonly known as "gush" is easily apparent from the fact that Mr. Craig had only just previously appealed to the men to "allow nothing to interfere with the production of munitions of war. You are asked," he said to them point-blank, "to relax for the time being all trades union rules and regulations, and to compete with one another in order to produce the largest possible amount of munitions." With the exception, then, of an insignificantly small minority of juvenile and inexperienced would-be firebrands, who in nine cases out of ten could not boast of ever having ventured beyond their native shores, if indeed beyond reach of their mothers' apron-strings, the attitude of the men of Crewe was, throughout the protracted struggle, loyal to the core, and that this was so must ever redound to their undying credit. Let us compare for a moment the condition of things prevailing at the time in Germany, for although "other countries possessed an army, in Prussia," as we know, "the army possessed the country," and probably because of this inflexible régime, possibly in spite of it, everything was not exactly "couleur de rose." In order to sustain the rearward services of this ruthless "juggernaut," Ludendorff "went nap" for universal conscription, industrial as well as military, for all persons between the ages of fifteen and sixty. Another point he was always striving to enforce was the raising of the pay of the fighting man, and a corresponding reduction in the pay of the workman. "The enthusiasm of the moment passes," so Ludendorff argues (cp. page 331, Vol. I.), "it must be replaced by discipline and understanding." But the law which the German Government resolved to introduce in November, 1916, for conscripting auxiliary labour was in his opinion, (cp. pages 332, 333, Vol. I.) "neither fish nor fowl. We wanted something wholesale. The bill departed, too, from the principle of universal liability to service, and gave no security that the labour power obtained would be so employed as to produce the maximum results. It was not merely insufficient, but positively harmful in operation. It had a bad effect on the soldiers;" for "troops withdrawn from the heavy fighting at the Front saw auxiliary workers and women workers working in peace and safety for wages far higher than their own pay. This was bound to embitter the men who had to risk their lives day by day, and to endure the greatest hardships, and of necessity increased their dissatisfaction with their pay." In the circumstances, can anyone marvel that:-- "Reason frowns on war's unequal game, Where thousands fall to raise a single name"? The war-profiteer, too, was "a repulsive phenomenon," who (cp. page 342, Vol. I.) with the "corruption of his influence has done us incalculable harm." That our own Government of the day adopted and pursued a policy, if not exactly of killing, at least of spoiling, the goose that laid the golden egg--a policy, moreover, which could not fail, here as in Germany, to have the effect of discrediting the fighting man in the eyes of his mate privileged to remain at home--was certainly no fault of the railway companies or of their own employés; in fact one branch at least of the railway service, the staff of which had no particular reason to bless the Government, or indeed the war at all, was the locomotive accountants' department at Crewe; for those who were employed in this particular department, that is to say those of them who were left at home--and the fact should never be overlooked that the percentage of clerks who joined the Forces was not surpassed by that of any other grade of employés on the railways--were involved in the few years of the war in hard work, changes, and readjustments of one kind and another, such as ordinarily would not have been their lot to experience, in the whole course of a lifetime. It is true that at the commencement of the war efforts were undoubtedly made to curtail office work as far as possible, the Board of Trade assisting in this direction by suspending Statistical Return 12 of the Railway Companies' Accounts and Returns Act. Statistics, too, relating to shunting, extraction of mileage in districts for rating purposes, and certain sub-divisions of mileage, were discontinued. Then again, the Government having guaranteed the nett receipts of the railways, although charges affecting capital and stock still operated, the Railway Executive Committee decided to put in abeyance the practice of rendering accounts as between one railway company and another, for work or services rendered on revenue account, whether on personal account or at joint stations, junctions, etc. As against all this, however, obligations commenced, increased, and multiplied in other and different directions. At the very outset of the war, for example, in order to separate the Government control period from the pre-control period, extensive stock-taking was necessary, as well as a complete making-up of accounts as from midnight August 4th, 1914. Then, as can easily be imagined, no sooner did the Government issue their appeal to the railway companies for assistance in the manufacture of munitions of war, than an immense amount of clerical work followed suit, the clerks responsible having immediately to conform with Government requirements. Again, owing to scarcity of raw materials, which were placed under Government control, numerous statistics had to be prepared in regard to actual requirements; reports, too, had to be sent in periodically as to scrap metal, especially copper, and particulars furnished in regard to the output of iron and steel. On the top of all this came the introduction of the war-wage with its periodical increase to meet the increasing cost of living; and the subsequent inauguration of the District rate of wages, accompanied as it was by the regrading, according to their duties, of every single workman, skilled or semi-skilled, entailed an enormous amount of clerical work; the timekeepers were almost incessantly occupied in dealing with arrears of payment under the National awards, this necessitating many hours of overtime, Saturdays and Sundays not excepted. In fact, so great did the pressure of work become throughout the department that, in order to counterbalance the depletion of staff occasioned by so many clerks joining the colours, recourse was had to the employment of females, who, to the number of 162, assisted materially in easing the burden which devolved upon that section of the permanent male staff who remained in harness and without whose expert knowledge and experience an interregnum of complete chaos must inevitably have supervened. Sir Douglas Haig in his final dispatch does not neglect to extend his thanks, which were "especially due," to those "responsible for the efficient work of the various rearward services, and administrative services and departments" of the British Army in France, amongst whom may be noted "my Financial Adviser," and "my Pay master-in-Chief"; and in direct proportion as the nation at large owes a debt of gratitude to those prominent personalities, incidentally, too, to the members of their subordinate, but none the less loyal and devoted, staffs who gave their services, and in some instances their lives for their King and Country--so, too, must the public in general ever remain indebted to the heads of the administrative departments of the great British railway companies--the Financial Advisers, the Paymasters-in-Chief--amongst whom may be cited the Chief of the Accountants' department of the London and North-Western Railway Company's locomotive department, Mr. T. Ormand, together with the members of his subordinate, but none the less indefatigable, staff at Crewe. The studied opinion of Sir Douglas Haig, when he comes to summarise his views in general, certainly compels our attention. "It is hardly too much to assert," so he writes, "that, however, seemingly extravagant in men and money, no system of supply except the most perfect should ever be contemplated." Perfection, it may reasonably be argued however, need not necessarily entail extravagance; and certainly the system of supply in operation at Crewe, efficient as it undoubtedly was, was productive of saving rather than of waste. The fact that the cost of labour, on the cessation of hostilities, showed an increase of 135 per cent. over and above that which was prevalent at the commencement of the war, cannot by any manner of means be laid at the door of the railway directorates, who, in regard to questions of wages and discipline, were controlled by the national agreements which from time to time came into being. Neither could the railway companies be classified even in a minimum degree amongst those "repulsive phenomena," the war-profiteers; for, the railways having become, as it were, part and parcel of the Government, it resulted as a natural corollary that work carried out in railway workshops whether for railway or munitions-of-war purposes became _ipso facto_ Government work, and the bill for all such work when presented was made up simply and solely of the actual cost of materials, wages, and workshop expenses, plus 12-1/2 per cent. for supervision and establishment charges. The only profit with which the coffers of the railway companies were replenished in return for their war-time energies was in respect of munitions manufactured for private firms, and even then the profit never exceeded 10 per cent. over and above the actual cost of production. Those were indeed "the times that try men's souls," and it was the Government policy throughout--a policy which, as happened to be the case in Germany, was "neither fish nor fowl," in that whilst inflicting untold hardship, loss, and suffering on some, it relieved others, saddling them with a minimum of inconvenience, and removing from them all "conception of the duty of universal service"--to which was attributable that extravagance "in men and money" referred to by Sir Douglas Haig. On the occasion of the introduction of the first post-war Budget, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Chamberlain, suggested (cp. the _Times_, May 1st, 1919) that it would be of "interest to divide the year into the period before the armistice and the period since the armistice was signed, and to see what the average daily expenditure was in each of those two periods," Mr. Adamson (Fife W. Lab.) expressed a desire to temper his criticism with sincere commiseration for the Chancellor, whose task was to find the first instalment of the terrific obligations imposed upon the country by the extravagance, and in some respects the incredible folly, of spending departments during the war period, which had resulted in a daily average expenditure during the earlier of the two periods mentioned by Mr. Chamberlain, namely from April 1st to November 9th, 1918, of £7,443,000; in the later period, namely from November 10th, 1918 to March 31st, 1919, of £6,476,000. It is doubtful whether the explanation adduced by the Chancellor, in regard to this extravagance, this incredible folly, afforded any real degree of solace to Mr. Adamson or to any other honourable members, who inclined to view the financial outlook with such marked concern. "The National Debt proper, exclusive of what we call other capital liabilities, was," as Mr. Chamberlain pointed out, "on March 31st this year (1919), 7,435 millions," or 6,790 millions more than it was at the outbreak of the war; and "of the actual debt incurred, internal debt accounts for, approximately, 6,085 millions, and the external debt, approximately, 1,350 millions." There were, it is true, "certain assets, such as obligations of our Allies and Dominions, votes of credit no longer required, and payments in respect of indemnities from our enemies." But when all was said and done, "when every proper allowance is made for these assets--the amount and value of which as well as the date at which we may expect to receive payment for them is necessarily uncertain--the burden of debt left to us is still very formidable." The tone predominant throughout this outline, indicative of the manner in which the taxpayers' millions were being used or misused for their especial benefit, was undeniably pessimistic. On the other hand, every cloud has its silver lining, and the occasional gleams, which illumined the lowering trend of Mr. Chamberlain's forebodings, become intensified a thousandfold when we reflect upon the horrors which we, in our insular position of security, escaped, and when we ponder over the fate that would most assuredly have been ours had the Warrior Warlord won the day. Writing to the _New York World_ in April, 1915, Mr. Gustav Roeder throws some light upon the state of mind of the German women alone. "Talk about your so-called atrocities which our men are said to have committed in Belgium," they said to me, "it would be nothing in comparison with what our men would do in England, and we women want to be there too." As a sample of the treatment accorded to the unfortunate inhabitants of those portions of the fair land of France which the invader succeeded in over-running, we may take this deposition of the _Times'_ special correspondent with the French Army as being sufficiently convincing. Writing under the date of March 21st, 1917, he says, "when the Germans left Noyon on Sunday, they took with them fifty young French girls, who, they said, were to act as officers' servants. When he (a distinguished French officer) was on a part of the Somme front now taken over by the British, he saw with his own eyes photographs, taken from German prisoners, of German officers sitting at dinner and being waited upon at table by naked women." Even during the earliest days of the war, evidence was not wanting in proof of the fact that German Imperialist greed was in no way to be denied. "Heavy ransoms on French towns" was the heading to a paragraph in the _Times_ of September 7th, 1914, and edifying to a degree was the subjoined list of towns from whose impotent inhabitants the jubilant Hun was setting to work to exact sums of money varying in proportion to their size and population. Thus we learn that having imprisoned the Préfet du Nord, the Germans demanded from the town of Lille "a ransom of 7,000,000f (£280,000). At Armentières they were content with a ransom of 500,000f. (£20,000). At Amiens they have demanded 1,000,000f. (£40,000) and 100,000 cigars. Lens has been ransomed for 700,000f. (£28,000)." On yet a previous occasion (cp. the _Times_, August 22nd, 1914), the Press Bureau having obligingly announced that out of £15,000,000 of Treasury bills, for which the Treasury had invited tenders to be sent in, £10,000,000 was required for a loan from the British Government to Belgium, the Germans promptly decided that this good British gold might be turned to far more profitable account by themselves than by the Belgians for whom it was ostensibly intended, and proceeded forthwith to impose upon the city of Brussels a war contribution of eight million sterling. The All-Highest is credited with having expressed himself as being convinced that "the German people had in the Lord of Creation above an unconditional ally on whom it could absolutely rely." He must have felt, too, that his faithful subjects had in the British Government below a purblind benefactor whom they could regard as an unfailing source of revenue. Some idea as to the aspirations and intentions which the Germans were keeping up their sleeves as concerning ourselves may be gathered from certain observations which were drawn up by the Allied Ministers at Jassy, with regard to the conditions imposed upon Rumania by the Central Powers, and which in their own words "demonstrate in the best possible manner the insatiable greed and hypocrisy of German Imperialism." The actual terms of the treaty (of Bukarest) required, _inter alia_ (cp. the _Times_, August 10th, 1918), "the entire male population of the occupied territories, that is to say of two-thirds of Rumania, between the ages of fourteen and sixty, to carry out such work as may be assigned to them. The penalties for disobedience include deportation and imprisonment, and in some cases, which are not expressly defined, even that of death. This treaty," as the Allied Ministers observed, "is a fair example of a German peace. We should consider it all the more closely inasmuch as the German delegates informed the Rumanian delegates, who were appalled at being required to accept such conditions, that they would appreciate their moderation when they knew those which would be imposed on the Western Powers after the victory of the Central Empires." For the fact that "this England never did," and for the determination that she "never shall, lie at the proud foot of a conqueror," we owe it entirely to the grit of succeeding generations of British fighting men. "Wars may be won or lost," in the opinion of Sir Douglas Haig, "by the standard of health and moral of the opposing forces"; and because "the feeding and health of the fighting forces are dependent upon the rearward services, so it may be argued that with the rearward services rests victory or defeat." In the same way, since, as we have already seen, the rearward services of the overseas forces depend for their sustenance upon the continued and successful operation of the home services of supply and transport, so it may be argued that upon the feeding and health of these latter services does the final issue hang. Realising then, from the very outset, the import of the task devolving upon the great railways, appreciating, too, the truism that you cannot maintain an A1 engineering community any less than an "A1 Empire with a C3 population," Mr. Cooke determined on the course of inaugurating, in the immediate vicinity of Crewe Works, a canteen, which, rivalling similar establishments set up in well-nigh every Government-owned, or controlled, munition factory throughout the length and breadth of the land, was built and equipped with the most up-to-date cooking apparatus and utensils, at a cost of £3800, and this thanks entirely to the spontaneous generosity of the directors of the company, who further expressed their readiness to bear the cost of all maintenance charges, such as heating, lighting, and salaries of the kitchen staff. As a result, the men were enabled to purchase all commodities at actual cost price, at the same time finding that the meals provided were of that excellence which inclines one to "forgive anybody, even one's own relations." There is not a shadow of doubt but that, as regards the rearward services both home and overseas, "our supply system has been developed into one of the most perfect in the world," and after being so largely instrumental in frustrating the aims of the common enemy, the only danger against which we had to guard was lest "the Ministers of the Allied Powers should lose by their pen what the Army had gained by the sword"; in which case the peace we had striven to secure--to quote the words of that great littérateur and statesman of a former generation, to wit George Canning--"would be the mere name of peace; not a wholesome or refreshing repose, but a feverish and troubled slumber." CHAPTER XII L'ENVOI "La Mort n'est rien, Vive la tombe, Quand le pays en sort vivant, En avant!" Surely no one will deny to M. Paul Déroulède, that eminent and talented French _homme-de-lettres_, to whose inspiring enthusiasm these lines are attributable, the right of his assertion that Death in the conditions which he mentions is a negligible quantity? Supreme as has been the sacrifice of those well-nigh countless scores of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men, who now "in glory shine," bitter too and crushing as undoubtedly is the sense of void occasioned by their absence beyond recall to those of their relatives and friends who remain, "where is Death's sting?" it may well be asked, "where, Grave, thy victory?" when the Country, struggling for all that she holds most dear, finally emerges triumphant, renascent, from the darkest hours of her existence; for underlying all, there is in this straightforward challenge a tinge of pride unquenchable, a ring of scorn unmistakable. Granted then the truth of this dogma, granted too that nothing is more "dulce et decorum" than "pro patria mori," one cannot but bear in mind the fact also that Death is not infrequently a happy form of release from some lamentably pitiable condition of mind or body to another and altogether brighter degree of existence. "La douleur est un siécle, et la mort un moment;" one may even assume that the act of "passing away" is comparable to that merciful dawn of returning consciousness, to which the dreamer wakes from the vividly realistic, albeit imaginary, torture of some agonising nightmare. For who at one time or another of his or her enigmatic existence has not experienced this imaginary torture, of which the crazy sequence of headlong unreasoning realities wracks in topsy turvy torment the momentarily unbalanced brain, until in a frenzy of despair and faced with some climax, unprecedented and unparalleled, the dreamer wakes, bathed in profuse and clammy perspiration, breathless and bewildered, yet infinitely grateful to an all-powerful and protecting Deity that imaginings of so cruel and fantastic a conception should prove to be but phantoms of the night? Yet of all the myriad atoms of trivial humanity who have survived the nightmare of Armageddon-up-to-date, what is the proportion of such who can honestly say that the life to which we have been restored is either brimful of promise or bright indeed with prospect? "Forward" undoubtedly must be the watchword; "en avant;" but whither? Selecting as a suitable title "Plain Speaking," the writer of a leading article in the _Times_ of August 13th, 1919, urges that "Ever since the Armistice Day they (the people) have been living in a fool's paradise, as though the cessation of armed hostilities had opened the door to a state of pure enjoyment according to every man's fancy.... The inevitable result is that Europe is drawing near, not merely to bankruptcy and financial ruin, but to actual starvation." So pessimistic a pronouncement lends itself to the assumption that we are merely jumping out of the frying-pan of international strife into the fire of internal or domestic disruption. The writer of this article is, however, not quite so pessimistic as to be unable to offer any remedy, for as an alternative he insists that "this mad orgy of spending must cease from Government Departments downwards. All classes must turn to work.... Employers and employed must give up quarrelling and work together. Economy and work are the two watchwords for the nation." "En avant," then. But first of all "let us examine things," as Mr. Lloyd George would have us do, "in the spirit of comradeship which has been created by the war, that spirit of comradeship which arose from a common sacrifice," and then, "let us demonstrate to the world once more that Britain, beyond all lands, has the traditional power of reaching a solution of her most baffling problems without resorting to anarchy, but merely by appeal to the commonsense of most, and in a spirit of fair play." Unhappily enough everybody was, however, "suffering from the terrible strain of the war; nerves were jagged and sore; the world was suffering from shell-shock on a great scale." The position, therefore, if not indeed dangerous was none the less serious and fraught with difficulty. Put in a nutshell, "we were spending more, we were earning less; we were consuming more, we were producing less; we were not paying our way. Before the war our National Debt was £645,000,000; to-day it is £7,800,000,000" (cp. the _Times_, August 19th, 1919). "En avant!" But how to remedy the state of affairs? How to straighten out the tangle? What invariably happens when the blind lead the blind seemed bound to occur if the Coalition Ministry continued leading or misleading the people. "I make this indictment against the Ministry of the day," exclaimed Sir D. Maclean when addressing the House on August 12th, 1919, "that in this supreme financial crisis of the nation they are failing wholly in their duty to put a stop to extravagant expenditure." The Chancellor of the Exchequer estimated the then daily average expenditure at no less than £4,442,000; the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force accounting for £1,491,000 of this amount, notwithstanding the fact that since the Armistice a total of 3,087,973 of all ranks had been demobilised (cp. the _Times_, August 13th, 1919. Statement issued by the War Office). There can be no doubt but that the opinion prevalent on all hands was that the great ship of State was in danger of being swamped in the maelstrom of Ministerial mismanagement; yet in spite of this we read that the Transport Bill (to take one solitary if salient instance) was proposing to "create a new and costly brand of bureaucracy, headed by titled dignitaries, and naval and military officers, with a whole Milky Way of attendant satellites" (cp. the _Times_, July 17th, 1919), and truth to tell, this "new and costly brand" seemed likely to afford as great or as little hope of salvation to the man-in-the-street as would a stone if thrown to a drowning man; it could but let him down. According to the Gospel of Experience, "State Control has never yet resulted in economy," and the present was certainly no time for "legislative megalomania." Admittedly no inconsiderable amount of ink has been spilt over the question of transport, covering as it does so obviously wide a range. The railways, as we know, during the war and since the armistice have been run at the expense of, and under the nominal control of, the State; but even so democratic a chieftain as is the versatile Prime Minister had to confess that he had not noticed any apparent harmony under this particular régime, and the subtle note of irony is by no means lacking when he reminds his hearers in the House of Commons "we have had, I think, a few strikes; and so long as strikes are prevalent, where," he asks, "is the promotion of harmony if you have State control and State ownership? I do not see the harmony that is to come under State control" (cp. the _Times_ August 19th, 1919). No sooner had the outburst of cheering which greeted this remark subsided, than an Hon. Member (Lab.), chipping in, was heard to opine "these things will happen under private ownership," a theory which impelled Mr. Lloyd George promptly to retort, "I do not say it will be any worse under State ownership, but I say it will not be any better." To the average and impartial intelligence, therefore, the most satisfactory and logical Q.E.D. to this little argument might be summed up in the three words "as you were"; indeed, the "pros" in favour of so patent a usurpation of private interests as is embodied in State control or nationalisation of railways may be said to be far outweighed by the opposing "cons." During the period in which the nation was fighting for its life, there was evidently no time "for renewing machinery, there was hardly time for repairing, and there was quite inadequate time for cleaning," but the fact remains that during this period of State control the railways were run at a loss; and that loss, largely attributable to enormous increases in wages, diminution in working hours, and mathematically proportionate reduction in output, came straight from the taxpayers' pockets. Why then, it may be asked, this persistent demand for Ministerial megalomania-to-be? What the reason for this "new and costly brand of bureaucracy," which assuming the proportions of an octopus threatens to crush every vestige of individuality and private enterprise which happens within the deadly orb of its encircling and insatiable tentacles? The explanation is not far to seek--"Sir Herbert Walker and his colleagues on the Railway Executive Committee have been too modest, the public do not know what they achieved" (cp. _Engineering_, January 17th, 1919, "The Railway Problem"). Further, unknown to the average man-in-the-street, "the individual organisations of the Railway Companies (during the war) remained intact, and the Boards of Directors continued to be responsible for the conduct of their affairs. The desire was to get the work done"--to deliver the goods--"with as little disturbance of the existing machinery as possible. The changes which were introduced and the high efficiency which was witnessed in the working of the traffic of the railways during the war was due far more to a patriotic determination on the part of all concerned to do their utmost to assist the country in a time of national emergency, regardless of corporate or personal interests, than to the direct imposition by the Government of its will upon the railway companies." Ministerial axe-grinders, and disgruntled Labour members, were well aware of all this; they were faced, too, with the fact that "the control by a Committee of General Managers has really resulted in freeing the railways from the 'blighting effect' of State control, and the successful operation of British railways during the war is really a tribute to the efficiency of private (as distinct from State) ownership." Not only this, but a further fact which undoubtedly redounds to the credit of Sir Herbert Walker and his little band of colleagues could not be disregarded, for as we learn from the _Times_ of July 17th, 1919, "the Railway Executive Committee controlled the whole railway system of these islands during the war from a few shabby rooms at Westminster with a staff of about eighteen clerks. The Committee was so modest that they did not commandeer a single hotel, or angle for the smallest honours, but they achieved wonders of transportation with steadily diminishing resources." Finally, and as voicing the opinion of the business community at large, we have only to observe that the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce emphatically records its belief that "Nationalisation (of railways) would be a national misfortune." One misfortune not unusually leads to another, and logically enough it may be argued that one of the more immediate of the "blighting effects of State control" likely to become apparent is what may be termed "the passing of ingenuity," resulting in lack of incentive to individual enterprise, or, in a word, an inevitable stalemate. "Committed irrevocably to mass production, to specialisation, to rigs and jigs and standards, to gigantic industrial combines, to the suppression of individual merit, and the apotheosis of mass merit," a writer in the _Engineer_ of April 25th, 1919, deplores the fact that "skill is being transferred from the man to the machine; knowledge is being replaced by the schedule; organisation by rule is taking the place of organisation by mother wit." Plainly too, but none the less regretfully, the same writer conjectures that "in another fifty years these things we now foresee dimly will be the commonplaces of industry"; and "oh tempora! oh mores!" let future generations beware, for "brought up in standard crèches on standard feeding bottles with standard milk, we shall pass through a course of standard education, be dressed in standard clothes, carried in standard conveyances, live in standard dwellings, behave like standard citizens, and in due course be carried in standard coffins in a standard hearse to a standard crematorium." Undoubtedly every one is entitled to his or her own opinion, _apropos_ any particular subject of debate; but without prejudice it may be asked whether any one in his legitimate senses is capable of viewing this "standard" perspective, these "blighting effects of State control," with feelings other than of revolt and dismay. "Victory is nothing," so Napoleon is reputed to have declared, "if you do not profit by success"; and having achieved success regardless of the cost, having won through "non pour dominer"--to use the words of that great Commander of the Entente Armies, Marshal Foch--"mais pour être libre," in what way are we endeavouring to profit? "There is evidence of slackness; the effort has got to be quickened; all must put their backs into it to save the country. Our international trade is in peril, and our home trade is depressed by reduction of output and the increased cost of production. Words must be translated into action unless thousands of lives are to be sacrificed to hunger and cold; this is no hyperbole." Such, as we know, are specimens of periodic if unpalatable pessimisms provided by prominent personalities. The experience of Sir Edward Grey, as he tells us, is that the difficulty is not so much to tell the truth, as to get the truth believed. Were we then really living in a fool's paradise? Could it truthfully be said that we as a community were consenting to become a "League of Dupes," as the Nations have been banded together as a League? Heaven forbid! for just as it would be idle to imagine that there will be no more strikes, no extremist incitement to anarchy, so too in the considered opinion of Mr. Lloyd George "it would be folly to assume that human nature will never give way to passion again, and that there will be no war. A nation that worked on that assumption might regret its conduct." Unfortunately, there is no denying the fact--as a captured German naval officer once tersely put it--that although they (the Germans) could never be gentlemen, we (the British) would ever be fools! Hence it comes about that at a time when "the most pressing interest of humanity is that the profit and loss account of a barbarous bid for world-power should show an impressive balance on the wrong side," it is open to argument whether the policy embodied in the Treaty of Versailles, of "tempering justice with mercy," was altogether prudent; mercy, that is, which "could not speak more eloquently than it does in the unmutilated landscape of German agriculture, and in the immunity of her civilians from all the horrors of her own practice as an invader" (cp. _Pall Mall Gazette_, June 28th, 1919). Be that as it may, "once bitten" is proverbially and habitually "twice shy," so that it would seem well-nigh inconceivable that a lesson of such magnitude as the Nation has learnt during the long-drawn-out agony of the world-war can readily be forgotten; and whatever the future all unknown may hold in store for us, undimmed in the minds of succeeding generations will most surely shine as a guiding light the splendid record of private enterprise and of individual endeavour as exemplified by the great railway companies of the British Isles, amongst which pride of place can scarcely be withheld from the London and North-Western Railway, to whom the country, without doubt, owes a deep and lasting debt of gratitude. "En avant!" then, as surely those who gave their all would have us do. "En avant!" that their sacrifice supreme shall not have been in vain. "En avant!" and may our thankfulness and pride go out to them in that "great unknown beyond," where they-- "... shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old, Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn, At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, We will remember them." [Illustration: WAR MEMORIAL, EUSTON. "At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them." [_To face p. 210._] APPENDIX A THE SYSTEM OF CONTROL APPLIED TO THE ARMOURED TRAINS MANUFACTURED IN CREWE WORKS Fitted with standard vacuum brake, the train was also driven by an ingeniously devised vacuum system of control, which could be operated from either end of the train or from the footplate of the engine. On the smoke-box side, and intermediate between steam chests and main regulator valve, was fixed an additional regulator valve, actuated by a small vacuum cylinder. A 3/4-inch vacuum pipe acting in conjunction with the vacuum brake pipe and running the whole length of the train was connected to three pairs of vacuum control valves and gauges fixed, respectively, one on the footplate and one at each end of the train. When all these vacuum control valves were placed at the "shut" position, the ports were open to admit air, and no vacuum could be created; consequently the brakes remained on, and the additional regulator valve shut, so that no steam could reach the steam chests even if the main regulator valve was open. When, however, the vacuum control valves were placed in the open position, the air ports were closed, and the driver, supposing he was at the end of the train, signalled to the fireman on the footplate to "blow up" with the usual steam-ejector, a vacuum being thereby created not only for releasing the brakes, but also for operating the additional regulator valve which the driver controlled and by means of which he started the train. Conversely when he wished to stop, all that he had to do was to bring his control lever over once again to the shut position, when the air-ports opened, the vacuum was destroyed, the regulator-valve shut, the brakes went on, and the train came to a standstill. APPENDIX B EXPLANATORY OF THE GAUGE Gauges may be divided into two categories known as "working" and "inspecting" gauges; again each category is further divided into two sub-categories, designated in approved munitions' parlance as "to go" and "not to go." "Working" gauges being in more or less constant use, and subjected, not infrequently, to a certain measure of rough usage, were allowed a slightly less "tolerance" or margin, plus or minus, high or low, than were "inspecting" gauges; that is to say, given a certain specific measurement for any specific part of a shell, the gauge in proportion as it was "working" or "inspecting" was limited to a tolerance of a minute fraction of an inch either above or below the finished dimension; this was in fact considered the _beau idéal_ of good workshop practice. Let us take for the sake of argument a shell body. If after being turned to presumably the required and finished diameter it was found to slip through the hole of a "not to go" working gauge, there was no alternative other than that of scrapping it then and there, because obviously once turned to too small a diameter, not "all the king's horses nor all the king's men" could ever increase that diameter by one single iota again; as a biblical parallelism one might even add that it would be "easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle" than for a "not to go" shell to enter into bond. If, on the other hand, the shell would not quite enter the "to go" hole of a "working" gauge, or even if it was a tight fit in this hole, it followed that there remained a certain tolerance or margin whereby the diameter could still be reduced to a trifle, and the shell _per se_ qualified as a candidate for the final examination of the "inspecting" gauge. Picking up, then, our "inspecting" gauge we find that this, in like manner, has two holes, one "to go" and one "not to go"; but the gauge-maker has perforce been wily enough to leave the tolerance of these "inspecting" gauge holes a minute fraction of an inch greater, above and below the required finished dimension, than that allowed in the "working" gauge holes, his purpose being to ensure the inspector something up his sleeve in the way of control over the machinists who use the "working gauge" only; hence the "not to go" hole of the "inspecting" gauge is slightly less in diameter than the "not to go" hole of the "working" gauge; the "inspecting" "to go" hole is a tiny trifle larger than the diameter of the finished shell than is the "to go" hole of the "working" gauge. The accompanying diagram scaled to convenient fractions of an inch will perhaps help to illustrate the meaning of these tolerances. Suppose for instance that the correct finished diameter of our shell is 5-31/32 inches, the tolerances allowed by the Government (_i.e._ the final "inspecting" tolerances) can be represented by the two semicircles and dimensions shown below the centre line, which, as will be seen, are further from the finished dimensions than are the two semicircles and dimensions shown above the centre line, these latter representing the "working" tolerances, the difference between the two sets of figures representing the amount of margin kept up his sleeve by the Inspector by way of control over the machinists using the "working" gauges only. In actual practice of course the fractions of an inch representing these tolerances are infinitely smaller than those shown above for the purpose of illustration only. Some idea of the infinitely small fractions representing the tolerances allowed may be gathered by taking a sheet of ordinary thin note-paper, the thickness of which is about 3/1000 parts of an inch, or ·003 inch; try to imagine this sheet of thin note-paper made ten times thinner still, and you will find it reduced to a minimum of tissue thickness, 3/10000 parts of an inch or ·0003 inch; remember now that on good artillery depends not only the lives, maybe of your nearest and dearest, but the honour of the nation too; and you have firstly some idea of the imperceptible fractions of an inch to which a shell-gauging instrument is made; secondly the reason for the proportionate degree of accuracy demanded in the manufacture of artillery ammunition itself. [Illustration] [Illustration: MANUFACTURE OF A HOB-CUTTER, IN "RELIEVING" OR "BACKING-OFF" LATHE. [_Appendix C_] APPENDIX C THE THREAD-MILLER, AND THE "BACKING-OFF" LATHE, AS APPLIED TO SHELL-MANUFACTURE The action of a thread-milling machine is as follows:--The cutter fixed on a mandrel, and the shell in the milling machine, revolve in opposite directions to one another. The teeth of the cutter, contrary to expectation, are simply a series of parallel rings cut the correct pitch of the thread required; consequently all that is necessary is that the shell shall travel longitudinally the distance of one pitch of the thread during one complete revolution, and the job is done. Particular interest centres, perhaps, in the little thread-cutter itself, and in the amount of ingenuity evinced in the method of its manufacture. In the first place a rotary form-milling cutter regulated by a dividing head is run across the eventuating hob thread-cutter in a series of spiral lengths. The profile of this form-milling cutter forms both a rounded clearance for the cutting edge of the hob cutting teeth and a "gash" or groove necessary for the clearance of the chasing tool when cutting the teeth. The reason for these spiral gashes is that each separate tooth shall come into play individually and consecutively instead of collectively and simultaneously, the life of the teeth being in this manner very materially prolonged. We notice then, that instead of adhering to a uniform circumference, the teeth, or series of teeth, are what is known as "backed off" from the cutting edge, a clearance being in this wise imparted, the true form of the teeth being thereby maintained in subsequent grinding operations. This clearance is obtainable by means of the "backing-off" or "relieving" mechanism of a lathe especially designed for the purpose. A geared shaft running parallel with the bed of the lathe causes to revolve a cam. This cam, by virtue of the eccentricity of its face, imparts a transverse movement to the lathe rest through the intermediary of a transverse spindle on which is fixed a second cam also eccentrically faced. The revolving face of the one bearing against the stationary face of the other causes the latter to draw the lathe-rest inwards against the compression of a spring; no sooner have the cam edges passed one another than the spring relaxes, allowing the lathe-rest to jump back again to its former position. It is during the inward movement of the lathe-rest that the form-chasing tool cuts the required clearance behind the hob miller's teeth, finishing into the cross-cut spiral gash; the outward movement has the effect of pushing the chasing tool in the nick of time clear of the succeeding row of teeth, ready to repeat a similar operation. The eccentric profile of the cam faces, needless to say, is responsible for the curved relief, or clearance, behind the edge of the hob miller's teeth, and the cams can be changed at will according to the curve required. The delaying action of the lathe-rest necessary to coincide with the spiral gash is imparted by means of a slide set diagonally to the requisite angle of the spiral; as this was a series of rings and not a screw thread, it was necessary, when cutting the teeth, to disengage the leading screw from the backing-off gear to enable the teeth to be cut while the saddle of the lathe was in a stationary position. Far from falling within the category of those employers on the portals of whose workshops may have been inscribed the fatal words "too late," Mr. Cooke was early in the field as a purchaser of the hob thread-milling machine. Delivered with the machine was a hob cutter, but strangely enough instead of being spiral this cutter was straight fluted. The occasion of a visit to the Works of a certain Government Tool Inspector was productive of an amusing little comedy. Noticing the backing-off lathe above referred to, and being in urgent need of a supply of spiral hob cutters, he expressed his intention of commandeering the lathe for the exclusive manufacture of these particular hobs for Government purposes, heedless of the fact that the lathe was and had been continuously employed for locomotive purposes. Being under the impression too that only one firm of expert tool makers in the country was capable of cutting spiral hobs, great was his astonishment and delight on discovering that Crewe was not only equally capable of doing so, but previously had been performing this very class of work; the net result of this little episode being that the lathe in question was immediately requisitioned for a continuous supply of spiral hob cutters which were to be sent to shell manufacturing firms, and a second backing-off lathe was speedily forthcoming, in order that the Company's own locomotive requirements should be in no way impeded. THE END PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND. Transcriber's note: -Applied the errata to the text -Whole and fractional parts displayed as 3-1/2 -Made several silent typographical changes for mismatched single/double quotes -Italic text display as _text_ -Spelling and word usage have been retained as they appear in the original publication, except as follows: -Page viii: Changed "Psychologigues" to "Psychologiques". -Page viii, 40: Changed "Enseignments" to "Enseignements". -Page 26: Changed "the same control has" to "the same control as" -Page 88: Changed "6 percent" to "60 percent". (The total composition of brass should add up to 100%.) -Page 89: Changed "are slightly taper to" to "are slightly tapered to". -Page 183: Changed "Rang-de-Fliers" to "Rang-du-Fliers" and "Etaples" to "Étaples". -Page 189: Changed "the the railway" to "the railway". 
52087	----	Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Page numbers enclosed by curly braces (example: {25}) have been incorporated to facilitate the use of the Index. * * * * * A HISTORY OF INLAND TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATION IN ENGLAND BY EDWIN A. PRATT AUTHOR OF "RAILWAYS AND THEIR RATES"; "GERMAN VERSUS BRITISH RAILWAYS"; "RAILWAYS AND NATIONALISATION"; "CANALS AND TRADERS" ETC. LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., LTD. BROADWAY HOUSE, CARTER LANE, E.C. 1912 National Industries Edited by HENRY HIGGS, C.B. _Large 8vo._ _Cloth gilt._ _Each 6s. net_ The first volumes in this series will be:-- A HISTORY OF INLAND TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATION IN ENGLAND. By Edwin A. Pratt. BANKING AND THE MONEY MARKET. By H. O. Meredith. THE BUILDING TRADES. By A. D. Webb. SHIPPING. By C. J. Hamilton. THE COAL TRADE. By H. Stanley Jevons. {v}PREFATORY NOTE Designed as the introductory volume of a series of books--by various writers--dealing with our "National Industries," the present work aims at telling the story of inland transport and communication from the earliest times to the present date, showing, more especially, the effect which the gradual development thereof, in successive stages, and under ever-varying circumstances, has had alike on the growth and expansion of trade and industry and on the general economic and social conditions of the country. The various phases of inland transport described in the course of the work include roads, rivers, canals, turnpikes, railways, tramways, and rail-less electric traction; and the facilities for communication of which accounts are given comprise packhorses, waggons, stage-coaches, "flying" and mail-coaches, private carriages, posting, hackney coaches, cabs, omnibuses, cycles, motors, motor-buses, commercial motors, and aeroplanes. Reference is (_inter alia_) made to most of the English rivers and to many inland towns; the origin, achievements, and shortcomings of canals are traced; a complete outline of the turnpike system is given; a short history of tramways comprises the leading points therein; the story of the rise, development and prospects of the motor industry is related; while the evolution and development of the railways and their position to-day both as a means of transport and communication and as constituting in themselves a "National Industry" are treated in such a way as to afford, it is hoped, a comprehensive idea of the railway system from its very earliest origin down to the strikes and the {vi}controversy following the close of the Royal Commission of Inquiry in the autumn of 1911. Incidentally, also, allusion is made to the rise of Bristol, Lynn, Liverpool, and various other ports; the early history of the textile industries, the cutlery trades, the iron trade, the salt trade, and the coal trade is briefly sketched, while the facts narrated in relation thereto should enable the reader to realise the bearing, throughout the ages, of State policy towards the general question of transport. Finally, the present situation and the future outlook are brought under review. Even as these pages are passing through the press new developments are occurring which confirm the suggestion I have made, on page 470, that "in the dictionary of transport there is no such word as 'finality.'" While it is still true that the electrification of the London suburban railways has not been generally adopted by the trunk companies, yet the scheme in this connection announced, on November 18, 1911, by the London and North-Western Railway Company (see page 507) supplementing the action already taken by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Company in regard to some of their suburban lines, is significant of a growing determination on the part of the great railway companies to defend their own interests by competing, in turn, with the electric tramways, which have absorbed so much of the suburban traffic of late years. Following closely on this one announcement comes another, to the effect that a new company is about to set up, in the Midlands, works covering thirty-four acres for the construction of a type of petrol-electric omnibus for which great advantages over the earlier motor-omnibuses are claimed. (This, presumably, is the vehicle which the Tramways Committee of the Edinburgh Corporation, as mentioned on page 470, propose to watch in preference to deciding at once on a system of rail-less electric traction.) {vii}In commenting on the former of the announcements here in question, "The Times Engineering Supplement" of November 22, 1911, observes:-- It is of importance to realise what this decision portends. The history of the matter is that the steam railways were inadequate to fulfil the requirements of the suburbs, and that an opening was thus afforded to municipalities to provide tramways of their own. It was a crude method of dealing with the problem; it robbed the main roads of every vestige of rural character, and it added new dangers and checks to street traffic. Nevertheless it was a necessity, and it served its purpose, first, by providing facilities that were always cheap to the travellers, even if they were occasionally dear to the taxpayers; and, secondly, by stimulating the railway companies to adopt means to get back their lost traffic. Now that the railway companies are fully alive to the opportunities offered to them by electrification, the general aspect of the problem is changed, and additional support is given to the belief that electric railways and motor-omnibuses will carry an increasing proportion of London traffic, and that from some roads at least tramways may even disappear altogether. In other directions there are reports of individual agriculturists who are constructing light railways of their own to secure direct communication between their farms and the nearest main line railway, sympathetic local authorities having offered them practical encouragement by making only a nominal charge for the privilege of crossing the public roads where this is necessary. A new era in agricultural transport and cultivation is further foreshadowed in the announcement that it is quite reasonable to believe that resort to rail-less electric traction will serve as a means of introducing electrical supply into rural areas for agricultural purposes; while in the House of Lords on November 22, 1911, Lord Lucas, replying for the Government to some comments made by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu on the first report of the Road Board (dealt with on page 481), said that body considered the most important thing at present was to improve the surface of the roads; but {viii}"they had borne in mind the fact that it would be necessary for them before long to undertake larger operations, involving heavier expenditure." Still further developments occurring, maturing, or under consideration when the text of the present work was already in type include-- (1) A projected alliance between the tube railways and the London General Omnibus Company, following on the conspicuous success obtained by the latter in substituting motor for horsed vehicles for the 300,000,000 passengers it carries annually. (2) The issuing of "Minutes of Evidence taken before the Departmental Committee of the Board of Trade on Railway Agreements and Amalgamations" [Cd. 5927], containing some notable expressions of opinion by railway managers concerning the future of the railway system, together with much important information on the general subject. (3) The publication, on December 1, of the Fourth Annual Report of the London Traffic Branch of the Board of Trade [Cd. 5972], which deals with various matters already touched upon in my last three chapters, including the effects of improved transport facilities on the migration of population from the inner to the outer suburban ring; the further widening of the motor-transport delivery radius, to the advantage of urban, but to the disadvantage of suburban traders; the steady substitution of mechanical traction for horse-drawn vehicles of every type--the Report predicting, on this point, that "if two-wheeled horse cabs continue to diminish at the rate of the last two years, they will disappear before the end of 1912"; the improbability of further material extensions of the tramway system, and the assumption that "the competition of promoters for the privilege of constructing tube railways has come to an end"; while the Report also discusses the merits of a scheme for the provision, at an estimated cost of between £20,000,000 and £30,000,000 of about 120 miles of great {ix}arterial roads across London for the accommodation of the increasing traffic, and of still another scheme, put forward by a Departmental Committee of the General Post Office, for relieving the streets of London of a good deal of mail-van traffic by the construction of an underground electric railway, 6½ miles in length, and costing £513,000, across the centre of London from east to west, for the conveyance of Post Office matter, the Report further suggesting that this particular system might be found equally applicable to other forms of enterprise which require the use of carts for the frequent conveyance of goods in small consignments between fixed points. (4) The passing by the House of Commons, on November 22, of a resolution expressing the opinion that a meeting should take place between the parties on whose behalf the Railway Agreement of August 19, 1911, was signed (see p. 448), "to discuss the best mode of giving effect to the Report of the Royal Commission"; the acceptance by such parties of Board of Trade invitations to a conference, in accordance with the terms of this resolution, and the holding of a conference which began, at the offices of the Board of Trade, on December 7, under the presidency of Sir George Askwith, Chief Industrial Commissioner, and resulted, on December 11, in a settlement being effected. (5) The prospective increase, from January 1, 1912, of certain season, excursion, week-end or other special-occasion fares (many of which now work out at a rate of a halfpenny or a farthing, or even less than a farthing, per mile) as a means of assisting the railway companies to meet advances in wages, such increases in passenger fares (distinct from any increases in merchandise rates, for a like reason, as foreshadowed by the Government undertaking of August 19, 1911, alluded to on pp. 448 and 511) being already in the option of the companies, provided the latter do not exceed the powers conferred on them by their Acts, and subject to the condition that on fares of over a penny the mile Government duty must be paid. {x}(6) The reading, by Mr. Philip Dawson, at the Royal Automobile Club, on December 8, of a valuable paper on "The Future of Railway Electrification," in which--after detailing what had already been done in the United States, in Germany, and, in this country, on the suburban systems of the Lancashire and Yorkshire, the North Eastern and the London, Brighton, and South Coast railways--he showed the practicability and the advantages of applying electric traction (single phase system) to main-line long-distance traffic; announced that the surveys and calculations in connection with a scheme for electrifying the whole of the L.B. and S.C. Railway Company's services between London and Brighton were already far advanced; mentioned that such a transformation would allow of a 10 to 15-minute service to Brighton and of the 52-mile journey being done by non-stop trains in about 45 minutes, or by stopping trains in about 60 minutes; and declared that "the equipment of this line if, as he hoped would be the case, it were carried out, would be epoch-making in the history of British railways." Thus the whole subject of inland transport is now so much "in the air" that the story of its gradual and varied development, as here told--and this, too, for the first time on the lines adopted in the present work--should form a useful contribution to the available literature on one of the most important of present-day problems. EDWIN A. PRATT. _December 12, 1911._ {xi}CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTORY 1 II. BRITAIN'S EARLIEST ROADS 4 III. ROADS AND THE CHURCH 11 IV. EARLY TRADING CONDITIONS 15 V. EARLY ROAD LEGISLATION 28 VI. EARLY CARRIAGES 35 VII. LOADS, WHEELS AND ROADS 43 VIII. THE COACHING ERA 51 IX. THE AGE OF BAD ROADS 64 X. THE TURNPIKE SYSTEM 77 XI. TRADE AND TRANSPORT IN THE TURNPIKE ERA 85 XII. SCIENTIFIC ROAD-MAKING 98 XIII. RIVERS AND RIVER TRANSPORT 108 XIV. RIVER IMPROVEMENT AND INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION 128 XV. DISADVANTAGES OF RIVER NAVIGATION 150 XVI. THE CANAL ERA 165 XVII. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 186 XVIII. EVOLUTION OF THE RAILWAY 195 XIX. THE RAILWAY ERA 222 XX. RAILWAY EXPANSION 242 XXI. RAILWAYS AND THE STATE 258{xii} XXII. DECLINE OF CANALS 294 XXIII. DECLINE OF TURNPIKES 312 XXIV. END OF THE COACHING ERA 325 XXV. RAILWAY RATES AND CHARGES 335 XXVI. THE RAILWAY SYSTEM TO-DAY 359 XXVII. WHAT THE RAILWAYS HAVE DONE 385 XXVIII. RAILWAYS A NATIONAL INDUSTRY 405 XXIX. TRAMWAYS, MOTOR-BUSES AND RAIL-LESS ELECTRIC TRACTION 453 XXX. CYCLES, MOTOR-VEHICLES AND TUBES 472 XXXI. THE OUTLOOK 494 AUTHORITIES 514 INDEX 522 {1}A HISTORY OF INLAND TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATION CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY The gradual improvement, throughout the centuries, of those facilities for internal communication which reached their climax in the creation of the present system of railways has constituted a dominating factor alike in our industrial and in our social advancement as a people. Until transport had provided a ready means alike of collecting raw materials and of distributing food supplies and manufactured articles, industries of the type familiar to us to-day were practically impossible; and until convenient and economical means of travel were afforded, England had to be considered less as a nation than as a collection of more or less isolated communities, with all the disadvantages, social and moral as well as economic, necessarily resulting; while the social and moral progress facilitated by improved means of communication reacted, in turn, on the industries by creating new wants for manufacturers and workers to supply. To the right understanding of the position occupied by our National Industries, it is thus necessary that the special significance of internal communication and its development should, at the outset, be clearly realised from the point of view, not alone of present-day circumstances, but, also, of conditions that either preceded the industries themselves--so far checking their growth that industrial development in Great Britain came at a much later date than in many {2}countries on the Continent of Europe--or else aided materially in the expansion of industries as the disadvantages and drawbacks began to disappear. That industries existed when internal communication was still in a primitive stage in this country is true enough; but they were "domestic" rather than "national," and it was not until the advent of better means of transport that it became possible for them to begin to pass from the one stage to the other, and, at the same time, to exercise so important an influence on our advancement as a nation. It is no less true that British commerce, conducted by ships obtaining ready access to foreign ports by traversing ocean highways, had made much greater progress at an early period in our history than industries dependent on inland highways that were then either non-existent or scarcely passable; yet, though navigation might advance still further, and though navigators might discover still more new countries, commerce could not hope to attain to the expansion it subsequently underwent until the industries whose operations were to be facilitated by improvement in land communication supplied the merchants with the home commodities which they required for sale or exchange in the markets of the world. Whatever, again, the natural resources of a country--and such resources have certainly been great in our own--they may be of little material value until they can be readily moved from the place where they exist to the place where they can be used; and even then it is necessary that the cost of transport shall not be unduly high. Transport and communication by land and water have thus become what Prof. J. Shield Nicholson rightly calls, in his "Principles of Political Economy," "the bases of industrial organisation"; and it is to industrial organisation that a country such as ours has been indebted in a pre-eminent degree both for its material prosperity and for the position it occupies to-day among the nations of the world. But just as British engineers long regarded the subject of road construction and road repairs as beneath their notice, and left such work to be done by any parish "surveyor," subsidised pauper or "Blind Jack of Knaresboro'," who thought fit to engage in it, so have most writers of history, while zealously recording the actions of kings, of diplomatists, of politicians, and of warriors who may have made a great stir in their day but who took only a very {3}small share in the real and permanent progress of the British people, bestowed only a passing reference--and sometimes not even that--on questions of trade and transport which have played a far more important part in our social and national advancement. The history of railways has already been told by various writers. But the history of railways is only the last chapter in the history of inland transport and communication; and, though that last chapter is of paramount importance, and will here receive full recognition, it is essential that those who would form a clear idea of the position as a whole should begin the story at the beginning, and trace the course of events leading up to the conditions as they exist to-day. {4}CHAPTER II BRITAIN'S EARLIEST ROADS It has been assumed in some quarters that, because the main routes of travel in this country did not have to pass over lofty mountains, as in Austria and Switzerland, therefore the construction of roads here was, or should have been, a comparatively easy matter. But this is far from having been the case, the earliest opening of regular lines of communication by road having been materially influenced by certain physical conditions of the land itself. The original site of London was a vast marsh, extending from where Fulham stands to-day to Greenwich, a distance of nine or ten miles, with a breadth in places of two or two and a half miles. The uplands beyond the Thames marshes were covered with dense forests in which the bear, the wild boar, and the wild ox roamed at will. Essex was almost entirely forest down to the date of the conquest. Nearly the whole expanse of what to-day is Sussex, and, also, considerable portions of Kent and Hampshire, were covered by a wood--the Andred-Weald, or Andreswald--which in King Alfred's time is said by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to have been 120 miles long and 30 miles broad. Here it was that, until even these great supplies were approaching exhaustion, the iron industry established in Sussex in the thirteenth century obtained the wood and the charcoal which were exclusively used as fuel in iron-making until the second half of the eighteenth century, when coal and coke began to be generally substituted. Wilts, Dorset and other southern counties had extensive woodlands which were more or less depleted under like conditions. Warwickshire, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire all had extensive woods. Sherwood Forest extended over almost the whole of Nottinghamshire. In Derbyshire, as shown by the Domesday Survey, five hundreds {5}out of six were heavily wooded, and nineteen manors out of twenty-three had wood on them. "In Lancashire," says Charles Pearson, in the notes to his "Historical Maps of England During the First Thirteen Centuries," "if we distinguish forest from wood, and assume that the former was only wilderness, we still have official evidence for believing that a quarter of a million acres of the land between Mersey and Ribble was covered with a network of separate dense woods." Altogether, it is calculated by various authorities that in the earliest days of our history about one third of the surface of the soil in the British Isles was covered with wood, thicket, or scrub. Of the remainder a very large proportion was fen-land, marsh-land or heath-land. "From the sea-board of Suffolk and Norfolk," says the Rev. W. Denton, in "England in the Fifteenth Century," "and on the north coast almost to the limits of the great level, stretched a series of swamps, quagmires, small lakes and 'broads.'" A great fen, 60 miles in length and 40 miles in breadth, covered a large proportion of the counties of Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. A great part of Lancashire, Mr Denton further states, was a region of marshes and quaking mosses, while "from Norwich to Liverpool, and from the mouth of the Ouse at Lynn to the Mersey, where it falls into the Irish sea, a line of fen, uncultivated moors and morasses stretched across England and separated the northern counties from the midland districts, the old territory of Mercia." Much of the surface, again, was occupied by hills or mountains separated by valleys or plains through which some 200 rivers--many of them far more powerful streams than they are to-day--flowed towards the sea. As for the nature of much of the soil of England, the early conditions are further recalled by Daniel Defoe who, in describing the "Tour through the Whole Isle of Great Britain" which he made in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, speaks of "the soil of all the midland part of England, from sea to sea," as "a stiff clay or marly earth" for a breadth of 50 miles, at least, so that it was not possible to go north from London to any part of Britain without having to pass through "these terrible clays," which were, he says, "perfectly frightful to travellers." {6}It was under conditions such as these that Britain obtained her first roads; and it was, also, conditions such as these that were to affect more or less the future history of inland communication in England, adding largely to the practical difficulties experienced in making provision for adequate transport facilities. Inasmuch as a great number of chariots were used by the Britons in their attempt to resist the invasion of Cæsar, it may be assumed that there were even then in this country roads sufficiently broad and solid on which such chariots could run; and though evidence both of the use of wattles in the making of roads over clayey soil and of a knowledge on the part of the early Britons of the art of paving has been found, the British chariot-roads were so inefficiently constructed that few traces of them have remained. The earliest British roads were, however, probably of the nature of tracks rather than of durable highways; and they may have been designed less for the purposes of defence against invasion than in the interests of that British trade which, even then, was an established institution in the land. Writing in "Archæologia," vol. xlviii (1885), Mr Alfred Tylor expresses the view that the civilisation of the Britons was of a much higher character in some respects than has till recently been supposed. From the fact that Pytheas of Marseilles, a Greek traveller who lived B.C. 330, and visited Britain, described the British-made chariots, he thinks we may assume that the Britons had discovered the art of smelting and working tin, lead and iron, and that they used these materials in the making both of chariots and of weapons. But they produced for export, as well as for domestic use. Tin, more especially, was an absolute necessity in Europe in the bronze age for use in the making of weapons both for the chase and for war, and the metallurgical wealth of Britain afforded great opportunities for trading, just as it subsequently gave the country the special importance it possessed in the eyes of the Roman conquerors. To the pursuit of such trading the Britons, according to Mr Tylor, were the more inspired by a desire to obtain, in return for their metals the amber which, as the favourite ornament of prehistoric times, then constituted a most important article of commerce, but was obtainable only in the north of Europe. {7}The early importance of amber in Europe is proved, Mr Tylor says, by its presence in many parts of Europe throughout the long neolithic age, and, therefore, long prior to the bronze age; and it was mainly to facilitate the exchange of metals for this much-desired amber that the Britons made roads or tracks from the high grounds which they generally chose for their habitations (thus avoiding alike the forests, the fens and the marshes), down to the ports from which the metals were to be shipped to their destination. Mr Tylor says on this point:-- "The first British tin-commerce with the Continent in prehistoric times moved, either on packhorses or by chariots, in hilly districts, towards Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk, that is, in the direction from west to east; then by sea from the eastern British shipping ports, of which Camulodunum on the Stour, close to the Thames (Colchester) is a type, to the Baltic. Thus at first the 'tin' used to find its way partly by land and partly by sea from Cornwall to the mouths of the Elbe and Vistula, there to meet the land caravans of the Baltic amber commerce from the north of Europe to the south.... When the land route throughout Gaul was established the tin had to go across the English Channel, not to Brittany, across the rougher and wider part, but to Normandy. The Isle of Wight was nearer Normandy, and a suitable entrepôt for the coasters meeting the fleets of ocean trading ships.[1]... "Iron and lead were, also, valuable British productions, and could easily reach the Isle of Wight by coasting steamers or by the British or Roman roads via Salisbury or Winchester.... "All ancient roads to British shipping ports were, of course, British.... Without roads it would be impossible to get over the low, often clay, grounds, or to reach the seaports in chariots, as the seaports were constantly in the clay.... It was impossible to reach the shipping-ports, which are all at low levels, without roads, as the clay and sand would be impassable for chariots. Of course packhorses could travel where chariots could not, but if the main roads were made for chariots they would be equally good for packhorses." Mr Tylor thinks there is the greater reason for assuming that a considerable trade had thus been developed between {8}Britain and the Continent because Tacitus alludes to a British prince who had amassed great wealth by transporting metals from the Mendips to the Channel coast; but our main consideration is the evidence we get of the fact that Britain's earliest roads appear to have owed their origin to the development of Britain's earliest trade. Two, at least, of the four great roads to which the designation "Roman" has been applied followed, in Mr Tylor's opinion, the line of route already established by the Britons under the conditions here indicated. Certain it is that, although the Romans always aimed at building their roads in straight lines, and troubled little about ascents and descents, they followed the British plan of keeping the routes to high and dry ground, whenever practicable, in order to have a better chance of avoiding alike the woods, the bogs, the clays, the water-courses and the rivers. Skilled road-builders though they were, the Romans shrank, in several instances, Pearson tells us, from "the tremendous labour of clearing a road through a forest where the trees must be felled seventy yards on either side to secure them from the arrows of a lurking foe." Thus the great military roads marked in the Itinerary of Antonine always, if possible, avoided passing through a forest. The roads to Chichester went by Southampton in order to avoid the Andred-Weald of Sussex, and the road from London to Bath did not take the direct route to Wallingford because, in that case, it would have required to pass through twenty miles of forest in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. Later on, however, as the Roman rule became more firmly established, the making of roads through forests became unavoidable, and much destruction of timber followed, while the fact that the trees thus felled were left to rot on the ground alongside the roads helped to create the quagmires and "mosses" which were to be so great a source of trouble to road-makers in future generations. As regards the routes taken by the Roman roads, Mr. Tylor says:-- "The Romans made a complete system of permanent inland roads to connect the Continent with the military posts, London, York, Colchester, Chester, Uriconium, Gloucester, Winchester, Silchester, Porchester and Brading, and chief {9}trading towns with each other. At commanding points along or near these roads the Romans constructed camps, and so placed their legions as to protect the centres of metallurgical industry and the roads leading to them.... The Romans did not originate the sites of many new seaport towns or towns on large, navigable rivers, and, when they did so, as in the case of London, Richborough, Uriconium, Rochester, Canterbury, it was for strategical reasons, or indirectly connected with the traffic in minerals, the great industry of Britain during the Roman occupation as it was before it.... Silchester ... was forty-five miles from London, and was on high ground away from river or forests, and not far from the junction of a number of land-routes. It was on dry ground on which waggons could travel. It was convenient for roads giving access to Cornwall for tin; to the Mendips for lead, copper or brass; Gloucester and South Wales for iron; and from these termini there were routes passable to the east and south coasts of England." From all this it would seem that the mineral wealth and the trading interests which had inspired the line of route of the earliest British roads were, side by side with military considerations, leading factors in the particular direction given to the Roman roads that followed them. As for the Roman roads themselves, so admirably were they built that some of those laid down in ancient Rome and in France have been in use for from 1500 to 2000 years, while remains of Roman roads found in Britain, buried deeply under the debris of centuries, have still borne striking evidence of the solid manner in which they were first constructed. But the point that here arises for consideration is, not only the high quality of the great roads the Romans built in Britain, but the broad-minded policy by which the builders themselves were influenced. The provision of a system of scientifically constructed roads wherever they went was, primarily, part of the Roman plan of campaign in the wars of aggrandisement they carried on; but it was further designed to aid in developing the resources of the country concerned, while it was, also, carried out in Britain by the Roman State itself, on lines embracing the transport conditions of the country as a whole, and in accordance with a unified and well-planned system of internal communication on "national" {10}lines such as no succeeding administration attempted either to follow or to direct. Thus the great Roman roads, connecting the rising city on the Thames and the commercial centre of Britain with every part of the island, were remarkable, not only because they represented an art which was to disappear with the conquerors themselves, but, also, because they had been directly created, and were directly controlled, by a central authority as the outcome of a State road policy itself fated in turn to disappear no less effectually. The almost invariable practice in this country since the departure of the Romans has been for the State, instead of following the Roman example, and regarding as an obligation devolving upon itself the provision of adequate means of intercommunication between different parts of the country, to leave the burden and responsibility of making such provision to individual citizens, to philanthropic effort, to private enterprise, or to local authorities. The result has been that not only, for successive generations, were both the material progress and the social advancement of the English people greatly impeded, but the actual development of such intercommunication was to show, far too often (1) a lamentable want of intelligence and skill in meeting requirements; and (2) a deficiency of system, direction and co-ordination as regards the many different agencies or authorities concerned in the results actually secured. {11}CHAPTER III ROADS AND THE CHURCH Following the departure of the Romans, not only road-making but even road-repairing was for several centuries wholly neglected in this country. The Roman roads continued to be used, but successive rulers in troublesome times were too busily engaged in maintaining their own position or in waging wars at home or abroad to attend to such prosaic details as the repairing of roads, and they had, apparently, still less time or opportunity for converting into roads hill-side tracks which the Romans had not touched at all. In proportion, too, as the roads were neglected, the bridges of the earlier period got out of repair, fell in altogether, or were destroyed in the social disorders of the time. So the mediæval ages found the means of internal communication by land probably worse in Britain than in any other country in western Europe. The State having failed to acquit itself of its obligations, the Church took up the work as a religious duty. The keeping of roads in repair came to be considered, as Jusserand says in "English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages," "a pious and meritorious work before God, of the same sort as visiting the sick and caring for the poor." Travellers were regarded as unfortunate people whose progress on their toilsome journeys it was Christian charity to assist. In these circumstances the religious houses of the period took over the task of making or repairing both roads and bridges, the faithful being encouraged to assist in the good work, either through gifts or with personal labour, by the concession to them of special indulgencies. Jusserand tells, for instance, how Richard de Kellawe, Bishop of Durham, 1311-1316, remitted part of the penalties on the sins of those who did good work in helping to make smooth the way of the wanderer, his episcopal register {12}containing frequent entries of 40-day indulgencies granted to contributors to the road-repair funds. There were benefactors, also, who left to the monasteries lands and houses the proceeds of which were to be applied to the same public purpose; while in proportion as the monasteries thus increased the extent of their own landed possessions they became still more interested in the making and repairing of roads in the neighbourhoods in which the lands they had acquired were situated. In those days, in fact, people bequeathed not only land, or money, but even live stock for the repair of roads just as they left gifts for ecclesiastical purposes, or as people to-day make bequests to charitable institutions. The practice continued until, at least, the middle of the sixteenth century, since in the Sixth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission there will be found (page 422) the last will and testament, dated May 16, 1558, of John Davye, in which the testator says:-- "I leve and bequeithe a cowpell of oxson that I boughte the laste yere to the building of Moulde Church where I dwell; And I bequieth a bullocke that I boughte of the Royde unto the mendynge of the hye waie betwixte my howse and the Molld." Bequests of money or lands were also made for the construction or the maintenance of bridges, or for the freeing of bridges from toll so that the poor could cross without payment; and one of the duties of the bishops, when making their visitations, was to enquire whether or not the funds thus left were being applied to the purposes the donors intended. On the Continent of Europe a religious order was founded, in the twelfth century, for the building of bridges. It spread over several countries and built some notable bridges--such, for instance, as that over the Rhone at Avignon; though there is no trace, Jusserand tells us, of these Bridge Friars having extended their operations to this country. It was, however, from them that laymen learned the art of bridge-building, and in Britain, as in Continental countries, bridges came to be considered as pious works, to be put under the special charge of a patron saint. To this end it was customary to build a chapel alongside an important bridge--as in the case of the old London Bridge that replaced the original wooden structure by Peter Colechurch, "priest and chaplain," itself {13}having had a chapel dedicated to Saint Thomas of Canterbury. Sovereigns or great landowners gave generous gifts for the endowment of such bridges. Although, too, there was no special order of bridge-building friars in England, guilds and lay brotherhoods, animated by the religious spirit, were formed in the reign of Richard II. (1377-1399) for the repair of roads and bridges, just as, in turn, the ordinary trading guilds which were the forerunners of the corporate bodies set up in towns undertook to "maintain and keep in good reparacion" bridges which had become "ruinous," and, also, to attend to the "foul and dangerous highways, the charge whereof the town was not able to maintain."[2] It became customary, also, for hermits to take up their habitation in cells along the main thoroughfares, and to occupy themselves with looking after the roads, trusting to the alms of passers-by for a little worldly recompense. In one instance, at least, a hermit was allowed to put up a toll-bar--the first on record in this country--and collect compulsory payments from persons using the roads he mended. This was in 1364, when Edward III. made a decree authorising "our well-beloved William Phelippe the hermit" to set up a toll-bar on the lower slope of Highgate Hill, on the north side of London, and levy tolls for the repair of the "Hollow Way" from "our people passing between Heghgate and Smethfelde." Jusserand sums up the situation at this period by saying that "The roads in England would have been entirely impassable ... if the nobility and the clergy, that is to say, the whole of the landed proprietors, had not had an immediate and daily interest in possessing passable roads." There came, however, a period of decline in religious fervour. The laity grew less disposed to give or to bequeath money, {14}land or cattle for road-repair purposes, however much the offer of indulgences in return therefor might be increased from days to months or even to years; and the clergy, in turn, became more remiss in acquitting themselves of the obligations they had assumed as road-repairers. They accepted the benefactions, and they granted the indulgences; but they showed increasing laxity in carrying out their responsibilities. The roadside hermits, also, gathered in so much in the way of contributions, voluntary or compulsory, from passers-by that they ate and drank more than hermits ought to do, grew fat and lazy, and too often left the roads to look after themselves. What, therefore, with neglected roads and dilapidated bridges, the general conditions of travel went from bad to worse. Church Councils, says Denton, were summoned and adjourned because bishops feared to encounter the danger of travelling along such roads. Oratories were licensed in private houses, and chapels of ease were built, because roads were so bad, especially in winter, that the people could not get to their parish churches. The charter, 47 Edward III., 1373, by which the city of Bristol was constituted a county, states that this was done in order to save the burgesses from travelling to Gloucester and Ilchester, "distant thirty miles of road, deep, especially in winter time, and dangerous to passengers." On many different occasions, too, the members of the House of Commons, assembled for a new session, could transact no business because the Peers had been detained by the state of the roads and the difficulty of travelling, and Parliament was, therefore, adjourned. The general conditions grew still worse with the impoverishment of the monasteries by which the main part of the work had--however negligently--been done since the end of the Roman régime. As will be shown later on, various statutes had gradually imposed more and more the care of the roads on the laity, and it was upon them that the full responsibility fell with the eventual dissolution, first of the lesser, and next of the greater, monasteries by Henry VIII. {15}CHAPTER IV EARLY TRADING CONDITIONS Rivers constituted, in the Middle Ages, the most important means of inland transport. Most of our oldest towns or cities that were not on the route of one of the Roman roads were set up alongside or within easy reach of some tidal or navigable stream in order, among other reasons, that full advantage could be taken of the transport facilities the waterways offered. So were monasteries, castles, and baronial halls, while the locating of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge on the Thames and the Cam respectively rendered them accessible by sea and river to Scottish and other students from the north who could hardly have made their way thither by land.[3] It was, however, only a limited number of inland places that could be reached by water, and other towns or settlements were wanted. The trading opportunities of the latter were at first restricted to the packhorse, few of the roads being then adapted for even the most primitive of agricultural waggons. Long lines of packhorses, with bales or panniers slung across their backs, made their way along roads or bridle paths often inadequate to allow of two strings of loaded horses to pass one another, so that many a quarrel arose, when two teams met, as to which should go into the mud to allow the other to pass along the path proper. Traders sending wool or other commodities by the same route were in the habit of making up companies in order to secure mutual protection against robbers, and they armed themselves and their servants as if going to battle. Like precautions were taken by merchants from the north when they started on their annual business journeys to {16}London--journeys so full of peril that they were not begun until the merchant had made his will and earnestly commended himself to the protection both of St. Botolph and of his own patron saint. The "commercial travellers" of that day carried their samples or their wares in a bag lying across their horse's back, thus qualifying for the designation of "bagmen" by which they were to become known. In the Middle Ages everyone rode except the very poor, and they had to be content to trudge along on foot. Kings and nobles, princes and princesses, gentlemen and ladies, merchants and bagmen all travelled on horseback. Women either rode astride until the introduction of side-saddles, in the fourteenth century, or else rode in pillion fashion. The main exception to riding on horseback, in the case of ladies or of the sick or infirm, was the use of litters attached to shafts to which two horses, one in front and one behind the litter, were harnessed. Sometimes, also, "passengers" were carried in the panniers of the packhorses, instead of goods. Certain main routes, and especially those favoured by pilgrims--such as that between London and Canterbury--must have been full of animation in those days; but, speaking generally, no one then travelled except on business or under the pressure of some strong obligation. Down to the end of the fourteenth century England was purely an agricultural country, and her agricultural products were exclusively for home, if not for local or even domestic consumption, with the one exception of wool, which was exported in considerable quantities to Flanders and other lands then dependent mainly on England for the raw materials of their cloth manufactures. In our own country manufactures had made but little advance, and they mainly supplied the requirements, in each instance, of a very limited area. England was, indeed, in those days, little more than a collection of isolated communities in which the various householders, more especially in villages at a distance from any main road or navigable river, had to provide for their own requirements to a great extent. Of retail shops, such as are now found in the most remote villages, there were none at all at a period when the replenishing of stocks would have been impossible by reason of difficulties in transport; so that while the country as a whole was mainly agricultural, {17}there were more craftsmen in the villages, and there was greater skill possessed by individuals in the production of domestic requirements than would to-day be found among agricultural populations accustomed to depend on the urban manufacturer or the village stores for the commodities their forefathers had to make, to raise or to supply for themselves. Each family baked its own bread, with flour ground at the village mill from the wheat or the rye grown on the family's own land or allotment; each brewed its own ale--then the common beverage at all meals, since tea and coffee had still to come into vogue; and each grew its own wool or flax, made its own cloth and clothing, and tanned its own leather. What the household could not do for itself might still be done by the village blacksmith or the village carpenter. Alike for ribbons, for foreign spices, for luxuries in general, and for news of the outer world the household was mainly dependent on the pedlar, with his stock on his back, or the chapman, bringing his collection of wares with him on horseback; though even these welcome visitors might find it impossible to travel along roads and footpaths reduced by autumn rains or winter snows to the condition of quagmires. In these conditions many a village or hamlet became isolated until the roads were again available for traffic, and rural households prepared for the winter as they would have taken precautions against an impending siege. Most of the meat likely to be required would be killed off in the late autumn and salted down--salt being one of the few absolute necessities for which the mediæval household was dependent on the outside world; while families which could not afford to kill for themselves would purchase an animal in common and share the meat. Stores of wheat, barley and malt were laid in; honey was put on the shelves to take the place of the sugar then almost unknown outside the large towns; logs were collected for fuel and rushes for the floors; and wool and flax were brought in to provide occupation for the women of the household. In the way of necessaries the provision made by each self-dependent family, or, at least, by each self-contained community, was thus practically complete--save in the one important item of fresh vegetables, the lack of which, coupled with the consumption of so much salt meat, was a frequent source of scurvy. Millstones for {18}the village mill might, like the salt, have to be brought in from elsewhere; but otherwise the villagers had small concern with what went on in the great world. Such trading relations as the average village had with English markets or with foreign traders were almost exclusively in the hands of the lord of the manor, one of whose rights--and one not without significance, from our present point of view--it was to call upon those who held land under him, whether as free men or as serfs, to do all his carting for him. This was a condition on which both villeins and cottars had their holdings; and though, in course of time, the lord of the manor might relieve his people of most of the obligations devolving upon them, this particular responsibility still generally remained. "Instances of the commutation of the whole of the services," says W. J. Ashley, in the account of the manorial system which he gives in his "Introduction to English Economic History and Theory," "occur occasionally as early as 1240 in manors where the demesne was wholly left to tenants. The service with which the lord could least easily dispense seems to have been that of carting; and so in one case we find the entry as to the villeins, 'Whether they pay rent or no they shall cart.'" To the lord of the manor, at least, the difficulties of road transport, whether in getting his surplus commodities to market or otherwise, must have appeared much less serious when he was thus able to call on his tenants to do his cartage. In the towns the isolation may not have been so great as in the villages; but the urban trading and industrial conditions nevertheless assumed a character which could only have been possible when, owing to defective communications, there was comparatively little movement and competition in regard either to manufactures (such as they were) or to workers. The period of internal peace and order which followed the Norman Conquest led, as Ashley has shown, to the rise in town after town of the merchant guild--an institution the purpose of which was to unite into a society all those who carried on a certain trade, in order, not only to assure for them the maintenance of their rights and privileges, but also to obtain for them an actual monopoly of the particular business in which they were interested. Such monopoly they claimed against other traders in the same town who had not entered {19}into the combination, and still more so against traders in other towns. The latter they regarded as "foreigners" equally with the traders from Flanders and elsewhere. The merchant guilds were found in all considerable towns in the eleventh century, and they were followed, a century later, by craft guilds which aimed, in turn, at securing a monopoly of employment for their own particular members. Coupled with the guilds there was much local regulation of the prices and qualities of commodities through the setting-up of such institutions as the "assize" of ale, of bread and of cloth; while the justices had, in addition, considerable powers in regard to fixing the rates of wages and the general conditions of labour. All this system of highly-organised Protection, not so much for the country as a whole as for each and every individual town in the country, might serve in comparatively isolated communities; but it could not prevail against increased intercourse, the growing competition of developing industries, a broader area of distribution for commodities made in greater volume, and a wider demand for foreign supplies. It was thus doomed to extinction as these new conditions developed; but it nevertheless exercised an important influence on our national advancement, since it was the impulse of corporate unity, fostered by the merchant guilds, and strengthened by the system of manorial courts for the enforcement of the local laws and customs in vogue in each separate manor before the common law of the land was established, that led to so many English towns securing, from King or overlord--and notably in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the influence of the merchant guilds was especially great--those charters which so powerfully stimulated the growth of the great towns, of English citizenship, of individual freedom, and of national prosperity. Ashley well says, in this connection:-- "Wide as were the differences between a civic republic of Italy, or an imperial city of Germany with its subject territory, and a little English market town, there was an underlying similarity of ideas and purposes. Each was a body of burghers who identified the right to carry on an independent trading or industrial occupation with the right of burgess-ship; who imposed restrictions on the acquisition of citizenship, with the object of protecting the interests of those already enjoying {20}it; who acted together by market regulation and intermunicipal negotiation to secure every advantage they could over rival boroughs; who deemed it meet that every occupation should have its own organisation and its own representation in the governing authority, and who allowed and expected their magistrates to carry out a searching system of industrial supervision. Municipal magistracy was not yet an affair of routine, bound hand and foot by the laws of the State." The general trade of the country in the Middle Ages was conducted mainly through markets and fairs. Every town had its market and fixed market day, and such market served the purpose of bringing in the surplus produce of the surrounding agricultural district, the area of supply depending, no doubt, on the distance for which the state of the roads and the facilities for transport on them would allow of commodities being brought. Held, as a rule, annually or half-yearly, fairs assumed much more important proportions than the (generally) weekly local markets. It was to the fairs that traders both from distant counties and from foreign countries brought wares and products not otherwise obtainable; and it was at the fairs that the foreign merchants, more especially, bought up the large quantities of wool which were to form their return cargoes. Whereas the business done at the local markets was mainly retail, that done at the fairs was, to a great extent, wholesale, and the latter represented the bulk of such transactions as would now be done on the public exchanges or in the private warehouses of London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and other leading commercial centres. Fairs were essentially the outcome of defective means of communication. Going back in their origin to the days of ancient Greece, they have been found in most countries in the earlier stages of society, or under conditions which have not allowed of (1) a ready distribution of commodities, (2) sufficiently advanced manufactures, or (3) the subdivision of trade over an adequately wide area. Fairs in England began to decay in exact proportion as communications and manufactures improved and retail trade expanded; so that to-day the survivals are either exclusively cattle fairs, sheep fairs, horse fairs, cheese fairs, and so on, or else are little more than {21}pleasure fairs, with gingerbread stalls, shows and roundabouts for their chief attractions--mere reminiscences of old institutions which, in bygone days, were of supreme commercial importance. They were, also, greatly influenced by religious festivals, whether in ancient Greece or in Europe. In Britain itself the commemoration of saints' days by the monasteries, the dedication festivals of churches or cathedrals, and the visitation of shrines by pilgrims brought together crowds of people whose assembling offered good opportunities for the opening up with them of a trade in commodities which they, in turn, might otherwise have some difficulty in procuring. It was, indeed, to the advantage of the Church to offer or to encourage the offering of such facilities, not only because there would thus be a greater inducement to people to come to the festivals or to visit the shrines, but also because when the fair was held on land belonging to the Church or connected with religious buildings there might be a substantial revenue gained from the tolls and charges paid by the traders. At one time the fairs were even held in churchyards; but this practice was prohibited in the 13th year of Edward I., and thenceforward they were held on open spaces, where stalls and tents could be erected for the accommodation of the goods on sale and of the persons who had brought them, various amusements being added, or encouraged, by way of affording further attractions. The land occupied might be that of the lord of the manor, but the fairs still continued to be held chiefly on Saints' days or on the occasion of Church festivals, the actual dates being generally so fixed as to allow of the foreign or other traders attending them to arrange a circuit. The time of year preferred for the holding of fairs was either the autumn, when people whose wants were not wholly met by pedlar or chapman would be providing against the stoppage of all traffic along the roads during the winter; or the spring, when they would want to replenish their depleted stocks. The localities mostly favoured were towns either on navigable rivers, giving access to a good stretch of country, or at the entrance to valleys whose inhabitants would be especially isolated during the winter months by their impassable roads and mountain tracks. In course of time the fairs became, as shown by Giles Jacob, in his "Law Dictionary" (4th edition, 1809), "a matter of {22}universal concern to the commonwealth," as well as a valuable monetary consideration to those who had the right to collect the tolls; and they were, in consequence, subjected to close regulation. No person could hold a fair "unless by grant from the King, or by prescription which supposes such grant"; the time during which it could be kept open was announced by proclamation, and rigidly adhered to; "just weight and measure" was enforced, and a "clerk of the fair" was appointed to mark the weights. On the other hand every encouragement was offered to traders to attend the fairs. "Any citizen of London," says Jacob, "may carry his goods or merchandise to any fair or market at his pleasure." Mounted guards were, in some instances, provided on the main routes leading to the fair, in order to protect the traders from attack by robbers. Tolls were to be paid to the lord of the manor or other owner of the land on which a fair was held under a special grant; but if the tolls charged were "outrageous and excessive" (to quote again from Jacob), the grant of the right to levy toll became void, and the fair was thenceforth a "free" one. It was further laid down that persons going to a fair should be "privileged from being molested or arrested in it for any other debt or contract than what was contracted in the same, or at least, was promised to be paid there." An especially curious feature of these old fairs was the so-called "Court of Pie Powder"--this being the accepted English rendering, in those days, of "pied poudré"--or "The Court of Dusty Feet." The court was one of summary jurisdiction, at which questions affecting pedlars or other (presumably) dusty-footed traders and their patrons, or matters relating to "the redress of disorders," could be decided by a properly constituted authority during the period of the holding of the fair in which such questions or matters arose. Jacob says of this old institution:-- "It is a _court of record_ incident to every _Fair_; and to be held only _during the time_ that the _Fair_ is kept. As to the jurisdiction, the cause of action for contract, slander, &c., must arise _in_ the fair or market, and not before at any former fair, nor after the fair; it is to be for some _matter concerning_ the same _fair_ or _market_; and must be done, complained of, heard and determined the same day. Also the plaintiff must {23}make oath that the contract, &c., was _within the jurisdiction_ and _time_ of the _fair_.... The steward before whom the court is held, is the judge, and the trial is by merchants and traders in the fair." Such courts were as ancient as the fairs themselves, and they ensured a speedy administration of justice in accordance with what was recognised as merchants' law long before any common law was established. Supposed to have been introduced by the Romans, the "court of pie powder" was, according to Jacob, known by them under the name of "curia pedis pulverisati," while the Saxons called it the "ceapunggemot," or "the court of merchandise or handling matters of buying and selling." It was, of course, the Normans who introduced the later term of "pied poudré," which the English converted into "pie powder." One of the most ancient, and certainly the most important, of all the English fairs was the Sturbridge fair, at Cambridge, so called from a little river known as the Stere, or the Sture, which flowed into the Cam.[4] Early records of this particular fair, according to Cornelius Walford, in "Fairs Past and Present," are to be found in a grant by King John in or about the year 1211. The fair is believed to have been originally founded by the Romans; but it may have acquired greater importance at the date of this particular charter by reason of what Cunningham, in his "Growth of English Industry and Commerce in the Early and Middle Ages," describes as the "extraordinary increase" of commerce in every part of the Mediterranean in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, coupled with the "improvements in navigation and in mercantile practice" which "went hand in hand with this development. Englishmen," he further tells us, "had but little direct part in all this maritime activity. Their time was not come; but the Italian merchants who bought English wool, or visited English fairs, brought them within range of the rapid progress that was taking place in South Europe." From the middle of the twelfth to the middle of the {24}thirteenth century the export of wool, leather, lead, tin and other English commodities was in the hands almost exclusively of foreign merchants, who came here both to purchase these raw materials and to dispose of the products of their own or other countries; and Sturbridge Fair, as it happened, formed a convenient trading centre alike for foreign and for English traders, the question of inland communication being, in fact, once more the dominating factor in the situation. Foreign goods destined for the fair were mostly brought, first, to the port of Lynn, and there transferred to barges in which they were taken along the Ouse to the Cam, and so on to the fair ground which, on one side, was bordered by the latter stream. Heavy goods sent by water from London and the southern counties, or coming by sea from the northern ports, reached the fair by the same route. Great quantities of hops brought to the fair from the south-eastern or midland counties by land or water were, in turn, despatched via the Cam, the Ouse and the port of Lynn to Hull, Newcastle, and elsewhere for consignment to places to be reached by the Humber, the Tyne, etc. Where water transport was not available the services of packhorses were brought into requisition until the time came when the roads had been sufficiently improved to allow of the use of waggons. In his "Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain" Defoe gives a graphic account of Sturbridge Fair as he saw it in 1723. By that date it had become, in his opinion, "not only the greatest in the whole Nation, but in the World." It covered an area of about half a square mile, had shops placed in rows like streets, with an open square known as the Duddery, and comprised "all Trades that can be named in London, with Coffee-houses, Taverns, and Eating-houses innumerable, and all in Tents and Booths." He speaks of £100,000 worth of woollen manufactures being sold in less than a week, and of-- "The prodigious trade carry'd on here by Wholesale-men from London, and all parts of England, who transact their Business wholly in their Pocket-Books, and meeting their Chapmen from all Parts, make up their Accounts, receive Money chiefly in Bills, and take Orders: These, they say, exceed by far the sales of Goods actually brought to the Fair, and deliver'd in kind; it being frequent for the London {25}Wholesale Men to carry back orders from their Dealers for ten Thousand Pounds-worth of Goods a man, and some much more. This especially respects those People, who deal in heavy Goods, as Wholesale Grocers, Salters, Brasiers, Iron-Merchants, Wine-Merchants and the like; but does not exclude the Dealers in Woollen Manufactures, and especially in Mercery Goods of all sorts, the Dealers in which generally manage their Business in this Manner: "Here are Clothiers from Halifax, Leeds, Wakefield and Huddersfield in Yorkshire, and from Rochdale, Bury, &c. in Lancashire, with vast Quantities of Yorkshire Cloths, Kerseys, Pennistons, Cottons, &c., with all sorts of Manchester Ware, Fustians and Things made of Cotton Wooll; of which the Quantity is so great, that they told me there were near a Thousand Horse-packs of such Goods from that Side of the Country.... "In the Duddery I saw one Ware-house or Booth, with six Apartments in it, all belonging to a Dealer in Norwich Stuffs alone, and who, they said, had there above Twenty Thousand Pounds value in those Goods alone. "Western Goods had their Share here, also, and several Booths were fill'd as full with Serges, Du-Roys, Druggets, Shalloons, Cataloons, Devonshire Kersies, &c., from Exeter, Taunton, Bristol, and other Parts West, and some from London also. "But all this is still outdone, at least in Show, by two Articles, which are the Peculiars of this Fair, and do not begin till the other Part of the Fair, that is to say, for the Woollen Manufacture, begins to draw to a Close: These are the Wooll and the Hops: As for the Hops there is scarce any price fix'd for Hops in England till they know how they fell at Sturbridge Fair: the Quantity that appears in the Fair is indeed prodigious.... They are brought directly from Chelmsford in Essex, from Canterbury and Maidstone in Kent and from Farnham in Surrey; besides what are brought from London, the Growth of those and other places." In the North of England, Defoe continues, few hops had formerly been used, the favourite beverage there being a "pale smooth ale" which required no hops. But for some years hops had been used more than before in the brewing of the great quantity of beer then being produced in the {26}North, and traders from beyond the Trent came south to buy their hops at Cambridge, taking them back to Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire and even to Scotland. Of wool, according to the same authority, the quantity disposed of at a single fair would be of the value of £50,000 or £60,000. In writing on this same Sturbridge fair, Thorold Rogers says, in his "History of Agriculture and Prices":-- "The concourse must have been a singular medley. Besides the people who poured forth from the great towns ... there were, beyond doubt, the representatives of many nations collected together to this great mart of medieval commerce. The Jew, expelled from England, had given place to the Lombard exchanger. The Venetian and Genoese merchant came with his precious stock of Eastern produce, his Italian silks and velvets, his store of delicate glass. The Flemish weaver was present with his linens of Liége and Ghent. The Spaniard came with his stock of iron, the Norwegian with his tar and pitch. The Gascon vine-grower was ready to trade in the produce of his vine-yard; and, more rarely, the richer growths of Spain, and, still more rarely, the vintages of Greece were also supplied. The Hanse towns sent furs and amber, and probably were the channels by which the precious stones of the East were supplied through the markets of Moscow and Novgorod. And perhaps by some of those unknown courses, the history of which is lost, save by the relics which have occasionally been discovered, the porcelain of the farthest East might have been seen in many of the booths. Blakeney, and Colchester, and Lynn, and perhaps Norwich, were filled with foreign vessels, and busy with the transit of various produce; and Eastern England grew rich under the influence of trade. How keen must have been the interest with which the franklin and bailiff, the one trading on his own account, the other entrusted with his master's produce, witnessed the scene, talked of the wonderful world about them, and discussed the politics of Europe! "To this great fair came, on the other hand, the woolpacks which then formed the riches of England and were the envy of outer nations. The Cornish tin-mine sent its produce.... Thither came also salt from the springs of Worcestershire ... lead from the mines of Derbyshire and iron, either raw or {27}manufactured, from the Sussex forges. And besides these, there were great stores of those kinds of agricultural produce which, even under the imperfect cultivation of the time, were gathered in greater security, and therefore in greater plenty, than in any other part of the world, except Flanders." Other leading fairs, besides that of Sturbridge, included Bartholomew Fair, in London, and those of Boston, Chester and Winchester; while Holinshed says of the conditions in the second half of the sixteenth century, "There is almost no town in England but hath one or two such marts holden yearlie in the same." In the case of Bartholomew Fair, its decay was directly due to the fact that there came a time when English manufacturers could produce cloth equal in quality to that from Bruges, Ghent and Ypres which had been the chief commodity sold at this particular fair, thenceforward no longer needed. But the eventual decline alike of Sturbridge and of most of the other fairs carrying on a general trade was mainly due to the revolutionary changes in commerce, industry and transport to which improved facilities for distribution inevitably led. {28}CHAPTER V EARLY ROAD LEGISLATION It was in the year A.D. 411 that the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain, and it was not until 1555, or 1144 years after their departure, that the first general Act was passed, not for the construction, but for the repair of roads in this country. In the meantime such further construction or repairing as was actually done had been left to the Church, to private benevolence, to landowners acting either voluntarily or in accordance with the conditions on which they held their estate, or to the inefficient operation of the common law obligation that the inhabitants of a parish must repair the highways within the same. A writer in 1823, William Knight Dehany, of the Middle Temple, in a book on "The General Turnpike Acts," comes to the conclusion, after careful research into the records of this early period, that "With the exception of the principal roads communicating with the important sea ports and fortresses of the Kingdom (probably the four great roads formed either by the Romans or Saxons), the other highways were but tracks over unenclosed grounds, where the passenger selected his path over the space which presented the firmest footing and fewest impediments, as is the case in the present day in forests and wastes in remote situations." He considers that when packhorses only were used for the transport of burdens, the state of the roads was not a subject of much interest and importance; but certain it is that the subject became more acute when the greater traffic that resulted from expanding trade and commerce led to the roads getting into an even worse condition than they had been in previously. The earliest road legislation that can be traced was an Act passed in 1285, in the reign of Edward I., directing that on highways leading from one market town to another "there be {29}neither dyke, tree nor bush whereby a man may lurk to do hurt within two hundred feet on either side of the way"; but this measure was designed for the protection of travellers against robbers, and had no concern with the repair of the roads. In 1346 tolls were imposed, by authority of Edward III., for the repair of three roads in London, namely, "the King's highway between the hospital of St. Giles and the bar of the old temple (in Holborn)"; what is now Gray's Inn Road ("being very much broken up and dangerous"), and another road, supposed to be St. Martin's Lane. These tolls, according to Macpherson's "Annals of Commerce" (1805) were to be imposed for a period of two years upon all cattle, merchandise and other goods passing along the roads in question; they were fixed at the rate of one penny in the pound on the value of the animals or goods taxed, and they were to be paid by all persons, except, curiously enough, "lords, ladies, and persons belonging to religious establishments or to the Church." Then, in 1353, "the highway between Temple-bar and Westminster being already rendered so deep and miry by the carts and horses carrying merchandise and provision at the staple that it was dangerous to pass upon it," the King required the owners of houses alongside to repair the road in consideration of the increased value of their property owing to the establishment of the staple.[5] Reference has already been made (page 13) to the concession by Edward III. to "Phelippe the hermit" of the right to impose tolls for the repair of the road on Highgate Hill. Macpherson further says, under date 1363:-- "The equitable mode of repairing the roads by funds collected from those who used them was now so far established that we find, besides the renewals of the tolls for the Westminster road almost annually, tolls granted this year for the road between Highgate and Smithfield, for that from Wooxbridge (Uxbridge) to London, and for the venel called Faytor (Fetter) lane in Holburn." In the reign of Henry VIII. the first Statutes relating to {30}particular highways were passed, a lord of the manor in Kent, and another in Sussex, being empowered to construct certain new roads, at their own expense, and then enclose the old ones for which the new would be substituted; but the Act of 2 and 3 Philip and Mary c. 8, passed in 1555, was the first Highway Act in this country which applied to roads in general. "Commerce," says Macpherson, "beginning to increase considerably in the reign of Queen Mary, and the old roads being much more frequented by heavy carriages" (a term applied at this time to wheeled vehicles of any description), the Act was passed with a view to securing a much-needed improvement. After declaring, in a preamble, that the roads had become "both very noisome and tedious to travel in and dangerous to all passengers and carriages," the Act directed that constables and churchwardens in every parish should, during Easter week in each year, "call together a number of the parochians" and choose two honest persons to serve for twelve months as surveyors and orderers of works for amending parish highways leading to any market town. These surveyors were authorised to require occupiers of land to attend each Midsummer with wains, or carts, in proportion to their holdings, such carts being furnished, after the custom of the country, with oxen, horses or other cattle and necessaries, and to be in charge of two able men. All other householders, cottagers and labourers, able to work and not being servants hired by the year, were to furnish work in their own persons, or by deputy, bringing with them "such shovels, spades, pikes, mattocks and other tools and instruments as they do make their own fences and ditches withall." Work was to be carried on for four days, of eight hours each, unless otherwise directed by the supervisors; and constables and churchwardens were "openly in the Church to give knowledge" of appointed days. Fines for default were to be imposed at leets or quarter-sessions. This Act was to remain in operation for seven years. In 1562 it was continued by 5 Eliz. c. 13, which, in addition to giving compulsory powers to obtain materials for road repairs, increased the "statute" labour, as it came to be called, from four to six days each year. This principle of compulsory labour on the roads was--subject to various modifications in regard to alternative {31}assessments--to remain in operation until the passing of the General Highway Act of 1835, when it was wholly superseded by highway rates. The labour itself, though it brought about an improvement on the previous road conditions, was from the first far from satisfactory, judging from the references made to it by Holinshed. The roads, he says, were very deep and troublesome in winter; the obligation in regard to six days' labour on them was of little avail, since the rich evaded their duty, and the poor loitered so much that scarcely two days' work was done out of the six; while the surveyors, instead of applying the labour to the amendment of roads from market town to market town, bestowed it on particular spots the repair of which conduced to their own convenience. Nor, it seems, was the power conferred on the justices to punish surveyors and parishioners if they failed in their duty of much practical avail. No further general legislation concerning roads was passed until the Restoration, when, says Macpherson, "The vast increase of commerce and manufactures and of the capital city of London, with the concomitant increase of luxury, brought in such numbers of heavy-wheel carriages as rendered it by degrees impracticable, in most cases, for parishes entirely to keep their own part of the roads in a tolerable condition, more especially in the counties lying near London and in the manufacturing counties." Petitions had been received from the inhabitants of various districts throughout the country praying that steps should be taken for the betterment of their roads, with the view of facilitating intercommunication, and it became evident that some more effective system for the construction and repairing of roads must be adopted. In 1662 Parliament passed an Act (14 Car. II., c. 6) which stated that, inasmuch as former laws and statutes for mending and repairing public highways had been found ineffectual, by reason whereof, and the extraordinary burdens carried on waggons and other carriages, divers highways had become dangerous and almost impassable, churchwardens and constables or tithing men in every parish were directed to choose surveyors yearly on the Monday or Tuesday in Easter week, giving public notice thereof in church immediately after the end of the morning prayer. These surveyors {32}were to view the highways, estimate the cost of the necessary repairs, and, with the help of two or more substantial householders, apportion the cost among persons assessed to the poor rate and owners of all classes of property exclusive of "household stuff," the stock of goods in a shop being assessed as well as the shop itself, and the personal belongings of a householder equally with the dwelling he occupied. There was further brought about, in 1663, the definite establishment, by law, of that system of toll-taking, by means of turnpikes, the principle of which had, as we have seen, already been adopted in a few isolated instances. Macpherson speaks of the system as "the more equitable and effectual method of tolls, paying at the toll-gates (called turnpikes) by those who use and wear the roads"; and this was the view that generally prevailed at the time. He records as follows, under date 1663, the passing of this first English Turnpike Act:-- "The antient fund for keeping the roads of England repaired was a rate levied on the land holders in proportion to their rents, together with the actual service of the men, the carts, and horses of the neighbourhood for a limited number of days. But now, by the increase of inland trade, heavy carriages and packhorses were so exceedingly multiplied that those means of repairing the roads were found totally inadequate; neither was it just that a neighbourhood should be burdened with the support of roads for the service of a distant quarter of the Kingdom. It was therefore necessary to devise more effective and, at the same time, more equitable means of supporting the public roads, and the present method of making and repairing the roads at the expense of those who actually wear them and reap the benefit of them was now first established by an Act of Parliament (15 Car. II., c. 1.) for repairing the highways in the shires of Hartford, Cambridge and Huntingdon, by which three toll-gates (or turn-pikes) were set up at Wadesmill, Caxton and Stilton." The highways here in question formed part of the Great North Road to York and Scotland, and the preamble of the Act stated that this "ancient highway and post-road" was, in many places, "by reason of the great and many loads which are weekly drawn in the waggons through the said places, as well as by reason of the great trade of barley and {33}malt that cometh to Ware, and so is conveyed by water to the city of London ... very ruinous, and become almost impassable, insomuch that it is become very dangerous to all his Majesty's liege people that pass that way." The Act required the justices in each of the three counties to appoint surveyors who were to provide road materials and require of persons chargeable under the general law that they should send waggons and supply labour in accordance with their obligations, any extra work done by them being paid for at the usual rates in force in the district. The surveyors were, also, to appoint collectors of tolls who were empowered to levy, at the toll-gates (one of these being in each of the three counties) "for every horse, one penny; for every coach, sixpence; for every waggon, one shilling; for every cart, eightpence; for every score of sheep or lambs, one half-penny, and so on in proportion for greater numbers; for every score of oxen or neat cattle, five pence; for every score of hogs, twopence"; but no person, having once paid toll, and returning the same day with the same horse or vehicle, or with cattle, was to pay a second time. The Act was to remain in operation for eleven years; though it was, of course, then renewed. How the turnpike system, thus introduced, was subsequently developed throughout the land will be shown later. Charles II., whether he personally influenced the Act of 1663 or not, showed in a very practical way his interest in the opening up of the country to improved communications. In 1675 a remarkable work was published by John Ogilby, Cosmographer Royal, under the title of "Britannia; A Geographical and Historical Description of the Roads of England and Wales." The book consisted of 100 double-page sheets of road maps, giving, in scroll fashion, every mile of route for eighty-five roads or itineraries, and showing distances in each case, together with a description of each route, written in considerable detail. The maps, without the letterpress, were published in the same year in a separate volume, under the title of "Itinerarium Angliæ"; and in 1699 the descriptive matter, without the maps, was reprinted in the form of a handbook, under the title of "The Traveller's Guide." In his dedication of "Britannia" to King Charles II. the author says: "Influenced by Your Majesty's Approbation {34}and Munificence, I have attempted to Improve our Commerce and Correspondency at Home by Registering and Illustrating Your Majesty's High-Ways, Directly and Transversly, as from Shore to Shore, so to the Prescribed Limits of the Circumambient Ocean, from this Great Emporium and Prime Center of the Kingdom, Your Royal Metropolis." "The Traveller's Guide" is described as "A most exact Description of the Roads of England, being Mr Ogilby's Actual Survey and Mensuration by the Wheel of the Great Roads from London to all the considerable Cities and Towns in England and Wales, together with the Cross Roads from one City or Eminent Town to another"; while in the preface the author throws more light on the previous reference to his Majesty's munificence, saying:-- "This Description of England was undertaken by the Express Command of King Charles II., and it was at his Expence that Mr Ogilby with great exactness performed an Actual Survey and Mensuration by the Wheel of all the Principal Roads of England." {35}CHAPTER VI EARLY CARRIAGES The carts that succeeded the early British and Roman war chariots, and enabled the villeins and cottars to do the obligatory "cartage" for the lord of the manor, were heavy, lumbering vehicles, with wheels hewn out of solid pieces of wood, and were used for private transport rather than transport for hire. The latter came in with the "wains" or "long waggons" of England's pioneer road carriers. These long waggons, according to Stow, were brought into use about the year 1564, up to which time--save for the horse litters and the agricultural carts--the saddle-horse and the packhorse had been the only means of travelling and conveying goods. The long waggon developed into a roomy covered vehicle, capable of accommodating about 20 passengers in addition to merchandise; it had broad wheels adapted to the roads; and it was drawn, at a walking pace, by six, eight, or more horses which (except on such long journeys as that from London to Wigan) accompanied it for the entire journey. As the forerunner of the stage-coach it was, at first, generally used not only for the heavier classes of goods (lighter qualities, and especially so when greater speed was required, still going by packhorse), but, also, by such travellers as either could not, or preferred not to, travel on horseback. The waggons made regular journeys between London, Canterbury, Norwich, Ipswich, Gloucester, and other towns. It was in the long waggon that many a traveller in the seventeenth century made the journey between London and Dover, either going to or returning from the Continent[6]; and, though, because of this Continental traffic, the Dover road was probably kept in as good a condition as any in the country, the long {36}waggon went at so slow a pace that in 1640 the journey to Dover often took either three or four days. To Bristol, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, long waggons were despatched three times a week, as follows:-- LEFT LONDON. ARRIVED AT BRISTOL. Wednesday Tuesday Saturday Friday Friday Thursday It should, however, be remembered that both the long waggon and the stage-coach which succeeded it travelled only by day, remaining for the night at some wayside inn where, in coaching language, it "slept." When Charles Leigh wrote "The Natural History of Lancashire, Cheshire and the Peak of Derbyshire," published in 1700, the London waggons went as far north as Wigan and Standish, where they took in cargoes of coals for sale on the return journey. North of Wigan nearly all the trade was carried on by strings of packhorses or by carts. Kendal was the principal packhorse station on this line of road, sending large trains of packhorses as far south as Wigan, and over the hills, northward, to Carlisle and the borders of Scotland. In 1753, according to "Williamson's Liverpool Memorandum Book" for that year, the Lancashire and Cheshire stage waggons left London every Monday and Thursday, and were ten days on the journey in summer and eleven in the winter. At that time no waggon or coach from the south could get nearer to Liverpool than Warrington, owing to the state of the roads. The general mode of travelling was on horseback. Four owners of post-horses in London advertised in 1753 that they started from the "Swan-with-Two-Necks," Lad Lane, every Friday morning with a "gang of horses" for passengers and light goods, and arrived in Liverpool on the following Monday evening, this being considered very good time. The conditions of transport between London and Edinburgh in 1776, when Adam Smith published his "Wealth of Nations," may be judged from the following references thereto which he makes in a comparison between the cost of land transport and the cost of sea transport:-- "A broad-wheeled waggon, attended by two men, and {37}drawn by eight horses, in about six weeks' time carries and brings back between London and Edinburgh near four ton weight of goods. In about the same time a ship navigated by six or eight men, and sailing between the ports of London and Leith, frequently carries and brings back two hundred ton weight of goods. Six or eight men, therefore, by the help of water carriage, can carry and bring back in the same time the same quantity of goods between London and Edinburgh as fifty broad-wheeled waggons, attended by a hundred men, and drawn by four hundred horses." The long waggon, supplementing alike the packhorse and the coach, which carried the lighter and more urgent commodities, continued, right down to the railway age, the means by which the great bulk of the general merchandise of the country was transported where carriage by water was not available. It remained, also, in favour with the poorer classes of travellers until late in the eighteenth century, when the stage coaches reduced their fares to such proportions that there was no longer any saving in going by the slower conveyance. Private carriages, as an alternative alike to the horse litter and to riding on horseback, seem to have been introduced into this country, from the Continent, about the middle of the sixteenth century. In his "History of the Origin and Progress of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen of the River Thames" Henry Humpherus says that at her coronation, in 1553, Queen Mary rode in a chariot drawn by six horses, followed by another in which were "Lady Elizabeth, her sister, and Lady Ann of Cleves." He further states that in 1565 a Dutchman, Guylliam Boonen, presented to Queen Elizabeth a "coach" which was considered a great improvement on the "chariot or waggon" used at the coronation of Queen Mary. But the pioneer carriages of this date were little better than gorgeously decorated springless carts, to be ridden in along the worst of roads, and so uncomfortable that in an audience she had with the French Ambassador in 1568, Queen Elizabeth told him of "the aching pains" she was suffering in consequence of having been "knocked about" a few days before in a coach which had been driven too fast along the streets. All the same, these private "coaches" must have come into more general use by the end of the {38}sixteenth century, since we find Stow saying in his "Survey of London" (1598):-- "Of old times coaches were not known in this island.... But now of late years the use of coaches, brought out of Germany, is taken up and made so common that there is neither distinction of time nor difference of people observed; for the world runs on wheels with many whose parents were glad to go on foot." Fynes Moryson, Gent., in the "Itinerary" he published (1617) in the reign of James I., recording various journeys he had made, also alludes to this greater use of private "coaches," and he gives some interesting details as to the general conditions of travel at that period. He says:-- "Sixtie or seventy yeeres agoe, Coaches were very rare in England, but at this day pride is so far increased, as there be few Gentlemen of any account (I mean elder Brothers) who have not their Coaches, so as the streetes of London are almost stopped up with them.... For the most part Englishmen, especially in long journies, used to ride upon their owne horses. But if any will hire a horse, at London they used to pay two shillings the first day, and twelve, or perhaps eighteene pence a day, for as many dayes as they keepe him, till the horse be brought back home to the owner, and the passenger must either bring him backe, or pay for the sending of him, and find him meate both going and comming. In other parts of England a man may hire a horse for twelve pence the day.... Likewise Carriers let horses from Citie to Citie.... Lastly, these Carryers have long covered Waggons, in which they carry passengers from City to City: but this kind of journeying is so tedious, by reason they must take waggon very earely, and come very late to their Innes, as none but women and people of inferiour condition, or strangers (as Flemmings with their wives and servants) use to travell in this sort." These long covered waggons began to be supplemented, in 1640 or thereabouts, by stage coaches, the advent of which is thus recorded by a contemporary writer, Dr Chamberlayne:-- "There is of late such an admirable commodiousness, both for men and women, to travel from London to the principal towns of the country that the like hath not been known in the world, and that is by stage coaches, wherein any one may be transported to any place sheltered from foul weather and foul {39}ways, free from endamaging one's health and one's body by hard jogging or over-violent motion on horse back, and this not only at the low price of about a shilling for every five miles but with such velocity and speed in one hour as the foreign post can but make in one day." The "admirable commodiousness" which thus beat the world's record of that date was a vehicle without either springs or windows, which carried four, six or eight passengers inside. Over the axle there was a great basket for luggage and a few outside passengers, who made themselves as comfortable as they could among the bags and boxes, a few handfuls of straw being, in their case, the only concession to luxury. The earliest coaches carried neither passengers nor luggage on the roof, this arrangement coming into vogue later. In order that people should not be deterred from travelling in these conveyances by fear of highwaymen, it was announced, in the case of some of them, that the guards were armed and that the coaches themselves were "bullet proof." As against the eulogy of Dr Chamberlayne it might be mentioned that the introduction of stage-coaches was regarded with great disfavour by another writer, John Cressett, who published, in 1672, a pamphlet entitled "The Grand Concern of England Explained in Several Proposals to Parliament" (reprinted in Harleian Miscellany, vol. viii.). Cressett evidently belonged to those adherents to "good old times" conditions who are opposed to all innovations; but his pamphlet affords much information as to the general conditions of travel at the time he wrote. Cressett asked, among other things, "that a stop be put to further buildings in and about London"; "that brandy, coffee, mum, tea and chocolate may be prohibited"; and "that the multitude of Stage-coaches and caravans may be suppressed." It is with the last-mentioned demand, only, that we have here any "grand concern." In amplifying it he recommends "That the Multitude of Stage-coaches and Caravans now travelling upon the Roads may all, or most of them, be suppressed, especially those within forty, fifty, or sixty Miles of London, where they are no Way necessary." The indictment he prefers against the coaches is in the following terms:-- "These Coaches and Caravans are one of the greatest {40}Mischiefs that hath happened of late Years to the Kingdom, mischievous to the Publick, destructive to Trade, and prejudicial to Lands: "First, By destroying the Breed of good Horses, the Strength of the Nation, and making Men careless of attaining a good Horsemanship, a Thing so useful and commendable in a Gentleman. "Secondly, By hindering the Breed of Watermen, who are the Nursery for Seamen, and they the Bulwark of the Kingdom. "Thirdly, By lessening his Majesty's Revenues." Alluding to the effect of coach-riding on the individual, he says:-- "Stage-coaches ... effeminate his Majesty's Subjects who, having used themselves to travel in them, have neither attained Skill themselves nor bred up their Children to good Horsemanship, whereby they are rendered incapable of serving their Country on Horseback, if Occasion should require and call for the same; for hereby they become weary and listless when they ride a few Miles, and unwilling to get on Horseback; not able to endure Frost, Snow, or Rain, or to lodge in the Fields." These last-mentioned words, "or to lodge in the fields," are especially suggestive of what might happen in those days to travellers on horseback. The writer goes on to say:-- "There is such a lazy Habit of Body upon Men, that they, to indulge themselves, save their fine clothes, and keep themselves clean and dry, will ride lolling in one of them, and endure all the Inconveniences of that Manner of Travelling rather than ride on Horseback." He grieves over the fact that there were not "near so many coach-horses either bred or kept in England" as there were saddle-horses formerly, and he mentions the interesting fact that the York, Chester and Exeter stage-coaches, with 40 horses a-piece, carried eighteen passengers a week to each of those three places from London, and brought the same number back--a total of 1872 for the year. His plea that, but for the coaches, this number of travellers would have required, with their servants, "at least 500 horses," instead of the 120 which sufficed for the coaches, no longer concerns us; but his figures as to the extent of the travel in 1673 between London and cities of such importance--even in those {41}days--as York, Chester and Exeter, are certainly interesting. One learns from the pamphlet that there were, in addition, stage coaches then going to "almost every town within 20 or 25 miles of London." The writer also sought to discredit coaches on the ground that they were--bad for trade! "These Coaches and Caravans," he said, "are destructive to the Trade and Manufactures of the Kingdom, and have impoverished many Thousands of Families, whose subsistence depended upon the manufacturing of Wool and Leather, two of the Staple Commodities of the Kingdom." It was not only that saddlers and others were being cast on the parish, but tailors and drapers were also suffering because in two or three journeys on horseback travellers spoiled their clothes and hats--"Which done, they were forced to have new very often, and that increased the consumption of the manufactures, and the employment of the Manufacturers, which travelling in Coaches doth no way do." All this must have seemed grave enough to the good alarmist; but there was still worse to come, for he goes on to say that-- "Passage to London being so easy, Gentlemen come to London oftener than they need, and their Ladies either with them, or, having the Conveniences of these Coaches, quickly follow them. And when they are there, they must be in the Mode, buy all their Cloaths there, and go to Plays, Balls, and Treats, where they get such a Habit of Jollity and a Love to Gayety and Pleasure, that nothing afterwards in the Country will serve them, if ever they should fix their minds to live there again; but they must have all from London, whatever it costs." Fearing, perhaps, that these various arguments might not suffice to discredit the coaches, the pamphleteer has much to say about the discomforts of those conveyances:-- "Travelling in these Coaches can neither prove advantageous to Men's Health or Business; For what Advantage is it to Men's Health to be called out of their beds into these Coaches, an Hour before Day in the Morning, to be hurried in them from Place to Place till one Hour, two or three within Night; insomuch that, after sitting all Day in the Summertime stifled with Heat and choaked with Dust; or in the {42}Winter-time starving and freezing with cold, or choaked with filthy Fogs, they are often brought into their Inns by Torchlight, when it is too late to sit up to get a Supper; and next Morning they are forced into the Coach so early, that they can get no Breakfast.... "Is it for a Man's Health to travel with tired Jades, and to be laid fast in the foul ways and forced to wade up to the knees in Mire; afterwards sit in the Cold, till Teams of Horses can be sent to pull the Coach out? Is it for their Health to travel in rotten Coaches, and to have their Tackle, or Pearch or Axle-tree broken, and then to wait three or four hours, sometimes half a day, to have them mended, and then to travel all Night to make good their Stage?" And so on, and so on, until we come to the moral of the story, which is that people should refuse to patronise such innovations as stage-coaches, keep to the ways of their forefathers, and do their travelling on horseback. If they could not do that, and needs must ride in a vehicle, let them be content with the long coaches (i.e. long waggons) which were "More convenient than running coaches ... for they travel not such long journeys, go not out so early in the Morning, neither come they in so late at night; but stay by the Way, and travel easily, without jolting Men's Bodies or hurrying them along, as the running Coaches do." But the denunciations, arguments and vigorous pleadings of this "Lover of his Country," as the author of "The Grand Concern" called himself, were all of no avail. The march of progress had taken another step forward, and England found it had now entered definitely on the Coaching Era. {43}CHAPTER VII LOADS, WHEELS AND ROADS Before dealing more fully with the development of coaches and coaching and of vehicular traffic in general, it will be desirable to revert to the new perplexities which such development brought to those who were concerned with the care of the roads, and see in what way it was endeavoured to meet them. In Macpherson's "Annals of Commerce" the following is given under date 1629:-- "The great increase of the commerce of England of late years very much increased the inland carriage of goods, whereby the roads were more broken than heretofore. King Charles issued his proclamation, confirming one of his father's in the 20th year of his reign, for the preservation of the public roads of England, commanding that no carrier or other person whatsoever shall travel with any waine, cart or carriage with more than two wheels nor with above the weight of twenty hundred; nor shall draw any waine, cart or other carriage with above five horses at once." The King Charles here spoken of was, of course, Charles I., and the 20th year of the reign of his father, James I., takes us back to 1623. That year, therefore, gives us the date for the starting of a policy, not of adapting the roads to the steadily increasing traffic, but of adapting the traffic to the roads; and this policy, as far as successive rulers and governments were concerned (efforts in the way of actual road betterment being left almost exclusively to individual initiative or private enterprise), was persevered in more or less consistently for a period of close on two centuries. The State policy here in question was applied mainly in two directions: (1) the restriction to a certain weight of the loads carried; and (2) the enforcing of regulations as to the breadth of wheels. The former alone is mentioned in the references {44}just made to the proclamations of Charles I. and James I.; and it may be explained that the stipulation as to not more than five horses being attached to any cart or waggon was itself a precaution against the drawing of what were regarded as excessive loads. Such precautions were renewed after the Restoration, when, as we have seen, there began to be a considerable expansion of trade. By 13 & 14 Chas. II., c. 6, it was laid down that no waggon, wain, cart or carriage carrying goods "for hire" should be drawn by more than seven horses or eight oxen, or carry more than 20 cwt. between October 1 and May 1, or more than 30 cwt. between May 1 and October 1, thus modifying the earlier regulations, while it further enacted that no wheels should have rims exceeding four inches in breadth; but by 22 Chas. II., c. 12, the maximum number of horses allowed to any vehicles was again reduced to five; and by 30 Chas. II., c. 5, the words "for hire" were deleted, the restrictions being applied to all vehicles carrying goods. From the time of the accession of William and Mary, every few years saw fresh Acts of Parliament becoming law, changing, deleting or adding to regulations previously laid down as to weight of loads, number of horses, the order in which they should be harnessed, the breadth of the tires, the position of the wheels, the kind of nails to be used for fastening the tires, and so on, until it becomes practically impossible to follow the complicated changes from time to time, if not actually from year to year. These changes more especially applied to the number of horses or oxen by which carts and waggons could be drawn, and efforts were made to enforce the ever-varying regulations by exceptionally severe penalties. The Act 5 Geo. I., c. 11, for example, authorises any person to seize and keep possession of such number of horses as might be attached to a carter's waggon in excess of six, or to a cart, for hire, in excess of three; though 16 Geo. II, c. 29, states that, as the restriction of three horses to a cart, under the Act of Geo. I., had been found inconvenient for farmers, and highly detrimental to the markets of the Kingdom, the number could be increased to four. In reference to these legislative restrictions on the number of horses a farmer might attach to a single cart, it is said in "A General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire," by Joseph Plymley, Archdeacon of Salop (1803): "Were farmers {45}permitted to draw any number of horses, it would be of great public utility in lowering the price of these animals, which is now enormously high. The law, as it now stands, acts as a prohibition to farmers breeding horses; for a breeding mare, or a colt under five years old, is not fit to draw one of four in a waggon, with no more than 60 bushels of barley or wheat, which is the common load of the Shropshire or Staffordshire farmers, neither being more than two tons.... Another evil occasioned by the law is that such farmers are obliged to keep horses of the largest size, which consume the produce of much land by eating a large quantity of corn." Whereas good waggon-horses could formerly be bought at from £10 to £15 each, they were then, "by their scarcity," costing from £25 to £35 each. Coach-horses cost "from £40 to £60." The various provisions in respect to number of horses or oxen per cart or waggon failed to keep down the loads to a weight suited to the deficiencies of the roads--which deficiencies had continued, notwithstanding the turnpikes--and a further step was taken under 14 Geo. II., c. 42, which authorised turnpike trustees not only to erect weighing machines but to impose an additional toll of twenty shillings per cwt. on any waggon which, together with its contents, had a total weight exceeding 60 cwt. By Geo. II., c. 43, the trustees were authorised to levy the same additional toll on any vehicle drawn by six horses. In addition to adopting these various restrictions on the weights carried, Parliament had devoted much attention to the construction of the vehicles employed. One of the provisions of an Act passed in 1719 was a regulation in respect to the breadth of the wheel-rims, or "fellies," and the use thereon of rose-headed nails, these being regarded as injurious to the roads; though in the following year came another Act which recited that as the extending of these regulations to waggons that did not travel for hire had been found detrimental to farmers and others, and, also, to the markets of the Kingdom, they were repealed--only, however, to be revived, by 18 Geo. II., c. 33, in 1745. Parliament was now to devote much more attention to the subject of broad wheels; and how this came about is explained by Daniel Bourn in a pamphlet entitled, "A Treatise upon Wheel Carriages" (1763), the main purpose of which was {46}to expound to the world the excellences of what the writer described as "that noble and valuable machine, the broad-wheeled waggon." He gives the following account of the origin of the said machine:-- "The first set of broad wheels made use of on roads in this Kingdom were erected by Mr James Morris, of Brock-Forge, near Wiggan in Lancashire; who having a deep bad road to pass with his team advised with me upon the subject; I mentioned the making of the fellies of his wheels of an uncommon width: He accordingly made his first set thirteen inches, and the next year another of nine inches in the sole; and his travelling with these to Liverpool, Warrington and other places, was took notice of by some persons of distinction, particularly Lord Strange, and Mr Hardman, Member for Liverpool, &c., who after making strict enquiries of Mr Morris, concerning their nature and properties, reported their utilities to the House, which occasioned an Act of Parliament being made in their favour.... "Therefore let us congratulate ourselves on making thus far so happy a progress; and as the publick roads continue to mend and improve, as they polish and smooth, and arrive nearer perfection, so let us try if the carriage that travels this road may not continue to improve too, and receive a similar degree of perfection." The Act of Parliament referred to by Bourn was, presumably, that of 26 Geo. II., c. 30, which laid down that--with certain exceptions--no cart or waggon should be allowed on any turnpike road at all unless the "fellies" of each and every wheel had a breadth of at least nine inches, the penalty for a breach of this enactment being a fine of £5, with one month's imprisonment in default of payment, and forfeiture of one of the horses, together with its harness, to the sole use and benefit of the person making the seizure. As a further encouragement of such wheels, the trustees of turnpike roads were required to accept reduced tolls for all vehicles having wheels of a breadth of nine inches. Two years later a further Act (28 Geo. II., c. 17), set forth that, the former statutes relating to cart-wheels not having answered the good purposes intended, it was now provided that for a period of three years from June 24, 1753, waggons having 9-inch wheels were to be allowed to pass free through every turnpike in the Kingdom, {47}the trustees being authorised to protect themselves against loss from such free passage by imposing higher tolls on all carts and waggons the wheels of which were not nine inches in width. The idea in having these broad wheels was that they would not only be less injurious to the roads than the narrow wheels, but would even tend to keep the roads in good order by helping to smooth and consolidate them in the same way as would be done by garden rollers. Mr Bourn, who was an enthusiast on the subject, even proposed to have cart and waggon wheels made of cast iron with a breadth of sixteen inches! He says in his pamphlet:-- "I would recommend having the wheels made in the following manner:-- "Let there be run out of cast iron at the founders hollow rims or cylinders, about two feet high, sixteen inches broad or wide, and from one to near two inches in thickness, according to the design or necessity of the proprietor, and the burden he intends them to bear. Let the space, or cavity between these cylinders be filled up solid with a block of wood, through the center of which insert your arbor or gudgeon, and leave it two inches and six eighths at each end longer than the cylinder; which parts must be round, and about two inches thick, being the pivots, and when the whole is well wedged the wheel is compleat. "Here then is a solid wheel, which answers all the intentions of the garden roller; now can anything be conceived that would have so happy a tendency upon the roads? to render them smooth and even to harden and encrust the surface, and make it resemble a terrass walk? I say, can anything be equal to these kind of cast iron rollers to produce the foregoing effects?" Without adopting Mr Bourn's 16-inch cast-iron garden rollers, the carriers of the period did, apparently, adopt the 9-inch wheels favoured by Parliament; but as they found that, with 9-inch wheels, they could carry much heavier weights, there had to be a further resort to legislation directed to a limitation of loads. This was done by 5 Geo. III., c. 38,[7] {48}while under 6 Geo. III., c. 43, turnpike trustees were directed to issue orders to their collectors not to allow any waggon or other four-wheeled carriage having wheels of less than 9 inches in breadth to pass through a toll-gate when drawn by more than four horses without seizing one of the horses. By 13 Geo. III., c. 84, the reduced tolls already conceded to 9-inch wheels were extended to 6-inch wheels, and it was further provided that waggons with 16-inch wheels should pass toll free for a year, and then pay only one-half of the tolls to be paid by 6-inch wheeled waggons. In order to give still further encouragement to the use of 16-inch wheels, an Act passed in the following year provided that any waggon having wheels of those dimensions should pass toll-free for five years instead of one, and pay only half toll afterwards. Among the many other Acts that followed, mention may be made of 55 Geo. III., c. 119, which gives an especially good idea of the infinite pains taken by the Legislature to adapt the construction of vehicles to the apparently hopeless deficiencies of the roads. The Act authorised road trustees to exempt certain vehicles from tolls for overweight "provided such Waggon, Cart or other such Carriage shall have the Soles or Bottoms of the Fellies of all the Wheels thereof of the Breadth of Six inches, or of Nine Inches, or of Sixteen Inches or upwards, and be cylindrical, that is to say, of the same Diameter on the Inside next the Carriage as on the outside, so that when such Wheels shall be rolling on a flat or level Surface, the whole Breadth thereof shall bear equally on such flat or level Surface; and provided that the opposite Ends of the Axletrees of such Waggon, Cart or other Carriage, so far as the same shall be inserted in the respective Naves of the Wheels thereof, shall be horizontal and in the continuance of one straight Line, without forming any Angle with each other; and so that in each pair of Wheels belonging to such Carriage, the lower Parts, when resting on the Ground, shall be at the same distance from each other as the upper Parts of such Pair of Wheels: Provided always," etc. Under 3 Geo. IV., c. 126 (1822) no waggon or cart with wheels of less breadth than 3 in. was to be used on any turnpike road from the 1st of January, 1826, under a penalty of not exceeding £5 for the owner and not exceeding forty shillings {49}for the driver; but this provision was repealed by 4 Geo. IV., c. 95 (1823), "in compliance," says Dehany, "with a cry raised on the part of the farmers and agriculturists, who, in petitions and complaints against the Act, put forward this clause as a principal grievance." The broad-wheel policy of successive Governments evoked a good deal of criticism from others besides farmers and agriculturists, who themselves seem to have been reduced from time to time by the ever-changing regulations and restrictions to a condition almost of despair. In speaking of the roads in the parish of Eccles, Dr Aikin, writing in 1795, says in his "Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles round Manchester" that although "much labour and a very great expense of money" had been expended on them, they still remained in a very indifferent state owing to the immoderate weights drawn in waggons and carts, and he adds: "To prevent this, vain and useless are all the regulations of weighing machines; and the encouragement of broad and rolling wheels still increases the evil, which must soon destroy all the best roads of Great Britain." The general effect of the legislation in question was, also, thus commented on by William Jessop in an article on "Inland Navigation and Public Roads," published in vol. vi. of the "Georgical Essays" (1804):-- "I do not know anything in this country ... that has been more neglected than the proper construction of wheel carriages and the formation of roads. It has been generally acknowledged that for carriages of burden broad wheels, which will roll the roads, are the most eligible; and by the exemptions which have been granted to those who use broad wheels, the legislature has certainly looked forward to the benefits to be expected from the use of them; but never was a proposition more misunderstood, or an indulgence more abused. Of all the barbarous and abominable machines that have been contrived by ignorance, and maintained by vulgar prejudice, none have equalled the broad-wheeled carriages that are now in use; instead of rolling the roads, they grind them into mud and dust." Not alone cart-wheels, but even cart-wheel nails, engaged the serious attention of Parliament, and formed the subject of special legislation. The Act 18 Geo. II., c. 33, provided, among {50}other things, that the streaks or tires of wheels were to be fastened with flat, and not rose-headed, nails; and an Act passed in 1822, in the reign of George IV., directed that when the nails of the tire projected more than a quarter of an inch from the surface of the tire the owner of the waggon should pay a penalty of £5 and the driver one of forty shillings for every time such vehicle was drawn on a turnpike road; though an amending Act, passed the following year, reduced the penalties to "any sum not exceeding" forty shillings for the owner and twenty shillings for the driver. Towards the end of the long period here in question it began to be realised that what was wanted, after all, was an adaptation of the roads to the traffic rather than an adaptation of the traffic to the roads; but the change in policy was not definitely effected until two practical-minded men, John Loudon McAdam and Thomas Telford, had introduced, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the first attempt at really scientific road-making which had been made in this country since the departure of the Roman legions in the early part of the fifth century. {51}CHAPTER VIII THE COACHING ERA Whilst the Legislature had been actively engaged in endeavouring to adapt wheeled vehicles to roads, the number of vehicles of various types using the roads had greatly increased as the result of expanding trade and travel, combined with the further stimulus offered by that system of turnpike roads the story of which will be told in later chapters. The vehicle that first performed in this country the functions of a public coach in transporting a number of passengers from one place to another was, of course, the long waggon, of which an account has already been given. Stage-coaches began to come into use about the year 1659, when, as shown by the "Diary" of Sir William Dugdale, there was a Coventry coach on the road. The three coaches a week between London and York, Chester and Exeter, spoken of by John Cressett as running in 1673, carrying their six passengers apiece on each journey, went, at that time, only in summer, on account of the roads; and even in the summer it was no unusual thing for the passengers to have to walk miles at a time because the horses could not do more than drag the coach itself through the mire. The usual speed was from four to four and a half miles an hour. The first stage-coach between London and Edinburgh ran in 1658. It went once a fortnight, and the fare was £4. In 1734 a weekly coach from Edinburgh to London was announced. It was to do the journey in nine days, "or three days sooner than any coach that travels that road"; but either such rapid travelling as this was a piece of bluff on the part of the advertiser or the conditions of travel went from bad to worse since in 1760 the Edinburgh coach for London left only once a month, and was from fourteen to sixteen days on the way. The fact that one coach a month sufficed to carry all the {52}passengers is sufficiently suggestive of the very small amount of travel by land between London and Scotland that went on even in the middle of the eighteenth century. Fourteen days for the journey between London and Edinburgh was then considered a very reasonable time-allowance. In 1671 Sir Henry Herbert had said in the House of Commons, "If a man were to propose to convey us regularly to Edinburgh in coaches in seven days, and bring us back in seven more, should we not vote him to Bedlam?"[8] In 1712 a fortnightly coach from Edinburgh to London was advertised to "perform the whole journey in thirteen days without any stoppages (if God permits), having eighty able horses to perform the whole journey." The fare was £4 10s. with a free allowance of 20 lbs. of luggage. In 1754 the Edinburgh coach left on Monday in winter and on Tuesday in summer, arrived at Boroughbridge (Yorkshire) on Saturday night, started again on Monday morning, and was due to reach London on the following Friday. In 1774 Glasgow had been brought within ten days of London. The arrival of the coach was then regarded as so important an event that a gun was fired off when it came in sight, to let the citizens know it was really there. A 10-day coach to London was also running from Edinburgh to London in 1779, an advertisement in the _Edinburgh Courant_ of that year stating that such a coach left every Tuesday, that it rested all Sunday at Boroughbridge, and that "for the better accommodation of passengers" it would be "altered to a new genteel two-end coach machine, hung upon steel springs, exceedingly light and easy." York was a week distant from London in 1700; but on April 12, 1706, there was put on the road, to run three times a week, a coach which, said the announcement made respecting it, "performs the whole journey in four days (if God permits)." The time of starting on the first day was five o'clock in the morning. The proprietors of a coach that ran between London and Exeter in 1755 promised their patrons "a safe and expeditious journey in a fortnight"; though this record was improved on before the end of the century, the time being reduced to {53}ten days. Exeter is a little over 170 miles from London, and the journey can be done to-day, by rail, in three hours. From London to Portsmouth took, in 1703, fourteen hours, "if the roads were good." The Oxford coach in 1742 left London at 7 a.m., arrived at High Wycombe at 5 p.m., remained there for the night, and reached Oxford the following day. By 1751 travelling between London and Dover had so far improved that it was accomplished in two days by stage-coach, instead of three or four days by long waggon. The coach left London every Wednesday and Friday at four in the morning; the passengers dined at Rochester, stayed for the night at Canterbury, and were due at Dover "the next morning, early." The announcements made in respect to this coach state that "there will be a conveniency"--that is, a basket--"behind, for baggage and outside passengers." The advancement made by the stage-coach over the long waggon was, however, satisfactory for a time only. By about 1734 the stage-coach itself began to find a rival in what was called "the flying coach," otherwise a stage-coach which travelled at accelerated speed. Thus the advent of a "Newcastle Flying Coach" was announced in the following terms:-- "May 9, 1734.--A coach will set out towards the end of next week for London or any place on the road. To be performed in nine days, being three days sooner than any coach that travels the road, for which purpose eight stout horses are stationed at proper distances." In 1754 a "flying coach" between Manchester and London was started by a group of Manchester merchants who, with the developing trade of those times, doubtless felt the need for improved facilities of travel. It was announced that "incredible as it may appear, this coach will actually arrive in London four days and a half after leaving Manchester." If the person who wrote this advertisement could only come to life again, what would he be likely to say to the fact that London and Manchester are to-day only four hours apart, and that a London merchant, after doing a morning's work in the City, can leave Euston at noon, lunch in the train, be in Manchester by four o'clock, have two hours there, leave again at six, dine in the train, and be back in London by ten? On the other hand, what does the London merchant who can {54}do these things (besides having the further advantages of the telegraph and the long-distance telephone) think of the business conditions in 1754, when the quickest communications between London and Manchester were by a coach doing the journey in the then "incredible" time of four days and a half? The enterprise of Manchester naturally stimulated that of Liverpool, and three years later it was announced that from June 9, 1757, "a flying machine on steel springs" would make the journey between Warrington and London in three days. The roads between Liverpool and Warrington being still impassable for coaches, the Liverpool passengers had to go on horseback to Warrington the day previous to the departure of the coach from that town. Manchester got a three-day coach to London in 1760. Seven years later communication by stage-coach was opened between Liverpool and Manchester, six or even eight horses being required to drag through the ruts and sloughs a heavy, lumbering vehicle which, going three days a week, then took the whole day to make the journey. In 1782 the time between Liverpool and London was 48 hours. Down to the middle of the eighteenth century there was no direct communication by coach between Birmingham and London. The Birmingham merchant or resident who wanted to travel to London by coach, instead of on horseback, had to go four miles by road to Castle Bromwich, and there await the coach from Chester to London. In 1747, however, Birmingham got a coach of its own, and this vehicle, it was announced, would run to London in two days "if the roads permit,"[9] but the roads around Birmingham were still in a deplorable condition when William Hutton published his "History" of the town. He says that from Birmingham, as from a grand centre, there radiated twelve roads to as many towns; but on most of them one could not travel with safety in times of floods, the water, owing to the absence of causeways and bridges, flowing over the road higher than the stirrup of one's horse. At Saltley in the year 1779 he had had to pass through what was really a dangerous river. A mile from Birmingham, on the Lichfield road, a river remained {55}without a bridge until 1792. The road to Walsall had been "lately made good," and that to Wolverhampton was much improved; but he speaks of the road to Dudley, twelve miles in length, as "despicable beyond description," and says the "unwilling traveller" was obliged to go two miles about, through a bad road, to avoid a worse. The roads to Stratford and Warwick were "much used and much neglected," and the one to Coventry could "only be equalled by the Dudley Road." "A flying machine on steel springs" from Sheffield to London was started in 1760. It "slept" at Nottingham the first night, at Northampton the second, and arrived in London on the third day. Leeds showed equal enterprise. The Bath coach, "hung on steel springs," was in 1765 doing the journey in 29 hours, the night being spent at Andover. The improvement of the Bath road allowed of Burke reaching Bristol from London in 24 hours in the summer of 1774; but his biographer mentions, by way of explaining how he accomplished this feat, that he "travelled with incredible speed." By 1795, however, Bath had been brought within a single day's journey of London, the traveller who started from the Angel, at the back of St. Clements Danes, at four o'clock in the morning, being due at Bath at eleven o'clock at night. The journey between Dover and London was also reduced to one day, a "flying machine" leaving at four a.m. and reaching its destination in the evening. By 1784, in fact, flying coaches had become quite common, and their once incredible speeds even came to be regarded as far from satisfactory for travellers to whom time was of importance. The immediate reason, however, for the next development arose through the defective postal arrangements. Hitherto the mails had been carried either by post-boys, whose contract time was five miles an hour, or, in the case of short journeys, by veterans on foot whose rate of progress was much less, though it was then a common practice to make up urgent letters as parcels, and send them by the coaches. John Palmer, manager of a theatre at Bath, finding the mail was taking three days over a journey to London which he himself often did in one, submitted to Pitt, in 1783, a scheme {56}for the running of mail coaches at the then equivalent to "express" speed. The permanent officials of the Post Office naturally regarded such a scheme, proposed by a rank outsider, as impracticable, if not absolutely absurd, and Palmer had a sturdy fight before he got his way. The experimental service started in 1784 was an immediate success, and when it became known that letters were being carried between Bristol and London in sixteen hours, every other important town or city in the country (Liverpool being one of the first to petition) wanted to have its own postal arrangements improved in the same way. Thus there was inaugurated a "mail-coach era," which was to continue unchecked until the first despatch of mails by railway in 1830. The earliest of the mail-coaches travelled at a rate of about six miles an hour; but, as the roads were improved, the speed was increased to eight, nine, ten or even twelve miles an hour. The time for the Liverpool-London journey, for example, was eventually reduced to 30 hours in good weather and 36 hours in bad. The running of these mail-coaches had a powerful influence on the whole question of road improvement, since the attainment of the best possible speed and the avoidance of delays in the arrival of the mails came to be regarded as matters of supreme importance; while more and more of the ordinary stage-coaches were put on for travellers to whom the lower fares[10] were of greater concern than high rates of speed. Mail coaches had the further good effect of stimulating great improvements in coach construction. The use of springs, in particular, allowed of a more compact vehicle, carrying luggage and outside passengers on the roof instead of relegating them to a basket "conveniency" behind. The competition, or, at least, the example of the mail-coaches had the further result of increasing the speed of the "flying" coaches, {57}which now generally aimed at doing their eight or nine miles an hour; but here, again, much depended on the state of the roads. Supplementary to the coaching there was the system of "posting," favoured by those who did not care to patronise public vehicles, and could afford the luxury of independent travel. In the earliest form of the posting system, that is, in the days when wheeled vehicles had not yet come into general use, and people did their journeys on horseback, travellers hired horses only at the recognised posting places; and Fynes Moryson, in his "Itinerary," narrating the conditions in 1617, says a "passenger" having a "commission" from the chief postmaster "shall pay 2½d. each mile for his horse and the same for his guide's horse; but one guide will serve the whole company, tho' many ride together." Travellers without a "commission" had to pay 3d. a mile. The guide, presumably, brought back the horses, and, also, really guided the traveller--a matter of no slight importance when the roads were often simply tracks over unenclosed spaces with no finger-posts to point the way. Another form of posting was the hire from place to place of horses for use in private carriages; but the more general form was the hiring of both horse and post-chaise--a four-wheeled vehicle, accommodating, generally, three persons, and having a roof on which luggage could be strapped. Posting was a costly mode of travelling, only possible for people of wealth and distinction. Harper calculates that to "post" from London to Edinburgh must have cost at least £30; but it was no unusual thing, about the middle of the eighteenth century, for the Scotch newspapers to publish advertisements by gentlemen who proposed to "post" to London, inviting others to join them with a view to sharing the expense. The condition of the streets in the towns being often no improvement on that of the roads in the country, the development of vehicular traffic, even there, was but slow. It was the example of Queen Elizabeth in riding in a "coach" through the streets of London that led to private carriages becoming fashionable, since, following thereon, "divers great ladies" had coaches made, and went about in them--much to the admiration of the populace, but much, also, to the concern of the Thames watermen, who regarded the {58}innovation as one that foreshadowed for them a competition which did, indeed, become formidable, and even fatal, to their own occupation. In those days and for long afterwards the Thames was the highway by means of which people of all classes went, whenever practicable, from one part of London to another, the main incentive to this general use of the river being the deplorable condition of the streets and roads. In his book on "England in the Fifteenth Century" the Rev. W. Denton tells how the King's serjeants-at-law, who dwelt in Fleet Street, and who pleaded at Westminster Hall, gave up an attempt to ride along the Strand because the Bishop of Norwich and others would not repair the road which ran at the back of their town houses. It was safer and more pleasant for lawyers to take a boat from the Temple stairs and reach Westminster by water. The Lord Mayor, on his election, not only went by water from the City to Westminster, to be received by the judges, but down to 1711, when a "Lord Mayor's Coach" was provided for him, rode on horseback from the Guildhall to London Bridge, where he embarked on the City barge, accompanied by representatives of the Livery Companies in their barges. Transport on the Thames constituted a vested interest of great concern to the watermen, who had hitherto regarded as their special prerogative the conveyance of Londoners along what was then London's central thoroughfare; and the story of the way in which they met the competition of vehicular traffic in the streets is worth the telling because it illustrates the fact that each successive improvement in locomotion and transport has had to face opposition from the representatives of established but threatened conditions. The great champion of the watermen was John Taylor (1580-1654), the "Water Poet," as he called himself. When the private carriages began to increase in number he expressed his opinion of them thus:-- "The first coach was a strange monster, it amazed both horse and man. Some said it was a great crab-shell brought out of China; some thought it was one of the pagan temples, in which cannibals adored the devil.... "Since Phaeton broke his neck, never land hath endured more trouble than ours, by the continued rumbling of these {59}upstart four-wheeled tortoises.... A coach or carouch is a mere engine of pride, which no one can deny to be one of the seven deadly sins." In 1601 sympathisers with the watermen succeeded in getting a Bill passed in the House of Commons "to restrain the excessive and superfluous use of coaches." It was thrown out by the House of Lords, though in 1614 the Commons, in turn, refused to pass a "Bill against outrageous coaches." In 1622 the Water Poet published a work, "An Errant Thief," etc., in which he dealt at length with the great injury that was being done to the watermen by the coaches, saying, among other things:-- "Carroches, coaches, jades and Flanders mares, Do rob us of our shares, our wares, our fares; Against the ground we stand and knock our heeles, Whilst all our profit runs away on wheeles. And whosoever but observes and notes The great increase of coaches and of boates, Shall find their number more than e'er they were By halfe and more, within these thirty yeare; Then watermen at sea had service still, And those that stay'd at home had worke at will; Then upstart hel-cart coaches were to seek, A man could scarce see twenty in a weeke; But now I think a man may dayly see More than the wherrys on the Thames can be." In the following year he published another work, "The World Runnes on Wheeles," in which he dealt further with the woes of the watermen. But the coaches continued to increase alike in number and in public favour, and the position of the watermen became still worse in 1625, when the already numerous private carriages were supplemented in London by hackney carriages let out for hire, though these did not, at first, exceed twenty in number, while they had to be hired direct from the stables of their owners. In 1633 it was found that the river traffic was being prejudiced more and more by the greater use of vehicles in the streets. Whether or not in sympathy with the watermen, the Star Chamber issued an Order which said:-- "As to a complaint of the stoppage of the streets by the carriages of persons frequenting the play-house of the {60}Blackfriars, their lordships, remembering that there is an easy passage by water unto that play-house, without troubling the streets, and that it is much more fit and reasonable that those which go thither should go by water, or else on foot, do order all coaches to leave as soon as they have set down, and not return till the play is over, nor return further than the west end of Saint Paul's Church Yard, or Fleet conduit; coachmen disobeying these orders to be committed to Newgate or Ludgate." Opposition to the innovation of the coaches was, however, wholly unavailing, even when supported by Star Chamber intimations that people ought to be content to "go by water or else on foot"; and in 1634 permission was obtained for hackney coaches to ply in the streets for hire, instead of their having to remain, as heretofore, in the stables. The first public stand, for four carriages, with drivers in livery, was set up in the Strand, near Somerset House. A month or two later the watermen presented to Charles I. a petition in which they said:-- "The hackney coaches are so many in number that they pester and incumber the streets of London and Westminster, and, which is worst of all, they stand and ply in the terme tyme at the Temple gate, and at other places in the streets, and doe carry sometymes three men for fourpence the man, or four men for twelvepence, to Westminster or back again, which doing of this doth undoe the Company of Watermen." The same year (1634) saw still another innovation, that of the sedan chair, which was to play so important a rôle in social life until towards the end of the eighteenth century, and was, in fact, not to disappear until even later, since there was a stand for sedan chairs still to be seen in St. James's Square in 1821. How the sedan chair came to be introduced is shown by a Royal Order issued as follows:-- "That whereas the streets of our cities of London and Westminster and their suburbs, are of late so much incumbered with the unnecessary multitude of coaches that many of our subjects are thereby exposed to great danger, and the necessary use of carts and carriages for provisions thereby much hindered; and Sir Sanders Duncombe's petition representing that in many parts beyond sea people are much carried in chairs that are covered, whereby few {61}coaches are used among them; wherefore we have granted to him the sole privilege to use, let and hire a number of the said covered chairs, for fourteen years."[11] On January 19, 1635, there was issued a Royal Proclamation which said that-- "The great number of Hackney Coaches of late seen and kept in London, Westminster, and their suburbs, and the general and promiscuous use of coaches there, are not only a great disturbance to his Majesty, his dearest consort the Queen, the nobility, and others of place and degree, in their passage through the streets, but the streets themselves are so pestered and the pavements so broken up that the common passage is thereby hindered and made dangerous, and the price of hay and provender, &c., thereby made exceeding dear, wherefore we expressly command and forbid that no Hackney or hired coach be used or suffered in London, Westminster, or the suburbs thereof, except they be to travel at least three miles out of the same; and also that no person shall go in a coach in the said streets except the owner of the coach shall constantly keep up four able horses for our service when required." Vigorous efforts were made to enforce this proclamation, and the Water Poet was especially active in the matter, in the interests of his protégés, but all to no purpose. Two years later the King, "finding it very requisite for our nobility and gentry, as well as for foreign ambassadors, strangers and others" that the said restrictions should be withdrawn, was graciously pleased to sanction the licensing in London of fifty hackney coaches. Such attempts at limitation must, however, have been equally of no avail, since in 1652 there was another order, which set forth that not more than 200 should ply in the streets. In the following year the watermen sent a further petition to the House of Commons, and in 1654 the Protector issued an order limiting to 300 the number of hackney coaches to ply in London and Westminster and six miles round, while the number of hackney coach horses was not to exceed 600. Two years or so after this the watermen sent still another {62}petition to the House of Commons. This petition of "the Overseers and Rulers of the Company of Watermen, together with their whole society," declared that their "trade or art of rowing on the water hath been long reputed very useful to the Commonwealth"; that the Company had, "ever since their incorporation, been a nursery to breed up seamen"; that, after serving "the Commonwealth's special service at sea," they found that "the art affordeth but a small livelihood to them, and that with hard labour"; and-- "That of late your petitioners' art is rendered more contemptible than formerly, and their employment much lessened and impoverished, by reason of the strange increase of hackney coaches, which have multiplied from about three hundred to a thousand, in eleven years last past, whereby people are discouraged from binding their sons apprentice to the trade of a waterman, and if remedy be not speedily had, there will not be a sufficient number of watermen to supply the service of the Commonwealth at sea,[12] and also your petitioners and families utterly ruined. "That of late some rich men about the city, keep very many hackney coaches to the great prejudice, as your petitioners humbly conceive, of the Commonwealth, in that they make leather dear, and their horses devour so much hay and corn; and also they do so fester the streets as that by sad experience divers persons are in danger of their lives, by reason of the unskilfulness of some of them that drive them, besides many other inconveniences which are too large to be here inserted." Therefore the petitioners humbly prayed that Parliament would limit the number of such coaches. No immediate action seems to have been taken; but, continuous complaints being made as to the obstructions caused by the hackney coaches, a proclamation was issued on November 7, 1660, by Charles II., to the effect that hackney coaches should no longer come into the streets to be hired. The proclamation had so little effect that on July 20, 1662, the watermen sent a petition to the House of Lords, once more recounting their grievances. The House named certain Lords who were to consider the matter and report; but Henry {63}Humpherus, author of the "History of the Origin and Progress of the River Thames," has been unable to find that any report was made thereon. Soon after this the number of hackney coaches was increased (14 Chas. II., c. 2) to 400. In 1666, more complaints coming from the watermen, the House of Commons appointed a committee of inquiry. In the winter of 1683-4 the disconsolate watermen had to suffer the indignity of seeing the Thames itself--their own special province--invaded by the drivers of hackney coaches! So severe was the frost that, as told by John Evelyn in his "Diary," the Thames was frozen over "so thick as to bear, not only streets of booths in which they roasted meat, and had divers shops of wares, quite across as in a town, but coaches, carts and horses," so that "coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other stairs to and fro, as in the streets." By 1685 the hackney coaches seem to have established their position as successful competitors of the watermen, an Act of Parliament which placed them on a recognised and regulated footing being passed in that year, while the number to be licensed was increased in 1694 to 700, in 1711 to 800, and in 1771 to 1000. A still further blow was given to the interests of the watermen by the introduction from Paris, in 1820, of the "cabriolet," or "cab" as it came to be called; and yet another was dealt to them when, on July 4, 1829, Mr Shillibeer, the coach proprietor, ran the first omnibus from the Yorkshire Stingo, Paddington, to the City, and thus began a further new era in urban locomotion, supplanting, thereby, a good many of the hackney coachmen, just as they themselves had to so considerable an extent already supplanted the Thames watermen. {64}CHAPTER IX THE AGE OF BAD ROADS In the present chapter I propose to bring together the testimony of various contemporary writers with a view to enabling the reader thoroughly to realise those bad-road conditions from which, it was hoped, the country would at last be saved by the introduction of the system of turnpike roads inaugurated by the Act of 1663. Evidence of the general character of English roads at the time the Act was passed, and, also, probably, for a considerable period afterwards, is afforded by the maps and descriptions of routes given by Ogilby in his "Britannia" (see page 33). The maps indicate by means of lines and dots where the roads had been enclosed, by hedges or otherwise, on one side or both, and where they were still open. Taking the series of maps for the route from London to Berwick, and so on to Scotland, one finds that for a distance of about twenty-five or thirty miles from London, the road was then mostly enclosed; and from that point, through a large part of Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Northamptonshire, Rutland, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, only occasional stretches, mostly in the neighbourhood of towns, and often for lengths of no more than half a mile each, were enclosed either on one side of the road or both. The enclosures began again about six miles south of York, and continued for a short distance on the north of that city; but beyond York they became still more rare, and from Morpeth (Northumberland) to Berwick, a distance of about fifty miles, the total extent of enclosed road did not exceed six miles. Taking roads in the west, it is shown that in forty miles or so between Abingdon and Gloucester there was not a single enclosure. What all this meant was that, where there had been no enclosure, the road was simply a track across commons, fens, {65}marshes, heaths, etc., or through woods, where drivers of carts, waggons or coaches picked and chose to the best advantage, discarding an old path when it became a deep rut or was otherwise impassable, in favour of a new one alongside, or some distance away, and leaving the new one, in turn, when it got into the same state as the old.[13] The crossing of heaths and other open spaces was rendered the more difficult by the general absence of finger-posts.[14] In some instances land-beacons were constructed as a guide to travellers. One which had a height of seventy feet, served as a landmark by day and was provided with a lantern at night, was raised in 1751 by Squire Dashwood on a dreary, barren and wholly trackless waste in the neighbourhood of Lincoln known as Lincoln Heath. The lantern was regularly lighted until 1788. The beacon itself stood until 1808, when it fell and was not rebuilt. One especially important factor in the situation was the nature of the soil. I have already mentioned, on page 5, Defoe's references in his "Tour" to this particular matter; but the description he gives of some of the roads which crossed the 50-mile belt of "deep stiff clay or marly" soil throws a good deal of light on the conditions of travel in his day. Thus, in dealing with the roads from London to the north, he says:-- "Suppose we take the great Northern Post Road from London to York, and so into Scotland; you have tolerably good Ways and hard Ground, 'till you reach Royston about 32, and to Kneesworth, a Mile farther: But from thence you enter upon the clays which, beginning at the famous Arrington Lanes, and going on Caxton, Huntington, Stilton, Stamford, Grantham, Newark, Tuxford (called for its Deepness Tuxford in the Clays), holds on 'till we come almost to Bautree, which {66}is the first town in Yorkshire, and there the Country is hard and sound, being Part of Sherwood Forest. "Suppose you take the other Northern Road, by St. Albans.... After you are pass'd Dunstable, which, as in the other Way is about 30 Miles, you enter the deep Clays, which are so surprisingly soft, that it is perfectly frightful to Travellers, and it has been the Wonder of Foreigners, how, considering the great Numbers of Carriages which are continually passing with heavy Loads, those Ways have been made practicable; indeed the great Number of Horses every Year kill'd by the Excess of Labour in those heavy Ways, has been such a Charge to the Country, that new Building of Causeways, as the Romans did of old, seems to me to be a much easier Expence. From Hockley to Northampton, thence to Harborough, and Leicester, and thence to the very Bank of Trent these terrible Clays continue; at Nottingham you are pass'd them, and the Forest of Sherwood yields a hard and pleasant Road for 30 miles together." On the road to Coventry, Birmingham and West Chester he had found the clays "for near 80 miles"; on the road to Worcester "the Clays reach, with some intermissions, even to the Bank of the Severn," and so on with other roads besides. Bourn, to whose "Treatise upon Wheel Carriages," published in 1763, earlier reference has also been made, said, among other things, in support of his scheme of broad-wheeled waggons:-- "So late as thirty or forty years ago the roads of England were in a most deplorable condition; those that were narrow were narrow indeed, often to that degree that the stocks of the wheels bore hard against the banks on each side, and in many places they were worn below the level of the neighbouring surface many feet, nay, yards perpendicular, and a wide-spreading, bushy hedge, intermixed with old half-decayed trees and stubbs, hanging over the traveller's head, intercepted the benign influence of the heavens from his path, and the beauties of the circumjacent country from his view, made it look more like the retreat of wild beasts and reptiles than the footsteps of men. "In other parts, where the road was wide, it might be and often was too much so, and exhibited a scene of a different aspect. Here the wheel carriage had worn a diversity of tracks {67}which were either deep, or rough and stony, or high or low, as mother nature had placed the materials upon the face of the ground; the spaces between these were frequently furzy hillocks or thorny brakes, through or among which the equestrian traveller picked out his entangled and uncouth steps. To these horrible, hilly, stony, deep, miry, uncomfortable, dreary roads the narrow wheel'd waggon seems to be best adapted, and these were frequently drawn by seven, eight, or even ten horses, that with great difficulty and hazard dragged after them twenty-five or thirty hundred, seldom more." A writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for November, 1752, declares that the roads from London to Land's End, and even those as far as Exeter, Plymouth or Falmouth, were then still "what God left them after the flood"; while in comparing England with some of the Continental countries, he says:-- "Nothing piques me more than that a trumpery despotic government like France should have enchanting roads from the capital to each remote part of use. Some roads in Holland are very fine.... The republic of Berne hath made lately three or four magnificent roads, some of which are near 100 miles in length, and that, too, in a country to which Cornwall, Derbyshire, Cumberland and Westmoreland are perfect carpet ground." Sydney Smith professed to know--approximately--the number of "severe contusions" he received in going from Taunton to Bath "before stone-breaking McAdam was born." He put the figure at "between 10,000 and 12,000." In Sussex the roads were especially bad. In 1702, the year of Queen Anne's accession to the throne, Charles III. of Spain paid a visit to London, travelling by way of Portsmouth. Prince George of Denmark went from Windsor to Petworth to meet him, and an account of this 40-mile journey by road says:-- "We set out at six in the morning ... and did not get out of the carriages (save only when we were overturned or stuck fast in the mire) till we arrived at our journey's end. 'Twas a hard service for the Prince to sit fourteen hours in the coach that day without eating anything, and passing through the worst ways I ever saw in my life.... The last nine miles of the way cost us six hours to conquer them." {68}Defoe tells how the transport of timber from the neighbourhood of Lewes to Chatham by road sometimes took two or three years to effect. He saw there twenty-two oxen engaged in dragging "a carriage known as a 'tug'" on which the trunk of a tree had been loaded; but the oxen would take it only a short distance, and it would then be thrown down again and left for other teams to take it still further short distances in succession. He also speaks of having seen, at Lewes, "an ancient lady, and a lady of very good quality," going to church in a "coach" drawn by six oxen, "the way being stiff and deep that no horses could go in it." There would seem to have been difficulties not only in going to church in Sussex but even in getting buried there, for in the "Sussex Archæological Collections" mention is made of the fact that in 1728 Judith, widow of Sir Richard Shirley, of Preston, Sussex, directed in her will that her body should be brought for burial to Preston, "if she should die at such time of the year as the roads thereto were passable." An authority quoted in the article on "Roads" in Postlethwayt's "Dictionary" (1745), in referring to "that impassable county of Sussex," bears the following testimony thereto: "I have seen, in that horrible country, the road 60 to 100 yards broad, lie from side to side all poached with cattle, the land of no manner of benefit, and yet no going with a horse but at every step up to the shoulders, full of sloughs and holes, and covered with standing water." On the other hand the bad roads were regarded by many of the inhabitants of Sussex as a distinct advantage. They afforded increased facilities for the smuggling operations practised there down to the beginning of the nineteenth century, by rendering pursuit more difficult. Arthur Young is an especially eloquent witness as to the conditions of travel in England about the year 1770. In making his tours through the country, with a view to investigating and reporting on the state of agriculture, he passed over all sorts of roads, and, though some of them were "good," "pretty good," and even "very good"--these compliments being more especially paid to roads constructed by the country gentry at their own cost--he experiences a difficulty in finding words sufficiently strong in which to express himself when he attempts to describe the roads that were really bad; and this {69}was the case in regard to many of the turnpike roads on which alleged improvements had been carried out. The following examples of his experiences are taken from his "Six Months' Tour through the North of England":-- "From Newport Pagnel I took the road to Bedford, if I may venture to call such a cursed string of hills and holes by the name of road; a causeway is here and there thrown up, but so high, and at the same time so very narrow that it was at the peril of our necks we passed a waggon with a civil and careful driver." "From Grinsthorpe to Coltsworth are eight miles, called by the courtesy of the neighbourhood a turnpike; but in which we were every moment either buried in quagmires of mud or racked to dislocation over pieces of rock which they call mending." "From Rotherham to Sheffield the road is execrably bad, very stony and excessively full of holes." "Those who go to Methley by Pontefract must be extremely fond of seeing houses, or they will not recompense the fatigue of passing such detestable roads. They are full of ruts, whose gaping jaws threaten to swallow up any carriage less than a waggon. It would be no bad precaution to yoke half a score of oxen to your coach to be ready to encounter such quagmires as you will here meet with." "To Coltsworth. Turnpike. Most execrably vile; a narrow causeway, cut into rutts that threaten to swallow one up." "To Castle Howard. Infamous. I was near to being swallowed up by a slough." "From Newton to Stokesby, in Cleveland. Cross,[15] and extremely bad. You are obliged to cross the moors they call Black Hambledon, over which the road runs in narrow hollows that admit a south country chaise with such difficulty that I reckon this part of the journey made at the hazard of my neck. The going down into Cleveland is beyond all description terrible, for you go through such steep, rough narrow, rocky precipices that I would sincerely advise any friend to go an hundred miles about to escape it." "From Richmond to Darlington, by Croft Bridge. To Croft Bridge, cross, and very indifferent. From thence to Darlington is the great north road and execrably broke into {70}holes, like an old pavement; sufficient to dislocate ones bones." "To Lancaster. Turnpike. Very bad, rough and cut up." "To Preston. Turnpike. Very bad." "To Wigan. Ditto. I know not in the whole range of language terms sufficiently expressive to describe this infernal road. To look over a map, and perceive that it is a principal one, not only to some towns, but even whole counties, one would naturally conclude it to be at least decent; but let me most seriously caution all travellers who may accidentally propose to travel this terrible country to avoid it as they would the devil; for a thousand to one but they break their necks or their limbs by overthrows or breakings down. They will here meet with rutts which I actually measured four feet deep, and floating with mud only from a wet-summer; what therefore must it be after a winter? The only mending it receives is the tumbling in some loose stones, which serve no other purpose but jolting a carriage in the most intolerable manner. These are not merely opinions but facts, for I actually passed three carts broken down in these eighteen miles of execrable memory." "To Warrington. Turnpike. This is a paved road, and most infamously bad.... Tolls had better be doubled and even quadrupled than allow such a nuisance to remain." "From Dunholm to Knotsford. Turnpike. It is impossible to describe these infernal roads in terms adequate to their defects. Part of these six miles I think are worse than any of the preceding." "To Newcastle. Turnpike. This, in general, is a paved causeway, as narrow as can be conceived, and cut into perpetual holes, some of them two feet deep, measured on the level; a more dreadful road cannot be imagined; and wherever the country is in the least sandy the pavement is discontinued, and the rutts and holes most execrable. I was forced to hire two men at one place to support my chaise from overthrowing, in turning out from a cart of goods overthrown and almost buried. Let me persuade all travellers to avoid this terrible country, which must either dislocate their bones with broken pavements or bury them in muddy sand." "I must in general advise all who travel on any business but absolute necessity to avoid any journey further north {71}than Newcastle. All between that place and Preston is a country, one would suppose, devoid of all those improvements and embellishments which the riches and spirit of modern times have occasioned in other parts. It is a track of country which lays a most heavy tax upon all travellers and upon itself. Such roads are a much heavier tax than half a crown a horse for a toll would be. Agriculture, manufactures and commerce must suffer in such a track as well as the traveller.... Until better management is produced I would advise all travellers to consider this country as sea, and as soon think of driving into the ocean as venturing into such detestable roads." That the roads in the south of England were no improvement on those in the north is shown by the same writer's "Six Weeks Tour through the Southern Counties of England and Wales," wherein he says:-- "Of all the cursed roads that ever disgraced this kingdom in the very ages of barbarism, none ever equalled that from Billericay to the King's Head at Tilbury. It is for near 12 miles so narrow that a mouse cannot pass by any carriage; I saw a fellow creep under his waggon to assist me to lift, if possible, my chaise over a hedge.... I must not forget the eternally meeting with chalk waggons, themselves frequently stuck fast till a collection of them are in the same situation that twenty or thirty horses may be tacked to each to draw them out one by one." Of the "execrably muddy road" from Bury to Sudbury, in Norfolk, he says: "For ponds of liquid dirt and a scattering of loose flints, just sufficient to lame every horse that moves near them, with the addition of cutting vile grips across the road under pretence of letting water off, but without the effect, altogether render at least 12 out of these 16 miles as infamous a turnpike as ever was travelled." As for Norfolk in general, he declares that he "does not know one mile of excellent road in the whole country." Conditions in and around London were not much better than in the country. In 1727 George II. and his Queen were the whole night in making their way from Kew Palace to St. James's. At one particularly bad place their coach was overturned. In 1737 the time usually occupied, in wet weather, in driving from Kensington to St. James's Palace was two {72}hours--assuming that the vehicle did not stick in the mud. Writing from Kensington in this same year, Lord Hervey said: "The road between this place and London is grown so infamously bad that we live here in the same solitude as we would do if cast on a rock in the middle of the ocean; and all the Londoners tell us there is between them and us an impassable gulf of mud." Middleton, again, speaking in his "Survey of Middlesex" of the Oxford Road at Uxbridge, in 1797, says that during the whole of the winter there was but one passable track on it, and that was less than six feet wide, and was eight inches deep in fluid sludge. In 1816 the Dublin Society made a grant of £100 to defray the cost of a series of experiments to be carried out by Richard Lovell Edgeworth at the Society's premises in Kildare Street, Dublin, with a view to ascertaining "the best breadth of wheels, the proper weight of carriages and of burthen, and the best form of materials for roads." Edgeworth's report, published under the title of "An Essay on the Construction of Roads and Carriages" (second edition, 1817), includes, in its introductory matter, a short account of the history and development of roads. After pointing out that before vehicles for the conveyance of goods were in use little more was required than a path on hard ground which would bear horses; that all marshy grounds were shunned; that inequalities and circuitous roads were of much less consequence than was the case when carriages, instead of packhorses, began to be employed, he proceeds:-- "When heavier carriages and greater traffic made wider and stronger roads necessary, the ancient track was pursued; ignorance and want of concert in the proprietors of the ground, and, above all, the want of some general effective superintending power, continued this wretched practice until turnpikes were established.... "The system of following the ancient line of road has been so pertinaciously adhered to that roads have been sunk many feet, and in some parts many yards, below the surface of the adjacent ground; _so that the stag, the hounds and horsemen have been known to leap over a loaded waggon, in a hollow way, without any obstruction from the vehicle_." After this the reader will better appreciate the fact that in {73}the course of a report on agriculture in the county of Northampton, in 1813, it was stated that the only way of getting along some of the main roads there in rainy weather was by swimming! Nor is there any lack of testimony as to the prejudicial effect on trade and agriculture of the deplorable condition into which so many of the roads had fallen. Whitaker, in his "Loidis and Elmete" (1846), speaking of the impediments to commerce and manufactures in the Leeds district prior to the rendering of the Aire and Calder navigable, impediments which, he declares, "it will be difficult for a mind accustomed only to modern ideas and appearances to conceive," says:-- "The roads were sloughs almost impassable by single carts, surmounted at the height of several feet by narrow horse-tracks, where travellers who encountered each other sometimes tried to wear out each other's patience rather than either should risk a deviation. Carriage of raw wool and manufactured goods was performed on the backs of single horses, at a disadvantage of nearly 200 to 1 compared to carriage by water. At the same time, and long after, the situation of a merchant was toilsome and perilous. In winter, during which season the employment of the working manufacturer was intermitted, the distant markets never ceased to be frequented. On horse-back before day-break, and long after night-fall, these hardy sons of trade pursued their object with the spirit and intrepidity of a fox chase, and the boldest of their country neighbours had no reason to despise their horsemanship or their courage." There is the evidence, also, of Henry Homer, author of "An Enquiry into the Means of Preserving Publick Roads," published in 1767. He regarded the state of the roads and the difficulties of internal communication as among the chief reasons for the backward state of the country in the reign of Queen Anne (1702-1714), saying on this subject:-- "The Trade of the Kingdom languished under these Impediments. Few People cared to encounter the difficulties, which attended the Conveyance of Goods from the Places where they were manufactured, to the Markets, where they were to be disposed of. And those, who undertook this Business, were only enabled to carry it on in the {74}Wintry-Season on Horseback, or, if in Carriages, by winding Deviations from the regular tracks, which the open country afforded them an Opportunity of making.... The natural Produce of the Country was with Difficulty circulated to supply the Necessities of those Counties and trading Towns, which wanted, and to dispose of the superfluity of others which abounded. Except in a few Summer-Months, it was an almost impracticable Attempt to carry very considerable quantities of it to remote Places. Hence the Consumption of the Growth of Grain as well as of the inexhaustible stores of fuel, which Nature has lavished upon particular Parts of our Island, was limited to the Neighbourhood of those Places which produced them; and made them, comparatively speaking, of little value to what they would have been, had the Participation of them been enlarged. "To the Operation of the same Cause must also be attributed, in great Measure, the slow Progress which was formerly made in the Improvement of Agriculture. Discouraged by the Expence of procuring Manure, and the uncertain Returns, which arose from such confined Markets, the Farmer wanted both Spirit and Ability to exert himself in the Cultivation of his Lands. On this Account Undertakings in Husbandry were then generally small, calculated rather to be a Means of Subsistence to particular Families than a Source of Wealth to the Publick." Postlethwayt's authority on the roads of Sussex declared that their condition at that time (1745) "hardly admits the country people to travel to markets in winter, and makes corn dear at the market because it cannot be bought, and cheap at the farmer's house because he cannot sometimes carry it to market." This fact is confirmed by G. R. Porter, who, in his "Progress of the Nation" (1846), gives the authority of an inhabitant of Horsham, Sussex, then lately living, for the tradition that at one time sheep or cattle could not be driven to the London market at all from Horsham, owing to the state of the roads, and had to be disposed of in the immediate neighbourhood, so that "under these circumstances a quarter of a fat ox was commonly sold for about fifteen shillings, and the price of mutton throughout the year was only five farthings the pound." In Devonshire the Rev. James Brome, who published in {75}1726 a narrative of "Three Years Travels in England, Scotland, and Wales," found the farmers carrying their corn on horseback, the roads being too narrow to allow of the use of waggons. Altogether the need for improved facilities for inland communication in the interests alike of travellers and of traders was great beyond all question, and there was unlimited scope for the operation of such improvement as was represented by the turnpike system, now coming into vogue. It was, however, not so much the general needs of the country as the rebellion in Scotland in 1745, accompanied by such disasters for the Royalist troops as their defeat at Preston Pans, which had led the Government to pay special attention to the subject of road-making and road-improvement. Between 1726 and 1737 General Wade, employing in summer about 500 soldiers on the work, had constructed in Scotland itself some 250 miles of what were, in point of fact, military roads, being designed as a means of reducing disorder in that country. The communications between Scotland and England still remained, however, very defective, and, though English cavalry and artillery had gone forward bravely enough when the rebellion broke out, they found roads that, apart altogether from any question of fighting on them, were not fit for them even to move upon; so that while the troops from the south were hampered and delayed by the narrow tracks, the ruts and the bogs which impeded their advance, the enemy, more at home in these conditions, had all the advantage. No sooner, therefore, had the rebellion been overcome than the Government, recognising that, even if turnpikes were set up along the roads on the border between Scotland and England, the tolls likely to be raised there would be wholly inadequate for the purpose, themselves took in hand the work of road construction and improvement; and this action gave impetus to a movement for improving roads in England and Wales generally. Down to this time the turnpike system had undergone very little development. For a quarter of a century after it had been applied, by the Act of 1663, to the Great North Road, no Turnpike Acts at all were sought. A few were then obtained, but until the middle of the eighteenth century, at least, even if not still later, travellers from Edinburgh to London met {76}with no turnpikes until they came within about 110 miles of their destination. Newcastle and Carlisle were still connected by a bridle path only, while a writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for November, 1752, in alluding to the journey from London to Falmouth, says that "after the first 47 miles from London you never set eyes on a turnpike for 220 miles." The policy adopted by the Government so far stimulated the action of private enterprise that between 1760 and 1774 no fewer than 453 Turnpike Acts were passed for the making and repairing of roads, and many more were to follow. {77}CHAPTER X THE TURNPIKE SYSTEM The fundamental principle of the turnpike system was that of transferring the cost of repairing main roads from the parish to the users. The mediæval practice, under which the roads were maintained by religious houses, private benevolence and individual landowners, had, of course, still left the common law obligation that each and every parish should keep in repair the roads within its own particular limits, the Act of Philip and Mary, with its imposition of statute duty, being, in effect, only a means for the regulation and carrying out of such requirement. The parishioners were even indictable if they failed to keep the roads in repair. But in proportion as trade and travel increased, the greater became alike the need for good roads and, also, the apparent injustice of requiring the residents in a particular parish to do statute labour on roads, or to pay for labour thereon, less in the interest of themselves and their neighbours than in that of strangers, or traffic, passing through on the main road from one town to another. In effect, also, whether such requirement were reasonable or not, the work itself was either not done at all or was done in a way that still left the roads in a condition commonly described as "execrable." The principle that the users should pay for the main roads by means of tolls was thus definitely adopted; but the obligation in regard to other than main roads still rested in full with the parish. It was not, however, until the passing of 24 Geo. II., c. 43, that turnpike roads were mentioned as distinct from "highways," this being the accepted designation for roads for which the parish was responsible. When the adoption of the turnpike system became more general, that is to say, about the year 1767, the turnpike roads were maintained--or were supposed to be maintained--by tolls, and the {78}statute labour and contributions in lieu thereof were mainly appropriated to the cross roads constituting the parish highways, on which no turnpikes were placed; though certain proportions of the statute labour or statute labour contributions also became available for turnpike roads which could not otherwise be properly maintained. At first there was a pronounced disinclination on the part of the public in various parts of the country to tolerate toll-bars. It might be supposed that, the state of the roads having generally been so deplorable, everyone would have welcomed their amendment under almost any possible conditions. Defoe, at least, was enthusiastic over the prospect of better roads that turnpikes foreshadowed. Alluding to them in his "Tour," he says: "And 'tis well worth recording, for the Honour of the present Age, that this Work has been begun, and is in an extraordinary Manner carry'd on, and perhaps may, in a great Measure be compleat within our Memory, as to the worst and most dangerous Roads in the Kingdom. And this is a Work of so much general Good that certainly no publick Edifice, Alms-house, Hospital or Nobleman's Palace, can be of equal Value to the Country with this, nor at the same time more an Honour and Ornament to it." But there was another point of view which is thus expressed by Whitaker in "Loidis and Elmete": "To intercept an ancient highway, to distrain upon a man for the purchase of a convenience which he does not desire, and to debar him from the use of his ancient accommodation, bad as it was, because he will not pay for a better, has certainly an arbitrary aspect, at which the rude and undisciplined rabble of the north would naturally revolt." Objections to turnpikes had been further fomented by demagogues who went about the country proclaiming that the gates which were being put up were part of a design planned by the Government to enslave the people and deprive them of their liberty. Not only did many individuals in various parts of the country refuse to use the turnpike roads, or to pay toll if they did use them, but in some instances the gates were destroyed, by way of making the protests more emphatic. In 1728 it was thought necessary to pass a general Act against "ill-designing and disorderly persons" who had "in various parts of this {79}Kingdom associated themselves together, both by day and by night, and cut down, pulled down, burnt and otherwise destroyed several turnpike gates and houses which have been erected by authority of Parliament for repairing divers roads by tolls, thereby preventing such tolls from being taken, and lessening the security of divers of her Majesty's good subjects for considerable sums of money which they have advanced upon credit of the said Acts, and deterring others from making like advances." Persons convicted of such offences were--without any discretion being given to the justices--to be committed for three months' imprisonment, and were, also, to be whipped at the market cross. These penalties appear to have been unavailing, since we find that four years later the punishment, even for a first offence, was increased to seven years' transportation. But the hostility increased rather than diminished. In the "Gentleman's Magazine" for 1749 there is an account of some turnpike riots in Somerset and Gloucestershire which began on the night of the 24th of July and were not suppressed until the 5th of the following month. A start was made with the destruction of the gates near Bedminster by "great numbers of people." On the following night a crowd bored holes in the gates at Don John's Cross, a mile from Bristol, blew up the gates with gunpowder, and destroyed the toll-house. Cross-bars and posts were erected next day, in place of the gates, and the turnpike commissioners took it in turns to enforce payment of the tolls. At night "a prodigious body of Somersetshire people," armed with various instruments of destruction, and some of them disguised in women's clothes, went along the roads to an accompaniment of drum-beating and much shouting, demolished the turnpikes, and pulled down the toll-houses. Re-erected, the gates were guarded by a "body of seamen, well armed with musquets, pistols and cutlasses"; but two nights afterwards the rioters were out again, this time with rusty swords, pitch-forks, axes, guns, pistols and clubs. They demolished and burned some turnpikes which had been put up a third time, and destroyed others besides. By August 3 "almost all the turnpikes and turnpike-houses" in the neighbourhood of Bristol had been demolished; but a report dated Bristol, August 12, says: "By the arrival of six troops of dragoon guards on the 5th, {80}we are secured from all insults of the country people who immediately dispersed and posts and chains are again erected, and the tolls levied, but the turnpikes are fixed nearer the city." The revolt in Yorkshire referred to by Whitaker occurred in 1753, four years later than the disturbances in the west. At Selby the inhabitants were summoned by the bellman to assemble at midnight, with hatchets and axes, and destroy the turnpikes. They obeyed the summons, and any gate left unprotected was soon level with the ground. In the neighbourhood of Leeds the rioting was especially serious. Whitaker says concerning it:-- "The public roads about Leeds were at that time narrow, generally consisting of a hollow way that only allowed a passage for carriages drawn by a horse in a single row, and an elevated causeway covered with flags or boulder stones. "The attempt to improve this state of the public roads excited great discontent among the lower classes of the people, who formed the design of pulling down all the turnpike bars in the neighbourhood." They pulled down, or burned down, as many as a dozen in one week; and when some of the rioters had been arrested, and were on their way to York Castle, their friends attempted a rescue, following this up by assaulting the magistrates and breaking some windows. Troops were called out, and, warnings and the firing of blank cartridge being of no avail, ball cartridges were used, with the result that two or three persons were shot dead, and twenty-two were wounded, some fatally. Whatever the justification for the turnpikes that gave rise to this popular discontent, the way in which the system itself was developed was certainly open to criticism. The precedent set by the Act of Charles II. in the grouping together of several counties, and in conferring on the justices the powers of chief control, was wholly disregarded. Instead of even an improvement on this procedure being effected by the creation of a national system of turnpike roads, directed by some central authority, and responding in regard to internal communication to the wants of the country as a whole, there was called into being an almost endless number of purely local trusts, each taking charge of, as a rule, from ten to {81}twenty miles of road, each concerned only in its own local, or even its own personal, interests, and each operating under conditions that involved an excessive expenditure with, too often, the most unsatisfactory of results for the general public. The defects of the system thus brought about were well recognised by various authorities at a time when they were still being experienced to the full. The Select Committee appointed by the House of Commons in 1819 to consider the subject of public highways said in the course of their report:-- "The importance of land-carriage to the prosperity of a country need not be dwelt upon. Next to the general influence of the seasons ... there is, perhaps, no circumstance more interesting to men in a civilised state than the perfection of the means of interior communication. It is a matter, therefore, to be wondered at, that so great a source of national improvement has hitherto been so much neglected. Instead of the roads of the Kingdom being made a great national concern, a number of local trusts are created, under the authority of which large sums of money are collected from the public, and expended without adequate responsibility or control. Hence arises a number of abuses, for which no remedy is provided, and the resources of the country, instead of being devoted to useful purposes, are too often improvidently wasted." Writing in 1823, Dehany said in reference to the Act of 1663, "It is to be regretted that this plan of passing one Act applicable to a considerable district, and carrying it into execution under the superintendence of the magistracy, was not pursued, instead of parcelling out the roads into smaller divisions, with independent bodies of trustees"; while the "Westminster Review," in its issue for October, 1825, argued that the whole system of roads should be one, and continued:-- "Such a work might have been thought the duty of the Government most interested in it; but that Government seems generally to be otherwise occupied. Leaving all to individual exertion, it perhaps often leaves too much; since there are matters in which individual exertion has an insufficient interest, while there are others which it is unable to accomplish without unjustifiable sacrifices. We do not desire the perpetual, nor even the frequent interference of Government, that is most {82}certain; but there is an useful medium between the intermeddling of some of the continental states and that neglect, or, rather, discountenance, which our own throws on numerous matters where its aid would be of use, and which, without that aid, cannot be accomplished.... The freedom of universal communication is the object, and it is to little purpose that one portion of a road be good if the other is impassable. It is a national and not a private concern." Under the conditions actually brought about it was left for any group of landowners and others in any particular district where better roads were needed to apply to Parliament for an Act authorising them to raise a loan in order to meet the initial cost of making or repairing a road, and to set up gates or bars where they could enforce payment of tolls out of which to recoup themselves for their expenditure and meet the costs of maintenance. Theoretically, these were simply temporary expedients, and the turnpike trustees, having once provided a good road, and got their money back, would take down the toll-gates again, and leave the road for the free use of the public. Hence every Turnpike Act was granted only for a limited period, generally about twenty years, and had to be renewed at the end of that term if, as invariably happened, the debt on the road had not been cleared off, and the need for toll-collection still remained. The cost of procuring the periodical continuance of all these Acts was, in itself, a not inconsiderable burden on the finances of the trusts. In, for example, the twenty-four years from 1785 to 1809, the number of Turnpike Acts, whether new Acts or renewals of old ones, passed by the Legislature was no fewer than 1062. One result of the excessive localisation of the turnpike system was that trusts of absurdly large proportions were created to look after absurdly small stretches of road. "The fundamental principle," says a writer in the "Edinburgh Review" for October, 1819, "is always to vest the whole management in the hands of the country gentlemen; and, as they act gratuitously, it has been the policy of the law to appoint in each act a prodigious number of commissioners--frequently from one hundred to two hundred, for the care of ten or fifteen miles of road; and thus a business of art and science is committed to a promiscuous mob of peers, squires, farmers and shopkeepers, who are chosen, not for their {83}fitness to discharge the duties of commissioners, but from the sole qualification of residence within a short distance from the road to be made or repaired." That the best interests of the community could be served under these conditions was an impossibility. The "Edinburgh Review" declares, in fact, that the whole time of the meetings of turnpike trusts was "occupied in tumultuous and unprofitable discussions, and in resolving on things at one meeting which run a good chance of being reversed at the next; that the well informed and civilized commissioners become very soon disgusted with the disorderly uproar, or the want of sense, temper or honesty of some of their companions; and that the management finally falls into the hands of a few busy, bustling, interested persons of low condition, who attend the meetings with no idea of performing a public duty, but for the purpose of turning their powers, by some device or other, to the profit of themselves or of their friends or relations." The writer of the article on "Roads" in "Rees' Cyclopædia" is no less condemnatory of the whole system, speaking of the "violent disputations and bickerings" at the meetings of the trustees, where, he says, "a proposed new line of road or, perhaps, the repair of an old one, will sometimes be contested with as great keenness and vehemence as if the parties were contending whether Great Britain shall be a monarchy or a republic." Each trust, again, had its own organisation, with attorney, treasurer, clerk and surveyor; and one may assume that each of these individuals, in turn, was inspired by no greater sense of public duty than were many of the trustees themselves, and was much more concerned in what he could make out of the business for himself than in helping to provide through routes of communication in the interests of the community. The surveyors were, generally speaking, hopelessly incompetent. The short length of road in charge of a trust and the consequent limitation of the amount received for tolls did not, as a rule, warrant the payment of an adequate salary to a really qualified man, and the individual upon whom the courtesy title of "surveyor" was conferred was often either the pensioned servant of a local landowner or some other person equally unfit to be entrusted with those functions of {84}road-management which the trustees, whether as the result of their mutual differences or otherwise, generally left in his hands. The "Edinburgh Review," in the article already quoted, declares that "the state of the roads displays no symptoms of well qualified commissioners. They leave the art and science of the business to their surveyor--who is commonly just as much in the clouds as themselves as to his own proper calling. With a laudable veneration for his forefathers, he proceeds according to the antient system of things, without plan or method; and fearing no rivalry, and subject to no intelligent control, he proceeds, like his predecessors, to waste the road money on team work and paupers, and leave nothing for the public like a road but the name and cost of it." Nevertheless, the turnpike system, defective in itself, badly administered, and burdensome to the toll-payers, did bring about an improvement in roads which previously had too often received little or no attention; and this improvement, as will be shown in the chapter that follows, had a material influence on trade, travel and social conditions; though it was not to attain its maximum results until the turnpike roads had been supplemented by a further system of scientific road-making and road-repairing. {85}CHAPTER XI TRADE AND TRANSPORT IN THE TURNPIKE ERA In strong contrast to the vigorous denunciations of Arthur Young of so many, though not all, of the roads over which his extensive journeyings through England had led him, are the statements of other authorities, writing about the same time, as to the commercial and social advantages resulting from such improvements as had been brought about. The conflict of testimony appears inconsistent until one remembers that, bad as were the particular conditions which Arthur Young describes, the general conditions were, nevertheless, better than before. Just as the first bone-shaking stage-coach, without springs, seemed to Chamberlayne an "admirable commodiousness," such as the world had never before seen, so, in the view of the writers who had not the same experience of travel as Arthur Young, turnpike roads of any kind may have appeared a vast improvement on the boggy roads or the narrow bridle paths they had succeeded. Whatever, again, the dangers and discomforts of so many even of the new turnpike roads, there is no doubt that a distinct stimulus was given to trade and travel as the result not only of the better roads but of the better vehicles that could be, and were being, used on them. Agriculture, industries, commerce and social progress all, in fact, took another step forward as these opportunities for transport and communication relatively improved. Under the influence, possibly, of such considerations as these Henry Homer, writing in 1767, regards with great satisfaction the general outlook at that time. He says:-- "Our very Carriages travel with almost winged Expedition between every Town of Consequence in the Kingdom and the Metropolis. By this, as well as the yet more valuable Project of increasing inland Navigation, a Facility of Communication is soon likely to be established from every Part of the Island {86}to the sea, and from the several places in it to each other. Trade is no longer fettered by the Embarrasments, which attended our former Situation. Dispatch, which is the very life and Soul of Business, becomes daily more attainable by the free Circulation opening in every Channel, which is adapted to it. Merchandise and Manufactures find a ready Conveyance to the Markets. The natural Blessings of the Island are shared by the Inhabitants with a more equal Hand. The Constitution itself acquires Firmness by the Stability and Increase both of Trade and Wealth which are the Nerves and Sinews of it. "In Consequence of all this, the Demand for the Produce of the Lands is increased; the Lands themselves advance proportionably both in their annual Value and in the Number of Years-purchase for which they are sold, according to such Value.... "There never was a more astonishing Revolution accomplished in the internal System of any Country than has been within the Compass of a few years in that of England. "The carriage of Grain, Coals, Merchandize, etc., is in general conducted with little more than half the Number of Horses with which it formerly was. Journies of Business are performed with much more than double Expedition. Improvements in Agriculture keep pace with those of Trade. Everything wears the Face of Dispatch; every Article of our Produce becomes more valuable; and the Hinge, upon which all these Movements turn, is the Reformation which has been made in our Publick Roads." In the article on "Roads" in Postlethwayt's "Dictionary" (1745) it is declared that the country had derived great advantage from the improvements of the roads, and from the application of tolls collected at the turnpikes. Travelling had been rendered safer, easier and pleasanter. "That this end is greatly answered," we are assured, "everyone's experience will tell him who can remember the condition of the roads thirty or forty years ago." There had been, also, a benefit to trade and commerce by the reduced cost of carriage for all sorts of goods and merchandise. On this especially interesting point the writer of the article says: "Those who have made it their business to be rightly informed of this matter have, upon inquiry, found that carriage is now 30 per cent {87}cheaper than before the roads were amended by turnpikes." He proceeds to give a number of examples of such reductions in freight, among them being the following:-- "From Birmingham to London it is said there is not less than 25 or 30 waggons sent weekly; 7s. per hundred was formerly paid, the price now paid is from 3 to 4s. per hundred. "From Portsmouth to London the common price was 7s. per hundred, the Government paid so in Queen Anne's war, and now only 4 to 5s. per hundred is paid; and in the late war arms and warlike stores for his Majesty's service were carried at the rate of 4 or 5s. per hundred. "From Exeter to London, and from other towns in the west of like distance the carriage of wool and other goods is very great, especially in times of war.--12s. per hundred was formerly paid, now only 8s. per hundred. The same can be affirmed with respect to Bristol, Gloucester and the adjacent counties." While the traders and the consumers were, presumably, both benefitting from these reduced charges, the carriers also gained, by reason of the greater loads they were able to take with the same number of horses. On this point the writer says: "The roads in general were formerly so bad and deep, so full of holes and sloughs that a team of horses could scarce draw from any place of 60 miles distant, or upwards, above 30 hundred weight of goods; whereas the same team can now draw with more ease 50 or 60 hundred." On the other hand he did not overlook the fact that the keeping up of the turnpike roads was "a prodigious expense to the nation," so that, in his opinion, the reduction in transport charges was only "a seeming alleviation" of the general burden. At the time Defoe made his tour of England the turnpike system was still in its infancy; but he is very eulogistic over the improvements then already made. Having, as already mentioned on p. 65, described the roads from London to the North across the clay-belt of the Midlands, Defoe tells how "turnpikes or toll-bars" had been set up on "several great roads of England, beginning at London, and proceeding through almost all those dirty deep roads" in the midland counties especially, "At which Turn-pikes all Carriages, Droves of Cattle and Travellers on Horse-back are obliged to pay an easy Toll; that is to say, a Horse a Penny, {88}a Coach three Pence, a Cart four Pence, at some six Pence to eight Pence, a Waggon six Pence, in some a Shilling, and the like; Cattle pay by the Score, or by the Head, in some Places more, in some less." Several of these turnpikes had been set up of late years and "great Progress had been made in mending the most difficult Ways." On these roads toll was, of course, being taken by authority of Act of Parliament; but there was one road, at least, on which tolls were being enforced without Parliamentary sanction; for Defoe goes on to say:-- "There is another Road, which is a Branch of the Northern Road, and is properly called the Coach Road ... and this indeed is a most frightful Way, if we take it from Hatfield, or rather the Park Corners of Hatfield House, and from thence to Stevenage, to Baldock, to Biggleswade and Bugden. Here is that famous Lane call'd Baldock Lane, famous for being so impassable that the Coaches and Travellers were oblig'd to break out of the Way even by Force, which the People of the Country not able to prevent, at length placed Gates and laid their lands open, setting men at the Gates to take a voluntary Toll, which Travellers always chose to pay, rather than plunge into Sloughs and Holes, which no Horse could wade through. "This terrible Road is now under Cure by the same Methods, and probably may in Time be brought to be firm and solid." In regard to the turnpike system in general he says:-- "The Benefit of these Turnpikes appears now to be so great, and the People in all Places begin to be so sensible of it, that it is incredible what Effect it has already had upon Trade in the Counties where the Roads are completely finished; even the Carriage of Goods is abated, in some Places, 6d. per hundred Weight, in others 12d. per hundred, which is abundantly more Advantageous to Commerce than the Charge paid amounts to.... "Besides the benefits accruing from this laudable Method we may add, The Conveniency to those who bring fat Cattle, especially Sheep, to London in the Winter from the remoter counties of Leicester and Lincoln, where they are bred: For before, the Country Graziers were obliged to sell their Stocks off in September and October when the Roads began to be bad, and when they generally sell cheap; and the Butchers {89}and Farmers near London used to engross them, and keep them till December and January, and then sell them, though not an Ounce fatter than before, for an advanced price to the Citizens of London; whereas now the Roads are in a Way to be made everywhere passable the City will be serv'd with Mutton almost as cheap in the Winter as in the summer, and the profit of the advance will be to the Country Graziers, who are the original Breeders and take all the Pains. "This is evidenc'd to a Demonstration in the Counties where the Roads are already repair'd, from whence they bring their fat Cattle, and particularly their Mutton, in Droves, from Sixty, Seventy or Eighty Miles without fatiguing, harrassing or sinking the Flesh of the Creatures, even in the Depth of the Winter." Whether or not the fat cattle and the sheep were really able to do their long walk to London without fatigue and loss of flesh, it is certain that the naturally bad condition of the roads leading to London was made worse by the "infinite droves of black cattle, hogs and sheep" which passed along them from Essex, Lincolnshire and elsewhere. When the roads were being continually trodden by the feet of large heavy bullocks, "of which," says Defoe, "the numbers that come this way"--that is, out of Lincolnshire and the fens--"are scarce to be reckon'd up," the work done by the turnpike commissioners in the summer was often completely spoiled in the winter. Among, therefore, the many advantages of the rail transport of to-day we may reckon the fact that the roads and highways are no longer worn to the same extent as before by cattle and sheep on their way to the London markets. Defoe alludes, also, to the influence of improved communications on the development of the fish industry, with the subsidiary advantage of improving the food supplies of the people, saying, in this connection-- "I might give Examples where the Herrings which are not the best Fish to keep, used, even before these Reparations were set on foot, to be carried to those Towns, and up to Warwick, Birmingham, Tamworth and Stafford, and though they frequently stunk before they got thither, yet the people were so eager for them, that they bought them up at a dear Rate; whereas when the Roads are every where good they will come in less Time, by at least two Days in Six of what they {90}used to do, and an hundred times the quantity will be consumed." Until, again, the advent of better roads, food supplies and provender--peas, beans, oats, hay, straw, etc.--for London were brought in on the backs of horses. In proportion as the roads improved and were made available for carts and waggons the area of supply widened, and the counties immediately adjoining London even petitioned Parliament against the extension of turnpikes into the remoter counties. These other counties, they alleged, would, from the cheapness of their labour, be able to sell their grass and corn cheaper in the London market than the nearer counties, and would reduce the rents and ruin the cultivation in the latter. Here, of course, the producer wanted protection against competition, and wished to retain the benefit of his geographical advantage. The broader view as to the effect of improved communications on national progress in general was expressed by Adam Smith. In Book I., chapter xi., Part I., of his "Wealth of Nations," he says:-- "Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expense of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level with those in the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that account the greatest of all improvements. They encourage the cultivation of the remote, which must always be the most extensive circle of the country. They are advantageous to the town, by breaking down the monopoly of the country in its neighbourhood. They are advantageous even to that part of the country. Though they introduce some rival commodities into the old market, they open many new markets to its produce. Monopoly, besides, is a great enemy to good management, which can never be universally established but in consequence of that free and universal competition which forces everybody to have resource to it for the sake of self-defence." The conditions under which the traders of the country in general conducted their business was, naturally, influenced, if not altogether controlled, by the conditions of locomotion. Hutton tells us in his "History of Birmingham" that the practice of the Birmingham manufacturer for, perhaps, a hundred generations was to keep within the warmth of his own forge. The foreign customer, therefore, applied to {91}him for the execution of orders, and regularly made his appearance twice a year. Concerning the Manchester trade, Dr Aikin, in his "Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles round Manchester" (1795), says:-- "For the first thirty years of the present century, the old established houses confined their trade to the wholesale dealers in London, Bristol, Norwich, Newcastle, and those who frequented Chester fair.... When the Manchester trade began to extend the chapmen used to keep gangs of pack-horses, and accompany them to the principal towns with goods in packs, which they opened and sold to shopkeepers, lodging what was unsold in small stores at the inns. The pack-horses brought back sheep's wool, which was bought on the journey, and sold to the makers of worsted yarn at Manchester, or to the clothiers of Rochdale, Saddleworth and the West Riding of Yorkshire. On the improvement of the turnpike roads waggons were set up, and the pack-horses discontinued; and the chapmen only rode out for orders, carrying with them patterns in their bags. It was during the forty years from 1730 to 1770 that trade was greatly pushed by the practice of sending these riders all over the kingdom, to those towns which before had been supplied from the wholesale places in the capital places before mentioned." Thus one effect of the improvement in communications was to allow of the Manchester manufacturers establishing direct relations with retailers in the smaller towns who had hitherto been supplied by the wholesale dealers in the large towns, one set of profits being saved. Dr Aikin adds:-- "Within the last twenty or thirty years the vast increase of foreign trade has caused many of the Manchester manufacturers to travel abroad, and agents or partners to be fixed for a considerable time on the Continent, as well as foreigners to reside at Manchester. And the town has now in every respect assumed the style and manners of one of the commercial capitals of Europe." In an article headed "Change in Commerce," published in No. XI. of "The Original," (1836), Thomas Walker gives ("by tradition," as he says) some particulars as to the methods of business followed by a leading Manchester merchant who was born there early in the eighteenth century {92}and realised a sufficient fortune to be able to have a carriage of his own when not half a dozen were kept in the town by persons connected with business. "He sent the manufactures of the place into Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and the intervening counties, and principally took in exchange feathers from Lincolnshire and malt from Cambridgeshire and Nottinghamshire. All his commodities were conveyed on pack-horses, and he was from home the greater part of every year, performing his journeys entirely on horseback. His balances were received in guineas, and were carried with him in his saddle-bags. He was exposed to the vicissitudes of the weather, to great labour and fatigue, and to constant danger.... Business carried on in this manner required a combination of personal attention, courage, and physical strength not to be hoped for in a deputy.... The improvements in the way of carrying on commerce, and its increase, may be attributed in a great degree to the increased facility of communication, and the difference between the times I have alluded to and the present is nearly as great as between a pack-horse and a steam-carriage." Walker also mentions that in the early days of the trader here referred to Manchester was provided with wine by a wine merchant who lived at Preston and carried his supplies to Manchester on horseback. The quantity then consumed, however, was but small, as "men in business confined themselves generally to punch and ale, using wine only as a medicine or on very extraordinary occasions." A no less interesting phase of the improvements being brought about, and one to which I shall revert in the chapter on "The Canal Era," was found in the influence of better communications on the social conditions of the people. That these conditions had been greatly prejudiced by the bad roads is beyond all question. Villages which could be reached only with difficulty in summer, and were isolated from the rest of the world for four or five months in the autumn, winter and early spring, were steeped in ignorance and superstition. True it is that in such communities as these the games, sports, customs and traditions which represented the poetry of old English life survived the longest, and have not even yet disappeared before the march of Modern Progress. But no less {93}true is it that such communities were the longest to foster that once popular belief in witchcraft which meant, not merely the looking askance at any decrepit old creature who was believed to have turned the milk sour in the pails, or to have stopped the cows and ewes from breeding, but the putting to death of many thousands of supposed "witches" in England and Scotland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The total number of victims in the first eighty years of the seventeenth century alone is estimated by Dr Charles Mackay, in "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions," at forty thousand! This particular mania was certainly shared by Kings, Parliaments and ecclesiastics no less than by ignorant villagers; but it decreased in proportion as general intelligence increased, and the increase in general intelligence was materially influenced by those improvements in locomotion and communication which led to wider knowledge and a greater intermingling of the classes. The same isolation fostered the belief in ghosts, goblins, wraiths, kelpies and other inhabitants of the world of spirits, whose visitations or doings probably formed a leading topic of conversation as the isolated family sat round the fire in the long winter months, wives and daughters busy, no doubt, with their distaffs, their spinning-wheel or their needlework, but none the less able to tell or to listen to the favourite stories. The whole conditions of existence were of the most circumscribed kind. Many a village got no news at all of what was happening in the world except such as the pedlar might bring, or, alternatively, might circulate through his London-printed "broadsides," telling of some great victory, giving the last dying speech of a noted highwayman, or recording the death of one ruler and the succession of another, of which events the villagers might not hear for two or even three months after they had occurred. "Whole generations," in the words of Samuel Smiles ("Early Roads and Modes of Travelling"), "lived a monotonous, ignorant, prejudiced and humdrum life. They had no enterprise, no energy, little industry, and were content to die where they were born." In the Elizabethan era, and even later, inhabitants of the northern counties were regarded by dwellers in the south as people among whom it would be dangerous for them to go. {94}English navigators were entering on voyages of discovery and conquest in distant seas, where they would fearlessly encounter the enemies of England or the Indians of the New World, at a time when their fellow-countrymen at home would have shrunk from the perils of a journey across the wilds of Northumberland or of an encounter with the supposed savages of Lancashire. Even when it was a matter of visiting friends, journeys to distant parts of the country were but rarely undertaken. In the "Gentleman's Magazine" for December, 1752, it was remarked that English people were readily going to France, where they spent in 1751 nearly £100,000; but though a rich citizen in London who had relatives or friends in the west of England might hear of their welfare half a dozen times in his life, by post, "he thinks no more of visiting them than of traversing the deserts of Nubia." On the other hand, one result of this limitation in the facilities for home travel was to give to many a county town a far greater degree of social distinction that it can claim to-day. Just as in mediæval times England had consisted of so many separate self-governing and self-dependent communities, each with the house of the lord of the manor as the "hub" of its own little universe, so--in the days when communications had certainly, though still only relatively, improved--did the county town become the recognised centre of social life and movement for each and every county where there was any pretence to social life at all. The country gentry, with their wives and daughters, came to regard a visit to the county town, and indulgence there in a round of balls, feasts, visits and functions, in the same light as a season in London is regarded at the present date. London in the seventeenth century, if not even down to the middle of the eighteenth, was, for all practical purposes, as far away from the western counties of England as London to-day is from Vienna or St. Petersburg. Visits to the Metropolis were then, indeed, of extremely rare occurrence. In Macaulay's sketch of "The State of England in 1685," forming chapter iii. of his "History of England," there is a diverting account of what must have happened to the lord of a Lincolnshire or Shropshire manor when he appeared in Fleet Street, to be "as easily distinguished from the resident population {95}as a Turk or a Lascar," and to be subjected to numerous "vexations and humiliations" until, enraged and mortified, he returned to his mansion where "he was once more a great man, and saw nothing above himself except when at the assizes he took his seat on the bench near the judge, or when at the muster of the militia he saluted the Lord Lieutenant." Adding to such "vexations and humiliations" the cost, the inconveniences and the perils of a journey to London--perils, too, that arose from highwaymen as well as from the roads themselves--the country gentleman was generally content to seek his social distractions nearer home than London. To quote again from Macaulay:-- "The county town was his metropolis. He sometimes made it his residence during part of the year. At all events he was often attracted thither by business and pleasure, by assizes, quarter sessions, elections, musters of militia, festivals and races. There were the halls in which the judges, robed in scarlet and escorted by javelins and trumpets, opened the King's commission twice a year. There were the markets at which the corn, the cattle, the wool and the hops of the surrounding country were exposed for sale. There were the great fairs to which merchants came from London, and where the rural dealer laid in his annual stores of sugar, stationery, cutlery and muslin. There were the shops at which the best families of the neighbourhood bought grocery and millinery." Defoe, in his "Tour," affords us some interesting glimpses of the social life of various country towns in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Dorchester he describes as "indeed a pleasant town to live in.... There is," he says, "good company and a good deal of it," and he thinks "a man that coveted a retreat in this world might as agreeably spend his time, and as well, in Dorchester" as in any town he knew in England. Exeter was "full of gentry and good company." He has much to say in praise of social life in Dorsetshire. In Plymouth "a gentleman might find very agreeable society." Salisbury had "a good deal of good manners and good company." The "neighbourhood" of "Persons of Figure and Quality" caused Maidstone to be "a very agreeable place to live in," and one where a "Man of Letters and Manners" would always "find suitable Society both to Divert and Improve himself," the town being, in fact, one of "very great {96}Business and Trade, and yet full of Gentry, of Mirth, and of Good Company." King's Lynn, the head-quarters of so important a shipping business in those days, he found "abounding in very good company," while of York he writes: "There is abundance of good Company here, and abundance of good Families live here, for the sake of the good Company and cheap living; a Man converses here with all the World as effectually as at London; the Keeping up of Assemblies among the younger Gentry was first set up here, a thing other Writers recommend mightily as the Character of a good Country and of a Pleasant Place." The general effect, from a social standpoint, of the combination of better roads and better coaches is well told in an essay "On the Country Manners of the Present Age," published in the "Annual Register" for 1761. The writer has much to say that is of interest from the point of view of the present work, but the following extracts must suffice:-- "It is scarce half a century since the inhabitants of distant counties were regarded as a species almost as different from those of the Metropolis as the natives of the Cape of Good Hope.... Formerly a journey into the country was considered almost as great an undertaking as a voyage to the Indies. The old family coach was sure to be stowed with all sorts of luggage and provisions; and perhaps in the course of the journey a whole village together with their teams, were called in to dig the heavy vehicle out of the clay, and to drag it to the next place of wretched accommodation which the road afforded. Thus they travelled like the caravan over the deserts of Arabia, with every disagreeable circumstance of tediousness and inconvenience. But now the amendments of the roads with the many other improvements of travelling have in a manner opened a new communication between the several parts of our island.... Stage-coaches, machines, flys and post chaises are ready to transport passengers to and fro, between the metropolis and the most distant parts of the Kingdom. The lover now can almost literally annihilate time and space, and be with his mistress before she dreams of his arrival. In short the manners, fashions, amusements, vices and follies of the metropolis now make their way to the remotest corners of the land as readily and speedily, along the turnpike road, as, of old, Milton's Sin and Death, by means {97}of their marvellous bridges over the Chaos from the infernal regions to our world. "The effects of this easy communication have almost daily grown more and more visible. The several great cities, and we might add, many poor country towns, seem to be universally inspired with the ambition of becoming the little Londons of the part of the country in which they are situated." But if the easy communication rendered possible by turnpike roads and flying coaches conferred on the country towns a hope of becoming so many little Londons, the day was to come when a still easier communication by means of railway lines and express trains was to take provincial residents just as readily to the great and real London, and so deprive not a few provincial centres of much of that social life and distinction which the improved transport facilities had brought them. In London itself, as may also be learned from Defoe, the betterment of the roads around the metropolis led to the citizens flocking out in greater numbers than ever to take lodgings and country houses in "towns near London," which many people having business in the City had not been able to do before because of the trouble involved in riding to and fro on the bad roads. We are told, further, of the consequent increase in the rent of houses, and of the greater number of dwellings being built, in places the roads to which had thus been improved, as compared with other suburban districts to which the turnpike system had not yet been extended. We have here the beginnings of that creation of a Greater London which has since undergone such enormous developments, and has led to the almost complete disappearance of the custom, once in vogue in the City of London, of a merchant or tradesman living on the same premises as those in which he carried on his business. Of the various circumstances that led to the eventual decline and fall of the turnpike system, which, with all its faults and short-comings, had at least helped to bring about the improvements in trade, transport and social conditions here described, I shall speak in Chapter xxiii. {98}CHAPTER XII SCIENTIFIC ROAD-MAKING One question which naturally arises in connection with the turnpike roads is, "Why was it, when there was so widespread an organisation of turnpike trusts, and when so much money was being spent on the repair of the roads, that the roads themselves were still so defective, and only relatively better than they had been before?"--this being the real position, notwithstanding the praises bestowed on the turnpike system by those who were gratified with the stimulus given to trade, travel and commerce by the improvements actually made. The answer is that although a vast amount of road-making or road-repairing was going on, at the very considerable expense of the road users, and to the advantage of a small army of attorneys, officials and labourers, it was not road-making of a scientific kind, but merely amateur work, done at excessive cost, either with unintelligent zeal or in slovenly style, and yielding results which mostly failed to give the country the type of road it required for the ever-increasing traffic to which expanding trade, greater travel, and heavier and more numerous waggons and coaches were leading. Before the adoption of scientific road-making, the usual way of forming a new road was, first to lay along it a collection of large stones, and then to heap up thereon small stones and road dirt in such a way that the road assumed the shape of the upper half of an orange, the convexity often being so pronounced that vehicles kept along the summit of the eminence because it was dangerous for them, especially in rainy weather, to go along the slope on either side. This form of road was adopted in order to ensure good drainage for rain-water; and in this connection the writer on "Roads" in Postlethwayt's "Dictionary" (1745) says:-- "The chief and almost the only cause of the deepness and {99}foulness of the roads is occasioned by the standing water which, for want of due care to draw it off by scouring and opening ditches and drains and other water courses, and clearing of passages, soaks into the earth, and softens it to such a degree that it cannot bear the weight of horses and carriages." But the result of making roads in the shape of a semicircle was that the central ridge was speedily crushed down, and ruts were formed along the line of traffic passing over the loose materials used. These ruts, again, defeated the purpose of the original high convexity by becoming troughs for the retention of rain and mud, the latter being rendered worse with each fresh churning up it received from the wheels of waggon or stage-coach. The road-maker thus required to be speedily followed by the road-repairer; and _his_ method of procedure has been already indicated in Arthur Young's description of the road to Wigan, where he says, "The only mending it receives is the tumbling in some loose stones, which serve no other purpose but jolting a carriage in the most intolerable manner." The mending of hundreds of miles even of turnpike roads had never gone any further than this. There was no cohesion in collections of loose stones, mainly in their natural and more or less rounded form, and the expectation that they would be crushed and consolidated into a solid mass by extra-broad waggon wheels, in accordance with Acts of Parliament in that case made and provided, remained unfulfilled. The stones were simply displaced and thrown aside by the traffic, the inevitable ruts reappearing in due course; while, as the rainwater passed readily through them, the roads became elongated reservoirs of water in rainy weather, and were most effectively broken up by frost in winter. It was from conditions such as these that Thomas Telford and John Loudon McAdam came to rescue the country. There had been one road-reformer before them, in John Metcalf, a native of Knaresboro', where he was born in 1717. Though totally blind from the age of six, he developed abundant resources, and became successively fiddler, soldier, chapman, fish-dealer, horse-dealer and waggoner. Taking at last to road-making, he constructed about 180 miles of road in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire and Derby, rendering an {100}important service to the two first-mentioned counties, more especially by improving their means of communication at a time when they were greatly in need of better roads on account of their then rapidly increasing trade and industry. But though Metcalf did good work in these directions, and achieved some noteworthy successes in carrying solid roads across difficult bogs, he introduced no really new system, and the chief progress made did not come until after his death, in 1810. Son of a shepherd at Eskdale, Dumfriesshire, where he was born in 1757, Telford started life as a stonemason's apprentice, but became an engineer, and undertook many important works, including canals, bridges, harbours and docks. Here, however, we are concerned with him only as a builder of roads--a department in which he showed great skill and activity. On the appointment, in 1803, of a body of Commissioners who were to improve the system of communications in Scotland (one half of the expense being defrayed by Parliamentary grants, and one half by local contributions), Telford was selected to carry out the work, and he constructed 920 miles of road and 1,117 bridges in the Highlands, and 150 miles of road between Glasgow, Cumbernauld (Dumbarton) and Carlisle. Then, in 1815, money having been voted by Parliament for the improvement of the Holyhead road, with a view to the betterment of communications with Ireland, Telford was entrusted with the task, which involved the making or improvement of, altogether, 123 miles of road. Telford's own opinion of the roads of England and Scotland was thus expressed in the evidence he gave before the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1819:-- "They are in general very defective both as to their direction and inclination; they are frequently carried over hills, which might be avoided by passing along the adjacent valleys ... there has been no attention paid to constructing good and solid foundations; the materials, whether consisting of gravel or stones, have seldom been sufficiently selected and arranged; and they lie so promiscuously upon the roads as to render it inconvenient to travel upon them.... The shape of the roads, or cross section of the surface, is frequently hollow in the middle; the sides incumbered with great banks of road dirt, which have accumulated in some places to the height {101}of six, seven, or eight feet; these prevent the water from falling into the side drains; they also throw a considerable shade upon the road, and are gross and unpardonable nuisances. The materials, instead of being cleaned of the mud and soil with which they are mixed in their native state, are laid promiscuously upon the road." In planning new roads Telford cut right through the hills, wherever possible, in order to avoid unduly steep gradients. In making the roads he first arranged a solid foundation of pieces of durable stone, from 4 in. to 7 in. in size, these being carefully put into position by hand, with the broadest side downward, and packed with small stones in between. On the rough pavement thus formed he laid an upper course of small broken stones, with a binding of one inch of gravel. Between the two courses a drain was set across the road every hundred yards, Telford attaching great importance to the carrying off of all water that might percolate through the upper course on to the lower. He gave a uniform and only moderately convex shape to the surface of the road, abandoning, in this respect, the ideas of his more amateur predecessors. But his system was one that called for much labour and care, as well as for an abundant supply of the needful materials, and the cost of carrying it out was proportionately high, if not, in some situations, prohibitive. McAdam preferred to be considered a road-repairer rather than a road-builder, and his methods differed materially from those of Telford. He became, also, much more of a propagandist in the work of road-improvement, enforcing his theories with such success that he brought a new word into the English language, roads made or mended according to the main principles he laid down having been known ever since his day as "macadamised." Born in Ayrshire in 1756--one year before Telford--McAdam went to America at the age of 14 to start life in the counting-house of his uncle in New York. Subsequently he became a successful merchant, and returned in 1783 to Scotland, where he bought the estate of Sauchrie, and then, in 1785, began to devote his attention to road-making, which was to occupy his thoughts and absorb his energies for the rest of his days. Roads he came to regard as, in his own words, "perhaps the most important branch of our domestic {102}economy." Many new roads were then being constructed in Scotland, and he himself became a commissioner of roads in that country. He also began a systematic course of travel over the roads of England and Scotland, covering, by 1814, no fewer than 30,000 miles. In 1810 McAdam commenced a series of experiments in the construction of roads, and he published the following year some "Observations on the Highways of the Kingdom," recording the opinions he had formed as the result of his twenty-seven years' inquiries. By this time the question had, indeed, become acute. The prosperity of the country had undergone much expansion, but the improvement of the roads, notwithstanding the extension of the turnpike system, had in no way kept pace with the general progress and the growing needs of the nation. Parliamentary Committees were still devoting close attention to that good old stock subject, the width of cart-wheels. In 1806 there was a Select Committee appointed "to take into consideration the Acts now in force regarding the use of Broad Wheels, and to examine what shape is best calculated for ease of draught and the Preservation of the roads." This Committee presented two reports, and like Committees were appointed in the Sessions of 1808 and 1809, each of these Committees making three reports. What Parliament itself was doing at this period in the way of cart-wheel legislation has already been told. So there was abundant scope for the activities of someone who could offer new ideas, and when, in 1811, a Select Committee was appointed "to take into consideration the Acts in force regarding the Highways and Turnpike Roads in England and Wales, and the expediency of additional regulations as to the better repair and preservation thereof,"[16] McAdam came forward with his proposals, as contained in the aforesaid "Observations" presented by him to the Committee in question. {103}McAdam began by saying that "In all three reports of Committees of the House of Commons on the subject of roads, they seem to have principally in view the construction of wheeled carriages, the weights they were to draw, and the breadth and form of their wheels; the nature of the roads on which these carriages were to travel had not been so well attended to." Proceeding to give the results of his own investigations, he expressed the view that the bad condition of the roads of the kingdom was owing to the injudicious application of the materials with which they were repaired, and to the defective form of the roads; and he assured the Committee that the introduction of a better system of making the _surface_ of the roads, and the application of scientific principles which had hitherto never been thought of, would remedy the evil. The basis of his system, as defined on this and subsequent occasions, was the covering of the surface of roads with an impermeable crust, cover or coating, so that the water would not penetrate to the soil beneath, which soil, whatever its nature, and provided it was kept dry, would, he argued, then bear any weight likely to be put upon it. His method of securing the said impermeable crust was by the use of an 8 in. or 10 in. covering of _broken_ stones, these being not more than about 1½ inches each in size, or more than about six ounces each in weight. Such broken stones, if properly prepared and properly laid on a road, would, he showed, consolidate by reason of their angles, and, under the pressure of the traffic, be transformed into a "firm, compact, impenetrable body," which "could not be affected by vicissitudes of weather or displaced by the action of wheels." The broken stones, with their angular edges, would, in effect, dovetail together into a solid crust under a pressure which, applied to pebbles or flints, would merely cause them to roll aside, in the same way as shingle on the seashore when passed over by a cart or a bathing van. The difference between his broken stones and the more or less rounded stones with which the roads were then being repaired was, McAdam declared, the difference between the stones that were thrown down in a stream to form a ford and the shaped stones used to construct the bridge that went over the stream; while inasmuch as the road-arch, or crust, he {104}formed would rest on the ground, and be impermeable to rain-water, there would be no need to have underneath it either a stone foundation or a system of drainage; though he held it as essential that the subsoil should be perfectly dry when the "metal," or covering of broken stone, was laid in position. Keeping the water out of the road by this means, he would prevent the road itself from being broken up by the action of frost, and he would have a more elastic surface than if there were a solid stone foundation under the metal. The thickness of his consolidated cover of broken stones would, he further argued, be immaterial to its weight-carrying capacity. In 1816 McAdam became surveyor of roads in the Bristol district, and the object lessons in road-mending which he provided there were so convincing that his system began to be generally approved in 1818. In 1827 he was appointed Surveyor-General of Roads, and in the same year he issued a ninth edition of his "Remarks on the Present System of Road-Making." In this publication he states, among other things, that very considerable sums were being raised annually in the kingdom, principally from tolls, on account of turnpike roads, and these funds were expended, nominally under the protection of Commissioners, but practically under the surveyors. Every Session there were numerous applications to Parliament by turnpike trusts for powers to increase their tolls in order to pay off their debts and to keep the roads in repair. In the Session of 1815 there were 34 such petitions; in 1816 there were 32, and "all passed as a matter of course." The condition of the turnpike roads was, nevertheless, most defective, and that of the parish roads was "more deplorable than that of the turnpike roads." Legislative enactments for the maintenance and repair of the parish roads were so inadequate that these roads "might be considered as being placed almost out of the protection of the law." In the result "The defective state of the roads, independent of the unnecessary expense, is oppressive on agriculture, commerce and manufactures by the increase of the price of transport, by waste of the labour of cattle, and wear of carriages, as well as by causing much delay of time." As for Scotland, he declared that "The roads in Scotland are worse than those in England, although materials are more {105}abundant, of better quality, and labour at least as cheap, and the toll duties are nearly double; this is because road-making, that is the surface, is even worse understood in Scotland than in England." He mentions that the Postmaster-General had been obliged to give up the mail-coach from Glasgow to Ayr on account partly of the bad roads and partly of the expense, there being ten turnpike gates in 34 miles of road. The roads were, in fact, McAdam continued, "universally in want of repair." Ample funds were already provided; but the surveyors employed by the turnpike trusts were "mostly persons ignorant of the nature of the duties they are called on to discharge,"[17] and the money brought in by a continual and apparently unlimited increase of the tolls was "misapplied in almost every part of the Kingdom." In some new roads made in Scotland the thickness of the materials used exceeded three feet;[18] but, said McAdam, "the road is as open as a sieve to receive water"; and what this meant he was able to show by pointing to the results of weather conditions on bad roads in the month of January, 1820. A severe frost was succeeded by a sudden thaw, accompanied by the melting of much snow, and the roads of the kingdom broke up in an alarming manner, causing great loss, much delay of the mails, and endless inconvenience. The cause of the trouble was explained by McAdam thus:-- "Previous to the severe frost the roads were filled with water which had penetrated through the ill-prepared and unskilfully-laid material; this caused immediate expansion of the whole mass during the frost, and, upon a sudden thaw, the roads became quite loose, and the wheels of the carriages penetrated to the original soil, which was also saturated with water, from the open state of the road. By this means many roads became altogether impassable." On the 1000 miles of road to which his own system had {106}been applied there had, he further said, been no breaking up at all by reason of frost. The figure here given suggests the extensive adoption of McAdam's system which was then proceeding. It was not only that old roads were being repaired according to his plan, but there was much construction of "macadamised" roads, the deficiencies of the existing roads having discouraged and checked the provision of new ones. Between 1818 and 1829, as told by Porter, in his "Progress of the Nation," the length of turnpike roads in England and Wales was increased by more than 1000 miles. In proportion, also, as the turnpike roads increased alike in number and in quality, through the wider adoption of McAdam's system, there was a corresponding impetus given to coaching in respect both to number of vehicles and to increase of speed, leading up to those "palmy days" of coaching which were only to close with the spread of the railway. It is true that McAdam's plans were not adhered to exactly as he first laid them down. Greater experience led later authorities to attach more importance to a foundation than McAdam had been disposed to do; though they did not necessarily have foundations laid by hand, after the manner of Telford's buried pavements. Later, the introduction, also, of the steam-roller was to revolutionise the art of making macadamised roads. Nor can it be disputed that McAdam and Telford had both, to a certain extent, been anticipated. In an article on roads published in the "Quarterly Review," in 1820, the observation is made in respect to them that "Many of the practices of each of these gentlemen had been previously adopted in a variety of instances; but it required zeal and perseverance like theirs to recommend the entire system to the attention of the public." Other persons might have recommended the use of broken stones, and these are said to have been already employed in Switzerland before McAdam came on the scene; but it was his lucid explanation of the scientific bearing of angular as opposed to round stones; his untiring zeal in travelling thousands of miles over English and Scottish roads in order to see and study everything for himself; and his advocacy of scientific road-making with such indefatigable energy, though {107}to his own impoverishment (until Parliament voted him recompense), that led to the conspicuous and world-wide success his system eventually attained. Writing in 1826, "Nimrod" said: "Roads may be called the veins and arteries of a country, through which channels every improvement circulates. I really consider Mr McAdam as being, next to Dr Jenner, the greatest contributor to the welfare of mankind that this country has ever produced." This may seem, to-day, to be exaggerated praise; but if the reader looks at the matter from the point of view from which "Nimrod" himself must have regarded it, and tries to realise how greatly the deplorable state of the roads--before McAdam began to repair them--was hampering social life, travel, trade, commerce and national industries, he will probably conclude that such praise, at such a period, and in such circumstances, was far from being undeserved. The turnpike system lasted well into the railway period, and the story of its gradual decline and the causes that led thereto has still to be told. Before, however, dealing further with these aspects of the general question I propose to revert to the subject of rivers and river navigation; to show, next, how canals and canal transport were developed; and then to give an account of the rise of that railway system which was so materially to affect alike rivers, canals and turnpike roads as well. {108}CHAPTER XIII RIVERS AND RIVER TRANSPORT In the earliest days of our history, and for many generations later, navigable rivers exercised a most important, if not a paramount, influence on the settlement of tribes, the location of towns, the development of trade and the social life of the people. They were natural highways, open to all who possessed the means of using them, at a time when men had otherwise still to make roads for themselves; and in a land covered to so great an extent with forest and fen such natural highways were of exceptional value. They offered a ready means of reaching points in the interior of the country which would otherwise have been more or less inaccessible. They allowed of the transport, in craft however primitive, of commodities too heavy or too bulky for conveyance by packhorse along the narrow paths trodden out on the hill-sides, winding through woods, or picked out across bog, plain, or morass. Rivers further helped to develop that civilisation which is directly encouraged by facility of communication between groups of people who would otherwise assuredly remain backward in social progress. It will even be found that down to the turnpike, if not, indeed, to the railway, era in this country, communities dwelling on the banks of navigable rivers, and thus possessing a ready means of communication at all times with others having a like advantage, attained to a higher degree of culture, refinement and social standing than people in localities where, remote from any river or passable highway, they were shut off by bad roads from all intercourse with their fellow-men for, at least, the whole of the winter months. In C. H. Pearson's "Historical Maps of England During the first Thirteen Centuries" there is abundant evidence of the way in which towns and trading centres in Britain grew up {109}along the course of navigable rivers, while the country at any distance therefrom remained unoccupied, however important the places that may be found there to-day. On the map of Saxon England, for instance, mention is made of Gleaweceaster (Gloucester; spelling from "Saxon Chronicle"), Teodekesberie (Tewkesbury; "Domesday"), Brycgnorth (Bridgnorth; "Saxon Chronicle"), and Scrobbesbyrig (Shrewsbury; "Saxon Chronicle"), but no one can doubt that these places attained to their early importance mainly because of their situation on the river Severn. Other typical inland cities or towns include London and Oxford on the Thames; Ware on the Lea; Rochester on the Medway; Peterborough on the Nen; Lincoln on the Witham; York on the Ouse; Doncaster on the Don; Cambridge on the Cam; Norwich on the Yare; Colchester on the Colne; Ludlow on the Terne; Exeter on the Exe; Winchester on the Ouse (Sussex); Hereford on the Wye; Chester on the Dee; Caerleon (Isca) on the Usk; and so on with many other places, the location of which alongside a river must doubtless have been due, in part, it may be, to the convenience of water supply, and in part, also, to the greater fertility of the river valley, but more especially to the facility offered by the water highway for transport when other highways were either lacking or far less convenient. Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations" (Book I., chapter xi., pages 20-1), compares the cost of sending goods by road from London to Edinburgh with that of forwarding them by sea, and adds:-- "Since such are the advantages of water carriage it is natural that the first improvements of art and industry should be made where that conveniency opens the whole world for a market to the produce of every sort of labour, and that they should always be much later in extending themselves into the inland parts of the country. The inland parts of the country can for a long time have no other market for the greater part of their goods but the country which lies round about them, and separates them from the sea coast and the great navigable rivers. The extent of their market, therefore, must for a long time be in proportion to the riches and populousness of that country, and consequently their improvement must always be posterior to the improvement of that country. In our {110}North American colonies the plantations have constantly followed either the sea coast or the banks of the navigable rivers, and have scarce anywhere extended themselves to any considerable distance from both." On the Continent of Europe the location of the chief inland centres of trade, commerce, and industry was no less decided by the convenience of transport afforded by the great navigable rivers, as shown (to give two examples only) by Augsburg on the Danube and Cologne on the Rhine. In Britain there were found to be advantages in having a port, not at the mouth of a river, but as far inland as the vessels employed could go. One of these advantages lay in the fact that, the further inland the river-port, the greater was the protection against the Danish or Norwegian pirates who, at one time, infested the seas around our shores; but the main reasons for the preference are somewhat quaintly expressed by "R. S.," in a pamphlet, published in 1675, entitled "Avona; or a Transient View of the Benefit of making Rivers of this Kingdom Available. Occasioned by observing the Scituation of the City of Salisbury, upon the Avon, and the Consequence of opening that River to that City." The writer says:-- "There is more advantage to those places, which, being seated far within the Land (as this[19] is), do enjoy the benefit of Commerce by Sea, by some Navigable River, than to those Port-Towns which are seated in some Creeke or Bay only, and are (as I may call it) Land-lock'd, having no passage up into the Land but by Carriages, as we see in Poole and Lynn, in Dorset, and in a number of other Port-Towns of like Scituation in other places quite round the Island: For such places, though the Sea brings in commodities to them, yet they can neither without great charge convey those commodities higher up into the Land, nor, without the like charge, receive the Innland commodities to export again: Whereas, Cities seated upon navigable Rivers far within the Land look like some Noble Exchange of Nature's own designing; where the Native and the Forreigner may immediately meet, and put off to each other the particular commodities of the growth of their own Countreys; the Native (as a Merchant) receiving the Forreign Goods at first hand, and exchanging his own for them at the {111}very place where they are made, or grow; or, at most, going no further to it, than to his ordinary Market." Thus the ideal river-ports were those that were situated, not only a good distance inland, but in close connection with a Roman or other road along which commerce could be readily brought or distributed, the land journey being reduced to the smallest and most convenient proportions. The advantage was still greater where the small sea-going vessels could be carried by a tidal stream right up to the town to which their cargo was consigned. As against these advantages, however, there was the disadvantage that, the further inland the river-port, the greater was the risk that access to it might become impracticable either through the formation of shallows in the river-bed or because the larger build of vessels in later years could not pass where the smaller and more primitive type of ship of earlier days had gone without difficulty. From one or other of these causes many English rivers on which considerable traffic formerly passed have dwindled in importance, even if they have not ceased to be navigable at all; and many inland places that once flourished as river, or even as "sea"-ports, would to-day hardly be regarded in that light at all, as shown, for example, by the fate of Lewes on the Sussex Ouse, Deeping on the Welland, Cambridge on the Cam, Ely on the Ouse, West Dean on the Cuckmere, and Bawtry on the Idle. York and Doncaster, though situated so far inland, once considered themselves seaports because of their river connection with the coast, so that, as told by the Rev. W. Denton, in "England in the Fifteenth Century," they claimed and exercised the right of sharing in "wrecks at sea" as though they stood on the seaboard instead of high up the course of the Ouse or the Don. The Romans not only supplemented their road transport by river transport but they sought to improve the latter by the construction of river embankments. In the case of the Trent and the Witham they even cut a canal--the Fossdyke--in order to establish direct communication between them. Just, however, as road-making became a lost art here on their departure from Britain, so did an interval of a thousand years elapse before there was any material attempt to follow their example in effecting improvements in river navigation. The {112}initial advantage, therefore, lay with towns located on rivers which were naturally navigable and remained navigable both for a considerable extent and for a considerable period, without need of amendment; though river navigation, as a whole, did not attain to its highest development until, as will be shown in the chapter that follows, much had been done, especially in connection with streams not naturally navigable, to overcome the various impediments or difficulties to effective transport. All the same, the part that English navigable rivers, great or small, have played in the social and economic progress of the country has been one of undeniable magnitude and importance, and offers many points of general interest. These considerations more especially apply to the river Severn, which, in conjunction with such of its tributaries as the Wye and the Warwickshire Avon, was once the great highway for the trade and traffic, not only of the western counties, but of, also, a considerable area in Wales and the midland and northern counties, enabling the districts it more directly served to attain an early development long before others which were then still struggling with the disadvantages of bad roads, however much they may since have outstripped them in the race for industrial advancement. The Severn itself was naturally navigable from Welshpool, Montgomeryshire, a distance of 155 miles by a very winding stream to where the river empties itself into the Bristol Channel. This was the greatest length of navigation, unaided by artificial means, of any river in the kingdom. The early Britons passed along it in their coracles, and, as these were supplemented by vessels of an improved type, trade was developed, towns and cities--each a storehouse or an entrepôt for a more or less considerable area--began to arise on the banks, while Bristol attained to the dignity of a great national port when Liverpool was still only an insignificant fishing village. It was in connection with the Severn that the question arose as to the right of the community to regard a navigable river as a public highway, the same as if it were a road dedicated to general use. The writer of the article on "Rivers" in the "Penny Cyclopædia" (1841) observes that: "In rivers which are {113}navigable, and in which the public have a common right to passage, the King is said to have 'an interest in jurisdiction,' whether the rivers were the King's property or private property. These rivers were called 'fluvii regales,' 'haut streames le roy,' or 'royal streams,' because of their being dedicated to public use, all things of public safety and convenience being under his care and protection." Navigable rivers being thus, the writer continues, the King's highway by water, many of the incidents belonging to a highway on land attached to such rivers, and any nuisances or obstruction upon them, even though occurring on the private land of any person, might be made the subject of indictment. In regard to the Severn and the right of access thereto, it was found necessary, in 1430-1, following on complaints which had been made to Parliament, to pass an Act (9 Hen. VI., c. 5) for the protection of boatmen in the Severn estuary against "many Welshmen and ill-disposed persons" who "were used to assemble in manner of war and stop trows, boats and floats or drags on their way with Merchandise to Bristol, Gloucester, Worcester, and other places, hewing these craft in pieces, and beating the sailors with intent to force them to hire boats from the said Welshmen, for great sums of money, an evil example and great impoverishment of a King's liege people, if remedy were not hastily provided." Under this Act the Severn was declared a free river for all the King's subjects to carry on within the stream of the river. The Act made no mention, however, of any right on the part of the boatmen to use the land alongside the river for the purpose of towing their vessels; and in regard to this point the writer in the "Penny Cyclopædia" says: "Though a river is a public navigable river, there is not, therefore, any right at common law for parties to use the banks of it as a towing path." By an Act passed in 1504 riparian owners along the Severn were authorised, notwithstanding the earlier enactment of the freedom of the river itself, to take "reasonable recompense and satisfaction" from every person going upon their land to draw a boat. There is no evidence that the landowners availed themselves of this authority; but in a later Act, passed in 1532, it was stated that although, "time out of mind," people had used, without any imposition or toll, a path {114}one foot and a half broad on each side of the river for drawing their boats, "of late certain covetous persons" had "interrupted" those so using the said paths, "taking of them fines and bottles of wine," and the Act imposed a penalty of forty shillings on anyone attempting to enforce such tolls, except as regards the reasonable recompense which the riparian owners could claim. This enactment seems to have been due to the action of local officials in Worcester, Gloucester and other places on the river in seeking, as told in Nash's "History and Antiquities of Worcestershire" (1781), to raise revenue for their cities or towns by taxing traders who used the Severn for the transport of their commodities. The importance of the Severn, from the point of view of trade and commerce, in the middle of the sixteenth century, is suggested by what William Harrison wrote of it in his "Description of the Sauerne" (1577): "As the said stream, in length of course, bountie of water, and depth of chanell commeth farre behind the Thames, so for other commodities, as trade of merchandize, plentie of cariage ... it is nothing at all inferiour to or second to the same." One reason for the early commercial prosperity of the Severn towns was the important trade in flannels which they carried on with Wales; though the industry was, also, considerably developed in the Severn counties themselves. Made mostly in the farm-houses and cottages of Montgomeryshire, Merionethshire and Denbighshire, before the days of factories, the flannels and webs were taken by the makers to the fortnightly market at Welshpool. This was a convenient centre for the drapers from Shrewsbury, who, journeying thither along the Severn, would, at one time, buy up the entire stock; though later on they had competitors in the traders from Wrexham and other places. Although carried on only as a domestic industry, the making of these Welsh flannels underwent considerable expansion, Archdeacon Joseph Plymley saying, in his "General View of the Agriculture of Salop," published in 1803, "The manufacture in Wales by means of jennies introduced into farm-houses and other private houses is four times as great, I am told, as it was twenty years ago." At Shrewsbury the wares thus brought down the Severn from Wales were purchased mostly by merchants from London who either sent them to Continental markets or else consigned {115}them to South America or the West Indies, for conversion there into clothing for the slaves. As the demand increased, flannels and webs were more and more produced in and around Shrewsbury itself and other parts of Shropshire. Shrewsbury also developed a large manufacture of coarse linens, linen threads, and other textiles, and eventually attained to such prosperity that Defoe says of it, in his "Tour":-- "This is indeed a beautiful, large, pleasant, populous and rich Town; full of Gentry, and yet full of Trade too; for here, too, is a great Manufacture, as well of Flannel, as also of white Broadcloth, which enriches all the Country round it.... This is really a Town of Mirth and Gallantry, something like Bury in Suffolk, or Durham in the North, but much bigger than either of them, or indeed than both together.... Here is the greatest Market, the greatest Plenty of good Provisions, and the cheapest that is to be met with in all the Western Part of England; the Severn supplies them here with excellent Salmon, but 'tis also brought in great Plenty from the River Dee, which is not far off, and which abounds with a very good Kind.... There is no doubt but the Cheapness of Provisions, joined with the Pleasantness and Healthiness of the Place, draws a great many Families thither, who love to live within the Compass of their Estates." Archdeacon Plymley speaks of Shrewsbury as having been, "chiefly from the advantage of the river, for several centuries past, a sort of metropolis for North Wales." Bewdley, which had obtained its charter from Edward IV., was another Severn town which developed an extensive trade in the exportation not only of Welsh flannels but of timber, wool, leather, combs and sailors' caps. All these were sent down the river to Bristol, whence the Bewdley dealers received, in return, imported groceries and other commodities for distribution throughout Wales and Lancashire. Bridgnorth also attained to considerable importance as a convenient point for the transport to Bristol, via the Severn, of goods brought by road from a Hinterland extending to Lancashire and Cheshire. There was, again, much traffic to and from towns situate on the Warwickshire Avon, which enters the Severn at Tewkesbury after passing through Stratford, Evesham, {116}Pershore and other towns. Defoe says of this affluent of the Severn: "The Navigation of this River Avon is an exceeding advantage to all this part of the Country and also to the Commerce of the City of Bristol. For by this River they derive a very great trade for sugar, oil, wine, tobacco, iron, lead, and in a word all heavy goods which are carried by water almost as far as Warwick; and return the corn, and especially the cheese is brought back from Gloucestershire and Warwickshire to Bristol." The Wye, which enters the estuary of the Severn below Chepstow, after passing through or along the borders of the counties of Montgomery, Radnor, Brecknock, Hereford, Monmouth and Gloucester, was, with its own tributary, the Lug, not made navigable until 1661, when an Act (14 Car. II.) was passed, the preamble of which set forth that-- "Whereas the making Navigable, or otherwise passable for Barges, Boats, Leighters, and other Vessels the Rivers Wye and Lugg and other Rivulets and Brooks falling into the said Rivers in the County of Hereford and other adjacent Counties, and so navigable into the River of Seaverne, may (with God's blessing) be of great advantage, and very convenient and necessary not onely to the said Counties, But also to the Publick, By import and export of Corn and encrease of Commerce and Trade, and improving the yearly value of lands in the parts near adjoyning thereunto, besides the great and extraordinary preservation of the High-ways, and most profitable and necessary to and for the City of Hereford for conveyance thereby of Coles, fuel and other necessaries to the said City, whereof there is now great scarcity and want, and far greater hereafter like to grow, if some Help therefore be not made and provided. Be it therefore," etc. That the merchants of Bristol derived great advantage from river as well as from sea transport is well shown by Defoe. Not only, he tells us, did they carry on a great trade, but they did so with less dependence on London than the merchants of any other town in Britain. He says:-- "The shopkeepers in Bristol who, in general, are all Wholesale Men, have so great an Inland trade among all the Western Counties that they maintain Carriers just as the London Tradesmen do, to all the principal Countries and Towns, from Southampton in the south to the Banks of the Trent, {117}north, and though they have no navigable river that way yet they drive a very great trade through all those counties." The "two great rivers," the Severn and the Wye, enabled them, also, to "have the whole trade of South Wales, as it were, to themselves," together with the greater part of that of North Wales,[20] while the sea gave them access to Ireland, where they were carrying on a trade which, says Defoe, was not only great in itself but had "prodigiously increased" in the last thirty years, notwithstanding the greater competition of the Liverpool merchants. The transport facilities offered by the Severn were a further material factor both in the local development of great coal, iron and other industries, at a time when like industries were still in their infancy in the north, and in the increase of the general wealth of the western counties. In regard to Shropshire, Archdeacon Plymley writes that the inhabitants of the county, having such ready communication both with the interior of the country and with the sea, had opened mines of iron, stone, lead, lime, etc., and had, also, established very extensive iron manufactures. As the result of all this enterprise, much capital had been drawn into the district; a great market had been opened for the agricultural produce of the country; the ready conveyance of fuel and manure had enabled the cultivation of the soil to be carried on even beyond the demands of the increasing consumption; and all had so operated together as to increase the wealth and well-being of Shropshire in general. Some interesting facts as to the conditions under which the navigation of the Severn was conducted in 1758 are given in a communication published in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for that year (pages 277-8) from G. Perry, of Coalbrookdale, under the heading, "A Description of the Severn." The following passages may be quoted:-- "This river, being justly esteemed the second in Britain, is of great importance on account of its trade, being navigated by vessels of large burden more than 160 miles from the sea, without the assistance of any lock. Upwards of 100,000 tons of coals are annually shipped from the collieries about Madeley {118}and Broseley to the towns and cities on its banks, and from thence into the adjacent countries; also great quantities of grain, pig and bar iron, iron manufactures and earthen wares, as well as wool, hops, cyder, and provisions are constantly exported to Bristol and other places, from whence merchants' goods, &c., are brought in return. The freight from Shrewsbury to Bristol is about 10s. per ton, and from Bristol to Shrewsbury 15s., the rates to the intermediate towns being in proportion. "This traffic is carried on with vessels of two sorts; the lesser kind are called barges and frigates, being from 40 to 60 feet in length, have a single mast, square sail, and carry from 20 to 40 tons; the trows, or larger vessels, are from 40 to 80 tons burthen; these have a main and top mast, about 80 feet high, with square sails, and some have mizen masts; they are generally from 16 to 20 feet wide and 60 in length, being, when new, and completely rigged worth about 300l." Their number having greatly increased, he had "an exact list" taken of all the barges and trows on the Severn in May, 1756, and this list he gives. The total number of owners was then 210, and the total number of vessels was 376. Among the places mentioned are the following:-- TOWN. OWNERS. VESSELS. Shrewsbury 10 19 Madeley Wood 21 39 Broseley 55 87 Bridgnorth 47 75 Bewdley 18 47 Worcester 6 21 Tewkesbury 8 18 Evesham-upon-Avon 1 2 Gloucester 4 7 Of the disadvantages that attended navigation on the Severn I shall speak in chapter xv, in connection with the decline of river transport in general. What the Severn group of rivers, with Bristol as the headquarters of their navigation, were on the west coast, the Wash group and the port of Lynn were on the east coast. The Wash group comprised: (1) the Bedford Ouse and its tributaries, with a main outlet at Lynn; (2) the Welland, {119}with Spalding for its inland port; and (3) the Witham, which passes through the Fens and into the Wash by way of Boston. There is abundant testimony available as to the former great importance of these rivers. Defoe says of Lynn: "There is the greatest extent of Inland Navigation here, of any Port in England, London excepted. The Reason whereof is this, that there are more Navigable Rivers empty themselves here into the Sea, including the Washes, which are branches of the same Port, than at any one Mouth of Waters in England, except the Thames and the Humber." Nathaniel Kinderley, in his work on "The Ancient and Present State of the Navigation of the Towns of Lynn, Wisbeach, Spalding and Boston" (2nd edition, 1751), speaks of the Bedford Ouse as having five rivers emptying themselves into it from eight several counties; and he says that it "does therefore afford a great Advantage to Trade and Commerce, since hereby two Cities and several great Towns are therein served, as Peterborough, Ely, Stamford, Bedford, St. Ives, Huntington, St. Neots, Northampton, Cambridge, Bury St. Edmunds, Thetford, &c., with all Sorts of heavy commodities from Lyn; as Coals and Salt (from Newcastle), Deals, Fir-Timber, Iron, Pitch and Tar (from Sweden and Norway), and Wine (from Lisbon and Oporto) thither imported, and from these Parts great Quantities of Wheat, Rye, Cole-Seed, Oats, Barley, &c., are brought down these Rivers, whereby a great foreign and inland Trade is carried on and the Breed of Seamen is increased. The Port of Lyn supplies Six Counties wholly, and three in Part." Another writer of the same period, Thomas Badeslade, who published in 1766 a "History of the Ancient and Present State of the Navigation of the Port of King's Lyn and of Cambridge and the rest of the trading Towns in those Parts," took up the argument that the number of inhabitants, the value of land, the trade, the riches and the strength of every free State were great in proportion to their possession of navigable rivers; and he went on to declare that "Of all the Navigable Rivers in England the River of the Great Ouse is one of the chief, and Lyn sits at the door of this river, as it were the turnkey of it." The various large and populous towns (as already mentioned) {120}which stood either upon the Ouse itself or upon one of the other rivers connecting with it were, he proceeded, all dependent on its navigation, and all of them were supplied by the merchants of Lynn with what he described as "maritime commodities." "Their Exports and Imports," he declared, "enrich and Furnish the Country; and raise a great Revenue to the Government, and in all National advantages the Port of Lyn is equalled by few Ports of this Kingdom." But, owing to neglect of the Ouse, there was the risk that the river would "in a very short time" be "lost to navigation," and all, he continued, agreed that "If something be not done this Country will be rendered uninhabitable, and the Navigation of the Port of Lynn will be lost, and the University of Cambridge, and all the great Towns situate on the Rivers for the benefit of Navigation must with it decay and become impoverished; and the Customs and Duties of the State be in Consequence thereof greatly lessened." Happily our national well-being has not depended on navigable rivers, as Badeslade thought it did, and, though the condition of the Bedford Ouse has got far worse than it was when he wrote, the University of Cambridge and the various towns in question still, happily, survive. But even in Badeslade's time the Ouse was beginning to get, as he says, "choaked up," and he recalls the year 1649 when "keels could sail with Forty Tun freight 36 miles from Lynn towards Cambridge at ordinary Neip-Tides, and as far as Huntingdon with Fifteen Tun Freight. And Barges with Ten Chaldron of coals could sail up Brandon River to Thetford; and as far in proportion up the Rivers Mildenhall, &c., &c. By all which Rivers the Port of Lynn was capable of the most extensive Inland navigation of any Port of England." How Lynn served as the port for the great quantities of foreign produce and, also, for the hops and other commodities sent from London and the south-western counties for the Sturbridge fair at Cambridge has already been told (see page 24). It was, also, through Lynn and Boston that a large proportion of our commerce with Normandy, Flanders and the Rhine country was conducted; and Lynn, especially, grew in wealth and importance, and further developed, as Defoe found, into a town having considerable social attractions. Concerning the Witham, Joseph Priestley says, in his {121}"Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals and Railways of Great Britain" (1831), it has been thought that previous to the Norman Conquest the river was a tideway navigation for ships to Lincoln. That it was navigable at a very early period he thinks may be inferred from the fact that the Fossdike Canal, "an ancient 'Roman Work,'" was scoured out by Henry I. in the year 1121 for the purpose of opening a navigable communication between the Trent and the Witham at the city of Lincoln in order that that place, which was then in a very flourishing condition and enjoying an extensive foreign trade, might reap all the advantages of a more ready communication with the interior. Another most important group of rivers, from the point of view of inland navigation, was the series which have their outlet in the Humber. This group includes the Yorkshire Ouse and the Trent, both naturally navigable. The Ouse (York) is formed by the confluence of the Ure and the Swale sixty miles above the Trent Falls, where, after passing through York, Selby, and Goole, it joins the Trent and forms the Humber estuary. Under a charter granted by Edward IV., in the year 1462, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of York were to "oversee and be conservators" of this river, as well as of the Aire, the Wharfe, the Derwent, the Don, and the Humber, all of which are connected with it. Of the city of York, as he found it in or about the year 1723, Defoe says:-- "No City in England is better furnished with Provision of every Kind, nor any so cheap, in proportion to the goodness of Things; the River being so navigable and so near the Sea, the Merchants here trade directly to what port of the world they will; for Ships of any Burthen come up within thirty Mile of the City, and small Craft from sixty or eighty Ton, and under, come up to the very City." The navigable Trent was for many centuries the chief means of communication between south and north, and Nottingham, as the capital of the Trent district, became a place of great importance. It was along the Trent that the King's messengers passed on their way to York, in preference to braving the dangers of the road through Sherwood Forest. The burgesses of Nottingham were required to take charge of them as soon as they came to the river and conduct them safely to {122}Torksey, whose burgesses, in turn, had to take them to the Humber, and so on up the tidal Ouse to York. To the town of Burton-on-Trent by packhorse or waggon, down the Trent by barge to Hull, and thence by sailing vessel along the east coast and up the Thames, was once a favoured route for the consignment of cheese from Cheshire to the London market. In Defoe's time the quantity of Cheshire cheese thus passing along the Trent, either for London or for east coast towns, was 4000 tons a year. Owing to the state of the roads the Trent route was the only practicable alternative the Cheshire cheese makers had to what they called the "Long sea" route to London, "a terribly long, and sometimes dangerous Voyage" (says Defoe) by way of the Mersey, Land's End, the English Channel and the Thames. In describing the conditions of navigation on the Trent he tells us that, "The Trent is Navigable by Ships of good Burthen as high as Gainsbrough, which is near forty Miles from the Humber by the River. The Barges without the Help of Locks or Stops go as high as Nottingham, and further by the Help of Art to Burton-upon-Trent in Staffordshire. The Stream is full, the Channel deep and safe, and the Tide flows up a great Way between Gainsborough and Newark. This, and the Navigation lately, reaching up to Burton and up the Derwent to Derby, is a great Support to and Encrease of the Trade of those counties which border upon it." In speaking more fully of Nottingham Defoe says: "The Trent is Navigable here for Vessels or Barges of great Burthen, by which all their heavy and bulky Goods are brought from the Humber and even from Hull; such as Iron, Block-tin, Salt, Hops, Grocery, Dyers Wares, Wine, Oyl, Tar, Hemp, Flax, &c., and the same vessels carry down Coal, Wood, Corn; as also Cheese in great Quantities from Warwickshire and Staffordshire." From an article "On Inland Navigations and Public Roads," by William Jessop, published in the Georgical Essays, Vol. IV. (1804), I gather that merchandise was carried on the Trent at a cost of eight shillings a ton for a distance of seventy miles, and that "in point of expedition" vessels frequently made the journey of seventy miles and back in a week, including the time for loading and unloading--a degree of despatch which Jessop evidently regarded as very creditable, since he adds, {123}"This has been done by the same vessel for ten weeks successively, and would often be done if they were not obliged to wait for their lading." One of the affluents of the Trent, the little river known as the Idle, joins it at Stockwith, 21 miles from the junction of the Trent with the Humber; and seven miles up the Idle is the once-famous "port" of Bawtry. This particular place fulfilled all the conditions of what I have already described as the ideal port of olden days. Not only was it far inland, bringing a considerable district into communication with the sea, but it was situated--eight miles south-east of Doncaster--on the Great North Road, at the point where this road enters the county of York. Until the navigation of the Don was improved, under an Act passed in 1727, the Hull, Trent, Idle and Bawtry route was preferred to the Hull, Ouse, Aire, Don, and Doncaster route alike for foreign imports into Yorkshire and for Yorkshire products consigned to London or to places abroad; and Bawtry, known to-day, to those who know it at all, as only a small market town in Yorkshire, was at one time of considerable importance. In the reigns of Edward III. and Edward IV., as told by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, in "The History and Topography of the Deanery of Doncaster" (1828), the lords of the manor of Bawtry were "of the prime of English nobility," while the market established there dated from the beginning of the thirteenth century. When the sovereign or any members of the Royal Family travelled in state to the north, they were usually met at Bawtry by the sheriff of the county and a train of attendants. More to our present purpose, however, is the fact that, down to the opening of the second quarter of the eighteenth century this inland port of Bawtry was the route by which most of the products of Sheffield, of Hallamshire, and of the country round about, destined for London, for the eastern counties, or for the Continent, passed to their destination. From Sheffield to Bawtry was a land journey of twenty miles, and thus far, at least, packhorses or waggons had to be utilised over such roads as there then were. The Idle is described by Defoe as "a full and quick, though not rapid and unsafe Stream, with a deep Channel, which carries Hoys, {124}Lighters, Barges or flat-bottomed Vessels out of its Channel into the Trent." In fair weather these vessels, taking on their cargo at Bawtry, could continue the journey from Stockwith, where the Trent was entered, to Hull; but otherwise the cargo was transhipped at Stockwith into vessels of up to 200-ton burthen, which were able to pass from the Humber along the Trent as far as Stockwith whether laden or empty. By means of this navigation, to quote again from Defoe:-- "The Town of Bautry becomes the Center of all the Exportation of this Part of the Country, especially for heavy Goods, which they bring down hither from all the adjacent Countries, such as Lead, from the Lead Mines and Smelting-Houses in Derbyshire, wrought Iron and Edge-Tools, of all Sorts, from the Forges at Sheffield, and from the Country call'd Hallamshire, being adjacent to the Towns of Sheffield and Rotheram, where an innumerable Number of People are employed. Also Millstones and Grindstones, in very great Quantities, are brought down and shipped off here, and so carry'd by Sea to Hull, and to London, and even to Holland also. This makes Bautry Wharf be famous all over the South Part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, for it is the Place whither all their heavy Goods are carried, to be embarked and shipped off." One can thus well credit Hunter's statement that there appear to have been several persons residing at Bawtry in the Middle Ages who had been enriched by the commerce of "the port," as the place was, in fact, described in the Hundred Rolls; but when one thinks of the great extent of the industries of the Sheffield district as carried on at the present day, it is certainly interesting to learn of the conditions under which they were developed, and the circuitous route by which their products once reached London and the markets of the world. The industries grew, however, in spite of all the difficulties in transport. The iron trade had existed in Hallamshire since the reign of Henry II. (1154-1189). Sheffield cutlery was well known in the Middle Ages. It was in high repute in Queen Elizabeth's time. In the early part of the eighteenth century the industries of the district were increasing at a greater rate than ever. In 1721 the weight of Hallamshire manufactures sent in the direction of the Humber was 13,000 tons; and the greater proportion of this quantity must have {125}passed through the port of Bawtry and thence along the river Trent. The Thames, England's greatest river, does not, so far as it serves the port of London and facilitates the immense trade there carried on, enter so much into consideration from the point of view of strictly "internal communication" as some of the lesser rivers already mentioned, the position alike of London, Liverpool, Newcastle, Southampton, etc., relating to ports, docks, harbours and commerce in general rather than to the particular forms of inland transport here under review. One must not forget, however, that, above the port of London itself the navigation of the Thames was, from very early times, of the greatest advantage to a considerable extent of country, and that the value of these services was further increased by various tributaries of the Thames. The fact that settlement originally followed the course of rivers is abundantly shown by the number of cities, towns, monasteries, abbeys and conventual establishments set up of old in the Thames valley. The convenience, also, of water transport must have had much to do with the locating of a University at Oxford, on the Thames, just as it did with the establishment of a University at Cambridge, on the Cam, each being thus rendered accessible to scholars from Scotland and elsewhere who would have found it impracticable to make so long a journey under the early conditions of road travel. The Thames became, further, the main highway for the various counties through which it flowed, included therein being some of the most fertile districts in the land; and, though London may owe its pre-eminence mainly to foreign trade, passing between the port of London and the sea, the facilities for communication offered above the port of London by the Thames for the full extent of its navigable length were, in the pre-railway days more especially, of incalculable advantage both to the districts served thereby and to the Metropolis itself. This advantage becomes still more striking when we take into account the rivers that form important tributaries of the Thames. The Lea was described in a statute of 1424 as "one of the great rivers, which extendeth from the town of Ware till the water of the Thames, in the counties of Hertford, Essex and {126}Middlesex"; and along this river there was carried at one time a very considerable quantity of produce and merchandise. The history of Ware goes back to, at least, the ninth century, when the Danes took their ships up to the town but were outmanoeuvred by King Alfred, who diverted the stream, and left the vessels stranded. Not only was the founding of Ware on the spot where it stands due to the convenience of water communication, but Ware itself was one of the ideal ports of the time, inasmuch as it was so far inland, and was in convenient reach of several counties. The navigation, as far as Godalming, of the Wey, which falls into the Thames at Weybridge, opened up a great part of Surrey and the adjoining counties to water communication with London. In recording his visit to Guildford, Defoe says of the Wey that a very great quantity of timber was carried along it, such timber being not only brought from the neighbourhood of that town, but conveyed by road from "the woody parts of Sussex and Hampshire above 30 miles from it"; though he significantly adds that this was done "in the Summer," the Sussex roads being, as I have already shown, probably unequalled for badness, and especially in the winter, by those of any other county in England. Defoe further says in regard to the Wey that it was "a mighty support" to the "great corn-market" at Farnham. Meal-men (as he calls them) and other dealers obtained corn at Farnham, and brought much of it by road to the mills on the Wey, a distance of about seven miles. In these mills it was ground and dressed, and it was then sent in barges to London, "as is practiced," Defoe adds, "on the other side of the Thames for above fifty miles distance from London." The Medway was another means of communication between a considerable extent of country and the Thames. It was utilised, not alone for sending timber from the woods of Sussex and Kent to the port of London or elsewhere, but, also, for the distribution of general produce. Defoe says of Maidstone, the chief town on the Medway, that "from this Town and the Neighbouring Parts London is supplied with more particulars than from any single market Town in England." In addition to these great groups of rivers, many single and minor rivers led to the opening up of inland ports which served in their day a most useful purpose. {127}The Exe allowed of Exeter carrying on a considerable foreign trade. Defoe tells of the "vast quantities" of woollen manufactures sent from Exeter direct to Holland, as well as to Portugal, Spain and Italy. The Dutch, especially, gave large commissions for the buying of Devonshire serges, which were made not only in Exeter but at Crediton, Honiton, Tiverton and in all the north part of the county, giving abundant employment to the people. Defoe speaks of the serge-market at Exeter as, next to that at Leeds, "the greatest in England." He had been assured, he says, that in this market from £60,000 to £100,000 worth of serges had been sold in a week. In the neighbouring county of Somerset, Taunton was the inland port to which coal conveyed in sea-going vessels from Swansea to Bridgwater was taken in barges along the navigable Parrett. Heavy goods and merchandise from Bristol--such as iron, lead, flax, pitch, tar, dye-stuffs, oil, wine, and groceries of all kinds--were received there in the same way. From Taunton these commodities were distributed, by packhorse or waggon, throughout the county. Whatever the original capacity of rivers naturally navigable, there came a time when, by reason either of their inherent defects or of the use of larger vessels, they required a certain amount of regulation; and there came a time, also, when it was deemed expedient to render navigable by art many rivers that were not already adapted thereto by nature. In this way the necessity arose for much river legislation, together with much enterprise in respect to river improvement, in the days when the only alternatives to river transport were the deplorably defective roads. {128}CHAPTER XIV RIVER IMPROVEMENT AND INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION The earliest legislation applying to navigable rivers referred only to the taking of salmon or to restrictions on weirs and other hindrances to navigation. Regulations in regard to these matters began to be enforced in 1285, and numerous statutes relating more especially to the removal alike of weirs, jetties, mills, mill-dams, etc., causing obstruction to boats, were passed; though in 1370 and subsequently there were complaints that the said statutes were not observed. The first Act for the improvement of an English river was, according to Clifford, as told in his "History of Private Bill Legislation," a statute of 1424 (2 Hen. VI.), which appointed a commission "to survey, redress and amend all the defaults" of the river Lea. Six years later there was a further Act which set forth that, owing to the number of shoals in the river, ships and boats could not pass as they ought; and the Chancellor was authorised to appoint Commissioners to remove the shoals. The Commissioners were further empowered to take tolls from passing vessels, though the Act was to be in force for only three years, and was, in effect, not renewed. We have here the introduction, not alone of the improvement of river navigation by Act of Parliament, but of the principle of toll-collection on rivers as a means of raising funds for defraying the cost, on the principle that those who benefitted should pay. It will, also, be seen that this first legislative attempt at river improvement related only to dredging and deepening the channel of the stream to which it applied. Next, as we are further told by Clifford, came the straightening of rivers, or their partial deviation by new cuts; and here, again, the Lea stands first in the Statutes. The preamble of an Act (13 Eliz., c. 18), passed in 1571, "for bringing the river Lea to the north side of the city of London," stated:-- {129}"It is perceived by many grave and wise men, as well of the city of London as of the country, that it were very commodious and profitable both for the city and the country that the river of Lea, otherwise called the Ware river, might be brought within the land to the north part of the city ... through such a convenient and meet cut as may serve for the navigation of barges and other vessels, for the carrying and conveying as well of all merchandizes, corn and victuals, as other necessaries from the town of Ware and other places to the city ... and also for tilt-boats and wherries for conveying of the Queen's subjects to and fro, to their great ease and commodity." The Corporation of the City of London were authorised to construct and act as conservators of the new channel, and Commissioners in Middlesex, Essex and Hertfordshire were again entrusted with the duty of freeing the river from shoals and shallows. A number of other Acts relating to the Lea followed, but mention need only be made here of one passed in 1779 which stated that, inasmuch as the trustees appointed under earlier enactments could not, without further advance in the rates they were already empowered to enforce, liquidate the charges falling upon them in respect to the outlay for works done on the river, they were authorised to increase those rates. In the seventeenth century, especially in the period following the accession of Charles II. to the throne (1660), much attention was paid to river improvement. A rapid expansion of commerce, of industries and of wealth had followed alike the planting of colonies in the West Indies and on the continent of North America, the development of home manufactures, the reclamation of many waste spaces through the operation of enclosure Acts, and the improvements brought about in cultivation. The need for better means of communication in order to open up districts then more or less isolated, to provide better transport for raw materials and manufactured goods, and to facilitate the carriage of domestic and other supplies needed by the increasing population, thus became more and more apparent. In many instances the condition of the roads and the prejudicial results upon them of heavy traffic were adduced as the main reason for a resort to improvements of river {130}navigation. An Act (21 Jas. I., c. 32), passed in 1624, for deepening the navigation of the Thames from Bercott to Oxford, stated that it was designed "for the conveyance of Oxford freestone by water to London, and for coal and other necessaries from London to Oxford, now coming at a dear rate only by land carriage, whereby the roads are becoming exceedingly bad." It was further stated, in the preamble, that "the said passage will be very behoveful for preserving the highways leading to and from the said university and city and other parts thereabouts" which, owing to "the continual carriages by carts," had become dangerous for travellers in winter, "and hardly to be amended or continued passable without exceeding charge." In 1739 there was passed an Act (14 Geo. II., c. 26), "for the betterment and more easy and speedy portage" on the Medway of timber from the woods of Sussex and Kent, which timber could not be "conveyed to a market but at a very large expense by reason of the badness of the roads in these parts." Various far-seeing, patriotic and enterprising individuals took a leading part in pioneering the movement in favour of improved river navigation which, for a period of about 100 years--until, that is, the advent of the canal era--was to be developed with much zeal and energy, though not always with conspicuous success. Especially prominent among these pioneers were William Sandys, Francis Mathew and Andrew Yarranton; and it is only fitting that some mention should here be made of these three worthies, each of whom shared the fate of so many other pioneers, in so far as he was a man in advance of his time. Sir William Sandys, of Ombersley Court, in the county of Worcester, obtained, in 1636, an Act of Parliament which granted powers for making navigable the Warwickshire Avon from the Severn, at Tewkesbury, to the city of Coventry, and, also, the Teme, on the west side of the Severn, towards Ludlow. Some of the works thus carried out are still rendering good service. In 1661 he secured further Acts for making navigable the rivers Wye and Lugg and the brooks running into them in the counties of Hereford, Gloucester and Monmouth. Here he anticipated much of what was to be done a century later by Brindley, in connection with canal construction, inasmuch as he obtained powers not simply to deepen the beds of the {131}rivers and to straighten their courses, but to construct new channels, to set up locks, weirs, etc., to provide towing-paths, and to dig new channels where required. This last-mentioned proposal constituted, as will be seen later on, the idea that led up to the eventual transition from navigable rivers to artificial canals, the new "cuts" on the former being the connecting link between the two. The Wye was found to be an exceptionally difficult stream to tame and control, and Sandys' attempt to make it navigable by locks and weirs on the pound-lock system was a failure. The scheme was, however, afterwards carried through on different lines; and in summing up the results John Lloyd, Junr., says in "Papers Relating to the History and Navigation of the Rivers Wye and Lugg" (1873):-- "Although, through the uncertainty of its stream, the Wye was never brought to answer the purpose of a regular conveyance, its navigation has proved of great service throughout the county of Hereford. Throughout the last[21] century most of the coal consumed in Hereford and its neighbourhood was brought up in barges after a flood. Various other heavy articles, such as grocery, wines and spirits, having been first conveyed from Bristol to Brockweir in larger vessels, were carried up thence in barges at a much easier rate than by land carriage. In return the boats were freighted with the valuable oak timber, bark, cider, wheat, flour and other produce of the county. The opening of the towing-path for horses by the Act of 1809 gave a further impetus to navigation, and especially to the trade in coal from Lidbrook, and while every river-side village could boast of its quay and its barge, the quay walls at Hereford were thronged with loading and unloading barges.... "Since the opening of the Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway, in 1855, and the consequent dissolution of the Towing-path Company, nearly all navigation on the Wye above Monmouth has ceased." Francis Mathew addressed, in 1655, to Oliver Cromwell, "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth," a powerful argument in favour of "The Opening of Rivers for Navigation," the benefit thereof which he sought to show being, as his title-page said, "exemplified by the Two Avons of Salisbury and Bristol, {132}with a Mediterranean Passage by Water for Billanders of Thirty Tun between Bristol and London." The writer described his little book as a plea that "England's fair valleys and rich Inlets through which so many noble Rivers insinuate themselves might with the imitation of the industrious Netherlanders be made in many places docible of Navigation, to the inestimable comfort, satisfaction, ease and profit of the publick." "Rivers," he further observed, "may be compared to States-men, sent abroad; they are never out of their way so they pass by great Cities, Marts, Courts of Princes, Armies, Leaguers, Diets and the like Theatres of Action, which still contribute to the increase of their Observation; So Navigable Rivers, the more places of Note they pass by, the more they take up, or bring, still gleaning one Commodity or other from the Soyl they pass through, and are supplied by every Town they touch at with imployment." Into the details of his scheme for establishing direct water communication between Bristol and London there is now no need to enter. Suffice it to say that the two cities had to wait many years before the idea he foreshadowed was carried into effect. But I must not omit to mention one of the arguments advanced by Mathew in support of his general proposals, since it has a direct bearing on the conditions of road transport at this period, and the reasons based thereon in favour of improvements in river navigation. Thus he urged, among other things, "the facility of Commerce from one place to another, and the cheapness of transportation of Commodities without so much grinding and plowing up our high-wayes, which maketh them now in so many places impassable. You shall see," he continued, "Western Waggons, which they call Plows, carry forty hundred weight; insomuch as between Bristol and Marlborough they have been enforced at a Hill they call Bagdown-hill, to put twenty beasts, Horse and Oxen, to draw it up: This great abuse by this means would be taken away, by keeping our high-wayes pleasant; and withal, by this transportation of Commodities by River, the price of Commodities would fall." Oliver Cromwell had other matters than roads and rivers to engage his attention, and Francis Mathew got from him no favourable response to his proposals. But in 1670 he dedicated to Charles II. and "the Honorable Houses of {133}Parliament" a new edition of his scheme under the title of "A Mediterranean Passage by Water from London to Bristol, and from Lynne to Yarmouth, and so consequently to the City of York for the great Advancement of Trade and Traffique." In the course of his Dedication he said:-- "Observing by traversing this island, that divers Rivers within the same may be moulded into such Form as will admit of Vessels of thirty Tun burden, or upwards, to sail in, unto the great Relief of divers Countryes in this Island, by means of the same, at less than half the Rates now paid for Land carriage ... and considering at how easy a Charge ... the same may be brought to pass ... I humbly presume ... to become Importunate to your most Excellent and Royal Majesty for the enterprize of and ready effecting this Work, being an Undertaking so Heroick, that 'tis beyond the Level of any others to attempt." Among the reasons he now advanced in favour of removing the obstructions and difficulties to be met with in the making of rivers navigable were the "Wonderful Improvement to much Trade," and especially the trade in coal; "the great Ease of the Subject"; increased public revenue-- "And what is well and worthy of Observing, the Highwayes hereby will be much preserved, and become a very acceptable work to the Country, which now notwithstanding their great cost, is a grievous Toil as well to Man as beast, being now so unnecessarily plowed up by Waggons of Prodigious Burthens, which in this Island are dayly travelling." Andrew Yarranton, who brought out in 1677 a remarkable book, entitled "England's Improvement by Land and Sea," might be described as a Pioneer of Protection as well as an early champion of improved inland communication. He considered that the best way of fighting the Dutch, who were then a source of trouble to the country, would be, not to go to war with them, but to capture their trade and commerce. To this end he elaborated a scheme under which, instead of importing every year "vast quantities" of "linen cloth of all sorts," of iron, and of woollen goods, England would "settle" these industries here, fostering them by means of import duties to be imposed on foreign manufactures for a period of seven years, and supplementing those duties by the setting-up of a general system of banking, itself, in turn, {134}made secure by a general land register. The linen industry, he advised, should be established in the counties of Warwick, Leicester, Northampton, and Oxford, where, among other considerations, navigable rivers would be available for the purposes of transport; and he goes on to say, in words which, though written more than two and a quarter centuries ago, seem only to have anticipated much that we hear from the tariff reformers of to-day, that by this means, "we should prevent at least two millions of money a year from being sent out of the Land for Linen Cloth, and keep our people at home who now go beyond the Seas for want of imployment here." In his references to the iron trade, Yarranton speaks of the "infinite quantities of raw iron" then being made in Monmouthshire and the Forest of Dean, and he says that the greatest part of what he calls the "Slow Iron" made in the Forest of Dean "is sent up the Severne to the Forges, into Worcester-shire, Shropshire, Stafford-shire, Warwick-shire and Cheshire, and there it's made into Bar-iron: And because of its kind and gentle nature to work, it is now at Sturbridge, Dudly, Wolverhampton, Sedgley, Wasall, and Burmingham and thereabouts wrought into all small Commodities and diffused all England over, and thereby a great Trade made of it; and when manufactured sent into most parts of the World"; though in Worcestershire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Derbyshire there were already great and numerous ironworks in which, he adds, "Much Iron is made of Metal or Iron Stone of another nature quite different from that of the Forest of Deane." Having sketched his ideas of such reorganisation of industry as would, in his opinion, help the country both to beat the Dutch without fighting and, also, to provide work for all the poor people in England, he proceeded: "That nothing may be wanting that may conduce to the benefit and incouragement of things manufactured, as in cheap carriage to and fro over England, and to the Sea at easie rates, I will in the next place shew you how the great Rivers in England may be made navigable, and thereby make the Commodities and Goods carried, especially in Winter time, for half the rate they now pay." The schemes he especially recommended in this connection were for the establishing of communication between the {135}Thames and the Severn, and between the Dee and the Severn; and he argued that there would be a further advantage from the point of view of the national food supply, as an improvement in river navigation would allow both of corn being more easily brought to London and of the setting up of great granaries, at Oxford for the advantage of London, and at Stratford-on-Avon for the benefit of towns on the Severn. He further says:-- "I hear some say, You projected the making Navigable the River Stoure in Worcestershire; what is the reason it was not finished? I say it was my projection, and I will tell you the reason it was not finished. The River Stoure and some other Rivers were granted by an Act of Parliament to certain Persons of Honour, and some progress was made in the work; but within a small while after the Act passed it was let fall again. But it being a brat of my own I was not willing it should be Abortive; therefore I made offers to perfect it, leaving a third part of the Inheritance to me and my heirs for ever, and we came to an agreement. Upon which I fell on, and made it compleatly navigable from Sturbridge to Kederminster; and carried down many hundred Tuns of Coales, and laid out near one thousand pounds, and then it was obstructed for Want of Money, which by Contract was to be paid." To describe, in detail, all the various schemes for the improvement of river navigation which were carried out, more especially in the second half of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth (irrespective of the many others that succumbed to the complaint spoken of by Yarranton--want of money), would take up far too much space; but a few typical examples, which have a direct bearing on the development of British trade, commerce and industry, may be of interest. Until the year 1694, when the improvement of the Mersey was taken in hand, Liverpool had no chance of emerging from a situation of almost complete isolation, and of competing with ports some of which, though now ports no longer, or far outstripped by the Liverpool of to-day, were then of vastly greater importance than Liverpool from the point of view of national commerce. Nature, unaided by man, had not been so considerate to {136}Liverpool as she had been to Bristol, to Lynn, to Hull or to Boston. These, and other ports besides, stood on streams which were naturally navigable for more or less considerable distances into the interior of the country, whereas the Mersey was not naturally navigable for more than about fifteen or twenty miles above Liverpool. The navigation even of the estuary as far as Liverpool presented difficulties and dangers in stormy weather, owing to sand-banks, violent currents and rapid tides; but beyond Runcorn the Mersey was not then navigable at all. Nor were the tributaries of the Mersey--the Irwell and the Weaver--navigable. Liverpool was thus shut off from communication with the interior by river, and for a long time the town was not in a much better position as regards roads. No Roman road came nearer to Liverpool than Warrington, and, down to 1750 (as I have already shown), the road between Warrington and Liverpool was not passable for coaches or carriages. On the east Liverpool was practically isolated from the rest of the country by the high range of hills dividing Lancashire from Yorkshire, and there were the still more formidable hills of the Lake District on the north. The early route for a journey to the south from Liverpool was to cross the Mersey at Monk's Ferry, Birkenhead, and then pass through the forest of Wirral to Chester. Here there was found a Roman road, along which a coach to London was running in the reign of James II. (1685-1688), whereas the first coach from Warrington to London did not start until 1757. So long as our commercial relations were mainly with Continental or other ports which could be more conveniently reached from the east or the south coast, or from Bristol, and so long as the industries of Lancashire and Yorkshire were but little developed, or found an outlet abroad in these other directions, the comparative isolation of Liverpool was a matter of no great national concern; though how, in effect, Liverpool compared with other seaports or river-ports in the thirteenth century is shown by the fact (as told by Thomas Baines, in his "History of the Commerce and Town of Liverpool") that whereas the aggregate value of trading property in Liverpool, Lancaster, Preston and Wigan--the only four towns in Lancashire which then acknowledged possessing such property at all--was given in an official return for the {137}year 1343 as £233, equal to £3495 of our present money; the equivalent value to-day of the trading property of Bristol at the same period would be £30,000, and that of Nottingham, then the great inland port of the Trent, £50,000. That was a time when, as the same authority says, "Liverpool stood nearly at the extremity of the known world." But when the known world was enlarged by the addition thereto of the New World of America, and when commerce with the lands across the Atlantic began to develop, and the industries of Lancashire and Yorkshire to grow apace, the need for improved communications with the port of Liverpool became more and more acute. Such need was the greater, too, because of the fate that was overtaking the much earlier and hitherto far more prosperous port of Chester. Established as a fortress of the first order by the Romans, at the western end of one of their famous roads, and favoured alike by Saxons and Normans, Chester had developed into a flourishing commercial port from which, more especially, intercourse with Ireland was conducted, and it was still the port through which travellers passed to or from Ireland for a long time after Liverpool began to compete actively for the Irish goods traffic. Richard Blome, who visited Chester in 1673, describes it in his "Britannia" as "the usual place for taking shipping for Ireland, with which it has a very great intercourse, and a place of very considerable trade." But, as against the advantage it offered as an inland port, situate twenty-two miles from its estuary, and dealing with the products of an especially productive county, Chester had the disadvantage due to the enormous masses of sand which were driven into the Dee by Atlantic storms, to the full fury and effects of which the open estuary was exposed. This evil began to grow serious soon after the Conquest, and the port of Chester steadily declined as the port of Liverpool steadily rose, the trade lost by the one helping to build up the prosperity of the other. The benefits resulting from the improvements carried out on the Mersey when, under the Act of 1694, navigation was extended from Runcorn to Warrington, began to be immediately felt; but they also brought out more clearly the great necessity for still further amendment. How merchandise {138}went across country in those days is shown in a letter written in 1701 by Thomas Patten, a Liverpool citizen who had taken a leading part in the movement that led to the Mersey being made navigable as far inland as Warrington. Referring to a certain consignment of tobacco which was to be despatched from Liverpool to Hull, on behalf of a trader at Stockport, Patten says that, as the tobacco could not be carried in the hogshead all the way by road from Warrington to Hull, and as the sea route from Liverpool to Hull would have taken too long, the tobacco was first forwarded by cart, in twenty or thirty hogsheads, from the quay at Warrington to Stockport. There it was made up into canvas-covered parcels, and then sent on by packhorse--three parcels to a horse--a distance of thirty-six miles by road to Doncaster, and from Doncaster it was conveyed by river for the remainder of the distance to Hull. Baines, who gives the letter in his "History of Lancashire and Cheshire," remarks: "Such was the mode of conveying goods up to that time, and for upwards of thirty years after. It is evident that there could be no great development of trade and commerce so long as the modes of communication were so tedious and costly." The improvement on the Mersey itself led to a further scheme for making the Mersey and Irwell navigable from Warrington to Manchester, thus establishing direct water communication between Liverpool and Manchester, as an alternative to transport by road. A survey of the two rivers was carried out in 1712, and a prospectus was issued in which it was said:-- "The inland parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire being favoured with a great variety of valuable manufactures in woollen, linen, cotton, &c., and that in very great quantities, has made that neighbourhood as populous, if not more so, than (London and Middlesex excepted) the same extent of any part of Great Britain. The trades of these counties extend considerably through the whole island, as well as abroad, and the consumption of groceries, Irish wool, dyeing stuffs, and other important goods consequently is very great; but as yet not favoured with the conveniency of water carriage, though Providence, from the port of Liverpool up to the most considerable inland town of Lancashire, Manchester, has afforded the best, not yet employed, rivers of Mersey and Irwell for that purpose." {139}It was not until the passing of the Mersey and Irwell Navigation Act, in 1720, that the work of rendering these rivers navigable between Warrington and Manchester was begun, and another twenty years elapsed before it was completed. The result of this "conveniency of water carriage" when it was, at last, obtained, was to reduce the cost of transport of goods and merchandise from forty shillings a ton by road to ten shillings a ton by river. The goods traffic between Liverpool and Manchester at this time amounted to about 4000 tons a year; but it had, prior to the provision of water transport, naturally been restricted to the quantity that could be carried by the packhorses, carts and waggons of those days. Hence the river navigation gave the advantage of a transport not only cheaper in price but greater in capacity. It will be seen later on, however, that the Mersey and Irwell navigation subsequently developed disadvantages for which a remedy was sought in the construction of the Duke of Bridgewater's canal. An Act, passed in 1720, for making the river Weaver navigable from Winsford Bridge, beyond Northwich, to Frodsham Bridge, near the junction of the Weaver with the Mersey (a distance of about twenty miles), was not only of further material advantage to the port of Liverpool but a first step in an important development of the salt mines of Cheshire. These mines have been described as "incomparably the richest of the salt mines and brine pits of England"; but at the date in question their working was greatly hampered by transport costs and difficulties in the matter both of fuel and of the distribution of the salt, when made. Fuel was required for heating the furnaces and the pans in which the brine was evaporated into salt; and in the earliest days of the industry the salt-makers used for this purpose faggots of wood brought from the forests on the borders of Cheshire and Staffordshire. As long as these supplies were available, the principal seat of the salt trade was at Nantwich, in the higher part of the Weaver, and near to the forests where the wood was obtained. But the forests got depleted in course of time, and the industry then moved to other works lower down the river which could be operated with coal brought from the Lancashire coal-field. This coal, however, had to be carried, by cart or packhorse, a distance of twelve {140}or fourteen miles; and inasmuch as two tons of coal were required for every three tons of fine salt made, the cost of transport of raw materials was a serious item. As for the manufactured salt, that was distributed in the same way, even such small consignments as could then alone be sent to Liverpool having to be taken thither by road. In the circumstances the salt trade remained comparatively undeveloped in Cheshire while it was making great advance at Newcastle-on-Tyne, where the coal readily obtained, by water, from the neighbouring coal-fields was used in the production of salt from sea-water. In the time of the Stuarts the manufacture of salt was one of the most important of Newcastle's industries and articles of export. When, under the Act of 1720, the Weaver was made navigable as far as the Northwich and Winsford Bridge salt works, the land journey for Lancashire coal was reduced from twelve or fourteen miles to five or six miles, and the salt could be sent direct to Liverpool by water. The greatest impetus to the Cheshire salt industry (to the consequent detriment, and eventual extinction, of that at Newcastle-on-Tyne, though with a further advantage to the trade of Liverpool) was, however, not given until the makers were enabled to get their coal all the way by water through the supplementing of the now navigable Weaver by the Sankey Canal--of which more hereafter. In the same year that the Act for improving the navigation of the Weaver was passed, Parliament sanctioned a no less important work on the river Douglas, which passes through Wigan, and has its outlet in the Ribble estuary, at a point about nine miles west of Preston. Wigan is situated on a part of the Lancashire coal-fields which contains some of the richest and most valuable seams of coal to be found in Lancashire; but down to 1720 the only means of distributing this coal was by cart or packhorse. The opening of the Douglas to navigation allowed of the coal being sent by water to the estuary of the Ribble, and thence forwarded up the Ribble to Preston, or, alternatively, along the coast either to Lancaster in the one direction or to Liverpool and Chester in the other. These were tedious routes, and the voyage from the Ribble estuary along the coast was often very dangerous on account both of storms and of sand-banks. The lines of water {141}communication were, nevertheless, so much cheaper than land carriage that they were followed for about fifty years--until a safer and more expeditious waterway was provided through the opening of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.[22] Thomas Baines, from whose "History of the Town and Commerce of Liverpool" I glean these details, adds:-- "With all its defects, the Douglas navigation may be regarded as the primary cause of the manufacturing prosperity of the town of Preston, which it was the first means of supplying with cheap fuel for its workshops and factories. It may, also, be considered as one of the early causes of the commercial prosperity of Liverpool, which has always been much promoted by the possession of cheap and abundant supplies of coal and salt." The rendering of the Aire and Calder navigable, under an Act of Parliament passed in 1699, was an important event for the then rising manufacturing towns of Leeds, Wakefield, Halifax, Bradford and Huddersfield, situate on or within a convenient distance of one or other of these two rivers which, joining at Castleford, ten miles below Leeds, thence flow in a combined stream to their junction with the Yorkshire Ouse, and so on to the Humber and the ports of Hull and Grimsby. The event in question was no less interesting because it marked a further development in an industrial transition which constitutes a leading factor in the economic history of England. The textile industries originally established in the eastern counties by refugees from the Netherlands and France afterwards spread through the southern and western counties, attaining in each district to a very considerable growth long before they were of any importance in those northern counties with which they were afterwards mainly to be associated. The migration to the north occurred at a time when the woollen industries were paramount and the cotton industries had still to attain their subsequent stupendous growth. It occurred, also, long before the Aire and the Calder were made navigable, so that, in this case, we cannot say the industrial centres already mentioned as being situated on or near to those two Yorkshire rivers were set up there, as the towns on the river {142}Severn had mainly been, in order to secure the convenience of river transport. The chief reason why the bleak and barren moorlands of the north were preferred to the fair and fertile plains of the south for the further expansion of these great national industries was that, in the days when the steam-engine of James Watt was as yet far off, the heavier rainfall in the English Highlands of the north and north-west, together with the more numerous streams pouring down mountain sides both of greater height and of greater extent than in the south, gave to the cloth-makers, not only the abundant water supply they wanted, but, also, the particular kind of motive power, through the use of water-wheels, on which they then mainly relied for the working of their machinery. It was in the interests of this power derived from falling water that the textile industries first migrated from the eastern counties--where the streams flow but slowly, and from comparatively slight elevations--to the western counties, where there are streams coming from hills of from 800 to 1000 feet in height. These, for a time, answered better the desired purpose, though only to be more or less discarded, in turn, for northern or north-western streams which, with a greater rainfall, had their rise on heights of from 1500 to 2000 feet, and were so numerous that almost every one of the "small" manufacturers who set up business for himself on the otherwise cheerless slope of a Yorkshire hill-side could have a brook, a rivulet, or a mountain torrent of his own, or, at least, make abundant use of one before it passed on to serve the purposes of his neighbour. In alluding to the woollen trade as affected by these conditions, Dr Aikin remarks in his "Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles round Manchester" (1795), "It would seem as if a hilly country was particularly adapted to it, since it almost ceases where Yorkshire descends into the plain"; though the position has, of course, been entirely changed by the general resort to steam in preference to water power. Other industries, besides those relating to textiles, whether woollen or, at a later period, cotton, took advantage of the same favourable conditions, as shown in the case of Sheffield, where the earliest of the cutlers who were to make Hallamshire {143}goods famous throughout the world settled down at the confluence of the Sheaf and the Don because those streams afforded them the best available means of operating their tilt-hammers.[23] In the early stage of this transition period the streams were desired and utilised solely as an aid to manufacturing purposes. As the towns or the industrial centres developed, however, there grew up increasing need for improved means of transport--supplementary to the roads of that day--in order, more especially, to facilitate the better distribution of the commodities then being produced in ever-increasing quantities. It was this need that led to the Act of 1699, giving powers for rendering the Aire and the Calder navigable. Petitions in favour thereof were presented by the "clothiers" (as cloth-makers were then called) of various towns likely to derive advantage from the scheme, and some of these petitions afford an interesting insight into the conditions under which the cloth industry was carried on in Yorkshire and Lancashire in the closing years of the seventeenth century. A petition from the "clothiers" of Leeds said, "That Leeds and Wakefield are the principal towns in the north for cloth; that they are situated on the rivers Ayre and Calder, which have been viewed, and are found capable to be made highways which, if effected, will very much redound to the preservation of the highways and a great improvement of trade; the petitioners having no conveniency of water carriage within sixteen miles of them, which not only occasions a great expense, but many times great damage to their goods, and sometimes the roads are not passable." The clothiers of "Ratchdale" (Rochdale) stated that they were "forty miles from any water carriage"; those of Halifax said they "have no water carriage within thirty miles, and much damage happens through the badness of the roads by the overturning of carriages"; and those of Wakefield said of the scheme:-- "It will be a great improvement of trade to all the trading towns of the north by reason of the conveniency of water {144}carriage, for want of which the petitioners send their goods twenty-two miles by land carriage (to Rawcliffe) the expense whereof is not only very chargeable but they are forced to stay two months sometimes while the roads are impassable to market, and many times the goods receive considerable damage, through the badness of the roads by overturning." The general conditions of life in Yorkshire towns in Defoe's day, when the Aire and Calder had been made navigable, but when bad roads still dominated the situation from a social and domestic standpoint, are shown in the account he gives of his visit to Halifax. After explaining how the people devoted themselves mainly to cloth production and imported most of their household requirements, he says:-- "Their Corn comes up in great quantities out of Lincoln, Nottingham and the East Riding; their Black Cattle and the Horses from the North Riding, their Sheep and Mutton from the adjacent Counties every way, their Butter from the East and North Riding, their Cheese out of Cheshire and Warwickshire, more Black Cattle also from Lancashire. And here the Breeders and Feeders, the Farmers and Country People find Money flowing in plenty from the Manufactures and Commerce; so that at Halifax, Leeds and the other great manufacturing Towns, and adjacent to these, for the two months of September and October a prodigious Quantity of Black Cattle is sold. "This Demand for Beef is occasioned thus: the usage of the People is to buy in at that Season Beef sufficient for the whole Year which they kill and salt, and hang up in the Smoke to dry. This way of curing their Beef keeps it all the Winter, and they eat this smoak'd Beef as a very great Rarity. "Upon this foot 'tis ordinary for a Clothier that has a large Family, to come to Halifax on a Market Day, and buy two or three large Bullocks from eight to ten Pounds a-piece. These he carries home and kills for his Store. And this is the reason that the markets at all those times of the Year are thronged with Black Cattle, as Smithfield is on a Friday, whereas all the rest of the year there is little extraordinary sold there." We have here full confirmation of what I have already said as to the way in which people in former days provisioned {145}their houses in the autumn for the winter months, during which the roads would be impassable and food supplies from outside unobtainable. The trading conditions of the period are shown by the accounts of the once-famous cloth market of Leeds given, in his "Ducatus Leodiensis; or the Topography of Leedes," by Ralph Thoresby (1715), and, also, in his "Tour," by the ever-picturesque Defoe. Thoresby, who speaks of "the cloathing trade" as being "now the very life of these parts," tells us that the Leeds cloth-market was held on the bridge over the Aire every Tuesday and Saturday down to June 14, 1684, when, for greater convenience, it was removed to Briggate, the "spacious street" leading from the bridge into the town. Already, in Thoresby's day, Leeds was the manufacturing capital of the district, and he speaks of its cloth-market as "the life not of the town only but of these parts of England." Defoe, in his account of the market, describes it as "indeed a Prodigy of its kind, and not to be equalled in the world." He tells how, making their way to Leeds at an early hour in the morning from the surrounding district, the "clothiers," each bringing, as a rule, only a single piece of cloth, assembled at the various inns, and there remained until the ringing of a bell, at seven o'clock in the summer, or a little later in the winter, announced that trestles, with boards across them for the display of the cloth, had been duly fixed in the roadway, and that the market had opened. Thereupon the clothiers, without rush or haste, and in the most solemn fashion, would leave their inns, and step across the footpath to the "stalls" in the roadway. Standing quite close to one another, they then put down their cloth on the boards, which would soon be completely covered with rolls of cloth arranged side by side. While the clothiers were so engaged, the merchants would have left their houses, entered the market, and begun their inspection of the goods displayed for sale, so that within fifteen minutes of the ringing of the bell the market would be in full operation. When a merchant saw a piece of cloth which suited his requirements he would lean across the boards, and whisper in the ear of the clothier the price he was prepared to give, this practice of whispering being adopted in order that the {146}other clothiers standing immediately alongside should not hear what was said. The clothier agreed or disagreed, without any attempt at "bargaining." If satisfied with the offer, he would instantly pick up the cloth, and go off with it to the merchant's house, where the transaction would be completed. Within less than half an hour the clothiers would be seen thus leaving the market; in an hour the business would be over, and at half-past eight the bell would be rung again, to announce that the market had closed and that there must be no more sales. Any clothier who had not sold his cloth would then take it back with him to his inn. "Thus," says Defoe, "you see Ten or Twenty thousand Pounds value in cloth, and sometimes much more, bought and sold in little more than an hour.... And that which is most admirable is 'tis all managed with the most profound Silence, and you cannot hear a word spoken in the whole Market, I mean by the Persons buying and selling; 'tis all done in whisper.... By nine a Clock the Boards are taken down, and the street cleared, so that you see no market or Goods any more than if there had been nothing to do; and this is done twice a week. By this quick Return the Clothiers are constantly supplied with Money, their Workmen are duly paid, and a prodigious Sum circulates thro' the Country every week." It is no less interesting--and, also, no less material to the present inquiry as to the influence of transport conditions on trade--to learn how the cloth purchased in these particular circumstances was disposed of in days when travel through the country was still attended by so many difficulties. The supplies intended for home use were distributed in this manner: Leeds was the head-quarters of a body of merchants who were in the habit of going all over England with droves of packhorses loaded up with the cloth which had been bought in the open-air market, as already described. These travelling merchants did not sell to householders, since that would have constituted them pedlars. They kept to the wholesale business, dealing only with shopkeepers in the towns or with traders at the fairs; but they operated on such a scale that, Defoe says, "'tis ordinary for one of these men to carry a thousand pounds value of Cloth with them at a time, and having sold it at the Fairs or Towns {147}where they go, they send their Horses back for as much more, and this very often in the Summer, for they chuse to travel in the summer, and perhaps towards the Winter time, tho' as little in Winter as they can, because of the badness of the Roads." Other of the buyers on the Leeds market sent their purchases to London, either carrying out commissions from London traders or forwarding on consignment to factors and warehousemen who themselves supplied wholesale and retail dealers in London, besides despatching great quantities of coarse goods abroad, especially to New England, New York, Virginia, etc. The Russian merchants in London also sent "an exceeding quantity" to St Petersburg, Riga, Sweden, Dantzic and Pomerania. Still another group of buyers was represented by those who had commissions direct from traders in Holland, Germany and Austria, the business done by the members of this group being "not less considerable" than that done by the others. It was mainly on account of this London and foreign trade that the Act for making the rivers Aire and Calder navigable was obtained, there being secured a waterway communication by means of which the cloth could be sent direct from Leeds, Wakefield and other industrial centres to Hull, there to be shipped to London or to Continental ports, as desired. The facilities for navigation thus afforded subsequently had a still greater influence on the development of the Yorkshire coal trade, coal being taken from Wakefield or Leeds to the Humber, and thence conveyed up the Ouse to York, or to the numerous towns situate on the Trent or other rivers. By the same navigation the Yorkshire towns received most of their supplies, either as imported into Hull from abroad, or as received there from London or the eastern counties, these supplies including butter, cheese, salt, sugar, tobacco, fruit, spices, oil, wine, brandy, hops, lead, and all kinds of heavy or bulky goods. For the merchants of Hull this meant a business to be compared only with that of the merchants of Lynn and Bristol. Some of the many river improvement Acts passed in the period here under review were not secured without a certain amount of opposition, and the case of the Don, more especially, {148}offers a striking example of that conflict of rival interests, even in the case of rivers, which later on was to give rise to many a Parliamentary battle in the days, first of canals, and then of railways. How the cutlers of Sheffield and the steel manufacturers and others of Hallamshire in general had been accustomed to forward their goods by road to the inland port of Bawtry, thence to be sent down the Idle and on by the Trent and the Humber to Hull, has already been told. (See pp. 123-4.) There came a time, however, when this preliminary land journey of twenty miles from Sheffield to Bawtry was found of great disadvantage to the trade of the district; and in 1697 leave was given to bring in a Bill to allow of the Don, already navigable to Doncaster, being rendered navigable to Sheffield, in order that merchandise might be sent by that stream direct from Sheffield to the Ouse, and so on to the Humber and the port of Hull. But the opposition offered by representatives of the Bawtry, Trent and other interests--who rightly foresaw in the scheme impending ruin for most of the traffic on the Idle--was so powerful that the Bill was thrown out. A further Bill, with a like object, was introduced, and strongly supported, in the following Session. It was still more vigorously opposed, there being what Hunter describes as "a war of petitions," and it was not proceeded with. For a time nothing further was done; but in the meanwhile Sheffield was rapidly advancing to the position of one of the leading industrial centres in the country, and the compulsory twenty-mile journey by road to the chief port of consignment for Sheffield goods sent to London or abroad when there was a river flowing through Sheffield itself, was felt to be an intolerable infliction, as well as a serious prejudice to the local industries. In 1722, therefore--twenty-four years after the last of the earlier attempts--the Master Cutler of Sheffield and the Cutlers' Company petitioned Parliament to allow the improvement of the Don navigation to proceed. The corporation of Doncaster sent a like petition, and so did the corporations of Manchester, Stockport and several other places. But the established interests still controlled the situation, and the design once more failed. Four years later (1726) the Sheffield cutlers made still {149}another effort, and this time, although the opposition was again very powerful, it was agreed in Committee of the House of Commons that power should be given to the Cutlers' Company to make the Don navigable from Doncaster, not to Sheffield itself, but to Tinsley, three miles from Sheffield; and, also, to maintain a turnpike road from Sheffield to Tinsley. A Bill to this effect was passed, and in 1727 the corporation of Doncaster obtained powers to remove certain obstructions from the Don; but, under an Act of 1732, the carrying out of the whole scheme was transferred to an independent body, the Company of Proprietors of the River Don Navigation. It proved, says Hunter, writing in 1828, "eminently beneficial to the country"; but the reader will see that the Sheffield cutler or manufacturer still had to forward his goods three miles by road before they could be sent, first along the Don, then along the Ouse, then down the Humber to Hull, and then (if they were consigned to London) by sea along the east coast, and finally up the Thames to the Metropolis. These were the conditions until the year 1821, when the three-mile journey by road was saved by the opening of a canal between Sheffield and the Don at Tinsley, affording, as was said, "easy accommodation with the coast and London." {150}CHAPTER XV DISADVANTAGES OF RIVER NAVIGATION It will have been assumed, from the two preceding chapters, that rivers, whether naturally navigable or rendered navigable by art, were of material service in supplementing defective roads, in opening up to communication parts of the country that would then otherwise have remained isolated, and in aiding the development of some of the greatest of our national industries. While this assumption is well founded, yet, as time went on, the unsatisfactory nature of much of the inland river navigation in this country became more apparent. Some of the greatest troubles arose from, on the one hand, excess of water in the rivers owing to floods, and, on the other, from inadequate supplies of water due either to droughts or to shallows. The liability to floods will be at once apparent if the reader considers the extent of the areas from which rain water and the yield of countless springs, brooks, and rivulets may flow into the principal rivers. In the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Conservancy Boards, 1877, there was published a list which showed that the 210 rivers in England and Wales had catchment basins as follows:-- 1000 miles and upwards 11 500 " to 1000 miles 14 100 " " 500 " 59 50 " " 100 " 24 10 " " 50 " 102 ----- Total 210 The rivers having catchment basins of 1000 miles or upwards are given thus:-- AREA OF TRIBUTARIES. {151} NAME. COUNTY. LENGTH. Basin. United length. Miles. sq. miles. No. miles. Humber York 37 1229 2 55 Mersey Lancaster 68 1707 6 188 Nen Northampton 99 1055 1 11 Ouse York 59½ 4207 11 629 Ouse Cambridge 156¼ 2894 8 212 Severn Gloucester 178 4437 17 450 Thames -- 201¼ 5162 15 463 Trent Lincoln 167½ 3543 10 293 Tyne Northumberland 35 1053 6 154 Witham Lincoln 89 1052 4 75 Wye Hereford 148 1655 9 223 In times of heavy storms or of continuous rainy weather, rivers which drain up to 5000 square miles of country may well experience floods involving a serious impediment to navigation. The Severn, which brings down to the Bristol Channel so much of the water that falls on Plinlimmon and other Welsh hills, and is joined by various streams, draining, altogether, as shown above, an area of 4437 square miles, is especially liable to floods. In a paper read before the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1860, Mr. E. L. Williams stated that floods had been known to raise the height of the Severn 18 ft. in five hours, and they had not infrequently caused it to attain a height of 25 ft. above the level of low water. The Thames and the Trent, also, are particularly liable to floods, and so, down to recent years, when considerable sums were spent on its improvement, was the Weaver. It has been asserted in various quarters that less water runs in English rivers now than was probably the case centuries ago, when the abundant forests caused a greater rainfall. This may be so, but, on the other hand, a number of witnesses examined before the Select Committee of 1877 expressed the belief that the water flowing into the rivers had increased of recent years, owing to the improved land drainage, which drained off rapidly and sent down to the sea much rain water that previously would have passed into the air again by evaporation. In the matter of high tides, "Rees' Cyclopædia" (1819) says that the tide "often" rises at the mouth of the Wye {152}to a height of 40 ft.; while "Chambers' Encyclopædia" gives 47 ft. above low-water mark as the height to which the tide has been known to rise in the same river at Chepstow. Of the floods in the Yorkshire Ouse Rodolph De Salis says in "Bradshaw's Canals and Navigable Rivers of England" (1904): "The non-tidal portion of the river above Naburn Locks is liable to floods, which at York often reach a height of 12 ft., and have been known to attain a height of 16 ft. 6 in. above summer level." The liability of English rivers to a shortage of water would seem to be as great as their liability to excess of it. In Archdeacon Plymley's "General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire" (1803) there is published a table, compiled by Telford, giving the heights reached by the Severn between 1789 and 1800. It shows that, as against some very serious floods and inundations, the river often, during the dates mentioned, ran for considerable periods with a stream of no more than sixteen inches of water; that it frequently had less than a foot of water; and that in times of extreme drought the depth of water had been reduced to nine inches. In 1796, the period during which barges could be navigated even down-stream with a paying load did not exceed two months, and "this interruption," it is stated, "was severely felt by the coal-masters, the manufacturers of iron, and the county in general." The navigation of the Trent is declared in "Rees' Cyclopædia" to be "of vast importance to the country"; yet the authority of John Smeaton, who had examined the river in 1761, is given for the statement that in several places the ordinary depth of water did not exceed eight inches. In the upper part of the river there were, in 1765, more than twenty shallows over which boats could not pass in dry weather without flushes of water. The inadequate depth of water may be due, not alone to drought, but to the formation of shoals or shallows owing to the rapid fall of the river, its excessive width, or the amount of sediment brought down from the hill-sides or washed from the bed over which it flows. Alternatively, much silting-up may be caused by the sand brought into the river by incoming tides, and not always washed out again by out-going tides. {153}In an undated pamphlet, entitled "Reflections on the General Utility of Inland Navigation to the Commercial and Landed Interests of England, with Observations on the Intended Canal from Birmingham to Worcester," by the proprietors of the Staffordshire Canal, stress is laid on the trouble caused by the shoals in the Severn, and some facts are given as to the way in which traders had to meet the uncertainties offered by river transport. The pamphlet says:-- "A principal defect of the present conveyance arises from the shoals in the river Severn above Worcester, an evil incurable. The fall from Stourport to Diglis, near Worcester, is nineteen feet; and the river is, what this fact alone would prove, full of shoals. These shoals impede the current of the stream, and retain the water longer in the bed of the river. Let these shoals be removed, the water will pass off, and the whole of the river become too shallow for navigation. Locks on the river could alone correct this defect; but these would overflow the meadows, impede the drainage of the land, and do an injury to the landowners, which parliament can never sanction. "This defect gives rise to others--to _uncertainty as to the time of the conveyance_--for it is only at particular periods that there is water sufficient for the navigation--to delays from a want of men[24] and expence from the increased number which the strong current requires. It gives rise, also, to a double transhipping of commodities sent from Birmingham down the Severn, first from the canal at Stourport, and secondly at or near Worcester, as the barges which this shoal water will admit are too small to navigate much below. "The delays and damage incidental to such a navigation have induced the manufacturers of Birmingham to employ land carriage at a great expence--many waggons are constantly employed at the heavy charge of 4l. per ton from Birmingham to Bristol alone to convey goods or manufactures which cannot await the delay or damage to which in the present navigation they are necessarily exposed;--large {154}quantities of manufactures and the materials of manufactures are likewise sent to Diglis to be conveyed by the Severn in vessels that cannot navigate higher up the river." In the Trent frequent shallowness of water was due, partly to the excessive breadth of the stream, in places, and partly to the large quantity of "warp," or silt, brought into the river from the Humber estuary by the tides, and left there until scoured out again when the river was in flood. The Wash group of rivers was specially liable to the silting-up process. Nathaniel Kinderly, writing of the position at Lynn in 1751, said: "The Haven is at present so choaked up with sand that at Low-water it is become almost a Wash, so as to have been frequently fordable." Of the Nen he says it "cannot possibly be preserved long, but is in danger of being absolutely lost," owing to the silting-up of its bed. As for the Witham, the welfare of the port of Boston was threatened so far back as the year 1671, judging from an Act (22 & 23 Chas. II. c. 25) passed in that year, the preamble of which stated:-- "Whereas there hath been for some hundreds of yeares a good navigacion betwixt the burrough of Boston and the river of Trent by and through the citty of Lincolne, and thereby a great trade managed to the benefit of those parts of Lincolnshire, and some parts of Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire, which afforded an honest employment and livelyhood to great numbers of people. But at present the said navigacion is much obstructed and in great decay by reason that the rivers or auntient channells of Witham and Fossdyke, which runn betwixt Boston and Trent are much silted and landed up and thereby not passable with boats and lyters as formerly, to the great decay of the trade and intercourse of the said citty and all market and other towns neare any of the said rivers, which hath producet in them much poverty and depopulation. For remedy thereof and for improvement of the said navigacion, may it please your most excellent Majestie that it may be enacted," etc. Among various other conditions of river navigation may be mentioned--the extremely serpentine courses of some of the rivers, two miles often having to be made for each mile of real advance; the ever-varying channels in some of the streams; the arduous labour of towing against strong {155}currents, especially when, in the absence of towing-paths for horses, this work had to be done by men; and the destruction, by floods, of the river banks or of works constructed on them. I have here sought to catalogue, with passing illustrations, the principal troubles attendant on inland river navigation. That the physical disadvantages in question have continued, in spite of all River Improvement Acts, and notwithstanding a considerable outlay, may be seen from the report issued, in 1909, by the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways. In regard to the Thames the report says that the commercial traffic above Staines has become a very insignificant quantity, and "if the Thames is to be converted into an artery of commercial navigation, there is need for much improvement above Windsor, but still more so above Reading." On the Severn there is now practically no navigation above Stourport. Much money has been spent on the river since the Severn Navigation Act of 1842; the channel has been deepened and dredged, and, "up to Worcester, at any rate, the river is now one of the best of English waterways." But, in spite of the considerable sums expended on improvements, the traffic fell from 323,329 tons in 1888 to 288,198 tons in 1905, a decline in seventeen years of over 35,000 tons. High water in the river renders it impossible for the larger estuary-going vessels to pass under certain of the bridges, so that, as one witness said, "A vessel may go up when the water is low, and a freshet may come, and the vessel may not be able to get back again for perhaps many days." The Warwickshire Avon, once navigable from Stratford to the Severn, is now navigable only from Evesham, and even from that point "there is hardly any commercial traffic." The Trent is navigable to-day to the junction with the Trent and Mersey Canal, at Derwent mouth, "when there is plenty of water." The report says:-- "The great difficulty on the Trent, in its present condition, is the want of sufficient depth of water in dry seasons; in wet seasons traffic is impeded by floods. The river Trent is a fine river and a most important part of the main route connecting the Midland waterway system and the town and colliery district of Nottingham with each other and with the estuary of the Humber. It appears, for want of necessary {156}works of improvement, to be in an inefficient state for these purposes. There is, at present, no certainty that a barge carrying seventy or eighty tons of cargo from the port of Hull to Newark or Nottingham will arrive at its destination without being lightened on its way. A witness said, 'Very often the traffic in dry seasons is left waiting for two or three weeks on the road between Hull and Newark, which, of course, is a very poor way of getting on with business.'" On the Ouse (York), below Naburn Lock, the conservators find it difficult to keep the channel at its proper depth by reason of the great deposits of floating sand, or "warp," distributed by the tides, the scour of the river being insufficient to carry the warp out to sea. Vessels are at times unable to navigate for several days, obstructive shoals are formed, and the line of the channel is frequently altered. On the Bedford Ouse the traffic on the upper parts of the river has come to an end, and, though there is still a small amount between Lynn and St. Ives, "the river is in many places very shallow and choked with weeds and mud, so that barges are often stopped for days, and the use of steam traction, up to St. Ives, is impossible." The Nen from Northampton to Wisbech is "navigable with difficulty"--where the water is sufficient at all--by barges of the smallest size; but sometimes navigation even by these barges is impracticable for weeks together in certain parts of the river. Between Northampton and Peterborough the course of the Nen is extremely tortuous. "It would," says the report, "take a barge nearly three days to travel the sixty-one miles by water, while the railway can carry goods from Northampton to Peterborough in two hours." It is thus evident that rivers, whether navigable naturally or rendered so by art, must be regarded as water highways possessed of considerable disadvantages and drawbacks in respect to inland traffic when they are on the scale and of the type found in England. Dependent on the forces of Nature--ever active and ever changing--rivers must needs be the exact opposite of the fixed and constant railway line unless those forces can be effectually controlled under conditions physically practicable and not too costly. "Rivers," says L. F. Vernon-Harcourt, in his book on "Rivers and Canals," "are not always suitable for navigation, in their {157}natural condition, even in the lower portions of their course; and, owing to the continual changes taking place in their channels and at their outlets, they are liable to deteriorate if left to themselves." Left to themselves the English rivers, like the Roman and the British roads, were for a thousand years after the departure of the Romans, and the liability to deteriorate may well have shown itself during this period, before even the earliest of the River Improvement Acts was passed; though the deterioration due to the ceaseless operations of Nature may obviously continue in spite of all Acts of Parliament, and notwithstanding a great expenditure of money. The fate that has overtaken so many English rivers which once counted as highways of commerce may be compared with the fate that, also through the operation mainly of natural causes, has overtaken many of our once flourishing sea ports. When, in the thirteenth century, Liverpool was raised to the rank of a free borough, there were between thirty and forty places which, whether situated on the coast or some distance inland (as in the case of York), were counted as seaports. Their order of importance at that time is shown by the following table (taken from Baines's "History of Liverpool"), which gives the taxation then levied on each; though the amounts stated should be multiplied by fifteen to ascertain their equivalent in the money of to-day:-- £ s. d. London 836 12 10 Boston 788 15 3 Southampton 712 3 7 Lincoln 656 12 2 Lynn 651 11 11 Hull 344 14 7 York 175 8 10 Dunwich 104 9 0 Grimsby 91 15 1 Yarmouth 54 16 6 Ipswich 60 8 4 Colchester 16 8 0 Sandwich 16 0 0 Dover 32 6 1 Rye 10 13 5 Winchelsea 62 2 4 Seaford 12 12 2 Shoreham 20 4 9 Chichester 23 6 0 Exmouth 14 6 6 Dartmouth 3 0 6 Esse 7 4 8 Fowey 48 15 11 Pevensey 16 17 10 Coton 11 11 Whitby 4 0 Scarborough 22 14 0 Selby 17 11 8 Barton 33 11 2 Hedon 18 15 9 Norwich 6 19 10 Orford 11 7 0 {158}Of these ports the majority have ceased to be available for the purposes of foreign commerce. Dunwich, once a considerable town, the seat of a bishopric, and the metropolis of East Anglia, had its harbour and its royal and episcopal palaces swept away by encroachments of the sea. Hedon, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, returned two members of Parliament in the reign of Edward I., and was a more important centre of trade and commerce than Hull; but its harbour, getting choked up by sand, was converted into a luxuriant meadow, and the ports of Hull and Grimsby now reign in its stead. Sandwich, Romney, Hythe, all the Cinque ports except Dover, and various other ports, got choked up with sand, while others that have been able to retain a certain amount of traffic are to-day only the ghosts of their former selves. It is certain that in the case of English navigable rivers of any type, much might require to be done, and spent, in order to keep navigation open. With most of them it was a matter of carrying on an unceasing warfare with elemental conditions. Patriotic men like Sandys, Mathew and Yarranton might bring forward their schemes, companies might raise and spend much money on river navigation, and municipal corporations might do what they could, within the range of their means and powers; but the inherent defects and limitations of the navigation itself were not always to be overcome by any practical combination of patriotism, enterprise and generous expenditure even when--and this was far from being always the case--the requisite funds were actually available. Vernon-Harcourt is of opinion that "the regulation, improvement and control of rivers constitute one of the most important, and, at the same time, one of the most difficult, branches of civil engineering"; and this difficulty must have been found still greater in the last half of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries, when river improvement was engaging so much attention, but when civil engineering was far less advanced than is the case to-day. Whatever, too, the degree of success attained in the efforts made to overcome the results of floods and droughts, of shoals and shallows, of river mouths choked by sand washed in from the estuaries, of streams unduly broad from lack of {159}adequate embankments, and of ever-varying channels, whatever the energy and the outlay in meeting or trying to meet conditions such as these, there still remained the consideration that, even assuming all the difficulties in regulating, improving and controlling could be surmounted, river transport itself was an inadequate alternative to bad roads, (1) because of the length of the land journey that might have to be made before the river was reached; and (2) because even the best of the rivers only served certain parts of the country, and left undeveloped other districts which were unable to derive due benefit from their great natural resources by reason of defective communications. Each of these points calls for some consideration, in order that the position of the traders at the period in question may be clearly understood. In regard to the distance at which manufacturers might be situated from a navigable river, I would point to the position of the pottery trade in North Staffordshire. The pottery industry had been introduced into Burslem in 1690, though it made comparatively little progress until the time of Josiah Wedgwood, who began to manufacture there in 1759. One of the reasons for the slow growth, down to his day, was the trouble and expense the pottery-makers experienced in getting their raw materials and in sending away their manufactured goods. Following on the improvement of the Weaver, under the Act of 1720, there were three rivers of which the pottery-makers in North Staffordshire made more or less use--the Weaver itself, the Trent and the Severn. On the Weaver the nearest available point to the Potteries was Winsford Bridge, a distance of twenty miles by road. On the Trent the principal river-port for the Potteries was Willington, about four miles east of Burton-on-Trent, and over thirty miles by road from the Potteries. To the Severn inland ports the distances by road from the Potteries, via Eccleshall and Newport, were:-- From To Miles. Newcastle (Staff.) Bridgnorth 39 Burslem " 42½ Newcastle (Staff.) Bewdley 54 Burslem " 57½ {160}From Winsford the pottery-makers received, by pack-horse or waggon, supplies of clay which had been sent from Devonshire or other western counties by sea to Liverpool, and there transhipped in barges, in which it was sent twenty miles down the Weaver, thence to be carried twenty miles by road. From Willington they received flints which had been brought by sea, first to Hull, then forwarded by barge along the Humber to the Trent, and so on to Willington, to be carried thirty miles by road. Manufactured pottery for London or for the Continent was sent by road to Willington, and then along the Trent and the Humber to Hull, where it was re-shipped to destination. Exports were, also, despatched either to the Severn, along which they were taken in barges to Bristol, or via the Weaver to Liverpool. Concerning the Severn route it is stated in "The Advantages of Inland Navigation" (1766), by Richard Whitworth, afterwards M.P. for Stafford: "There are three pot-waggons go from Newcastle and Burslem weekly, through Eccleshall and Newport to Bridgnorth, and carry about eight tons of pot-ware every week, at 3l. per ton. The same waggons load back with ten tons of close goods, consisting of white clay, grocery and iron, at the same price, delivered on their road to Newcastle. Large quantities of pot-ware are conveyed on horses' backs from Burslem and Newcastle to Bridgnorth and Bewdley for exportation--about one hundred tons yearly, at 2l. 10s. per ton." The cost of land transport, along roads of the worst possible description, was considerable in itself. In a pamphlet published in 1765, under the title of "A View of the Advantages of Inland Navigations, with a Plan of a Navigable Canal intended for a Communication between the Ports of Liverpool and Hull" (said to have been written by Josiah Wedgwood and his partner, Bentley), it is stated that between Birmingham and London the cost of road transport amounted to about eight shillings per ton for every ten miles, but along the route of the proposed canal, and in many other places, the cost was nine shillings per ton for every ten miles. The pamphlet adds, on this particular point:-- "The burthen of so expensive a land carriage to Winsford and Willington, and the uncertainty of the navigations from those places to Frodsham, in Cheshire, and Wilden, in {161}Derbyshire, occasioned by the floods in winter and the numerous shallows in summer, are more than these low-priced manufactures can bear; and without some such relief as this under consideration, must concur, with their new established competitors in France, and our American colonies, to bring these potteries to a speedy decay and ruin." It was, again, as we further learn from Whitworth's little work, by the navigable Severn and Bristol that even Manchester manufacturers sent their goods to foreign countries in the days when Liverpool had still to attain pre-eminence over the south-western port. Every week, we are told, 150 packhorses went from Manchester through Stafford to Bewdley and Bridgnorth, these being in addition to two broad-wheel waggons which carried about 312 tons of cloth and Manchester wares in the year by the same route, at a cost of £3 10s. per ton. The distance, via Stafford, from Manchester to Bridgnorth is 84 miles; that from Manchester to Bewdley is 99 miles, and what the roads at this time were like we have already seen. The quantity of salt sent from Cheshire to Willington, to proceed thence along the Trent to Hull for re-shipment to London and elsewhere, is put in Josiah Wedgwood's pamphlet at "many hundred tons" a year. The navigable Trent was thus taken advantage of for the purposes of distribution; but to get to Willington from the Northwich or other salt works in Cheshire involved a road journey of about forty miles. Whitworth also gives much information as to what he calls the "amazing" development the iron industry had undergone along the Severn valley at the time he wrote (1766); and he more especially mentions that the total annual output of twenty-two furnaces and forges situate within a distance of four miles of the route of a canal he proposed should be constructed between Bristol, Liverpool, and Hull was £624,000--a figure which in those days appears to have been regarded as something prodigious. But the iron-works in question, though having the advantage of the navigable Severn in one direction, suffered from transport disadvantages in another, since their Cumberland ore (of which, says Whitworth, a very small furnace used at least 1100 tons a year) was brought down the Weaver to Winsford, in Cheshire, whence it had to be transported by road to the works on the Severn "at six {162}shillings per ton for a very small distance." On the basis of 52,780 tons only (though, we are told, "they frequently send iron to ... Chester and many other places at a great distance"), Whitworth calculates that the 32 forges in question were then paying a net sum of £32,500 a year for land transport, only, of the ore and pig-iron they received, and of the manufactured iron they sent away. "I have dwelt thus long," he says, in concluding his somewhat copious details, "upon the iron trade to show that no branch of manufacture can reap more immediate benefit from the making of these canals for navigation, or more sensibly feel the want of them when other ports of the Kingdom have them." Of coal, he further shows, some 12,000 tons a year were going from the Shropshire collieries to Nantwich, on the Weaver, at a cost of ten shillings per ton for land carriage only, apart from the supplementary cost of river transport. In the opposite direction the farmers of Cheshire and Staffordshire brought about 1000 tons of cheese annually, by road, to Bridgnorth fair--presumably for redistribution thence via the Severn among the various centres of population in the western counties, and also in Wales. The cheese was carried in waggons, and, on the basis of the journey taking, altogether, three or four days, Whitworth calculates that the cost to the farmers in getting the cheese to Bridgnorth must have been about thirty shillings for every two tons. One of the subsidiary disadvantages attendant on river transport of which mention should be made was the pilfering of goods that went on, more especially when the barges were stopped in the open country, perhaps for days together, by reason of shallow water. In "A View of the Advantages of Inland Navigations" it is said, on this point:-- "It is, also, another circumstance not unworthy of notice in favour of canals, when compared with river navigation, that as the conveyance upon the former is more speedy and without interruptions and delays, to which the latter are very liable, opportunities of pilfering earthen wares, and other small goods, and stealing and adulterating wine and spirituous liquors, are thereby in a great measure prevented. The losses, disappointments and discredit of the manufacturers, arising from this cause are so great that they frequently choose to send their goods by land at three times {163}the expense of water carriage, and sometimes even refuse to supply their orders at all, rather than run the risque of forfeiting their credit and submitting to the deductions that are made on this account. "We may also add, with respect to the potteries in Staffordshire, that this evil discourages merchants abroad from dealing with those manufacturers, and creates innumerable misunderstandings between them and the manufacturers." These complaints seem to have been made not without good cause. In 1751 it had been found expedient to pass an Act "for the more effectual prevention of robberies and thefts upon any navigable river, ports of entry or discharge, wharves or quays adjacent." Any person stealing goods of the value of forty shillings from any ship, barge, boat, or any vessel on any navigable river or quay adjacent thereto, was, on conviction, to _suffer death_! The penalty seems to have been modified into one of transportation; and in 1752 thirteen persons were convicted under the new Act, and sent across the seas. Many traders could not derive any advantage from river transport. This was the case with the cheese-makers of Warwickshire when they sought to compete with those of Cheshire, or, alternatively, with those of Gloucester, who could take their cheese by road to Lechdale or Crickdale, on the Thames, and send it down that river to London. "The Warwickshire Men," says Defoe, "have no Water Carriage at all, or at least not 'till they have carry'd it a long way by Land to Oxford, but as their Quantity is exceedingly great, and they supply not only the City of London but also the Counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Hertford, Bedford, and Northampton, the Gross of their Carriage is by mere dead Draught, and they carry it either to London by Land, which is full an hundred miles, and so the London cheese-mongers supply the said counties of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, besides Kent and Sussex and Surrey by Sea and River Navigation; or the Warwickshire Men carry it by Land once a Year to Sturbridge Fair, whence the Shopkeepers of all the Inland Country above named come to buy it; in all which Cases Land-carriage being long, when the Ways were generally bad it made it very dear to the Poor, who are the chief Consumers." {164}While, also, Bedfordshire was producing "great quantities of the best wheat in England," the wheat itself had to be taken, from some parts of the county, a distance of twenty miles by road to the markets of Hertford or Hitchin, whence, after being bought and ground into flour, it was taken on, still by road, a further distance of twenty-five or thirty miles to London. The farmers and millers of Bedfordshire were thus unable to enjoy the same advantages of river transport as were open to those on the Wey or the Upper Thames. In addition to all this, representations came from many different quarters of the neglect of natural advantages and other opportunities where means of transport apart from bad roads were wholly lacking. Numerous pamphlets issued in favour of one canal scheme or another pointed to the opportunities that were being lost or allowed to remain dormant. In, for example, "A Cursory View of the Advantages of an Intended Canal from Chesterfield to Gainsborough," published in 1769, it was said: "The country contiguous to Chesterfield abounds chiefly with bulky and ponderous Products, such as Lead, Corn, Timber, Coals, Iron-stones and a considerable Manufacture of earthen Ware, all of which have been for Ages past conveyed by Land, at a prodigious Expense." An advocate of a navigable canal between Liverpool and Hull had much to say about the undeveloped resources of that district. Whitworth declared that there were "many large mines of valuable contents," such as stone, iron ore, and marble, together with "quarries of various sorts," that would be "opened and set to work," if only inland navigation were better developed, while the cheapening of the cost of raw materials would, he declared, lead manufacturers to embark on new enterprises. Archdeacon Plymley told how, even at the date he wrote (1803), there was, in many of the midland and southern parishes of Shropshire, "no tolerable horse-road whatever," adding, "and in some that have coal and lime these articles are nearly useless from the difficulty of bringing any carriage to them." However substantial, therefore, the results to which the navigable rivers had led, it was found by the middle of the eighteenth century that there was real need for entirely new efforts, and these were now to be made in the direction of supplementing alike rivers and roads by artificial waterways. {165}CHAPTER XVI THE CANAL ERA The initiation, in the middle of the eighteenth century, of the British Canal Era was primarily due, not to any examples in canal construction already offered by the ancients, by the Chinese and other Eastern nations, or by Continental countries, but to a natural transition from certain forms of river improvement already carried out in England. I have shown, on page 131, that when, in 1661, Sir William Sandys obtained his Act for making the Wye and the Lugg navigable, he secured powers, not only for the usual deepening and embanking of the river itself, but for cutting new channels where these might be of advantage, in order to avoid windings of the stream or lengths thereof which offered exceptional difficulties to navigation. In proportion as river improvement increased, the adoption of these "side cuts," as they were called, with pound-locks to guarantee their water supply, was more and more resorted to, and they became one of the most important of the measures by which it was sought to overcome the difficulties that river navigation so often presented. In 1755 the Corporation of Liverpool and a number of merchants of that port obtained Parliamentary powers to deepen three streams flowing from the St. Helens coal fields and combining to form the Sankey Brook, which drains into the Mersey at a point two miles below Warrington. The promoters sought, by making the Sankey Brook navigable, to bring Liverpool into direct communication with the twelve or fourteen rich beds of coal existing in the St. Helens district of Lancashire, and thus to gain a great advantage for their town. For many generations the fuel consumed at Liverpool consisted mainly of peat, or turf, of which there were great quantities in Lancashire. At one time, says Baines, in his {166}"History of the Commerce and Town of Liverpool," the turbaries around the town were considered of great value. The Act passed in 1720 for the navigation of the Douglas had allowed of coal from the pits at Wigan being taken down that river to the Ribble estuary, and then along the coast to the Mersey estuary, and so on to Liverpool; but the advantage which would be offered by a shorter and safer route was obvious, and the Sankey Brook scheme was taken up with much earnestness. The original idea, that of making the brook itself capable of being navigated, was found to be impracticable. Not only did the stream wind a great deal, but after heavy rains on the surrounding hills the whole valley through which the brook ran was liable to floods, and these would have effectively stopped navigation so long as they continued. Happily the powers obtained by the promoters included one which allowed of "a side cut"; and the first plan was abandoned in favour of a canal separate from the brook, though cut parallel with it somewhat higher on the hillsides, where the floods would be less felt. The canal was to be provided with locks, overcoming the fall of 90 feet in twelve miles to the Mersey, together with a pound, fed by the brook, on the highest level, to ensure an adequate water supply. The immediate result of the construction of this pioneer canal was, not only to provide a convenient coal supply for Liverpool, but, also, in conjunction with the earlier rendering of the Weaver navigable, to put the salt industry of Cheshire in direct water communication with the Lancashire coal-fields. These advantages led (1) to a great expansion of the Cheshire salt industry; (2) to a substantial increase in the export of salt from Liverpool; and (3) to the ruin of the salt trade of Newcastle-on-Tyne, since, when the makers on the Weaver could readily get an abundance of coal, they, with their great natural stores of brine noted for its superlative quality and strength had a great advantage over the makers on the Tyne, who obtained their salt from the waters of the sea. It is thus incontestable that the Sankey Brook Canal both started the Canal Era and formed the connecting link between the river improvement schemes of the preceding 100 {167}years and the canal schemes which, themselves a great advance thereon, were to be substituted for them, only to be supplanted in turn by the still further development in inland communication brought about by the locomotive. All the same, it was the canals of Francis, Duke of Bridgewater, as constructed by James Brindley, a remarkable genius and a great engineer, which gave the main incentive to the canal movement. The chief purpose of the Bridgewater canals was to meet the deficiencies of the Mersey and Irwell navigation by providing new waterways, cut through the dry land, and carried across valleys and even over rivers without any connection with streams already navigable or capable of being rendered navigable,--an advance on the precedent established by the Sankey Canal. The Duke's first artificial waterway was from his collieries at Worsley to the suburbs of Manchester. His coal beds at Worsley were especially rich and valuable; but, although they were only about seven miles from Manchester, and although Manchester was greatly in need of a better coal supply for industrial and domestic purposes, it was practically impossible to get the coal carried thither from Worsley at reasonable cost. The seven-mile journey by bad roads was not to be thought of. The alternative was transport by the Mersey and Irwell navigation, which was, in fact, within convenient reach of the collieries. But the company of proprietors would not abate their full charge of 3s. 6d. per ton for every ton of coal taken along the navigation even in the Duke's own boats, and in 1759 the Duke obtained powers to construct an independent canal. Possessing no technical skill himself (though he is said to have been greatly impressed by what he had seen, in his travels, of the grand canal of Languedoc, in the south of France), he called in James Brindley to undertake the carrying out of his plans. Born in 1716, in the High Peak of Derbyshire, and apprenticed to a wheelwright whose calling he adopted, Brindley had been brought up entirely without school learning. Though in his apprenticeship days he taught himself to write, his spelling was so primitive that even in his advanced years he wrote--in a scarcely decipherable hand--"novicion" for navigation, "draing" for drawing, "scrwos" for screws, {168}"ochilor servey" for ocular survey, and so on. But he made up for his lack of education by being a perfect genius in all matters calling for mechanical skill, combining therewith a quickness of observation, a fertility of resource, and a power of adaptability which led to no problem being too great for him to solve, and no difficulty too great for him to overcome. Arthur Young, who had opportunities of judging of his work and character, speaks of his "bold and decisive strokes of genius," and tells of his "penetration, which sees into futurity, and prevents obstructions unthought of by the vulgar mind merely by foreseeing them." Under Brindley's direction the canal from Worsley to Manchester was duly constructed, and, though a professional engineer had derided, as "a castle in the air," Brindley's design of carrying the canal on a viaduct over the Irwell at Barton (in order to maintain the waterway at the same level, and so avoid the use of locks down one side of the river valley and up the other), the result showed that the new plan (sanctioned by a further Act obtained in 1760) was perfectly feasible, and had been carried out with complete success. To coal consumers in Manchester the new waterway meant that they could obtain their fuel at half the price they had previously paid, while to the Duke it meant that he now had a market for all the coal his collieries could produce. The canal from Worsley to Manchester was opened for traffic in July, 1761; but before the financial results of the one scheme had been established the Duke had projected another and still more ambitious scheme--that of a canal between Manchester and Liverpool, on the surveys for which Brindley started in September of the same year. The need for a further improvement in the transport conditions between Manchester and Liverpool was undeniable. The opening of the Mersey and Irwell navigation, under the Act of 1720, had been of advantage when bad roads were the only means of communication; but there were disadvantages in river transport which were now felt all the more because in forty years both Manchester and Liverpool had made much progress, and the necessity for efficient and economical transport between the two places was greater than ever. The Mersey and Irwell navigation followed, in the first place, a very winding course, the bends and turns being such {169}that the rivers took from thirty to forty miles to pass a distance of, as the crow flies, not more than twenty or twenty-five. Then the boats could not pass from Liverpool up to the first lock, above Warrington Bridge, without the assistance of a high tide, and they could only pass the numerous fords and shallows higher up the stream in great freshes or, in dry seasons, by the drawing of great quantities of water from the locks above. Alternatively, there might be an excess of water due to winter floods, and then navigation would be stopped altogether. Aikin, in referring to the navigation in the book he published in 1795, says: "The want of water in droughts, and its too great abundance in floods, are circumstances under which this, as well as most other river navigations, has laboured." He adds: "It has been an expensive concern, and has, at times, been more burthensome to its proprietors than useful to the public." Even in the most favourable conditions of tide or water supply, the boats had to be dragged up and down the stream by men, who did the work of beasts of burden until the construction of the rival waterway led to the navigation proprietors employing horses or mules instead. That there were great delays in the river transport, occasioning much loss and inconvenience to Manchester traders, will be easily imagined. As it happened, too, whether the navigation were burthensome to the proprietors or not, they took the fullest advantage they could out of their monopoly, at the expense of the traders. They maintained the highest rates in their power, and when goods were damaged in transit, or when serious losses were sustained through delays, they refused all redress. It is no wonder that, in all these circumstances, the Manchester merchants were often obliged to return even to the bad roads for their transport, and this although road carriage between Manchester and Liverpool cost forty shillings a ton, as against twelve shillings a ton by river. The traders of each town welcomed the Duke of Bridgewater's proposal to construct a competitive waterway which would be navigable at all times, independently of tides, of droughts and of floods, would be nine miles shorter than the rivers, and the tariff on which for the goods carried was not to exceed six shillings per ton. {170}Manchester residents were no less in need of improved communication than were the Manchester and Liverpool traders. Smiles, in his "Life of James Brindley," speaks of the difficulty experienced in supplying the increasing population with food, and says: "In winter, when the roads were closed, the place was in the condition of a beleaguered town, and even in summer, the land about Manchester itself being comparatively sterile, the place was badly supplied with fruit, vegetables and potatoes, which, being brought from considerable distances, slung across horses' backs, were so dear as to be beyond the reach of the mass of the population. The distress caused by this frequent dearth of provisions was not effectually remedied until the canal navigation became completely opened up." Nevertheless, the opposition offered to the Duke of Bridgewater's new scheme was vigorous in the extreme. His first project for taking the Worsley coals to Manchester by canal had gone through unopposed; but the second one, which seemed to threaten the very existence of the Mersey and Irwell navigation, put the proprietors thereof on their most active defence. Just as those having vested interests in the Idle and the Trent had opposed the improvement of the Don, so now did the river interests rise in arms against the canal interests, foreshadowing the time when these, in turn, would fight against the railways. "Not even," says Clifford, in his "History of Private Bill Legislation," "the battles of the gauges, or any of the great territorial struggles between our most powerful railway companies, were more hotly contested than the Duke of Bridgewater's attack in 1761-2 upon the monopoly of the Mersey and Irwell navigation." When the Duke applied for powers to construct his canal from Manchester to Runcorn, where it would connect with the Mersey, the proprietors of the Mersey and Irwell navigation petitioned against it on the ground that there was no necessity for the canal as the Mersey and Irwell navigation, with which it would run parallel, could convey more goods than the existing conditions of trade required; that the canal could confer no real advantage on the public; that the proprietors of the river navigation had spent over £18,000 thereon; that "great part of their respective fortunes" was at stake; that they had expended their money on the {171}navigation on the faith of their being protected by Parliament; and that for Parliament now to allow a canal to be established to compete with them would be a gross interference with their vested rights. Active opposition was also offered by landowners whose property was to be either taken for the canal or, as they argued, would be deteriorated by it in value; and still more opposition came from traders interested in the river navigation. The controversy of the pro-canal and anti-canal parties even got mixed up with politics, Brindley writing in his notebook that "the Toores mad had agane ye Duk" ("the Tories made head against the Duke"). But, in the result, the Duke got his Bill, and Brindley proceeded to make the canal. It proved to be a far more costly work than had been anticipated. In a total length of about twenty-four miles from Longford Bridge, Manchester (where it connected with the Worsley Canal), to Runcorn, it passed through a bog with a quicksand bottom; it crossed two rivers; it required numerous aqueducts, and it necessitated the provision of many road bridges and culverts, together with a flight of locks at Runcorn to overcome the difference between the canal level and the Mersey level, this being the first occasion on which locks of this kind had been constructed in England. Even the Duke of Bridgewater's ample fortune did not suffice to meet the expense of the costly work he had thus taken upon himself. There came a time when his means were exhausted, and he found the greatest difficulty in replenishing them. No one either in Liverpool or in Manchester would honour for him a bill for £500 on a then doubtful enterprise. There were Saturday nights when the Duke had not sufficient money to pay the men's wages, and when he had to raise loans of £5 or £10 from among his tenants. He reduced his personal expenditure to £400 a year, while the recompense that Brindley received from him for carrying out schemes which were to be the wonder of England and introduce a new era in locomotion never exceeded three-and-sixpence a day, and was more often only half a crown a day. The Duke eventually surmounted his financial difficulties by borrowing, altogether, £25,000 from Messrs. Child, the {172}London bankers, and the new canal was partly opened for traffic in 1767, although the Runcorn locks were not completed till 1773. The total amount spent by the Duke on his two canals was £220,000. In 1772 the Duke added to the usefulness of his Manchester-to-Runcorn canal by establishing passenger boats which could accommodate sixty passengers, and on which they were carried twenty miles for a shilling. He afterwards had larger boats, holding from 80 to 120 passengers, the fares on these being 1s., 1s. 6d. and 2s. 6d. per twenty miles, according to class. Each of these boats, says Macpherson, in his "Annals of Commerce," was "provided with a coffee house kept by the master; wherein his wife serves the company with wine and other refreshments." The effect of the new canal on the trade and commerce of Manchester and Liverpool was considerable. It diverted to Liverpool the stream of export traffic which had previously gone from Manchester via Bridgnorth and the Severn to Bristol; it enabled Manchester manufacturers to obtain raw materials more readily from Liverpool, to supplement the cheaper supplies of coal they were already obtaining from Worsley; and it opened up the port of Liverpool to a wider stretch of country than could otherwise benefit from the facilities thereof, to the advantage both of Liverpool itself and of industrial Lancashire, though other canal schemes, leading to like results, were to follow. Even before the Manchester and Runcorn Canal was opened for traffic, Brindley had started on a much bolder project. The new scheme was one for a canal connecting the Mersey with the Trent, and, also, with the Severn, thus opening up direct inland water communication between Liverpool, Hull and Bristol, and affording an alternative to road transport not only for the Potteries, but, by means of branch canals, for the industrial centres of Staffordshire and Worcestershire, then, as it were, more or less landlocked. In the same year (1755) in which the Bill for the construction of the Sankey Canal was obtained, the Corporation of Liverpool already had under consideration a scheme for a canal from the Mersey to the Trent; but no definite action was then taken, and it was left for private enterprise to carry {173}out the idea. The chief promoters were Earl Gower (ancestor of the Duke of Sutherland), the Duke of Bridgewater, the Earl of Stamford, Josiah Wedgwood, and various other landowners and manufacturers. Parliamentary powers were obtained in 1766, and the work of construction, as planned by Brindley, was begun at once. The name of "Grand Trunk" was given to the undertaking, the idea being that the waterway would form the main line of a system of canals radiating from it in various directions, and linking up the greater part of the country south of the Trent with the three ports mentioned. We have here the first suggestion of any approach to a real system of inland communication, as applying to the country in general, which had been attempted since the Romans made the last of their great roads in Britain. Apart from the natural limitations of navigable rivers, the turnpike roads so far constructed had been chiefly designed to serve local interests, and successive rulers or Governments had either failed to realise the importance of carrying out a well-planned scheme of inland communication, embracing a great part even if not the whole of the country, or had been lacking in the energy, or the means, to supply what had become one of the greatest of national wants. There was thus all the more credit due to the little group of far-sighted, enterprising and patriotic individuals whose names I have mentioned that they should themselves have undertaken work which was to have an important influence on the industrial and social conditions of the country. Yet the nature of the conditions under which the Trent and the Mersey section of the Grand Trunk system was made afforded an early example of the physical difficulties attendant on canal construction in England which were to be a leading cause of the decline of canals as soon as the greater advantages of the railway and the locomotive had been established. Canals were superior to rivers in so far as they could be taken where rivers did not go, and could be kept under control in regard to water supply without the drawbacks of floods or droughts, of high tides, or of being silted up by sand or mud. It is, indeed, reported that when, after he had made a strong pronouncement in favour of canals, James Brindley was asked by a Parliamentary Committee, {174}"Then what do you think rivers are for?" he replied, "To supply canals with water." On the other hand, water would not flow up-hill in canals any more than in rivers, and in the making and operation of canals there was, literally as well as figuratively, a great deal of up-hill work to do. Between the Mersey and the Trent there were considerable elevations which formed very difficult country for water transport. These elevations had to be overcome by the gradual rising of the canal, by means of locks, to a certain height, by the construction, at that point, of a tunnel through the hills, and by a fresh series of locks on the other side, to allow of a lower level being reached again. The rise of the Trent and Mersey Canal from the Mersey to the summit at Harecastle, near the Staffordshire Potteries, was 395 ft., a final climb of 316 ft. being made by means of a flight of thirty-five locks. Through Harecastle Hill there was driven a tunnel a mile and two-thirds in length, with a height of 12 ft. and a breadth of 9 ft. 4 in.[25] South of this tunnel the canal descended to the level of the Trent, a fall of 288 ft., by means of forty locks. In addition to this the canal, in its course of 90 miles, had to pass through four other tunnels and be carried across the river Dove by an aqueduct of twenty-three arches and at four points over windings of the Trent, which it followed to its junction therewith at Wilden Ferry. These engineering difficulties were successfully overcome by Brindley, and the canal was opened for traffic in 1777. The benefits it conferred on industry and commerce, having in view the unsatisfactory alternative means of transport, were beyond all question. English traders saw established across the island, from the Mersey to the Humber, a line of inland navigation which, apart from the long and tedious voyage round the coast, and, also, from the scarcely passable roads, was the first connecting link in our national history between the ports of Liverpool and Hull. But of even greater importance were the facilities for making use of either or both of these ports--the one on the west coast, and the other on the east coast--which were opened up to {175}manufacturers and traders in the midland districts, and especially when the Trent and Mersey Canal was supplemented by the Wolverhampton (now the Staffordshire and Worcestershire) Canal, connecting the Trent with the Severn; the Birmingham Canal; the Coventry Canal (which gave through navigation from the Trent via Lichfield and Oxford, to the Thames); and others. Of the many districts benefitted it was, perhaps, the Potteries that received the maximum of advantage. Fourteen years before the Trent and Mersey Canal was opened for traffic--that is to say, in 1763--Josiah Wedgwood perfected a series of improvements in the pottery industry which foreshadowed the probability of the manufacture of coarse pottery--already carried on in North Staffordshire for many years--developing into the production of wares of the highest excellence, for which a great market would assuredly be found not only throughout England but throughout the world. The one drawback to an otherwise very promising outlook lay in the defective communications. The roads were hopelessly bad and the navigable rivers were far distant. It was almost impossible to get sufficient clay for the purposes of raw material, and the cost and the risk of damage involved in long land journeys before the goods could be put on the water, for carriage to London or the Continent, almost closed those markets for the Staffordshire manufacturer. In 1760--three years before Josiah Wedgwood started his new era in pottery manufacture--the number of workers engaged in the industry did not exceed 7000 persons; and not only were they badly paid and irregularly employed but in their position of almost complete isolation from the rest of humanity they were, as Smiles puts it in his "Life of James Brindley," "almost as rough as their roads." They were ill-clad, ill-fed and wholly uneducated; they lived in dwellings that were little better than mud huts; they had to dispense with coal for fuel, since the state of the roads made its transport too costly for their scanty means; they had no shops, and for such drapery and household wares as they could afford to buy they were dependent on the packmen or the hucksters from Newcastle-under-Lyme. Their favourite amusements were bull-baiting and cock-fighting. {176}Any stranger who ventured to appear among such a people, devoid as they were of most of the attributes of civilisation, might consider himself fortunate if he escaped rough usage simply because he was a stranger. Of conditions such as those to be found in the Potteries at the period in question one gets some glimpses in William Hutton's "History of Birmingham" (1781). He tells of a place called Lie Waste, otherwise Mud City, situate between Halesowen and Stourbridge. The houses consisted of mud, dried in the sun, though often destroyed by frost. Their occupants, judging from the account he gives of them, could have been little better than scarcely-clad barbarians. Of a visit he paid to Bosworth Field in 1770 the same writer says:-- "I accompanied a gentleman with no other intent than to view the field celebrated for the fall of Richard the Third. The inhabitants enjoyed the cruel satisfaction of setting their dogs at us in the street, merely because we were strangers. Human figures, not their own, are seldom seen in those inhospitable regions. Surrounded with impassable roads, having no intercourse with man to humanize the mind, no commerce to smooth their rugged manners, they continue the boors of nature." How industry and improved communications may tend to civilise a people, as well as ensure economic advancement, was now to be shown in the case of the Potteries. Wedgwood's enterprise led to the employment of far more people; the better means of communication allowed both of the industry being greatly developed and of the introduction of refining influences into a district no longer isolated; and the combination of these causes had a striking effect on the material and the moral conditions of the workers. In giving evidence before a House of Commons Committee in 1785, eight years after the Mersey and Trent Canal was opened, Wedgwood was able to say that there were being employed in the Potteries at that time from 15,000 to 20,000 persons on earthenware manufacture alone--an increase of from 8000 to 13,000 in twenty-five years, independently of the opening of new branches of industry. Work was abundant, and the general conditions were those of a greatly enhanced comfort and prosperity. {177}Then, also, when John Wesley visited Burslem in 1760 he wrote that the potters assembled to laugh and jeer at him. "One of them," he says, "threw a clod of earth which struck me on the side of the head; but it neither disturbed me nor the congregation." In 1781 he went to Burslem again. On this occasion he wrote: "I returned to Burslem; how is the whole face of the country changed in about 20 years! Since which, inhabitants have continually flowed in from every side. Hence the wilderness is literally become a fruitful field. Houses, villages, towns, have sprung up, and the country is not more improved than the people." This actual experience of John Wesley's would seem to confirm the view expressed by Sir Richard Whitworth in the observations he offered to the public in 1766 on "The Advantages of Inland Navigation." It was, he argued, trade and commerce, and not the military force of the Kingdom, which could alone enrich us and enable us to maintain our independence; but there were millions of people "buried alive" in parts of the country where there were no facilities for transport, and where they had hitherto been "bred up for no other use than to feed themselves." What advantage would not accrue to the nation when these millions were brought into the world of active and productive workers! "Hitherto," he continued, "the world has been unequally dealt, and, though all the inhabitants of this island should have an equal right to the gifts of nature in the advantages of commerce, yet it has only happened to those who live upon the coasts to enrich themselves by it, while as many millions lie starving for want of opportunity to forward themselves into the world. Though the city, village, or country in which they live is at the lowest ebb of poverty it will, in a short time, by trade passing through it, alter its very nature and the inhabitants become, from nothing, as it were, to a very rich and substantial people; their very natural idea of mankind, and their rude and unpolished behaviour, will be altered and soothed into the most social civility and good breeding by the alluring temptations of the beneficial advantage of trade and commerce." The opening of the Grand Trunk and other canals connecting with it led to such reductions in the cost of carriage as are shown in the following figures, from Baines's "History {178}of Liverpool," where they are quoted as from "Williamson's Liverpool Advertiser" of August 8, 1777:-- COST OF GOODS TRANSPORT PER TON. BETWEEN BY ROAD. BY WATER. £ s. d. £ s. d. Liverpool and Etruria 2 10 0 0 13 4 " " Wolverhampton 5 0 0 1 5 0 " " Birmingham 5 0 0 1 5 0 Manchester and Wolverhampton 4 13 4 1 5 0 " " Birmingham 4 0 0 1 10 0 " " Lichfield 4 0 0 1 0 0 " " Derby 3 0 0 1 10 0 " " Nottingham 4 0 0 2 0 0 " " Leicester 6 0 0 1 10 0 " " Gainsborough 3 10 0 1 10 0 " " Newark 5 6 8 2 0 0 Thus the cost of transport by canal was in some instances reduced to about one-fourth of the previous cost by packhorse or road waggon. Under the new conditions the numerous manufactures in the Birmingham and Black Country districts obtained their raw materials much cheaper than they had done before, and secured much better facilities for distribution, the difference in cost in sending guns, nails, hardware, and other heavy manufactures from Birmingham to Hull by water instead of by road being in itself a considerable saving, and one likely to give a great stimulus to the industries concerned. Ores from the north were brought at less expense to mix with those of Staffordshire, and the iron-masters there were enabled to compete better with foreign producers. The manufacturers of Nottingham, Leicester and Derby were afforded a cheap conveyance to Liverpool for their wares. The fine ale for which Burton was famous had been sent to London by way of the Trent, the Humber and the Thames since, at least, the early part of the seventeenth century, and, exported from Hull, it had won fame for the Burton breweries in all the leading Baltic ports and elsewhere. It was now to be conveyed by water to the port of Liverpool, and find fresh or expanded markets opened out for it from the west coast, as well as the east. Cheshire salt obtained a better {179}distribution; the merchants both of Hull and of Liverpool could now send groceries and other domestic supplies throughout the midland counties with greater ease, and with much benefit to the people; while among still other advantages was one mentioned by Baines: "Wheat which formerly could not be conveyed a hundred miles, from corn-growing districts to the large towns and manufacturing districts, for less than 20s. a quarter, could be conveyed for about 5s. a quarter." The towns which had least cause for satisfaction were Bridgnorth, Bewdley and Bristol, the traffic that had previously gone by the long land route from the Potteries to the Severn, and so on to Bristol, being now diverted to Liverpool by the Grand Trunk Canal, just as the salt of Cheshire had been taken there on the opening of the Weaver navigation, and the textiles of Manchester on the completion of the Duke of Bridgewater's canal. These developments had, consequently, a further influence on the growth of the once backward port of Liverpool, and such growth was to be stimulated by the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Sanctioned by Parliament in 1769, six years before the Grand Trunk Canal was opened, the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was mainly designed to overcome the natural barrier, in the form of a chain of lofty hills, which separated Lancashire from Yorkshire, serving to isolate Liverpool and to keep back from her the flow of trade and commerce from industrial centres on the other side of the hills which should otherwise have regarded Liverpool as their natural port. The canal was further intended to open up more fully than had been done before the great coal-fields of Lancashire, ensuring a better distribution of their mineral wealth both to Liverpool and to the manufacturing towns of Lancashire; while, by connecting with the Aire at Leeds, the capital of the Yorkshire woollen industry, the canal was to provide another cross-country connection, by inland navigation, between Liverpool and Hull. The work of constructing the Leeds and Liverpool Canal included (1) the piercing of the Foulridge Hills by a tunnel, 1640 yards long, which alone took five years of constant labour; (2) an aqueduct bridge of seven arches over the {180}Aire; and (3) an aqueduct carrying the canal over the Shipley valley. The total length of navigation was 127 miles, with a fall from the central level of 525 ft. on the Lancashire side, and of 446 ft. on the Yorkshire side. The entire work of construction extended over 41 years, and the total cost was £1,200,000. The effect of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal on the industrial districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire was no less remarkable than the effect of the Grand Trunk Canal on the industries west or south of the Trent. When the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was formed there was, as Baines observes in his "Lancashire and Cheshire," not one town containing 10,000 inhabitants along the whole of its course from Liverpool to Leeds. With the improved facilities afforded for the conveyance of raw materials and manufactured goods from or to the port of Liverpool came a new era for the textile trades all along the route of the canal--and the now busy and well-populated towns of Wigan, Blackburn, Nelson, Keighley, Bradford and Leeds are indebted in no small degree for their industrial expansion to the better means of communication which the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, in the days when railways were still far off, opened up to them. Still another canal that was made in order to establish a line of communication west and east, and to serve important intermediate districts, was the Rochdale Canal, which starts from Manchester, rises by a succession of locks to a height 438 ft. above the Manchester level, and, fed on the hill summit by some great reservoirs, descends to the river Calder at Sowerby Bridge, the point from which that river is navigable to the Humber. Connection with the Calder, and thus with the cross-country navigation of which it formed a part, was also obtained by means of the Huddersfield Canal, a waterway twenty miles in length which, starting from Ashton, rises 334 ft., to the Saddleworth manufacturing district (situate in the wildest part of the Yorkshire hills), passes through a tunnel three miles long, and descends 436 ft. on the Huddersfield side in reaching the level of the Calder. The reader will have concluded from these references to other canals that, although the Duke of Bridgewater had {181}found a difficulty in raising the means with which to complete his canal to Runcorn, public confidence in canals must have been reassured, and ample money must have been forthcoming, to allow of these further costly and important schemes being undertaken. This conclusion is abundantly warranted. The position following the construction of the Bridgewater canals was thus described, in 1796, in "A Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation," by R. Fulton:-- "So unacquainted were the people with the use of canals, and so prejudiced in favour of the old custom of river navigations, that the undertaking was deemed chimerical, and ruin was predicted as the inevitable result of his Grace's labour.... Yet it was not long finished when the eyes of the people began to open; the Duke could work on his canal when floods, or dry seasons, interrupted the navigation of the Mersey; this gave a certainty and punctuality, in the carriage of merchandize, and ensured a preference to the canal; the emoluments arising to the Duke were too evident to be mistaken; and perseverance having vanquished prejudice, the fire of speculation was lighted, and canals became the subject of general conversation." The farming community, more especially, had looked with suspicion upon this new-fangled idea of sending boats across fields and up and down the hill-sides. The author of "A Cursory View of the Advantages of an Intended Canal from Chesterfield to Gainsborough" (1769) finds, however, a sufficient excuse for them in the conditions of locomotion and transport with which alone they had hitherto been familiar. He says:-- "Though this useful set of Men, the Farmers, will undoubtedly reap a Proportion of Advantages from the Execution of this beneficial Scheme, they are far from being satisfied, and seem to reflect upon it with many Doubts and Fears. Custom, indeed, and Occupation in Life, cast a wonderful Influence on the Opinions of all Mankind; it is therefore by no means surprizing that men, whose Forefathers, for Ages, have been inured to rugged and deep Roads, to wade after their Beasts of Burden up to the Knees in Mire, to see their loaded Waggons stick fast in Dirt; Men, who from their interior, inland Situation, are almost totally unacquainted with all Objects of Navigation; it is by no means strange, {182}that People, so unaccustomed, should consider an Attempt, to introduce a navigable Canal up to the Town of Chesterfield, and within the Air of the Peak-Mountains, with alarming Ideas, with Suspicion and Amazement." Another set of scruples was thus dealt with by Richard Whitworth--himself a canal enthusiast--in his "Advantages of Inland Navigation" (1766):-- "It has been a common objection against navigable canals in this Kingdom that numbers of people are supported by land carriage, and that navigable canals will be their ruin.... I must advance an alternative which would free the carrier from any fear of losing his employment on selling off his stock of horses, viz.:--That no main trunk of a navigable canal ought reasonably to be carried nearer than within four miles of any great manufacturing town, ... which distance from the canal is sufficient to maintain the same number of carriers, and employ almost the same number of horses, as usual, to convey the goods down to the canal in order to go to the seaports for exportation.... If a manufacturer can have a certain conveniency of sending his goods by water carriage within four miles of his own home, surely that is sufficient, and profit enough, considering that other people must thrive as well as himself, and a proportion of profit to each trade should be the biassing and leading policy of this nation." In some instances certain towns did succeed in maintaining a distance of several miles between themselves and the canals they regarded with prejudice and disfavour. They anticipated, in this respect, the action that other towns were to take up later on in regard to railways; and in the one case as in the other there was abundant cause for regret when the places concerned found they had been left aside, much to their detriment, by a main route of trade and transport. Other alarmists predicted the ruin of the innkeepers; protested against the drivers of packhorses being deprived of their sustenance; prophesied a diminution in the breed of draught horses; declaimed against covering with waterways land that might be better used for raising corn; and foreshadowed a detriment to the coasting trade that, in turn, would weaken the Navy, "the natural and constitutional bulwark of Great Britain"--this being a phrase which, {183}no doubt, was rolled out with great effect in the discussions that took place. The discovery, however, that canals were likely to be not only exceedingly useful but a profitable form of investment was quite sufficient to overcome all scruples, and even to give rise, in 1791-4, to a "canal mania" which was a prelude to the still greater "railway mania" of 1845-6. In the four years in question no fewer than eighty-one canal and navigation Acts were passed. So great had the eagerness of the public to invest in canal shares become that when, in 1790, the promoters of the Ellesmere Canal held their first meeting, the shares for which application was made were four times greater than the number to be issued. In 1792, when a meeting was held at Rochdale to consider the proposed construction of the Rochdale Canal, £60,000 was subscribed in an hour. In August, 1792, Leicester Canal shares were selling at £155, Coventry Canal shares at £350, Grand Trunks at the same figure, and Birmingham and Fazley shares at £1170. At a sale of canal shares in October, 1792, the prices realised included--Trent navigation, 175 guineas per share; Soar Canal (Leicestershire) 765 gs.; Erewash Canal, 642 gs.; Oxford Canal, 156 gs.; Cromford Canal, 130 gs.; Leicester Canal, 175 gs., and ten shares in the Grand Junction Canal (of which not a single sod had then been cut) at 355 gs. premium for the ten. The spirit of speculation thus developed led to the making of a number of canals which had no real prospect of remunerative business, were commercial failures from the start, and involved the ruin of many investors. Canals of this type are still to be found in the country to-day--picturesque derelicts which some persons think the State should acquire and put in order again because it is "such a pity" they are not made use of. Dealing with the general position as it was in 1803, Phillips wrote in his "General History of Inland Navigation" (4th edition):--"Since the year 1758 no less than 165 Acts of Parliament have received the royal assent for cutting, altering, amending, etc., canals in Great Britain, at the expense of £13,008,199, the whole subscribed by private individuals; the length of ground which they employ is 2896½ miles.... Of these Acts 90 are on account of collieries opened in their {184}vicinity, and 47 on account of mines of lead, ore, and copper which have been discovered, and for the convenience of the furnaces and forges working thereon." Among the more typical of the canals, in addition to those already mentioned, were--the Grand Junction Canal, connecting the Thames with the Trent, and thus with both the Mersey and the Humber; the Thames and Severn Canal; the Ellesmere, connecting the Severn with the Dee and the Mersey; the Barnsley Canal (of which Phillips says: "The beneficial effects of this canal, in a rich mineral country, hitherto landlocked, cannot fail to be immediately felt by miners, farmers, manufacturers and the country at large"); the Kennet and Avon (opening, according to the same authority, "a line of navigation, sixteen miles in length, over a country before very remote from any navigable river"); the Glamorganshire Canal ("has opened a ready conveyance to the vast manufactory of iron established in the mountains of that country"); the extensive network of the Birmingham Canal system; the Shropshire Union, which connects the Birmingham Canal with Ellesmere port, on the Mersey, and has branches to Shrewsbury, Llangollen, Welshpool and Newtown; and the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal. To the last-mentioned, constructed under an Act of Parliament passed in 1791, Baines alludes as follows in his "Lancashire and Cheshire":-- "The River Irwell flows directly down from Bury to Manchester, and the river Croal, which flows through Bolton, joins the Irwell between Bury and Manchester; but neither of these streams was considered available, by any amount of improvement that could be given to it, for the purposes of navigation. They are both of them very impetuous streams, occasionally sending down immense torrents of water, but at other times so shallow as not to furnish sufficient depth of water for the smallest vessels. Instead, therefore, of wasting time and money upon them, a canal was cut at a considerably higher level, but following the general direction of the river Irwell." The Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal was thus a further example of the resort to artificial canals, with water channels capable of regulation, in preference to further schemes for rendering rivers navigable. {185}How the situation brought about by the creation of the network of navigable waterways thus spread, or being spread, throughout the country was regarded by an impartial observer in the "Canal Mania" period is shown by the following comments thereon by Dr Aikin:-- "The prodigious additions made within a few years to the system of inland navigation, now extended to almost every corner of the Kingdom, cannot but impress the mind with magnificent ideas of the opulence, the spirit and the enlarged views which characterise the commercial interest of this country. Nothing seems too bold for it to undertake, too difficult for it to achieve; and should no external changes produce a durable check to the national prosperity, its future progress is beyond the reach of calculation. Yet experience may teach us, that the spirit of project and speculation is not always the source of solid advantage, and possibly the unbounded extension of canal navigation may in part have its source in the passion for bold and precarious adventure, which scorns to be limited by reasonable calculations of profit. Nothing but highly flourishing manufactures can repay the vast expense of these designs. The town of Manchester, when the plans now under execution are finished, will probably enjoy more various water-communication than the most commercial town of the Low Countries has ever done. At the beginning of this century it was thought a most arduous task to make a _high road_ practicable for carriages over the hills and moors which separate Yorkshire from Lancashire; and now they are pierced through by _three navigable canals_! Long may it remain the centre of a trade capable of maintaining these mighty works!" The day was to come, however, when it would be a question, not of the additions made to inland navigation justifying the expense incurred, but of the inherent defects of the said "mighty works," the increasing manufactures, and the introduction of still better methods of transport and communication giving to canals a set-back akin to that which they themselves had already given to navigable rivers. {186}CHAPTER XVII THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Contemporaneously with the canal period in England came an industrial revolution which was to place this country--hitherto distinctly backward in the development of its industries--at the head of manufacturing nations, but was, also, to show that, however great the advantages conferred by canals, as compared both with rivers and with roads, even canals were inadequate to meet the full and ever-expanding requirements of trade and transport. The main causes of this industrial revolution were--the application of a number of inventions and improved processes to leading industries; the incalculable advantages derived from steam power; the immense increase in the supplies of cotton, coal, minerals and other raw materials; the greater wealth of the nation, allowing of much more capital being available for industrial enterprises; and the improvement, not alone in inland communication, but in ship-building and the art of navigation, foreign markets being thus reached more readily at a time when the general political and economic conditions were especially favourable to the commercial expansion abroad which followed on our industrial expansion at home. Woollen manufactures, originally established here with the help of workers introduced from Flanders in the time of Edward III., had had a long pre-eminence, obtaining a vested interest which led to the advent of a new rival, in the form of cotton manufacturers, receiving, at first, very scanty encouragement. Woollens had made such progress that, even before the Restoration, a market was (as Dowell tells us) opened for our goods, not only in Spain, France, Italy and Germany, but also in Russia and Baltic and other ports, while they were carried by way of Archangel into Persia, and also made a market for themselves in Turkey. {187}A great part of England was turned into sheep farms for the production of wool, and by 1700 the value of woollen goods exported had risen to £3,000,000. At this time the import of raw cotton was only about 1¼ million lbs.[26] To such an extent had the woollen, and, also, the linen, industries been placed under the "protection" of the governing powers that until 1721 it was a penal offence in England to weave or sell calico--that is, a fabric consisting entirely of cotton; and down to 1774 anyone who made or sold a fabric having more than half its threads of cotton was liable to prosecution. Not until 1783 was the prohibition of British-made calicoes removed and the production in this country of all-cotton goods allowed by legislators who had been unduly solicitous of the welfare of British industry. When, in 1776, Adam Smith published his great work on "The Wealth of Nations," he certainly did state that Christopher Columbus had brought back from the New World some bales of cotton, and had shown them at the court of Spain; but he did not think it necessary to mention that a cotton industry had been started here, and was likely to contribute to the wealth of the United Kingdom. The imports of raw cotton slowly increased to 2,000,000 in 1720, and to 3,000,000 lbs. in 1751. In 1764, the year in which Hargreaves introduced the spinning jenny, they were still not higher than 4,000,000 lbs. But the successive inventions, during the course of about three decades, alike of Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, Cartwright and others gave such an impetus to the industry that by 1800 the importation of raw cotton (greatly facilitated by the further invention, in 1793, of Eli Whitney's appliance for separating cotton from the cotton seed) had risen to 52,000,000 lbs., while the value of all kinds of cotton products exported increased between 1765 and 1800 from £800,000 to £5,800,000. This rapid progress would not, however, have been possible but for the facilities for obtaining cheap power afforded by the condensing steam-engine of James Watt, who had taken out a patent for his invention in 1769, though it was not till 1776 that he built and sold his first engine, on which he further improved in 1781. Steam-power, of far greater force {188}and utility, and capable of being produced anywhere, thus took the place of the water-power, only available alongside streams, on which, as we have seen, the earlier success of the woollen industry, especially as carried on among the hills of Yorkshire, had been established. It was by water-power that the spinning machine so recently introduced by Sir Richard Arkwright was operated until James Watt had shown that steam could be used to better advantage. Then the setting up at Papplewick, Nottinghamshire, in 1785, of a steam-engine for the operation of cotton machinery marked, also, the decline of domestic manufactures and the advent of that factory system which was to bring about a complete transformation in the industrial conditions of the United Kingdom. Yet just as the improvements in cotton production would have been incomplete without the steam-engine, so, also, would the invention even of the steam-engine have been of little service but for an abundant supply of coal, and but, also, for the possession of a ready and economical means of moving the coal from the localities where it was to be found to those where it was wanted for the purposes of the "steam age" that was about to open. The greater demand for fuel and the increased facilities for supplying it led to the greater development of various inland coal-fields, in addition to those already long in operation in the Newcastle district, and having there the advantages of river and sea as an aid to distribution. The need, also, of coal for the operation of the steam-engine in the countless number of new industries or new works that followed on James Watt's improvements had an important influence on fixing the location of fresh industrial centres. Coal-mining, again, was powerfully accelerated in the same period by the iron industry, which itself was undergoing developments no less remarkable than those attending the expansion of the cotton industries, and having no less a bearing on the problem of efficient inland transport. Down to the year 1740 the smelting of iron-ores--an industry carried on here from very early days in our history--was done entirely with wood charcoal. For this reason the early seat of the iron industry was in the forests that, as already told, once covered so large an area in Sussex, Kent {189}and Surrey, and afforded what may, at one time, have appeared to be a practically limitless supply of fuel. The three counties in question thus attained to a high degree of industrial importance and prosperity at a time when Lancashire and Yorkshire were still regarded by dwellers in the south as inhabited by a scarcely civilised people. Lord Seymour, who was made by Henry VIII. Lord High Admiral of England, and ended his life on the scaffold in 1549, was the owner of iron-works in Sussex. The cannon and shot which Drake, Hawkins and Frobisher took with them on their ships were supplied by these southern foundries. Of the position of the industry in 1653, when there were 42 forges and 27 furnaces in the Weald of Sussex, the author of "Glimpses of our Ancestors in Sussex" says: "Sussex was then the Wales and the Warwickshire of England. Foreign countries sought eagerly for its cannon, its culverines and falconets.... Its richly decorated fire-backs and fantastic andirons were the pride of lordly mansions. London sent here for the railings that went round its great cathedral; Sussex ploughshares, speeds and other agricultural implements and hardware were sent all over the kingdom." Fears, however, had already been excited in Henry VIII.'s day that the continued destruction of forests, in order to supply the iron-works with fuel, would lead to a timber famine; and in Queen Elizabeth's reign such a prospect, foreshadowing a shortage of timber for shipbuilding purposes at the very time when a conflict with Spain was regarded as inevitable, was looked upon as involving a possible national disaster. A subsidiary complaint against the industry was that the traffic to and from the iron-works injured the roads. Legislation was therefore passed prohibiting, under severe penalties, any increase in the number of iron-works in the three counties mentioned, except on land already occupied or able to furnish of itself a sufficient supply of timber. Exportation of iron was also prohibited, and it was even considered good policy to import iron, rather than to make it, and so preserve the still available timber for other purposes. By the early part of the eighteenth century the iron industry, after exhausting the timber supplies of Sussex, had disappeared from that county; but it flourished in Shropshire, where it found both fuel and iron-stone in the Forest {190}of Dean, while the Severn provided water-power and inland navigation. The industry was also carried on in Staffordshire; and here, in the reign of James I., some important experiments were made in the direction of using coal instead of wood in the manufacture of iron; but this idea was not fully developed until Abraham Darby had shown, in 1735, how coke, in combination with a powerful blast, could be substituted for wood. What is regarded as the real turning-point in the iron industry followed in 1760, when Dr Roebuck built, at the Carron works, his new type of blast furnace, in which coke was to be used. An impetus was thus given to the industry, and an impetus it certainly needed, inasmuch as the production of iron in the United Kingdom had sunk in 1740 to 17,350 tons. Then, in 1783, Henry Cort, of Gosport, patented his process for converting pig-iron into malleable iron through the operation of "puddling" in a common air-furnace consuming coal, and in 1784 he patented a further process for turning malleable iron into bars by means of rollers instead of forge hammers. These further inventions were of much service; but the greatest advance of all followed on the application of steam to iron-making, as one of the many results of James Watt's achievements. Steam enabled the manufacturers to get a far more powerful blast in the new furnaces, at a consumption of about one-third less of coal, than had been possible in the process of smelting carried on with the help of water-power. The use, also, of coal instead of timber for fuel, and of steam-power in place of water-power, made the iron-masters independent both of the forests and of the rivers of southern England, and led to the further expansion of the iron industry being transferred to such districts as Staffordshire, the north-east coast, Scotland and South Wales, where the now all-important coal could be obtained no less readily than the iron-ore. So the migration of some of the greatest of our national industries from south to north, begun by the streams on Yorkshire hills, was completed by the steam-engine of James Watt. The effect on the iron industry itself of the improvements in manufacture was prodigious. The 17,350 tons of iron which were alone produced in 1740 came from 59 furnaces, {191}using charcoal only. In 1788 the number of furnaces had increased to 85, and the output to 68,300 tons, of which 55,200 tons had been produced by coke, and only 13,100 tons by charcoal. In 1796, when the charcoal process had been almost entirely given up, the number of furnaces was 121 (in England and Wales 104; in Scotland 17), and the production was 124,879 tons. In this same year Pitt proposed to put a tax on coal, and the following year he sought to impose one on pig-iron; but a taxing of raw material was not to be tolerated, and he had to abandon each project. Adding to these details corresponding figures for other years in the Canal Era, we get the following table:-- Iron Furnaces and Production in England, Wales and Scotland. Year. Number of furnaces. Production (tons). 1740 59 17,350 1788 85 68,300 1796 121 124,879 1802 168 170,000 1806 227 250,000 1820 260 400,000 1825 374 581,367 This great increase in the output of iron meant, also, a considerable expansion in the engineering trades of the country in general, in the hardware trades of Birmingham, in the cutlery trade of Sheffield, and in many other trades besides. It led to the opening up of new centres of activity and industry in addition to a greater aggregation of workers in centres already established; while the combined effect on the coal industry itself of all these developments is well shown by the following figures, giving the output of coal in the United Kingdom, for the years mentioned, as estimated by the Commissioners of 1871:-- YEAR. TONS. 1700 2,612,000 1750 4,773,828 1770 6,205,400 1790 7,618,728 1795 10,080,300 {192}The rapid expansion in the last half of the eighteenth century of the various industries here mentioned, and of many others besides, led to a corresponding growth in the industrial towns; and this, in turn, meant an increase in the wants of the community, and the opening up of new and even huge markets for agricultural produce. Such produce, also, was now obtainable in greater quantity owing to the fact that more land was being brought under cultivation. In 1685 it had been estimated that there were in England about 18,000,000 acres of fen, forest and moorland. Of this total 3,000,000 acres had been brought under cultivation before 1727. But from that time many enclosure Acts were passed, no fewer than 138 becoming law between 1789 and 1792; and, though it by no means follows that all the land so enclosed was actually cultivated, the greater opportunities opening out to agriculture when more and more workers were being collected into factories and manufacturing districts, and becoming more and more dependent on others for food supplies which, under the old conditions of life and industry, people grew for themselves, were beyond all question, while agricultural production was itself advanced by the supply of those better and cheaper aids to husbandry which followed on the improvements in iron manufacture. To meet the enormously increased demands for the transport alike of raw materials, of manufactured articles and of domestic supplies in the period of industrial revolution which thus began to develop about the middle of the eighteenth century, something more was wanted than rivers, offering uncertain navigation, and only available in particular districts, and highways deplorably bad in spite of Turnpike Acts and much wasteful expenditure, another half-century having still to elapse before Telford showed the country how roads should be made, and McAdam told how they should be mended. In these circumstances, and during the period here in question, it was canals that were mainly looked to as a means of supplying the transport requirements then growing at so prodigious a rate. Invention and production had already far surpassed the means of efficient distribution. England was on the eve of the greatest industrial expansion of any country in Europe; but she was starting thereon with probably the worst means of inland transport of any country in {193}Europe. Canals appeared to be the one thing needed; and every fresh canal constructed was heralded with joy because it foreshadowed, among other things, better trade, more employment, higher wages, cheaper fuel and provisions, and less of the isolation from which many a land-locked community was suffering. Some of the accounts given by Phillips, in his "General History of Inland Navigation," of the opening of various canals afford interesting evidence of the satisfaction with which the populace greeted the new waterways. I give a few examples:-- "1798.--The Herefordshire and Gloucestershire canal from Gloucester to Ledbury is completed; the opening of this navigation took place on the 30th of March, when several of the proprietors and gentlemen of the committee embarked ... in the first vessel freighted with merchandise consigned to Ledbury, which was followed by three others laden with coal. They passed through the tunnel at Oxenhall, which is 2192 yards in length, in the space of 52 minutes.... Both ends of the tunnel, as well as the banks of the canal, were lined with spectators, who hailed the boats with reiterated acclamations. It is supposed that upwards of 2000 persons were present on their arrival at Ledbury.... The advantages which must result from this inland navigation to Ledbury and the adjoining country are incalculable. In the article of coal the inhabitants of this district will reap an important benefit by the immediate reduction in price of at least 10s. per ton. Coals of the first quality are now delivered at the wharf, close to Ledbury, at 13s. 6d., whereas the former price was 24s. per ton." "1799.--The new canal from Sowerby-bridge to Rochdale was lately opened for business. The Travis yacht first crossed the head level, decorated with the Union flag, emblematical of the junction of the ports of Hull and Liverpool, with colours flying, music playing, attended by the Saville yacht, and thousands of spectators; a display of flags on the warehouses, and sound of cannon, announced to the rejoicing neighbourhood the joyful tidings, which in the evening were realised by the arrival of several vessels, laden with corn and timber." "1800.--The Peak Forest canal ... was opened on the {194}1st of May. The completion of this bold and difficult undertaking, through numerous hills and valleys, precipices and declivities, is an object of general admiration." Yet in these same records--published in 1803--and among his accounts of the crowds, the flags, the music and the cannon that had then so recently welcomed the opening of still more canals, Phillips tells of an innovation destined eventually to supplant the canal system by reason of advantages which he himself seems to have recognised, though he naturally did not then anticipate all that was to follow. The said innovation is thus recorded by him under date "1802":-- "The locks, canal and basin, from which the Surrey iron rail-way now in agitation, is to commence at Wandsworth, have been lately opened and the water admitted from the Thames. The first barge entered the lock amidst a vast number of spectators, who rejoiced at the completion of this part of the important and useful work. The ground is laid out for the rail-way, with some few intervals, all the way to Croydon; and the undertakers are ready to lay down the iron; it is expected to be ready by midsummer. "N.B. The iron rail-ways are of great advantage to the country in general, and are made at an expense of about 300l. per mile. The advantage they give for the conveyance of goods by carts and waggons, seems even to surpass, in some instances, those of boat carriage by canals." So we come to the story of the railway, which had, however, been undergoing development, from very primitive conditions, for a considerable period even prior to this notable event on the banks of the Thames in 1802. {195}CHAPTER XVIII EVOLUTION OF THE RAILWAY The early history of the railway is the early history of the English coal trade. Down to the sixteenth century the fuel supply of the country alike for manufacturing and for domestic purposes was derived almost exclusively from those forests and peat-beds that once covered so large a portion of the area of the British Isles. Coal was not unknown, though it was then called "sea-coal," a name distinguishing coal from charcoal, and given to it because the fact of the earliest known specimens being found on the shores of Northumberland and of the Firth of Forth--where there are outcrops of the coal measures--led to the belief that the black stone which burned like charcoal was a product of the sea. The name was retained, as an appropriate one, when coal was brought to London by sea from the north. Coal is known to have been received at various dates during the thirteenth century in London (which then already had a Sacoles, or Sea-coal, Lane), in Colchester, in Dover and in Suffolk; but it was used mainly by smiths and lime-burners; and it was used by them still more when the construction of feudal castles and ecclesiastical buildings in and following the Norman period called for work not to be done efficiently with fires of wood or charcoal. The use of coal as fuel for domestic purposes remained, however, extremely limited. Unlike wood and charcoal, coal was not suitable for burning in the centre of rooms then unprovided with chimneys, while coal smoke was regarded as an intolerable nuisance, and as seriously detrimental to health. It was on these grounds that when, in the fourteenth century, brewers, dyers and others in London were found to be using coal, a Royal Proclamation was issued interdicting its use by any person not a smith or a lime-burner, and appointing a {196}commission of Oyer and Terminer to see to the punishment of all offenders. For a further considerable period the use of coal continued very partial; but in the sixteenth century great uneasiness began to be felt at the prospective exhaustion of the timber supplies of the country, and various enactments were passed with a view to checking the destruction of the forests. Great attention began to be paid to the use of sea-coal as a substitute for wood, and an improvement in domestic architecture led to a more general provision of fire-places with chimneys, thus allowing of a resort to coal fires for domestic purposes. Chimneys began to appear, in fact, in numbers never seen before. Harrison, writing in 1577, grieves over the innovation of coal fires, and recalls the good old times of wood and peat when, as he touchingly says, "our heads did never ake." Queen Elizabeth retained the prejudice against sea-coal, and would have none of it. Ladies of fashion, sharing, as loyal subjects, her Majesty's objections, would, in turn neither enter a room where coal was burning nor eat of food cooked at a coal fire. But James I., whose ancestors had long favoured coal fires in Scotland--and, it may be, thus made themselves responsible for the name of "Auld Reekie" conferred on Edinburgh--had coal brought for fires in his own rooms in Westminster Palace. When this fact became known Society changed its views, and decided that the hitherto obnoxious sea-coal might be tolerated, after all. Howes, writing in 1612, was then able to speak of coal as "the generall fuell of this Britaine Island." In the result, and especially following on the development in trade and industry which came with the Restoration, there was a great increase in the demand for coal. In 1615 the coal fleet engaged in the transport of sea-coal to London, and other ports on the east and south-east coasts--where fuel was scarcest--comprised (as stated in "A History of Coal Mining in Great Britain," by Robert L. Galloway) 400 vessels. In 1635, or only twenty years later, the number had increased to between 600 and 700, and by 1650, or thereabouts, the total had further risen to 900 vessels, these figures being exclusive of the foreign fleets carrying coal to France, Holland and Germany. {197}The collieries that were more especially required to meet this increased demand were those in the immediate neighbourhood of the Tyne, since they offered the advantages of thick seams of coal of excellent quality and close alike to the surface and to a navigable river. The proportions to which the industry had already attained in the year 1649 are shown by Grey, in his "Chorographia, or a Survey of Newcastle-upon-Tine," where he says: "Many thousand people are imployed in this trade of coales: many live by working of them in pits: many live by conveying them in waggons and waines to the river Tine.... One coal merchant imployeth five hundred or a thousand in his works of coal." The one great difficulty in the way of development lay in the trouble experienced in getting the coal from the pit-banks to the river for loading into the keels, or barges, by which it would be conveyed to the sea-going colliers lying below the bridge at Newcastle. The established custom was to send the coal to the river by carts, or wains, or even in panniers slung across the backs of horses; and in Robert Edington's "Treatise on the Coal Trade" (1813) mention is made of various collieries which had up to 600 or 700 carts engaged in this service. Inasmuch, however, as the art of road-making in general was then still in its elementary stage, one can well imagine that, with all this traffic along them, the roads between the collieries and the Tyne must have been in a condition that added greatly both to the difficulties and to the cost of transport. Nicholas Wood, in his "Practical Treatise on Rail-roads" (1825), gives an extract, dated 1602, from the book of a Newcastle coal company, showing that "from tyme out of mynd" the coal carts had brought eight bolls--equal to about 17 cwt.--of coal to the river; but added that "of late several hath brought only, or scarce, seven," a fact sufficiently suggestive of the deplorable state to which the colliery roads had been reduced even at the opening of a century that was to bring about so great an increase in the demand for coal. Bad as the position was for the collieries located near to the Tyne, it was worse for those situate at any distance from the river, since, under the road conditions then prevailing, it was practically impossible for the owners of the latter collieries to get their coal to the river at all, or to secure {198}any share in a trade offering such great opportunities and undergoing such rapid expansion. The coal had but a nominal value so long as it could not be got away from the pit-banks. The first attempt to overcome the difficulties of the situation was in the direction of laying parallel courses of stone or wood for the waggon wheels to run upon; but here we have the equivalent of a partially-paved roadway rather than of actual rails. The latter came when the parallel wheel-courses of wood were reduced to what William Hutchinson, in his "View of Northumberland" (1778), calls "strings of wood," for the accommodation of "large unwieldy carriages or waggons." Nicholas Wood says that these wooden rails had a length of about six feet, and were five or six inches in thickness, with a breadth of about the same proportions. They were pegged down to sleepers placed across the track at a distance of about two feet apart, so that one rail reached across three sleepers. The spaces between the sleepers were filled in with ashes or small stones, to protect the feet of the horses. The waggons were in the form of a hopper, being much broader and longer at the top than at the bottom. At first all four wheels of the waggon were made either of one entire piece of wood or of two or three pieces of wood fastened together, the rim, in either case, being so shaped as to have on one side a projection, or flange, which would keep the wheel on the rails. This, then, was the earliest example of a _railway_--the fundamental principle of which is, of course, the use of _rails_ to facilitate the drawing or the propulsion of a moving body, and not the particular form of motive power (however great the importance, in actual practice, of this matter of detail) by which the traction is secured. The date of the first "rail-way" (so called) in the form described, and in accordance with the principle mentioned, is uncertain; but Galloway, in his "History of Coal Mining," mentions a document dated 1660 which refers to a sale of timber used in the construction of waggon-ways; while Roger North, writing in 1676, describes the then existing railways in terms which suggest that they were, at that date, a well-established institution. Speaking generally, therefore, one may assume that the pioneer rail-ways were brought {199}into operation somewhere about the middle of the seventeenth century--if not still earlier. Taking 1650 as an approximate date, this would mean that the first rail-way must have been made about one hundred and eighty years before the opening of that Liverpool and Manchester line with which the history of railways is often assumed to have begun. Hutchinson speaks of the collieries on the Tyne as being, at the time he wrote (1778), "about twenty-four in number," and he further says of them that they "lie at considerable distances from the river." On account of these considerable distances the colliery managers had to secure way-leaves for their rail-ways from the owners of intervening land, so as to obtain access to the Tyne. Thus Roger North, in the account he gives of the railways in the Newcastle district, says: "When men have pieces of land between the collieries and the rivers, they sell leave to lead coals over their ground, and so dear that the owner of a rood of ground will expect 20l. per annum for this leave." In some instances the total payment for a way-leave seems to have amounted to £500 a year. Statutory powers were not required for the rail-ways so long as they were used only for private purposes, though when they crossed a public road the assent of the local authorities was necessary. The rails, sleepers and wheels, all of wood, came mostly from Sussex or Hampshire, and the writer of an article on the Tyne railways, published in the "Commercial and Agricultural Magazine" for October, 1800, speaks of the use on them of so much timber as "the more extraordinary" because the necessities of the coal mines had previously "used up every stick of timber in the neighbourhood," so that "the import from returning colliers (coal-ships) was the sole resource." Such import, also, would appear to have been considerable, the making of wooden rail-ways on the north-east coast being the means of developing an important industry in rails and wheels in the southern counties. One of the importers on the Tyne was William Scott, father of Lords Stowell and Eldon, and his "Letters," included in M. A. Richardson's "Reprints of Rare Tracts" (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1849), give some interesting details on the subject. Scott, in addition to being himself engaged in mining, acted as agent for southern producers of wooden rails and {200}wheels for colliery rail-ways; and his letters show that in and about the year 1745 the consignments were coming to hand in "immense quantities." Scott seems to have had great trouble in restraining the zeal of the southerners. He tells one correspondent that "Wheels are at present a great drug from so many yt. came last year. Rails will be wanted, but the people pays so badly for them that wo^d weary eny body to serve them." To another he says: "I find the best oak rails will scarcely give 6d. p yd this year." To correspondents at Lyndhurst, New Forest, he writes: "I fancy the dealers in wn. wheels will expect to have wheels soon 'em given, if such great numbers continue coming." Mr West, of Slyndon, near Arundel, Sussex, is told that not more than five shillings can be got for the best wooden wheels, and that "dealers are so full that they have not room for any wheels." On March 27, 1747, Scott writes concerning wheels: "No less than about 2000 com'd within these 14 days from Lyndhurst consign'd to different people"; and two months later he announces that he has resolved to receive "no more such goods as wooden wheels, rails and such like from anybody." Most of the Tyne collieries were at a higher level than the river, and in the construction of the rail-ways it was sought to obtain a regular and easy descent, regardless of route or distance, to the "staith," or shipping-stage, from which the coal would be loaded either into the keels (barges) employed to take it along the river to the colliers, or, in the case of longer distance rail-ways, direct into the collier itself, the bottom of the waggons being made after the fashion of a trap-door to facilitate discharge. Gradual descent was further aimed at because it allowed of the loaded waggons moving along the rail-way by reason of their own weight. How this prototype both of the railway and of express trains as known to us to-day was operated is well shown in a "Description of a Coal-Waggon," with an accompanying illustration, contributed to the "General Magazine of Arts and Sciences" for June, 1764, by John Buddie, of Chester-le-street, Durham, who subsequently became manager of the Wallsend Colliery. In the illustration a horse is depicted drawing, by means of two ropes fastened to its collar, a loaded four-wheeled coal waggon along a rail-way preceded by a man who, having a bundle of hay underneath one arm, {201}holds some of the hay a few inches in front of the horse so that the animal, stretching forward to get the hay, draws along the waggon more readily. Buddle explains that the waggon is "conducted or drove by a single man, called the Waggon-man, whose most common action on the road is, inticing the horse forward with a bit of hay in his hand, which he supplies from under his arm, a quantity of hay sufficient for a day being kept in the Hay-poke," that is, in a receptacle at the back of the waggon. Suspended over one of the hind wheels is a "convoy," or brake, formed of a curved and strong-looking piece of wood (described in the text as alder-wood), which is attached at one end to the waggon, and held in a loop at the other. "Its use," says Buddle, "is to regulate the motion of the waggon down the sides of the hills (called by the waggon men runs) making it uniform.... The waggon-man, taking the end out of the loop, lets it down upon the wheel, and, placing himself astride upon the end, with one foot on the waggon-soal he presses more or less, according to the declivity of the run; the Convoy acting at that time as a leaver." Buddle further says: "Waggon men, in going down very steep Runs, commonly take their horses from before, and fasten them behind their waggons,[27] as they would inevitably be killed was the convoy to break (which frequently happens) or any other accident occasion these waggons to run _amain_. Nor is this fatal consequence attendant only on the horses, but the drivers often receive broken bones, bruises, and frequently the most excruciating deaths. Indeed, in some places, a most humane custom is established, which is, when any waggon-man loses his horse, the other Waggon-men go a Gait for the poor sufferer, which is little out of their profits, and purchase him another horse." About 1750, according to Nicholas Wood, cast-iron wheels were introduced; but in 1765 wooden wheels were still mostly used at the back of the waggon, to allow of the convoy getting a better grip when the waggon was going, by its own {202}weight, down an incline; though even then the danger of accident was, as Buddle's observations suggest, sufficiently grave. On this same point it is said by T. S. Polyhistor, in a "Description of a Coal Waggon," given in the "London Magazine" for March, 1764:-- "They commonly unloose the horse when they come to the runs, and then put him too again when down; the reason of their taking him off at such places is because, were the convoy to break, it would be impossible to save the horse from being killed, or if the waggon-way rails be wet sometimes a man cannot stop the waggon with the convoy and where the convoy presses upon the wheel it will fire and flame surprisingly; many are the accidents that have happened as aforesaid; many hundred poor people and horses have lost their lives; for was there ever so many waggons before the waggon that breaks its convoy and has not got quite clear of the run, they are all in great danger, both men and horses, of being killed." Polyhistor also states that the quantity of coal one of these waggons would draw on the rails was 19 "bolls," or "bowls," as he calls them. This gave a load of about 42 cwt. of coal, as compared with the load of 17 cwt., or less, to which the waggons on the ordinary roads at the collieries had been reduced. The advantage from the point of view of transport was obvious; but no less certain, also, was the risk to life and limb when a waggon with over two tons of coal was allowed to run down an incline checked only by a primitive wooden brake, with a man seated on one end of it to press it against a wheel. In wet weather boys or old men were employed to sprinkle ashes on the rails; but there were times when the rail-ways having a steep descent could not be used at all. Introduced on the Tyne, the rail-way was adopted in 1693 by collieries on the Wear, and it also came into vogue in Shropshire and other districts. In 1698 a rail-way was set up on Sir Humphry Mackworth's colliery at Neath, Glamorganshire; but after it had been in use about eight years it was condemned by a grand jury at Cardiff as a "nuisance," and the portion crossing the highway between Cardiff and Neath was torn up. In a statement presented, rebutting the allegation of the grand jury, it was said: "These waggon ways are {203}very common and frequently made use of about Newcastle and also at Broseley, Benthal and other places in Shropshire, and are so far from being nuisances that they have ever been esteemed very useful to preserve the roads, which would be otherwise made very bad and deep by the carriage of coal in common waggons and carts." The Tyneside colliery rail-way was, in fact, widely adopted; though it underwent many improvements long before there was any suggestion of operating the new form of traction by means of locomotives. The first improvement on the original wooden rail pegged on to the sleepers was the fastening on it of another rail, in order that this could be removed, when worn down, without interfering with the sleepers. This arrangement was known as the "double way"; and Nicholas Wood says of it: "The double rail, by increasing the height of the surface whereon the carriage travelled, allowed the inside of the road to be filled up with ashes or stone to the under side of the upper rail, and consequently above the level of the sleepers, which thus secured them from the action of the feet of the horses." He adds that on the first introduction of the double way the under rail was of oak, and afterwards of fir, mostly six feet long, and reaching across three sleepers, and was about five inches broad on the surface by four or five inches in depth. The upper rail was of the same dimensions and almost always made of beech or plane tree. The next improvement was the nailing of thin strips, or "plates," of wrought iron on to the double rail wherever there was a steep descent or a considerable curve, thus diminishing the friction. These "plates" were about two inches wide and half an inch thick, and they were fastened on to the wooden rails with ordinary nails. They constituted the first step towards the conversion of wooden rail-ways into an iron road, and Nicholas Wood thinks it very likely that the diminution of friction resulting from their use may have suggested the substitution of iron rails for wooden ones. Cast-iron rails began to come into use about 1767. Their brittleness was, at first, found to be a great disadvantage; but this defect was subsequently overcome, to a certain extent, by the use of smaller waggons, which allowed of a better distribution of weight over the rail. Then in or about {204}1776 "plates" or "rails" (the two expressions seem to have been used somewhat indiscriminately) were cast with an inner flange, from two to three inches high, so that waggons with ordinary wheels could be taken upon them and be kept on the plate, or rail, by means of this flange. John Curr, manager of the Duke of Norfolk's collieries, near Sheffield, who claimed to have invented these flanged "plates," describes them in his "Coal Viewer and Engine Builder's Practical Companion" (1797), as being six feet long, three inches broad, half an inch thick, from 47 lbs. to 50 lbs. in weight, and provided with nail holes for fastening them direct on to oak sleepers. Lines so constructed became known as "plate-ways," "tram-ways," or, alternatively, "dram-ways." The derivation of the words tram and tramway has given rise to a certain amount of discussion from time to time, and the fallacy that they come from the name of Benjamin Outram, of the Ripley iron-works, Derbyshire, who, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, advocated the flanged-plate system of rail-way, has been especially favoured. It was, however, merely a coincidence that "tram" formed part of his name, and this popular theory here in question is quite unfounded. The real origin of "tram" is indicated, rather, by the following list of possible derivations, which I take from Skeat's "Etymological Dictionary":-- Swedish: Tromm, trumm, a log, or the stock of a tree; also a summer sledge. Middle Swedish: Tråm, trum, a piece of a large tree cut up into logs. Norwegian: Tram, a door-step (of wood). Traam, a frame. Low German: Traam, a balk or beam; especially one of the handles of a wheel-barrow. Old High German: Dr[=a]m, tr[=a]m, a beam. Thus in its original signification the word tram, or its equivalent, was applied either to a log of wood or to certain specified objects made of wood. The word itself was in use in this country as far back as the middle of the sixteenth century, since on August 4, 1555, a certain Ambrose Middleton, of Skirwith, Cumberland (as recorded in the Surtees Society "Publications," vol. xxxviii., {205}page 37, note), made a will in which he left "to the amendinge of the highwaye _or tram_, from the weste ende of Bridgegait, in Barnard Castle, 20s." There is no reason to doubt that the "highwaye or tram" here referred to was a road across which logs of wood had been laid, the name "tram" being applied thereto by reason of its aforesaid original signification. It is, further, easy to understand how, when the pioneer rail-ways were made entirely of wood, the word tram-way should, for that reason, still be applied to them. Just, also, as "tram" had already passed from a log of wood to a wooden sledge or to a wheelbarrow handle, so it was given by pitmen in the north of England to the small waggon in which coal was pushed or drawn along in the workings. When "plates" were nailed on to the wooden rails of the early rail-ways the use of the word tram-way may still have been regarded as appropriate; it was retained for the plates or rails provided with a flange, and lines constructed with flanged plates or rails were, in turn, called plate-ways, tram-ways, or dram-ways to distinguish them from other ways or roads made with rails having no flange. In course of time the wooden rails which had been the original justification for the use of the word or prefix "tram" disappeared, and even the flanged rails were to be met with only on canal or colliery lines; but "tramway"--now a complete misnomer--is the name still given in this country to what in the United States are more accurately known as street railways. Of the vast number of people in the United Kingdom who daily use the word tramway, or speak of "going by tram," few, probably, realise how they are thus recalling the days alike of log-roads and of those rail-ways of wood which were the pioneers of the iron roads of to-day. The designation, also, of "platelayer" was originally applied to the men employed to lay the "plates" of which I have spoken; but although workers on the permanent way are now, surely, _rail_-layers rather than _plate_-layers, they are still known by the original name. The system of flanged plates, or rails, was widely adopted; but when, in 1785, it was proposed to build a 3-mile plate-way, or tram-way, of this type between Loughborough and the Nanpantan collieries, the commissioners of a turnpike {206}road it was necessary to cross objected, on the ground that the raised flange would be dangerous to traffic passing along the road. Following on these objections, William Jessop, the engineer of the proposed line, decided, in 1788, to abandon flanged plates and flat wheels, and to substitute for them flat rails and flanged wheels.[28] He proceeded to cast some "edge-rails" which overcame the scruples of the road commissioners, and the Loughborough and Nanpantan rail-way was opened in 1789, being the first having iron rails with a flat surface, on the "edge" of which wheels with a flange on their inner side were run. The plate, or tram, system of flanged rails still had many advocates, and for a time there was much controversy as to the respective merits of the two systems; but the principle introduced by Jessop was eventually adopted for railways in general, and became one of the most important of the developments that rendered possible the attainment of high speeds in rail transport. "The substitution of the flanged wheel for the flanged plate was," said Mr. James Brunlees, C.E., in his presidential address in the Mechanical Science Section at the 1883 meeting of the British Association, "an organic change which has been the forerunner of the great results accomplished in modern travelling by railway." For some thirty years after Jessop's improvement, the rails, of whichever kind, were still made of cast-iron, wrought-iron rails, tried at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1805, not coming into general use until about 1820, when John Birkenshaw, of the Bedlington iron-works, invented an efficient and economical method of rolling iron bars suitable for use as railway lines.[29] By 1785 iron rails, even though only cast-iron rails, had widely taken the place of the wooden rails which had then been in use for over a hundred years. {207}The substitution, from about 1767, of iron rails--even though they were only cast-iron rails--for wooden ones became the great event in the development of railways at this period, and gave the newer lines their distinguishing feature as compared with their predecessors. Each fresh line made took the credit of being an "_iron_ rail-way"; and not only did that designation remain in vogue in this country for several decades but it fixed, also, the names of the railway systems in various Continental countries, as shown by the term "Chemin de Fer" in France and Belgium, "Eisenbahn" in Germany, Austria and Switzerland; "Strada ferrata" in Italy, and "Ferrocarril" in Spain (the English equivalent in each instance being "Iron Road"), and by the name of Holland Iron Railway Company ("Hollandsche Yzeren Spoorvegs-maatschappy") by which one of the oldest of the railway companies in Holland--where it was founded in 1837--is still known.[30] One factor in the preference shown for iron rails over wooden ones was the consideration of cost. Alluding to the wooden railways of Durham, in his "General View" of the agriculture of that county, drawn up for the Board of Agriculture in 1810, John Bailey, of Chillingham, says: "Of late years, on account of the high price of wood, iron railways have been substituted." With an increase in the price of timber, owing to the greater scarcity thereof, as the available supplies in the southern counties became more depleted, the time may well have come when, apart from other considerations, it was found cheaper in the north to make cast-iron rails than to import wooden ones. The need for importing so much timber was further diminished, from about 1739, by the substitution, in many instances, of blocks of stone for {208}the wooden sleepers previously used, the iron being either spiked to wooden plugs inserted in holes made in the stones or else fastened by wooden pins into cast-iron "pedestals," as John Bailey calls them, fixed in the stones. Wooden rails did not, however, entirely and immediately give way to iron rails. On the contrary, the old system was so far maintained that, according to "The Industrial Resources of the Tyne," wooden railways could still be found on the collieries in that district as late as 1860. Among the advantages derived from the substitution of iron rails for wooden rails was the fact that a horse could draw, on the level, heavier loads than before. On the other hand, the heavier the load the greater was the danger in taking the waggons down hill-sides with only a wooden brake to check their speed; and this danger was increased to an even greater degree when the use of iron rails involved the abandonment of the wooden wheels which had hitherto been retained at the back of the waggons in order that the brake should act more effectively. Still further improvements thus became necessary, and these first took the form of inclined planes on which the law of gravity was employed, loaded waggons raising empty ones, or having their own descent regulated, by means of a rope passing round a wheel at the top of the incline. Later on stationary engines and chains were substituted for the wheel and the rope, horses then being employed on the level only. Bailey says on this point: "Waggon ways have generally been so contrived that the ascents were not greater than a single horse could draw a waggon up them; but some cases have happened lately where it required more than one horse, and steam engines have been substituted for horses for drawing waggons up these ascents. At Urpeth waggon way five or six waggons are drawn up at one ascent, by a steam engine placed at the top." Here, then, we have another stage in the process of evolution that was going on. The stationary engine at the top of an incline drawing up, or regulating the descent of, heavier loads, on iron rails, was the first employment on railways of that steam power which was afterwards to develop into the locomotive capable to-day of taking heavy trains at a speed of a mile a minute. In those early days, however, speed was {209}not regarded as a matter of any importance. Colliery managers were quite satisfied with a steady three miles an hour. Although the general conditions of the pioneer railways were, apparently, so primitive, some of the lines were more ambitious and more costly than might, at first, be supposed. Among them were lines from five to ten miles in extent which served the double purpose of (1) enabling collieries in, for example, the Hinterland of the Tyne to benefit from the ever-expanding trade in coal; and (2) providing them with the means of discharging direct into the colliers below Newcastle bridge, thus saving the preliminary transport in, and transshipment from, the coal barges on the river. In these five- or ten-mile distances there were often considerable declivities to overcome, in order that the ideal of a gradual descent should be secured, and the cuttings, embankments, bridges and other works thus carried out were often closely akin to much of the railway construction with which we are familiar to-day. Thus Dr. Stukeley, in his "Itinerarium Curiosum," says in describing the visit he paid to the Tanfield Collieries, Durham, in 1725:-- "We saw Col. Lyddal's coal-works at Tanfield, where he carries the road over valleys filled with earth, 100 foot high, 300 foot broad at bottom: other valleys as large have a stone bridge laid across:[31] in other places hills are cut through for half a mile together; and in this manner a road is made, and frames of timber laid, for five miles to the river-side." Arthur Young, also, who visited the Newcastle-on-Tyne district in 1768, says in his "Six Months Tour through the North of England": "The coal waggon roads from the pits to the water are great works carried over all sorts of inequalities of ground so far as the distance of nine or ten miles." The staiths at the river end of the Tyne railways are described in the "Commercial and Agricultural Magazine" as "solid buildings, two stories high; into the upper story the {210}waggon-way enters, and a spout projecting over the river shoots the coals into the keels, or a trap-door drops the coals into the lower story, whence they must be shovelled into the keels afterwards." John Francis expresses the opinion, in his "History of the English Railway" (1851), that probably by 1750 there was scarcely an important colliery that had not its own railway. Such lines as these, however, were of a private character, serving the interests only of the companies or the individuals making them, without offering transport facilities to other traders in return for tolls, and requiring no Act of Parliament so long as they retained this character, did not require to cross public roads, and could be constructed by agreement among the landowners concerned. The more important development came when the canal companies themselves desired to supplement their canals by railways which anyone paying the stipulated tolls could use in connection with canal transport. Under these conditions the companies had to seek for further powers from Parliament, and this they began to do about the middle of the eighteenth century. The Trent and Mersey Canal Act of 1776, for example, authorised the construction of a "rail-way" from the canal to the Froghall quarries, a distance of three and a half miles.[32] In 1802 the same company obtained authority to construct three "railways" extending from their canal in various directions. The preamble of the Act (42 Geo. III. c. 25) recited that the lines would be of "great advantage to the extensive manufactories of earthenware ... and of public utility," and the Act accordingly sanctioned the lines "for the passage of waggons and carriages of forms and constructions, and with burthens suitable to such railways, to be approved by the company," at rates duly specified. These various railways, together with the Trent and Mersey Canal itself, were, in 1846, taken over by the North Staffordshire Railway Company, whose general manager, Mr W. D. Phillipps, informs me that portions of two of them are still in daily use. They are laid with cast-iron tram plates, with flanges to keep the wheels in place, and ordinary waggons {211}and carts use them to get from the canal basin to the high road, a few hundred yards away, the same rate of toll being charged as on the canal. Mr Phillipps further says: "Our Froghall tramway rises 400 feet from the level of the canal to the quarry, passing by means of a tunnel through an intermediate hill, and it is worked entirely by gravitation, there being four inclined planes of various lengths and inclinations. The gauge is 3 feet 6 inches. It is practically the same as when laid down over 100 years ago. We convey over it nearly 500,000 tons of limestone annually, and I find it a cheap and expeditious mode of conveyance." I would call special attention to these details because it was, no doubt, the fact that ordinary road carts, with flat-edged wheels, could be taken along the flanged plates of the early railways, and were so taken under authority of the Acts of Parliament here in question, that originally established the idea both of a common user of the railways by traders employing their own vehicles upon them and of competition being thus ensured between different carriers. The pioneer public railways, provided as accessories to canal transport, were, indeed, looked upon as simply a variation, in principle, of the ordinary turnpike road. They were roads furnished with rails, and available for use, on payment of the authorised tolls, by anyone whose cart-wheels were the right distance apart. The position in this respect was entirely changed when the system of railway operation came to be definitely fixed on the principle of edge-rails and flanged wheels, with locomotives in place of horses; yet the legislation immediately following the spread of railways on this vastly different basis was still determined, as regarded their use by the public, by the precedent originally established under the conditions here narrated. While thus operated on the toll principle of a turnpike road--the pioneer "railway stations" being themselves simply the equivalent of toll-houses--the early railways were all associated with canal or river transport. Robert Fulton says in his "Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation" (1796) that "Rail-roads have hitherto been considered as a medium between lock-canals and cartage, in consequence of the expence of extending the canal to the {212}particular works in its neighbourhood"; and, in the course of a detailed argument in favour of small boats, of from two to five tons burden, in preference to the unduly large ones--as he considered them--then in vogue, he adds: "Rail-ways of one mile or thereabouts will, no doubt, be frequently necessary, where it may be difficult to find water at the extremity, or when the trade from the works is not sufficient to pay the expence of machinery,[33] and, its extent being one mile, can be of little importance to the country." That Parliament itself, at this time, looked upon railways only as accessories to canals is shown by a reference to the "House of Commons Journals," where, under date June 19, 1799, it is reported that a Committee appointed, on the 10th of the same month, "to consider the expediency of requiring notices to be given of an intended application to Parliament for leave to bring in a Bill for the making of Ways or Roads usually called Railways or Dram Roads, or for the renewal or alteration of an Act passed for that purpose," had adopted the following resolution: "That it is the opinion of this Committee, That the Standing Orders of the House of the 7th of May, 1794, relating to Bills for making Navigable Canals, Aqueducts and the Navigation of Rivers, or for altering any Act of Parliament for any or either of those purposes, be extended to Bills for making any Ways or Roads, commonly called Railways or Dram Roads, except so much of the said Standing Orders as requires," etc. The resolution was agreed to by the House on the 25th of the same month. Towards the close of the century it became customary for canal companies applying to Parliament for powers, or extensions of existing powers, to seek for authority to make railways, waggon ways or stone roads in connection with their canals; and these they were generally authorised to lay down to any existing or future mines, quarries, furnaces, forges or other works within a distance of, at first four, subsequently eight, miles of such canal. They were, also, authorised to construct any bridges necessary for giving access to the canal. If, after being asked to make a railway, waggon road or bridge, under these conditions, the canal company refused so to do, the person or persons concerned {213}could carry out the work at his or their own cost and charges, without the consent of the owner of the lands, rivers, brooks or water-courses it might be necessary to cross, though subject to the payment to them of compensation under conditions analogous to those in force in regard to the construction of canals. One Act of this type, the Aberdare Canal Act, 1793, goes on to say: "Every such rail way or waggon road and bridge ... shall ... be publick and open to all persons for the conveyance of any minerals, goods, wares, merchandizes and things, in waggons and other carriages," of a specified construction, "and for the passage of horses, cows and other meat cattle, on payment to the person or persons at whose charge and expense such rail way or waggon road shall have been made or erected" of the same rates as would be payable to the canal company under like conditions. It was in South Wales, even more than on the Tyne, that the early railways eventually underwent their greatest development. In "Illustrations of the Origin and Progress of Rail and Tram Roads and Steam Carriages or Loco-motive Engines" (1824), by T. G. Cumming, Surveyor, Denbigh, we read:-- "As late as the year 1790 there was scarcely a single rail-way in all South Wales, whilst in the year 1812 the rail-ways, in a finished state, connected with canals, collieries, iron and copper works, &c., in the counties of Monmouth, Glamorgan and Carmarthen alone extended to upwards of one hundred and fifty miles in length, exclusive of a very considerable extent within the mines themselves, of which one company at Merthyr Tydvil possessed upwards of thirty miles underground connected with the stupendous iron works at that place; and so rapid has been the increase of rail-ways in South Wales of late years that at the present period they exceed four hundred miles, exclusive of about one hundred miles underground." The whole of these lines were on the tram-plate, or flanged-rail, principle, while solid blocks of stone were, in Wales, generally substituted for wooden sleepers. Cumming further says:-- "In the extensive mining districts south of the Severn, including South Wales, the rail and tram roads are very numerous, and here, perhaps, more than in any part of the {214}United Kingdom, owing to the steepness, great irregularity and impracticable nature of the ground, they have been of the most essential utility in supplying the place of canals.... "There are numerous tram roads connected with the canal between Cardiff and Merthyr Tydvil, in Glamorganshire. The extent of rail road about Merthyr Tydvil alone is very considerable; besides which, in the same neighbourhood are the Hirwaen, Aberdare, and Abernant tram roads, and a great variety of others communicating with the vast works on the hills in the vicinity." One of the South Wales tramroad schemes--though not specifically mentioned by Cumming--is of exceptional interest inasmuch as it represented, probably, the first attempt ever made to introduce a railway as a direct rival of and competitor with a canal, instead of being simply a feeder thereof. The attempt was a failure, but it nevertheless constitutes a landmark in early railway history. The story begins with the granting, in 1790, of an Act for the cutting of a canal between Merthyr and Cardiff by the Company of Proprietors of the Glamorganshire Canal Navigation, improved means of transport being then much needed in the interests of the iron-works and other industrial undertakings in the district. The Act of 1790 authorised the company to spend £90,000 on the canal; but this amount was found to be inadequate, and in 1796 a second Act sanctioned the raising of a further £10,000, and, also, the cutting of a short extension at the Cardiff end. The opening of the canal for traffic is thus recorded by J. Phillips in the fourth edition (1803) of his "General History of Inland Navigation":-- "Feb. 1794. The canal from Cardiff to Merthir-Tidvil is completed, and a fleet of canal boats have arrived at Cardiff laden with the produce of the iron works there, to the great joy of the whole town. The rude tracks, through which the canal passes in some places are constantly improving, from the happy and healthful toil of the husbandman, and in a few years will be forgotten in a garden of verdure and fertility. This canal is 25 miles long; it passes along the sides of stupendous mountains. Nothing appears more extraordinary than, from a boat navigating this canal, to look down on the river Taaf, dashing among the rocks 100 yards {215}below. The fall from Merthir-Tidvil to Cardiff is nearly 600 feet." In a later reference, dated 1802, Phillips says that the completion of the Glamorganshire Canal "has opened a ready conveyance to the vast manufacture of iron established in the mountains of that country, and many thousands of tons are now annually shipped from thence." The canal, however, failed to meet all requirements, a scheme for a railway, or dram-road, between Cardiff and Merthyr being projected in the same year that the waterway was first opened. In "Rees' Cyclopædia" (1819) it is stated: "The rail-ways hitherto constructed were private property, or for the accommodation of particular mines or works, and it was not, we believe, until about the year 1794 that Mr Samuel Homfray and others obtained an act of Parliament for constructing an iron dram-road, tram-road or rail-way between Cardiff and Merthyr Tidvill in South Wales, that should be free for any persons to use, with drams or trams of the specified construction on paying certain tonnage or rates per mile to the proprietors." Tredgold, in his "Practical Treatise on Rail-roads" (1825), makes a similar statement as regards the granting of an Act in 1794, saying that "in consequence of the upper part of the Cardiff or Glamorganshire canal being frequently in want of water, the Cardiff and Merthyr rail-way or tram-road was formed parallel to it, for a distance of about nine miles, chiefly for the iron works of Plymouth, Pendarran and Dowlais," with a continuation, however, making a total distance of about 26¾ miles. The tramway, he further says, "appears to have been constructed under the first Act ever obtained for this species of road." These statements have been accepted and repeated by various writers; but a search of the "House of Commons Journals" for 1794 fails to show that any such Act was passed. The scheme in question seems to have been projected, in 1794, by certain ironmasters, who found that their own traffic on the canal was being prejudiced by a preference given to the traffic of their rivals; but the project for a tramway or railway from Merthyr to Cardiff was abandoned--for a time--in favour of one from Merthyr to a place then called Navigation, and now known as Abercynon, {216}where the canal would be joined, and traffic could be transhipped. The tramway in question is thus referred to in "The Scenery, Antiquities and Biography of South Wales, from Material Collected during two Excursions in the year 1803," by B. H. Malkin (second edition, 1807):-- "At the Aqueduct, where the Canal is carried over the River, an iron rail-road for the present ends; and from the Wharf at this place [Navigation] the Canal is the only conveyance for heavy goods to Cardiff; the length of it--as far as it has already been completed--is 10 miles, but it was designed to have extended from Merthyr Tydfil to Cardiff, and it is said that one horse would have been able to draw 40 tons of iron the whole distance of 26 miles in one day; I understand, however, that it is not likely to be finished, and, indeed, it is much more necessary where it is now made from the occasional want of water lower down where the confluence of many and copious streams affords a more certain supply to the Canal." The line had evidently been constructed, not under any special Act, but by the authority of powers already granted by clause 57 of the Glamorganshire Canal Company's own Act, which, framed on the general lines already mentioned, conferred upon all persons owning, renting, leasing, or occupying property containing any mines of coal, iron-stone, limestone or other minerals, or the proprietors of any furnaces or other works lying within the distance of four miles from some part of the canal the right to make any railways or roads over the lands or grounds of any person or persons, or to make any bridges over any river, brook or watercourse, for the purpose of conveying the coal, iron, etc., to the said canal. It will be noticed that this clause appears to limit to four miles the length of any tramway constructed in virtue of its provisions, whereas the length of the line actually made was, in effect, nine miles from Merthyr and ten from Dowlais. It is understood, however, that the constructors of the tramway successfully contended that, so long as their mines or works were within four miles of the canal, they were at liberty to lay down the tramway to such point on the canal as they thought proper to select, and they chose Navigation because it suited them best. {217}There is reason to believe, although actual proof is lacking, that the original design of continuing this tramway to Cardiff was not carried out because of the opposition of the canal company. Certain it is that the project for such a tramway was revived in 1799. Under date February 18, in that year, the "House of Commons Journals" record that William Lewis (Alderley), William Taitt, Thomas Guest, Joseph Cowles, and John Guest, being a firm of ironmasters in the parish of Merthyr Tydvil, known as the Dowlais Iron Company; Jeremiah Homfray, Samuel Homfray, Thomas Homfray and William Forman, ironmasters, of Merthyr Tydvil, known by the name of Jeremiah Homfray and Co.; Richard Hill and William Lewis (Pentyrch Works) petitioned the House for leave to bring in a Bill for the construction of a "dram road" from or near Carno Mill, in the parish of Bedwelty and the county of Monmouth to Cardiff, with branches to Merthyr and Aberdare.[34] The petitioners declared that such dram-road would "open an easy Communication with several considerable Ironworks, Collieries, Limestone Quarries and extensive Tracks of Land, abounding with Coal, Limestone and other Minerals, whereby the Carriage and Conveyance of Iron, Coal, Lime, Timber and all kinds of Merchandize to or from the different Places bordering on the said intended Road will be greatly facilitated and rendered less expensive than at present, and will tend greatly to improve the Lands and Estates near the said Road, and the said Undertaking will, in other Respects, be of great Public Utility." The petition was referred to a Committee, who reported favourably on March 8, and the Bill was presented and read a {218}first time on March 15. Then, however, came the opposition from the canal company. On April 8, as the "Journals" further record, the Commons received a petition from the Company of Proprietors of the Glamorganshire Canal Navigation setting forth that they had been authorised under two Acts to make and maintain a navigable canal from Merthyr to Cardiff; that they had expended on this undertaking a sum of £100,000; that they had seen the Bill above-mentioned, and, they proceed:-- "That the Dram Road or Way, proposed to be made by the said Bill, will pass from one End thereof to the other, nearly parallel, and in almost every Part near to the said Canal; and in some places will cross the same; and that the Petitioners were induced to undertake the making of the said Canal, in hopes of being repaid the Expence thereof, with proper remuneration for the Risk of the said Undertaking, by the Carriage of Coal, Lime, Iron, Timber, and other goods and Merchandizes thereon, but if the said Dram Road or Way should be made as proposed they would be deprived of a great Part of those Advantages which they apprehend they have had granted and secured to them, and are therefore now fully entitled to, by the said Two Acts, without the Country adjacent or the Public in General, receiving any particular Benefit or Advantage." The company further pleaded that under their Acts they were "restrained from ever receiving more than a moderate Dividend on their Shares, and whenever the Profits of the Canal shall be more than sufficient to pay the same, their Rates of Tonnage are to be lowered;[35] and for that reason, as well as many others, of equal Justice, they conceive they should be secured in the possession of all the advantages proposed to be granted to them by the said Acts." The House ordered that the petition do lie upon the table until the said Bill be read a second time, and that counsel be then heard on both sides. On May 3 a day was appointed for the second reading, and on May 4 the House received a further petition from landowners, tradesmen and others in support of the Bill. The "Journals," however, contain no record of the second reading having been reached, and their {219}only further reference at all to the Bill is in the "General Index" to the volumes for 1790-1801, where, under the heading "Navigations: Petitions to make Dram Roads to Canals, &c.," it is said of the Bill in question "Not proceeded in." There is no reason to doubt that this first scheme for the construction of a railway--even though under the name of a "dram road"--which would have been not only independent of canal transport but in direct competition therewith, was killed through the opposition of the then powerful canal interests. The tradition in Cardiff is that the Glamorganshire Canal Company "got hold" of the leading promoters, and persuaded them to abandon their scheme by electing them members of the managing committee of the canal. Whether or not some additional inducement was offered to them is not known. In any case, there was no further attempt to set up a railway in direct and avowed competition with a canal until the great fight over the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Bill, a quarter of a century later. The significance of all these facts will be found still greater in the light of what I shall have to say subsequently in regard to the influence of canal interests and canal precedents alike on railway development and on railway legislation. In some instances the railways belonging to the period here under review were constructed by the canal companies not merely as feeders to the canals but as substitutes for lengths of canal where the making of an artificial waterway presented special difficulties. The Lancashire Canal Company, incorporated in 1792, laid a line of railway for five miles, passing through the town of Preston, to connect two sections of canal. The Ashby Canal Company, under an Act of 1794, avoided a considerable expense in the construction of locks by supplementing thirty miles of canal on the level with intermediate lengths of railway to the extent of another twenty miles. Writing in 1884, Clement E. Stretton says, in his "Notes on Early Railway History," concerning these old tram-roads of the Ashby Canal Company: "One part has since been altered and absorbed into the Ashby and Worthington Railway;[36] but the branch from Ticknall {220}tramway wharf to Tucknall has never been relaid or altered in any way, and, therefore, is a most interesting relic of ancient times. To see waggons with flat wheels drawn over cast-iron rails one yard long by a horse, cannot fail to interest those who watch the workings of railways, and it most clearly shows the great improvements made and the perseverance which has been required to develop the present gigantic railway system out of such small beginnings." The Charnwood Forest Canal, again, concerning which I shall have more to say later, was a connecting link between two lines of edge-railway, the purpose of the combined land and water route being to enable Leicestershire coal to reach the Leicester market. It will thus be seen that, whilst the coalowners introduced railways in the first instance, it was the canal companies themselves who, in the days before locomotives, mainly developed and established the utility of a new mode of traction which was eventually to supersede to so material an extent the inland navigation they favoured. It was open to those companies to adapt their undertakings much more completely to the new conditions, if they had had sufficient foresight and enterprise so to do. The signs of the times were obvious enough to those who were able and willing to read them, and there were many indications that canals would assuredly be not only supplemented, but supplanted, by railways. An impartial authority like Thomas Telford, in adding a postscript to an article on "Canals" which he had contributed to Archdeacon Plymley's "General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire," wrote under date November 13, 1800:-- "Since the year 1797, when the above account of the inland navigation of the county of Salop was made out, another mode of conveyance has frequently been adopted in this country to a considerable extent; I mean that of forming roads with iron rails laid along them, upon which the articles are conveyed on waggons, containing from six to thirty cwt.; experience has now convinced us that in countries whose surfaces are rugged, or where it is difficult to obtain water for lockage, where the weight of the articles of produce is great in comparison with their bulk, and where they are mostly to be conveyed from a higher to a lower {221}level,--that in those cases, iron rail-ways are in general preferable to a canal navigation. "On a rail-way well constructed, and laid with a declivity of 55 feet in a mile, one horse will readily take down waggons containing from 12 to 15 tons, and bring back the same waggons with four tons in them.... "This useful contrivance may be varied so as to suit the surface of many different countries at a comparatively moderate expense. It may be constructed in a manner much more expeditious than navigable canals; it may be introduced into many districts where canals are wholly inapplicable; and in case of any change in the working of the mines or manufactures, the rails may be taken up and put down again, in a new situation, at a moderate expense." Thomas Gray, writing in 1821, warned investors in canal shares that the time was "fast approaching when rail-ways must, from their manifest superiority in every respect, supersede the necessity both of canals and turnpike roads, so far as the general commerce of the country was concerned." He further expressed the conviction that "were canal proprietors sensible how much their respective shares would be improved in value by converting all the canals into rail-ways, there would not, perhaps, in the space of ten or twenty years remain a single canal in the country." Blinded by their prosperity, however, the canal companies failed to adopt the necessary measures for ensuring its continuance, though the Duke of Bridgewater himself saw sufficient of the new rival to get an uneasy suspicion of what might happen. "We may do very well," he is reported to have said to Lord Kenyon, when asked about the prospects of his canals, "if we can keep clear of those ---- tram-roads." Unfortunately for the canal interests, though fortunately for the country, the qualified tram-roads were not to be kept clear of, but, with the encouragement they got from those they afterwards impoverished, were to bring the Canal Era to a close, and to inaugurate the Railway Era in its place. {222}CHAPTER XIX THE RAILWAY ERA Between 1801 and 1825 no fewer than twenty-nine "iron railways" were either opened or begun in various parts of Great Britain. The full list is given by John Francis in his "History of the English Railway." It shows, as Francis points out, that from Plymouth to Glasgow, and from Carnarvon to Surrey, "there was scarcely a county where some form of the railway was not used." Most of these new railways were, however, still operated in conjunction with collieries or ironworks and canals or rivers, as the following typical examples show:-- 1802: Sirhowey Tramroad, built by the Monmouthshire Canal Company in conjunction with the Tredegar Iron-works; length, eleven miles; cost £45,000. 1809: Forest of Dean Railway, for conveying coals, timber, ore, etc., to the Severn for shipment; length, seven and a half miles; cost £125,000. 1809: Severn and Wye Railway, connecting those rivers; length, 26 miles; cost £110,000. 1812: Penrhynmaur Railway, Anglesey; a colliery line, seven miles long, consisting of a series of inclined planes. 1815: Gloucester and Cheltenham Railway, connecting with the Berkeley Canal at Gloucester. 1817: Mansfield and Pinxton Railway, connecting the town of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, with the Cromford Canal at Pinxton basin, near Alfreton, Derbyshire; cost £32,800. 1819: Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway; length 30 miles; cost £35,000. 1825: Cromford and High Peak Railway, connecting the Cromford and Peak Forest Canals, and rising, by a series of elevations, 990 feet; length 34 miles; cost £164,000. The first Act for a really _public_ railway, in the sense in which that term is understood to-day, and as distinct from {223}railways serving mainly or exclusively the interests of collieries, iron-works and canal navigations, was granted by Parliament in 1801 for the Surrey Iron Rail-way, which established a rail connection between the Thames at Wandsworth and the town of Croydon, with a branch to some mills on the river Wandle whose owners were the leaders in the enterprise. The total length was about nine and a half miles. According to the Act, the line was designed for "the advantage of carrying coals, corn and all goods and merchandise to and from the Metropolis." Constructed with flanged rails, or "plates," fixed on stone blocks, the line was available for any ordinary cart or waggon of the requisite gauge. The conveyances mostly used on it were four-wheeled trucks, about the size of railway contractors' waggons. They belonged either to local traders or to carriers who let them out on hire, it being doubtful whether the company had any rolling stock of their own. The motive power was supplied by horses, mules or donkeys. Chalk, flint, fire-stone, fuller's earth and agricultural produce were sent from Croydon--then a town of 5700 inhabitants--to the Thames for conveyance to London. The return loading from the Thames was mainly coal and manure. Two sets of rails were provided, and there was a path on each side for the men in charge of the horses. Referring to the Surrey Iron Rail-way in his "History of Private Bill Legislation," Clifford says:-- "The Act of 1801, upon which the rest of this early railway legislation was framed, follows the canal precedents in their provision for managing the company's affairs, for raising share and loan capital, and for compensating landowners. Only the use of horse power was contemplated. The tracks, when laid down, were meant, like canals, for general use by carriers and freighters. The companies did not provide rolling stock; any person might construct carriages adapted to run upon the rails, and if these carriages were approved certain maximum tolls applied to the freight they might carry.... Passenger traffic was not expected or provided for.... Such was the first Railway Act, passed at the beginning of the century with little notice by Parliament or people, but now a social landmark, prominent in that stormy period of history." {224}This was, however, in point of fact, only a further development of the still earlier railway legislation (see page 210), which required the proprietors of lines laid down for general traffic to allow anyone who pleased to run his own vehicles thereon, subject to certain regulations and to the payment of specified tolls. The Surrey Iron Rail-way was also a landmark in railway history because, although in itself of very small extent, it was originally designed to serve as the first section of a railway which, made by different companies, as capital could be raised, would eventually have extended from the Thames to Portsmouth.[37] The second section was the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Iron Railway, which Parliament sanctioned in 1803. From Croydon this further railway was to carry the lines on to Reigate, with a branch from Merstham to Godstone Green, a total distance of sixteen miles in addition, that is, to the nine and a half miles of the Surrey Iron Rail-way. Both companies, however, drifted into financial difficulties, and had to apply to Parliament again, in 1806, for fresh powers, while the lines of the second company never got beyond the chalk quarries at Merstham. In the absence of the through traffic it had been hoped eventually to secure, the local business alone available was evidently inadequate to meet the charges on a capital outlay which, at that time, may have been regarded as not inconsiderable, inasmuch as the Surrey Iron Rail-way attained to a good elevation at its southern end, while the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone line went through a cutting thirty feet deep, and crossed a valley by an embankment twenty feet high. After a chequered career, the Merstham line was acquired by the Brighton Railway Company in 1838 and closed, being then no longer required. The Surrey line lingered on till 1846, when, with the sanction of Parliament, its operation was discontinued, the rails being taken up and sold by auction. {225}It was unfortunate that these two pioneer public railways were a failure because, had they succeeded, and had they really formed the first sections of a through line of communication between the Thames and Portsmouth, there would have been established a further precedent--and one of much greater value than that of a common user--the precedent, namely, of a trunk line made by companies co-operating with one another to give continuous communication on a well-organised system, in place of collections of disconnected lines designed, at the outset, to serve the interests only of particular localities, with little or no attempt at co-ordination. Yet the principle of a general public railway had, at least, been established by the Surrey and Merstham lines, and this principle underwent further important development by the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the first Act for which was obtained in 1821. The only purpose originally intended to be served by the Stockton and Darlington Railway was the finding of a better outlet for coal from the South Durham coalfield. A company, with Edward Pease as the moving spirit, was formed in 1816, but two years later the projectors were still undecided whether to make a canal or "a rail or tramway." George Overton, who preceded George Stephenson as a distinguished railway engineer, wrote to them, however, advising the latter course. "Railways," he said, "are now generally adopted, and the cutting of canals nearly discontinued"; and he told them, further, that within the last fifteen years the great improvements made in the construction of tram-roads had led to the application of the principle to a number of new roads. His advice was adopted, and the first Act, obtained after several unsuccessful efforts, authorised the making and maintaining of "a railway or tramroad" from the river Tees, at Stockton, to Witton Park Colliery, with various branches therefrom. The line would, the Act said, be "of great public utility by facilitating the conveyance of coal, iron, lime, corn and other commodities from the interior of the county of Durham to the town of Darlington and the town and port of Stockton," etc. It was first intended to use wooden rails, and to rely on horse-power, no authority for the employment of locomotives being obtained under the Act of 1821; but George {226}Stephenson, on being appointed engineer to the line, persuaded the company to adopt iron rails in preference to wooden ones, and to provide a locomotive such as he had already constructed and successfully employed at Killingworth Colliery. Two-thirds of the rails laid were of malleable iron and one-third of cast iron. It was not, however, until September, 1824, that the order was actually given for a locomotive, some of the promoters having still shown a strong preference for the use of stationary engines and ropes. The line was opened for traffic on September 27, 1825, and the locomotive which had been ordered--the "Locomotion" as it was called--was ready for the occasion. It weighed seven tons, and had perpendicular cylinders and a boiler provided with only a single flue, or tube, 10 inches in diameter and 10 feet in length, the heat being abstracted therefrom so imperfectly that when the locomotive was working the chimney soon became red-hot.[38] The usual speed was from four to six miles an hour, with a highest possible of eight miles an hour on the level. The company made provision for the anticipated goods traffic by having 150 waggons built; but they started with no idea of themselves undertaking passenger traffic. Their first Act had laid down that "Any person is at liberty to use and run a carriage on the railway, provided he complies with the bye-laws of the company"; and J. S. Jeans, in his history of the Stockton and Darlington Railway published (1875) under the title of "Jubilee Memorial of the Railway System," says: "It was originally intended to allow the proprietors of stage-coaches or other conveyances plying on the route of the proposed new railway to make use of the line on certain specified conditions." This, too, is what actually happened; for although, a fortnight after the opening of the line, the railway company themselves put on the line a springless "coach," known as the "Experiment," and drawn by a horse, several coach proprietors in the district availed themselves of their statutory right to run their own coaches on the railway, first, of course, providing them with wheels adapted to the rails. They paid the railway company {227}the stipulated tolls, and had the advantage of requiring to use no more than a single horse for each coach. These horse coaches for passengers seem to have run in the intervals when the lines were not occupied by the locomotive engaged in drawing the coal waggons. In a letter published in the "Railway Herald" of April 27, 1889, John Wesley Hackworth, whose father, Timothy Hackworth, was for some time engineer on the Stockton and Darlington Railway, says that twenty miles of the line were at first worked by horses and locomotive in competition, and at the end of eighteen months it was found that horse traction was costing only a little over one-third of the traction by locomotive. Meanwhile, also, the value of the £100 shares had fallen to £50. In view of these results the directors had decided to abandon locomotive power, and depend entirely on horses; but Timothy Hackworth said to them, "If you will allow me to construct an engine in my own way I will engage it shall work cheaper than animal power." He received the desired authority, and the "Royal George," built by him, was put into operation in September, 1827. It confirmed the assurance which had been given, and, says Timothy Hackworth's son, "finally and for ever" settled the question of the respective merits of horse and steam traction on railways. Horse coaches still continued to run on the lines, however, in addition to the mineral and goods trains, and in January, 1830, the company had to draw up a time-table fixing the hours of departure for the coaches, thus ensuring a better service for the public, and, also, protecting travellers against any possible encounter with the locomotive as the horse ambled along with them on the railway. By October, 1832, seven coaches, belonging to various proprietors, were doing fifty journeys a week between different places on the line; so that thus far the original idea of Parliament, in enforcing against railways the principle of a common user of their lines by the public, had appeared to be warranted. A year later, however, the railway company, finding, as Jeans tells us, that it would be more convenient and more advantageous for them to take the whole carrying trade in their own hands and supersede the horses by steam locomotives, bought out, on what were considered generous terms, {228}the interests of the four coach proprietors then carrying passengers on their own account on the lines. Actual experience had thus nullified the expectation that a railway would be simply a rail-road upon which anyone would be able to run his own conveyances as on an ordinary turnpike road. From October, 1833, the whole of the passenger traffic (then undergoing rapid expansion) was conducted by the company. In April, 1834, the directors, who had by this time acquired some other and better engines, announced that they had commenced to run, six times a day, both "coaches" (for passengers) and "carriages" (for goods) by locomotives; and this date, probably, marks the final disappearance of the horse as a means of traction for passenger traffic on public railways in England, though the word "coaches," introduced into the railway vocabulary under the circumstances here narrated, has remained in use ever since among railway men as applied to rolling stock for passenger traffic. Unlike its predecessors in Surrey, and though facing various difficulties at the outset, the Stockton and Darlington line attained to a considerable degree of prosperity. After undergoing various extensions from time to time, and playing a leading part in the industrial expansion of the district it served, it was incorporated into what is now the North-Eastern Railway system. Summing up the respects in which the Stockton and Darlington line had carried forward the story of railway development, we find that it (1) established the practicability of substituting locomotive for horse traction on railways; (2) introduced the provision of waggons by the railway company, instead of leaving these to be found by carriers and traders; (3) proved that railways were as well adapted to the transport of passengers as they were to the carriage of goods; (4) showed by actual experience that the idea of a common user of railways was impracticable; and (5) prepared the way for the eventual recognition, even by Parliament itself, of the principle that transport on a line of railway operated by locomotives must, in the nature of things, be the monopoly of the owning and responsible railway company. While the Surrey Iron Rail-way and the Stockton and {229}Darlington Railway had been thus seeking to establish themselves as public railways, there was no lack of advocates of what were then called "general rail-ways," to be laid either on the ordinary roads or on roads made for the purpose; and such general railways were especially advocated for districts where canals could not be made available. Dr James Anderson, writing on "Cast Iron Rail-ways" in the issue of his "Recreations in Agriculture, Natural History," etc., for November, 1800, had already strongly recommended them as "an eligible mode of conveyance where canals cannot be conveniently adopted"; and he especially advised the construction of one railway in London, from the new docks on the Isle of Dogs to Bishopsgate Street, and another between London and Bath, "for the purpose of conveying unsightly loads, leaving the roads, as at present, open for coaches and light carriages." Such railways, he argued, would render great service in relieving the ordinary road of heavy traffic, and help to solve the road problem of that day--all the more acute because McAdam had not yet shown the country how roads could and should be made or repaired. On February 11, 1800, Mr Thomas, of Denton, read a paper before the Newcastle Literary Society recommending the introduction of railways, on the colliery principle, for the general carriage of goods; and R. L. Edgeworth urged, in "Nicholson's Journal," in 1802, that for a distance of ten miles or more one of the great roads out of London should be provided with four tracks of railway operated by stationary engines and circulating chains for fast and slow traffic in each direction. But the most strenuous advocate of all was Thomas Gray. Both before and subsequent to the publication, in 1820, of the first edition of his "Observations on a General Rail-way," he had been pressing his views, in the form of petitions, letters or articles, on members of the Government, peers of the realm, M.P.'s, corporations, capitalists, reviews and newspapers. His idea was that there should be six trunk lines of railway radiating from London, with branch lines linking up towns and villages off these main routes; but he was looked upon as a visionary, if not as a crank and a bore whose impracticable proposals were not deserving of serious {230}consideration. It was evidently Thomas Gray whom the "Quarterly Review" had in mind when it said, in March, 1825: "As to those persons who speculate on making railways general throughout the Kingdom, and superseding all the canals, all the waggons, mail and stage-coaches, post-chaises, and, in short, every other mode of conveyance by land and water, we deem them and their visionary schemes unworthy of notice." In the result Gray was left to spend the last years of his life in obscurity and poverty, and the further development of the railway system of the country was proceeded with on lines altogether different from, and far less efficient, than those he had recommended. The greatest impetus to the movement was now to come, not from any individual pioneer, but from the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; and this line, in turn, was due far more to purely local conditions and circumstances than to any idea of encouraging the creation of a network of railways on some approach, however remote, to a national or "general" system. The original cause of the Liverpool and Manchester line being undertaken was, in fact, nothing less than extreme dissatisfaction among the traders both of Liverpool and of Manchester with the then existing transport arrangements between these two places. Just as the Duke of Bridgewater had drawn his strongest arguments in favour of a canal from the shortcomings of the Irwell and Mersey navigation, so now did the traders base their case for a railway mainly on the deficiencies and shortcomings alike of the river navigation and of the canal by which the rivers had been supplemented. There were, in the first place, physical difficulties. By whichever of the two water routes goods were sent from Liverpool to Manchester, the barges had first to go about eighteen miles along the Mersey to Runcorn, being thus exposed for that distance to the possibly adverse winds and strong tides of an open estuary. The boats often got aground, and many wrecks occurred during stormy weather. On the canal itself the boats could often go with only half loads in the summer, and they were liable to be stopped by frost in winter, while the canal was closed altogether for ten days every year for repairs. {231}Supplementing these physical disadvantages of the navigation was the attitude of the waterway interests towards the traders whom they held at their mercy. Theoretically there was competition between the rivers and the canal; but the agents of both extorted from the traders the highest possible charges for a most inefficient service. Joseph Sandars, who was to take a leading part in the movement for a railway between Liverpool and Manchester, has some strong things to say about the "exorbitant and unjust charges of the water carriers" in a "Letter" on the subject of the proposed railway which he published in 1824. He alleged that, whereas the Duke of Bridgewater had been authorised by his Acts to charge not more than two shillings and sixpence per ton for canal dues, his agents had, by various devices, which Sandars details, exacted five shillings and twopence per ton. The trustees had, also, obtained possession of all the warehouses alongside the canal at Manchester, and they were thus able to exact whatever terms they pleased from the bye-carriers and traders. If the canal trustees carried the goods in their own vessels they were entitled to charge six shillings per ton; and their aim seems to have been to render it impossible for the independent carriers to do their business at a lower rate than this. When the carriers, using boats of their own, would not pay the same rate as if the trustees had themselves done the carrying, they were not allowed to land the goods. Then, by acquiring all the warehouses and all the available land at Preston Brook and Runcorn, the trustees had likewise got control over navigation on the Trent and Mersey Canal, which joins the Bridgewater Canal at Preston Brook. Sandars speaks of Mr Bradshaw, to whom the Duke of Bridgewater had, by his will, given absolute control of his undertakings, as a dictator of canal transport. "No man," he says, in giving examples of the wide extent of the interests that Bradshaw controlled or sought to influence, "can bring a Bill forward for a canal in any part of the Kingdom but Mr Bradshaw interferes as a sort of canal Neptune, directing where, how, and at what price it shall run. He has tortured the trade of the country to become tributory to him in all directions. Every man, every corporate body, seems spellbound the moment Mr Bradshaw interposes his authority." {232}As for the profits of the undertaking, Sandars says: "There is good reason to believe that the nett income of the Duke's canal has, for the last twenty years, averaged nearly £100,000 per annum." The Old Quay Company had refrained from exceeding the amounts they were authorised to charge for tolls on the Irwell and the Mersey; but there was no restriction on them in regard to traffic they themselves carried, and Sandars alleges that they, also, had secured all the warehouse accommodation on their own line of route, and had almost monopolised the carrying trade, since a bye-carrier's business could hardly be conducted without warehouses. They were thus making far more money than they could have got from the statutory tolls alone. So profitable had the undertaking become that the thirty-nine original proprietors had, Sandars continues, "been paid every other year, for nearly half a century, the total amount of their investment." An immense revenue was being raised at the expense of the merchants and manufacturers, "and for no other purpose than to enrich a few individuals who were daily violating Acts of Parliament, Acts which, by a long course of cunning policy," they had contrived to convert into "the most oppressive and unjust monopoly known to the trade of this Kingdom--a monopoly which," Sandars goes on to declare, "there is every reason to believe compels the public to pay, in one shape or another, £100,000 more per annum than they ought to pay." The agents of the two companies not only agreed between themselves what charges they would impose but, autocrats as they were, they established a despotic sway over the traders. They set up, says Francis, "a rotation by which they sent as much or as little as suited them, and shipped it how or when they pleased. They held levees, attended by crowds who, admitted one by one, almost implored them to forward their goods. One firm was thus limited by the supreme wisdom of the canal managers to sixty or seventy bags a day. The effects were really disastrous; mills stood still for want of material; machines were stopped for lack of food. Of 5000 feet of pine timber required in Manchester by one house, 2000 remained unshipped from November, 1824, to March, 1825." {233}Merchants whose timber was thus delayed in transit were fined for allowing it to obstruct the quays; and Sandars tells of one who paid £69 in fines on this account during the course of two months. It was less costly and more convenient to leave the delayed timber where it was, and pay the fines, than to keep moving it to and fro between quay and timber yard; though the effect--especially as the imports of timber increased--was to block up, not only the quays, but the neighbouring streets, which thus became almost impassable for carts and carriages. Corn and other commodities had often to be kept back eight or ten days on account of a lack of vessels. It sometimes happened that commodities brought across the Atlantic in three weeks were detained in Liverpool for six weeks before they could be sent on to Manchester. The agents would not carry certain kinds of merchandise or particular descriptions of cotton at all. Alternatively they would tell a trader: "We took so much for you yesterday, and we can take only so much for you to-day." "They limited the quantity," says Francis, "they appointed the time, until the difficulties of transit became a public talk and the abuse of power a public trouble. The Exchange of Liverpool resounded with merchants' complaints; the counting-houses of Manchester re-echoed the murmurs of manufacturers." To avoid serious delays either to raw materials or to manufactured articles the traders were often forced to resort to road transport "because," says Sandars, "speed and certainty as to delivery are of the first importance"; and he adds on this point, "Packages of goods sent from Manchester, for immediate shipment at Liverpool, often pay two or three pounds per ton; and yet there are those who assert that the difference of a few hours in speed can be no object. The merchants know better." The example already set in so many different parts of the country in the provision of rail-ways, or railways, as they were now being generally called, may well have suggested that in a resort to this expedient would be found the most practical solution of the problem which had caused so much trouble to the traders. Sandars himself says that inasmuch as the two companies were "deaf to all remonstrances, to all entreaties," and were "actuated solely by a spirit of {234}monopoly and extortion," the only remedy the public had left was to go to Parliament and ask for permission to establish a new line of conveyance--and one, also, that possessed decided advantages over canal or river transport. But here there arose a consideration which had a material bearing on the problem immediately concerned, and was to affect the further development of the railway system in general. Numerous as were the lines already existing at this time, none of them directly competed with the waterways. They were feeders rather than rivals of the canals. Even the Surrey Iron Rail-way and the Stockton and Darlington line, though operating independently of the canal companies, had not come into conflict with them. In the one instance--that of the Merthyr and Cardiff dram-road--in which a railway had hitherto been projected in direct competition with a canal the scheme had been either killed or bought off by the canal interests. But the proposed Liverpool and Manchester Railway was avowedly and expressly designed to compete with the existing water services. It was not simply to supplement the waterways. It threatened to supplant them. So the waterway companies, representing very powerful interests--inasmuch as by 1824 the amount invested in canal and navigation schemes was about £14,000,000--might well think it necessary to take action in defence of their own position. Down to this time they had regarded the railway as either a friend or a non-competitor, and they had either extended to it a sympathetic support or had, at least, regarded it with a feeling of equanimity. Henceforward they had to look upon it as an opponent. The project for a Liverpool and Manchester Railway would seem to have first begun to assume definite shape in or about 1822, when William James, a London engineer, who had already proposed a "Central Junction Rail-way or Tram-road" from Stratford-on-Avon to London, made surveys between Liverpool and Manchester, and prepared a set of plans. The certain prospect, however, of vigorous opposition from the waterway interests led some of the traders to think they had better make terms with the men in possession, if they could; and in that same year the corn merchants of Liverpool memorialised the Bridgewater trustees, asking both {235}for a reduction in the rate of freight and for better accommodation. Bradshaw replied with an unqualified refusal, and he treated as idle talk the then much-discussed project of a line of railway. There is no doubt that if, at this period, reasonable concessions had been made to the traders the building of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, although, of course, inevitable, would have been delayed to a later period. The traders shrank, at first, from an open fight, and the project of 1822 was allowed to drop for a time. The situation was found to be so hopeless, however, that in 1824 they decided that mere concessions from the waterway interests would no longer suffice, and that the provision of an alternative means of transport had become imperative. A Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company was now formed, and on October 29, 1824, there was issued a prospectus which was, in effect, a declaration of war against the waterway parties who had so mercilessly abused the situation they thought they controlled. This document, after mentioning that the total quantity of merchandise then passing between Liverpool and Manchester was estimated at 1000 tons a day, proceeded:-- "The committee are aware that it will not immediately be understood by the public how the proprietors of a railroad, requiring an invested capital of £400,000 can afford to carry goods at so great a reduction upon the charge of the present water companies. But the problem is easily solved. It is not that the water companies have not been able to carry goods on reasonable terms, but that, strong in the enjoyment of their monopoly, they have not thought proper to do so. Against the most arbitrary exactions the public have hitherto had no protection, and against the indefinite continuance or recurrence of the evil they have but one security. _It is competition that is wanted_, and the proof of this assertion may be adduced from the fact that shares in the Old Quay Navigation, of which the original cost was £70, have been sold as high as £1250 each!" The canal interests in general had, however, anticipated the definite challenge thus given, and there had already been a call to arms in defence of common interests. In a postscript to the prospectus just referred to it was mentioned that {236}the Leeds and Liverpool, the Birmingham, the Grand Trunk and other canal companies had issued circulars calling upon "every canal and navigation company in the Kingdom to oppose _in limine_, and by a united effort, the establishment of railroads wherever contemplated."[39] By this time, therefore, the projectors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway were threatened with the opposition, not alone of the Bridgewater trustees and of the Old Quay Navigation trustees, but of the canal and river navigation interests throughout the country. As Thomas Baines well describes the position in his "History of Liverpool," "The canal proprietors, with an instinctive sense of danger, justly appreciated what they affected to despise, and, with one accord, and with one heart and mind, resolved to crush the rival project which threatened to interrupt, if not to destroy the hopes of prescription and the dreams of a sanguine avarice." The real strength of the opposition thus being worked up against not only the Liverpool and Manchester Railway but public railways in general will be better understood if I supplement the references I have already made to the shares of canal and navigation companies by a few further figures, showing the financial position to which the waterways had attained, and the extent of the vested interests they represented at the particular period now in question. In a pamphlet published in 1824, under the title of "A Statement of the Claim of the Subscribers to the Birmingham and Liverpool Rail-road to an Act of Parliament; in reply to the Opposition of the Canal Companies" (quoted in the fifth, or 1825, edition of Thomas Gray's "Observations on a General Iron Rail-way"), it is stated that the amount of capital originally subscribed for the old Birmingham Canal Company was about £55,000, in shares of £100, subject to a stipulation that no one person should hold more than ten shares. The pamphlet proceeds:-- {237}"By various subsequent Acts and collateral cuts, this canal, which has now changed its name to the style of the 'Birmingham Canal Navigation Company,' is extended to a distance of about 60 miles of water, containing 99 locks or thereabouts, 10 fire engines to raise water, number of bridges not known to the present writer. "The original shares are computed to have cost the proprietors £140 each. In 1782 they were marketably worth £370, and in 1792, £1110. In 1811 an Act increased the shares 500 to 1000, or, in other words, for marketable convenience divided them. In 1813 the half share was sold as high as £585. In 1818 power was given to the company of proprietors further to subdivide the shares as they should deem advisable, on due public notice, etc. The shares are now in eighths. Thus at the present time, and at the last quoted prices in Wetenhall's list, there are 4000 shares of eighths, marketably worth £360 per eighth, each receiving an annual dividend of £12-10-0. Thus the original cost, compared with the present value of the 500 shares, is as £70,000 to £1,444,000, the original share having risen from £140 sterling (or thereabouts) to the sum of £2840." Shares in the Loughborough Navigation cost the first holders £142-17-0 each. In the "European Magazine" for June, 1821, they are quoted at £2600 a share, and the dividend then being paid is given as 170 per cent. In the issue of the same magazine for November, 1824, the price per share is £4700, and the dividend is shown to have risen to 200 per cent. Among other canal shares quoted in the "European Magazine" for the dates mentioned are the following:-- 1821 1824 COMPANY. SHARE. PRICE. DIVIDEND. PRICE. DIVIDEND. £ £ £ £ £ Coventry 100 970 44 1350 44 and 61 Erewash 100 1000 56 -- 58 Leeds and Liverpool 100 280 10 570 15 Oxford 100 630 32 900 32* Staffordshire and Worcestershire 100 700 40 950 40 Trent and Mersey 200 1750 7575 2250 75* * And bonus. {238}The following further quotations are from "Wetenhall's Commercial List" for December 10, 1824:-- COMPANY. SHARE. PRICE. DIVIDEND. £ s. d. £ s. d. £ s. d. Ashton and Oldham 97 18 0 310 0 0 5 0 0 Barnsley 160 0 0 340 0 0 12 0 0 Grand Junction 100 0 0 296 0 0 10 0 0 Glamorganshire 172 13 4 280 0 0 13 12 8 Grantham 150 0 0 190 0 0 10 0 0 Leicester 140 0 0 390 0 0 14 0 0 Monmouthshire 100 0 0 245 0 0 10 0 0 Melton Mowbray 100 0 0 255 0 0 11 0 0 Mersey and Irwell -- 1000 0 0 35 0 0 Neath 100 0 0 400 0 0 15 0 0 Shrewsbury 125 0 0 206 0 0 10 0 0 Stourbridge 145 0 0 220 0 0 10 10 0 Stroudwater 150 0 0 450 0 0 31 10 0 Trent and Mersey (half share) 100 0 0 2300 0 0 75 0 0* Warwick and Birmingham 100 0 0 320 0 0 11 0 0 Warwick and Knapton 100 0 0 280 0 0 11 0 0 * And bonus. These figures, it will be seen, are given for years when the "canal mania"--at its height between 1791 and 1794--had long been over, and they suggest, therefore, _bona fide_ market values based on business done and dividends paid. High as they are, it is doubtful if they tell the whole story. I have mentioned on page 218 that in their petition to the House of Commons against the proposed railway, or tramway, between Merthyr and Cardiff, the Glamorganshire Canal Company represented that they were restrained by their Act from paying more than a "moderate" dividend. The dividend they were authorised to pay was one of eight per cent; but there is a tradition in South Wales that the company, after checking effectively the threatened railway competition, attained to phenomenal prosperity, and resorted to an ingenious expedient as a means of deriving further pecuniary advantage from the waterway without exceeding the statutory limitation in regard to the dividend to be paid. This expedient took the form of a suspension of all tolls for a large part of every year, the use of the canal being free to the public for {239}the period so arranged. In some years, it is said, no tolls were paid for six months at a time. This practice was found preferable, for certain members of the managing committee--ironmasters or large traders in the district--to a reduction of tolls to be in force throughout the year, their practice being to keep back their own consignments, whenever possible, till the free period, which they could fix to suit their convenience. When the principal shareholders were traders using the canal, it did not matter to them whether their profits came wholly in dividends or partly in dividends and partly in free carriage. Traders, however, who could not wait for their supplies or store their manufactured goods until the free period came round had to pay the full rates of tolls for, at least, the period during which these were enforced. I shall refer later to the effect on railway legislation of the power and influence to which the waterways had attained. The consideration for the moment is that, even allowing for a certain number of minor or of purely speculative canals which were admittedly failures, the waterway interests, consolidating their forces, were able, by virtue of their position at the time in question, to organise a powerful and widespread opposition to a rival form of transport then still in its infancy, though obviously capable of eventually becoming a formidable competitor. The canal interests also made every effort to work up an opposition on the part of representatives of the landed interests, who, however, developed such strong hostility of their own towards the iron road that the arguments of the canal proprietors were hardly needed to arouse them to violent antagonism to the scheme. Popular prejudices, too, were well exploited, and the most direful predictions were indulged in as to what would result from the running of locomotives, so that, for a time, the promoters even abandoned the idea of using locomotives at all. The combined canal and land interests scored the first victory on the Liverpool and Manchester Bill, which was thrown out in 1825; but it was reintroduced and passed in 1826, the opposition of the Bridgewater trustees having, in the meantime, been overcome by a judicious presentation to them of a thousand shares in the railway. The promoters thus established the new principle of direct {240}competition between railways and waterways; but otherwise the Liverpool and Manchester differed from the Stockton and Darlington, at the outset, and as a line of railway, only in the fact that the former was to be provided throughout with malleable iron rails, whereas the latter had two-thirds malleable iron and one-third cast iron. On the one line as on the other, the use of locomotives had not been decided upon from the start; and, unless the Liverpool and Manchester had not only adopted locomotives but, as was, of course, the case, improved on those of the Stockton and Darlington, it would have shown little real advance in actual railway operation. The motive power to be used on the Liverpool and Manchester remained uncertain when George Stephenson and his "navvies" were attacking the engineering proposition of Chat Moss. It was still uncertain in October, 1828--or two years after the passing of the Act--when three of the directors went to Killingworth colliery, to see the early locomotive which Stephenson had made there, and to Darlington to see the locomotives then operating on the Stockton and Darlington line. They decided that "horses were out of the question"; but even then the point remained doubtful whether the Liverpool and Manchester should be provided with locomotives or have stationary engines at intervals of a mile or two along the line to draw the trains from station to station by means of ropes. How the directors sought to solve the problem by offering a premium of £500 for a locomotive which would fulfil certain conditions; how George Stephenson won the prize with his "Rocket"; and how the "Rocket," with a gross load of seventeen tons, attained a speed of twenty-nine miles an hour, with an average of fourteen--whereas counsel for the promoters had only promised a speed of six or seven miles an hour--are facts known to all the world. If the Stockton and Darlington Railway had had the honour of introducing the locomotive, it was the Rainhill trials, organised by the Liverpool and Manchester Company, which gave the world its first idea of the great possibilities to which alike the locomotive and the railway might attain. In this respect the Liverpool and Manchester line carried railway development far beyond the point already attained by the Stockton and Darlington, although no fundamentally {241}new principle in railway working was set up. The Liverpool and Manchester line did, however, establish a new departure in proclaiming direct rivalry with the then powerful canal interests, and the warfare thus entered on, and persevered in until the railway system had gained the ascendancy, was to affect the whole further history of railway expansion and control. {242}CHAPTER XX RAILWAY EXPANSION The monopolist tendencies of the waterway interests, the magnitude of the profits secured, and the resort by traders to the building of railways as an alternative thereto and as a means of meeting the transport requirements of expanding industries, were factors in the development of the railway system that operated as direct causes in the construction of other lines besides the Liverpool and Manchester. From these particular points of view the story of the Leicester and Swannington Railway is of special significance. In the closing years of the eighteenth century, when the Canal Era was in full operation, the various new projects put forward included one for constructing a canal, eleven miles in length, down the Erewash valley to connect with the Trent, thus facilitating the transport of coal and other products from Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire to places served by that river; and another for rendering the Soar navigable from its junction with the Trent to Leicester, this being known as the Loughborough Navigation. These two schemes were to form part of a network of important waterways, the Soar Navigation joining the Leicester Navigation, and this, in turn, communicating with the Leicestershire branch of the Grand Junction Canal, thus eventually giving a direct route from Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire to London. The Leicestershire coalowners regarded these proposals with great uneasiness. They were then supplying Leicester with coal conveyed there by waggon or packhorse from the collieries on the other side of Charnwood Forest, and they foresaw that the proposed navigations would give the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire coalowners a great advantage over them in the Leicester market. They accordingly offered a strong opposition to the schemes, and persisted until the projectors {243}of the Loughborough Navigation undertook to make that Charnwood Forest Canal which, with its edge-railway at each end (see page 220), would connect the Leicestershire coal-fields at Coleorton and Moira with Leicester, and so allow of the threatened competition from the north of the Trent being duly met. The Loughborough Navigation and its Charnwood Forest extension were completed in 1798; but in the succeeding winter the Charnwood Forest Canal burst its banks, and the damage done was never repaired, the Loughborough Navigation trustees (who, though forced to construct the canal, did not consider themselves obliged to maintain it) finding it to their advantage, from a traffic point of view, to enable the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire coalowners to have a virtual monopoly on the Leicester market. It was under these conditions that the Loughborough Navigation shares advanced, by 1824, from their original value of £142 17s. each to no less a sum than £4700. The local waterway interests maintained their supremacy and were, indeed, complete masters of the situation for over thirty years; but the days of their 200 per cent dividends were then numbered. Influenced by what the traders of Liverpool and Manchester were doing to fight the canal and river monopolists there, the Leicestershire coalowners got, in 1830, an Act of Parliament authorising them to build a railway from Swannington to Leicester. This line would give them the facilities they wanted for their coal; but it was to be a "public," and not merely a private, railway. By one of the clauses of the Act it was provided that "all persons shall have free liberty to use with horses, cattle and carriages the said railway upon payment of tolls." These tolls were arranged alike for passengers and for goods and minerals, and they varied according to whether the travellers and traders provided their own conveyances or used those of the railway company. In the former case passengers were to pay twopence halfpenny each per mile, and in the latter case threepence per mile, the tolls for goods and minerals being in like proportion. In a later Act, however, passed in 1833, it was declared that "whereas the main line hath been constructed with a view to locomotive steam engines being used, it might be very injurious to the said railway and {244}inconvenient and dangerous if horses or cattle were used," and the rights thus granted to the public under the first Act were now withdrawn. Opened in 1832, the Leicester and Swannington Railway restored to the Leicestershire colliery-owners the advantage in the Leicester market of which the canal companies had enabled their north-of-the-Trent competitors to deprive them for so many years; and it was now the turn of the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire coalmasters to consider what they should do to meet the new situation which had arisen. They first had conferences with the directors of the Loughborough, Erewash and Leicester Navigations, and sought to induce them to grant such reductions in tolls as would enable them to compete with the Leicestershire coal, now that this was no longer shut out from Leicester by the dry ditch in Charnwood Forest. But the only concessions the canal companies would make were regarded as wholly inadequate by the Nottinghamshire coalmasters, who, meeting at a little inn at Eastwood, on August 16, 1832, resolved that "there remained no other plan for their adoption" than to lay a railway from their collieries to the town of Leicester. They formed a Midland Counties Railway Company, obtained an Act, built their line, and so laid the foundations of the great system now known to us as the Midland Railway. Into that system the Leicester and Swannington was absorbed in 1846. The position to-day of the waterways which for thirty years controlled more or less the transport conditions of the three counties in question, brought great wealth to their owners, and, by their sole regard for their own interests, forced the traders to resort to railways, is shown by the Fourth or Final Report of the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways. From this one may learn that the Loughborough and Leicester Navigations, which follow the course of the Soar, are liable to floods and are, also, sometimes short of water, in consequence of the want of control over the supply of water to mills; and although, with the Grand Junction Canal, they offer "the most direct inland water route" to London for the traffic of Derby, Nottingham and Leicester and of the large coal districts, they serve at present, adds the Report, but an insignificant part of the traffic which travels by this route. {245}In effect, the very efforts made by the canal companies to preserve the monopoly they had so long and so profitably enjoyed were only a direct means of encouraging railway expansion; though few great institutions, destined to lead to a great social and economic revolution, have established their position in the face of more prejudice, greater difficulties, and less sympathetic support from "the powers that be" than was the case with the railways. The traders of the country were naturally favourable to them, since the need for improved means of communication, following on the ever-expanding trade and industry of the land, was becoming almost daily more and more acute. But the vested interests, as represented alike by holders of canal shares, by turnpike road trustees and investors, and by the coaching interests, were against the railways; the Press of the country was to a great extent against them; leaders in the literary and the social worlds either ignored or condemned them; landowners first opposed and then blackmailed them; Governments sought to control and to tax rather than to assist them; and then, when the railways had proved that they were less objectionable than prejudiced critics had assumed, and were likely even to be a source of profitable investment, they were boomed by speculators into a popularity that led both to successive "railway manias" and to the whole railway system being still further burdened with an excessive capital expenditure which has been more or less to its prejudice ever since. Some of the early denunciations by those who would have considered themselves, in their day, to be leaders of public opinion, if not of light and learning, afford interesting examples of the hostility which railways, in common with every innovation that seeks to alter established habits and customs, had to encounter. In the article published in the "Quarterly Review" for March, 1825, in which proposals for making railways general throughout the country are condemned as "visionary schemes unworthy of notice," it is further said in reference to the Woolwich Railway:-- "It is certainly some consolation to those who are to be whirled at the rate of eighteen or twenty miles an hour, by means of a high pressure engine, to be told that they are in {246}no danger of being sea-sick while on shore, that they are not to be scalded to death, nor drowned by the bursting of the boiler; and that they need not fear being shot by the scattered fragments, or dashed in pieces by the flying off or the breaking of a wheel. But, with all these assurances we should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet rockets as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine, going at such a rate. Their property they may, perhaps, trust; but while one of the finest navigable rivers in the world runs parallel to the proposed railroad, we consider the other twenty per cent which the subscribers are to receive for the conveyance of heavy goods almost as problematical as that to be derived from the passengers. We will back old Father Thames against the Woolwich Railway for any sum." In "John Bull" for November 15, 1835, railways are spoken of as "new-fangled absurdities," and it is declared that "those people who judge by the success of the Manchester and Liverpool Railroad, and take it as a criterion for similar speculations, are dunces and blockheads." In the case of that particular railway, the writer argues, the distance was short, the passengers were numerous, the "thing" was new and the traffic was great--above all the distance was short; but it did not follow that railways were going to succeed elsewhere. He continues:-- "Does anybody mean to say that decent people, passengers who would use their own carriages, and are accustomed to their own comforts, would consent to be hurried along through the air upon a railroad, from which, had a lazy schoolboy left a marble, or a wicked one a stone, they would be pitched off their perilous track, into the valley beneath; or is it to be imagined that women, who may like the fun of being whirled away on a party of pleasure for an hour to see a sight, would endure the fatigue, and misery, and danger, not only to themselves, but their children and families, of being dragged through the air at the rate of twenty miles an hour, all their lives being at the mercy of a tin pipe, or a copper boiler, or the accidental dropping of a pebble on the line of way? "We denounce the _mania_ as destructive of the country in a thousand particulars--the whole face of the Kingdom is to be tattooed with these odious deformities; huge mounds are {247}to intersect our beautiful valleys; the noise and stench of locomotive steam-engines are to disturb the quietude of the peasant, the farmer and the gentleman; and the roaring of bullocks, the bleating of sheep and the grunting of pigs to keep up one continual uproar through the night along the lines of these most dangerous and disfiguring abominations.... "Railroads ... will in their efforts to gain ground do incalculable mischief. If they succeed they will give an unnatural impetus to society, destroy all the relations which exist between man and man, overthrow all mercantile regulations, overturn the metropolitan markets, drain the provinces of all their resources, and create, at the peril of life, all sorts of confusion and distress. If they fail nothing will be left but the hideous memorials of public folly." In "Gore's Liverpool Advertiser" for December 20, 1824, mention is made of some of the objections then being raised against railways, these being described as "exceedingly trifling and puerile." "Elderly gentlemen," it is said, "are of opinion that they shall not be able to cross the rail-roads without the certainty of being run over; young gentlemen are naturally fearful that the pleasant comforts and conveniencies of their foxes and pheasants may not have been sufficiently consulted. Ladies think that cows will not graze within view of locomotive engines, and that the sudden and formidable appearance of them may be attended with _premature_ consequences to bipeds as well as quadrupeds. Farmers are quite agreed that the race of horses must at once be extinguished, and that oats and hay will no longer be marketable produce." Other alarmist stories were that a great and a scandalous attack was being made on private property; that there was not a field which would not be split up and divided; that springs would dry up, meadows become sterile and vegetation cease; that cows would give no milk, horses become extinct, agricultural operations be suspended, and houses be crushed by the railway embankments; that ruin would fall alike on landowners, farmers, market gardeners and innkeepers; that manufacturers' stocks would be destroyed by sparks from the locomotives; that hundreds of thousands of people, including those who had invested in canals, would be beggared in the interests of a few; and that (as an anti-climax to all {248}these predictions of national disaster) the locomotive, after all, would never be got to work because, although its wheels might turn, it would remain on the lines by reason of its own weight--a theory which, long pondered over by men of science, led to early projects of "general" railways being based on the rack-and-pinion principle of operation, and was only abandoned when someone had the happy idea of making experiments which proved that the surmise in question was a complete delusion. I reproduce these puerilities of the early part of the nineteenth century, not simply for the entertainment of the reader, but because it is a matter of serious consideration how far they affected the cost of providing the country with railways. and whether, indeed, the traders who smile at them to-day may not still be paying, in one way or another, for the consequences they involved. The keener the prejudice, the greater the hostility and the more bitter the denunciations when railways were struggling into existence, the more vigorous became the antagonism of landowners, the higher were the prices demanded for land, the more costly, by reason of the opposition, were the proceedings before Parliamentary Committees, and the heavier grew that capital expenditure the interest on which would have to be met out of such rates and charges as the railways, when made, would impose. To a certain extent one may sympathise with landowners who feared that the amenities of their estates might be prejudiced by an innovation of which so much evil was being said; but, as a rule (to which there were some very honourable exceptions) it was found that their scruples in regard alike to their own interests and to the national welfare eventually resolved themselves into a question of how much money could be got out of the companies. Thus the extortionate prices paid for land often had no relation to the actual value of the land itself. They were simply the highest amount the railway company were prepared to pay the landowner for the withdrawal of his threatened opposition. If the company resisted the exorbitant demands made upon them, and would not give a sufficiently high bribe, they were so strongly opposed that they generally lost their Bill when they first applied for it to Parliament. Thereupon they would {249}yield, or effect a compromise on, the terms asked for, announce that they had made amicable arrangements with the opposition, re-introduce their Bill in the following Session, and then succeed in getting it passed. It might happen, even then, that the companies obtained their powers subject only to a variety of hampering or vexatious restrictions which the landed gentry or others were able to enforce in order that due respect should be shown to their fears or their prejudices. In some of the earlier railway Acts the companies were forbidden to use any "locomotives or moveable engines" without the written consent of the owners or occupiers of the land through which their lines passed. One of the clauses of the Liverpool and Manchester Act provided that "no steam engine shall be set up in the township of Burtonwood or Winwick, and no locomotive shall be allowed to pass along the line within those townships which shall be considered by Thomas Lord Lilford or by the Rector of Winwick to be a nuisance or annoyance to them from the noise or smoke thereof." The same two individuals secured insertion of a clause in the Warrington and Newton Railway Act to the effect that every locomotive used within the parishes mentioned should be "constructed on best principles for enabling it to consume its own smoke and preventing noise in the machinery or motion thereof," and should use "no coal, but only coke or other such fuel" as his lordship and the rector might approve. The story of the London and Birmingham Railway is especially significant of the general conditions under which the English railway system came into being. Industrial expansion had brought about great developments in the Birmingham and Black Country districts, the population in Birmingham alone having increased from about 50,000 in 1751 to 110,000 in 1830. Wide possibilities of increasing trade and commerce were being opened up, but these were seriously hampered by the disadvantages experienced in the matter of transport. Small parcels of manufactured goods could be sent by coach, and a good deal of wrought iron--in small quantities per coach--was also distributed in the same way during the course of the year. For bulky goods or raw materials the only means of transport between Birmingham and London was by canal, and this meant a three-days' {250}journey. Over 1000 tons a week were then going from Birmingham to London by water; but there was great need for a means of communication at once more speedy and more trustworthy. Goods were delayed in transit even beyond the three days; they were rejected by the shippers because they did not arrive in proper time; they were sometimes held up by frost on the canal between Birmingham and London and lost their chance of getting to the Baltic before the spring; while, alternatively, they might be pilfered or lost on the canal journey, and so not get even as far as London. There was often much difficulty, also, in obtaining raw materials. In the result manufacturers had to refuse orders because they could not execute them in time, and the local industries were not making anything like the advance of which, with better transport facilities, they would have been capable. The business that Birmingham manufacturers should have been doing with Italy, with Spain, or with Portugal was found to be drifting more and more into the hands of Continental competitors who had greater advantages both in obtaining raw materials on the spot and in distributing their manufactured goods. It was further argued that in view of the struggle then proceeding between this country and Continental countries for commercial supremacy, the improvement of the means of transport, even as regarded Birmingham and London, was a matter of national, and not simply of local, concern. It might well be assumed that such considerations as these would have appealed to the patriotic instincts of the English people, and especially to those of the landed gentry. Yet the issue, in January, 1832, of the first prospectus of the London and Birmingham Railway Company, and the introduction of their Bill in February of the same year, led to opposition, to extortion and to actual blackmail of the most determined and most merciless description. The Bill passed in the Commons, but it was thrown out in the Lords. Its rejection there was attributed to the landowners, who, it was declared, had "tried to smother the company by the high price they demanded for their property." The inevitable negotiations followed. Six months after the defeat of the Bill the directors announced that the {251}"measures" they had taken with a view to removing "that opposition of dissentient landowners and proprietors which was the sole cause of their failure ... had been successful to a greater extent than they had ventured to anticipate. The most active and formidable had been conciliated," and the Bill would be introduced afresh in the following Session. This was done, and the Bill became an Act, receiving the Royal assent on May 6, 1833. The nature of the "measures" which had succeeded in overcoming the opposition may be judged from some facts mentioned by John Francis, who says that land estimated in value at £250,000 cost the company three times that amount. One landowner, in addition to getting £3000 for a certain plot, extorted £10,000 for what he called "consequential damages"; though, instead of injuring the remainder of his property, the line increased its value by twenty per cent. For land used only as agricultural holdings the company is said to have had to pay at the rate of £350 an acre. But this was not all. There was the opposition of towns as well as the greed of individuals to be taken into account. According to Robert Stephenson's original survey, the London and Birmingham Railway was to pass through Northampton, where, also, it was proposed to establish the company's locomotive and carriage works. The opposition in Northampton, however, was so great that in order to meet it the company altered their plans and arranged for the line to pass at a distance from that town. They further undertook to start their locomotive works at Wolverton, and thus not interfere with the amenities of Northampton. How much the town and trade of Northampton lost as the result of its scruples could hardly be told; but the consequences to the railway company of this enforced alteration of route were as serious as any of the extortions practised by the landowners. The line had now to pass through a tunnel at Kilsby, five miles distant from Northampton, and a contractor undertook to cut this tunnel for £90,000. But, while engaged on the task, he came upon a quicksand which reduced him to despair and led to his throwing up the contract. Robert Stephenson thereupon took the work in hand and he had to have 1250 men, 200 horses and thirteen steam-engines at work raising 1800 gallons of water per minute night and day {252}for the greater part of eight months before the difficulty was overcome. By the time the tunnel was completed the cost of construction had risen from the original estimate of £90,000 to over £300,000, this enormous expenditure having been incurred, not because it was necessary for the line, as first designed, but to meet the opposition and spare the feelings of the then short-sighted dwellers in the town of Northampton. The London and Birmingham Railway, with its terminus at Euston, was eventually opened for traffic throughout in September, 1838. It was, of course, one of the lines subsequently amalgamated to form the London and North-Western Railway. The first Bill of the Great Western Railway, applied for in 1834, was strenuously opposed and defeated. The second Bill, brought forward in the following session, was less strenuously opposed, and was duly passed. In the interval the opposition of the dissentient landowners had been "conciliated"; and, commenting thereon (in 1851), John Francis says:-- "The mode by which the opposition of landholders was met bears the same sad character as with other railways. Every passenger who goes by the Great Western pays an additional fare to meet the interest on this most unjust charge; and every shareholder in this, as in other lines, receives a less dividend than he is entitled to from the same cause. Nor does the blame rest with the conductors of the railway. They were the agents of the shareholders and were bound to forward their interests. The principle of the case to them was nothing. They were bound to get the Act at the cheapest possible rate, and if the law gave their rich opponents the power of practically stopping the progress of the line, and those opponents chose to avail themselves of the law, the shame rests with the proprietor of the soil, and not with the promoter of the railway. Fancy prices were given for fancy prospects, in proportion to the power of the landowner. Noblemen were persuaded to allow their castles to be desecrated for a consideration. There can be no doubt--it was, indeed, all but demonstrated--that offers were made to and accepted by influential parties to withdraw their opposition to a Bill which they had declared would ruin them, while the smaller and more numerous complainants were {253}paid such prices as should actually buy off a series of long and tedious litigants." The promoters of that most unfortunate of lines, the Eastern Counties--predecessor of the Great Eastern Railway of to-day--found themselves faced with serious opposition in the Lords after they had got their Bill through the Commons; "but," says the first report, "the directors, by meeting the parties with the same promptness and in the same fair spirit which had carried them successfully through their previous negotiations, effected amicable arrangements with them," and the company was incorporated in 1836. The negotiations must, however, have been carried through with greater promptness than discretion, for, to save the fate of their Bill, the directors undertook to pay one influential landowner £120,000 for some purely agricultural land which was said to be then worth not more than £5000. After they had secured their Bill they made persistent attempts to get out of paying the £120,000; and, altogether, they so shocked John Herapath that in successive monthly issues of his "Railway Magazine" all references to the Eastern Counties Railway Company were encircled by a black border. In another instance a company proposed to meet the opposition of certain landowners by carrying the line through a tunnel, which would enable them to avoid the property in question. The tunnel would have cost £50,000, and the landowners said, "Give us the price of that tunnel and we will withdraw our opposition." The company offered £30,000, and the landowners agreed to be "conciliated" on this basis. They still came off better than the objector who began by demanding £8000 and finally accepted £80. John Francis, too, relates the following story: "The estate of a nobleman was near a proposed line. He was proud of his park and great was his resentment. In vain was it proved that the new road would not come within six miles of his house, that the highway lay between, that a tunnel would hide the inelegance. He resisted all overture on the plea of his feelings, until £30,000 was offered. The route was, however, afterwards changed. A new line was marked out which would not even approach his domain; and, enraged at the prospect of losing the £30,000, he resisted it as strenuously as the other." There were some honourable exceptions to the general {254}tendency to extort as much as possible from the railway companies. Among these may be mentioned the voluntary return by the Duke of Bedford of a sum of £150,000 paid to him as compensation, his Grace explaining that the railway had benefitted instead of injuring his property; and by Lord Taunton of £15,000 out of £35,000 because his property had not suffered so much as had been anticipated. Exceptions such as these do not, however, alter the fact that, as stated by Francis in 1851, the London and Birmingham Company had had to pay for land and compensation an average of £6300 per mile, the Great Western £6696, the London and South Western £4000 and the Brighton Company £8000 per mile. One argument, at least, which can be advanced in favour of State railways--as applying, however, to a country beginning the creation of a railway system, or building new railways, rather than to one taking over an existing system--is that extortions in respect to land could not be practised on the State in the same way as they have been practised on English railway companies left by their Government to make the best terms they could with those who were in a position to drive the hardest of bargains with them. In Prussia, for example, the securing of land for any new lines wanted for the State railway system is a comparatively simple matter. If the landowner and the responsible officials cannot agree to terms, the matter is referred to arbitration, though with every probability that the landowner will get no more than a fair sum, and will not be able to extort fancy figures under the head of consequential damages or as the "price" of his withdrawing any opposition he might otherwise offer. Apart from other considerations, and taking only the one item of land, the State lines of Continental countries may well have cost less to construct than the English lines, while both in the United States and in Canada the pioneer railway companies had great stretches of land given to them, by State or Federal Government, not alone for their lines, but as a further means of assisting them financially. When one finds how the cost of creating the railway system in our own country was swollen, under the conditions here stated, to far greater proportions than should have been the case, and when one remembers that the excessive capital {255}expenditure involved in meeting extortionate demands had either to remain unremunerative or be made good out of the payments of travellers and traders, it is evident that comparisons between English and foreign railway rates and fares may be carried to unreasonable lengths if they ignore conditions of origin by which the operation of the lines concerned must necessarily have been more or less influenced. Francis himself says on this point, while confessing that "every line in England has cost more than it ought":-- "The reader may learn to moderate his intense indignation when, anathematising railways, he remembers with what unjust demands and impure claims they had to deal, and with what sad and selfish treatment it was their lot to meet. They owe nothing to the country; they owe nothing to the aristocracy. They were wronged by the former; they were contumaciously treated by the latter." Another factor, apart from cost of land, in swelling the construction capital of British railways to abnormal proportions has been the cost of Parliamentary proceedings; and here, again, State railways have had the advantage. In Prussia the obtaining of sanction for the building of an additional line by the State railways administration is little more than a matter of official routine; whereas in England the expenses incurred by railway companies in obtaining their Acts have often amounted to a prodigious sum--to be added, of course, to the capital outlay which the users of the railway will be expected to recoup, or, at least, to pay interest on. An especially striking example was that of the Blackwall Railway, now leased to the Great Eastern Railway Company. The cost of obtaining the Act for this line, which is only five miles and a quarter in length, worked out at no less a sum than £14,414 per mile, the total cost being thus £75,673. The amounts paid by certain other companies in securing their Parliamentary powers are given as follows by G. R. Porter in his "Progress of the Nation" (1846):-- Birmingham and Gloucester £22,618 Bristol and Gloucester £25,589 Bristol and Exeter £18,592 Eastern Counties £39,171 Great Western £89,197 Great North of England £20,526 {256} Grand Junction £22,757 Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock £23,481 London and Birmingham £72,868 London and South Western £41,467 Manchester and Leeds £49,166 Midland Counties £28,776 North Midland £41,349 Northern and Eastern £74,166 Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester £31,473 South-Eastern £82,292 In some cases, Porter explains, the sums here given contain the expenses of surveying and other disbursements which necessarily precede the obtaining of an Act of incorporation. On the other hand, they include only the costs defrayed by the proprietors of the railway, and not the expenses incurred by parties opposing the Bills. Nor do they include the expenses incurred in connection either with rival schemes or with schemes that failed altogether; though, in these instances, of course, there would be no chance of recouping the outlay out of rates and fares. No fewer than five different companies, for instance, sought for powers to construct a line from London to Brighton, and the amounts they expended are given by John Francis as follows:-- Rennie's line £72,000 Stephenson's £53,750 Cundy's £16,500 Gibb's £26,325 South-Eastern £25,000 ------- Total £193,575 Another company, the name of which is not given by Francis, had so vigorous a fight that they spent nearly £500,000 before they got their Act; but still worse than this was the fate of the Stone and Rugby Railway, whose promoters spent £146,000 on attempts made in two successive sessions to get an Act (the Committee on the first Bill sitting {257}on 66 days) and then failed. In another instance the promoters expended £100,000 with a like result. After the early companies had got their Acts and obtained their land they still, as railway pioneers, had to bear the expense of some very costly experiments, of which railways constructed at a later date had the advantage. The idea that the locomotive would be able to haul trains only on the level involved much unnecessary expenditure on engineering works, while the battle of the gauges led to a prodigious waste of money alike in Parliamentary proceedings and in the provision of lines, embankments, cuttings, bridges and viaducts adapted to a broad gauge eventually abandoned in favour of the narrower gauges now in general use. The facts here mentioned will have given the reader some idea of the conditions under which the railways so greatly needed in the interests of our national industries were handicapped from the very outset by an unduly heavy expenditure; but there were still other influences and considerations which materially affected the general position, more especially as regards questions and consequences of State policy towards the railway system in general. {258}CHAPTER XXI RAILWAYS AND THE STATE From the earliest moment of there being any prospect of railways, operated by locomotives in place of animal power, coming into general use, the attitude of the State towards their promoters was one less of sympathy than of distrust; and this distrust was directly due to the experience the country had already had of the waterway interests, whose merciless exactions and huge dividends had led to the fear that if the railway companies, in turn, were to get a monopoly of the transport facilities of the country, they might follow in the footsteps of the inland navigation companies unless they were restrained either by law or by the enforcement of the principle of competition. Public sentiment, which Parliament is assumed to represent, and of which our legislation is supposed to be the outcome, was divided between, on the one hand, the landed gentry, the canal proprietors (each alike hostile to the railways until they found they had more to hope for from exploiting them), and the inevitable opponents of innovations of any kind; and, on the other hand, the traders, by whom the railways were being cordially welcomed, not only because of the greater and better transport facilities they offered, but also because they presented an alternative to the canals, the earlier enthusiasm for which had been greatly moderated by the prospect of an improved means of transport. Without adopting wholeheartedly the views of either of these two opposing parties, Parliament regarded the position with much concern lest there might be a renewal, in another form, of what we have seen to be the grasping tendencies of monopolistic canal companies; and the distrust inspired, under these particular circumstances, and from the very outset, towards railway companies which were preparing to create a revolution in the transport conditions of the {259}country--a revolution the State was not itself disposed to effect or to finance--was powerfully to influence much of the subsequent railway legislation, if, indeed, it has even to-day entirely disappeared. At first it was assumed that competition in rail transport would be assured, and the dangers in question proportionately reduced, by different carriers using their own locomotives, coaches and carriages on the railway lines, which alone, it was thought, would be owned by the railway companies constructing them. In some of the earlier railway Acts there was even a provision that the railway companies could lease their tolls, as turnpike trustees were doing. But the apparent safeguard in the form of competition between rival carriers disappeared when it was found (1) that, although a railway company was required to allow a trader's own horse or locomotive to use the line, it was under no obligation to afford him access to stations and watering-places, or to provide him with any other facilities, however indispensable these might be to the carrier's business; (2) that the tolls charged by the railway companies were heavier than the carriers could afford to pay; (3) that the entire operation of a line of railway worked by locomotives must necessarily be under the control of the owning and responsible company; and (4) that railway companies would have to become carriers of goods as well as owners of rails. A Parliamentary Committee which sat in 1840, and of which Sir Robert Peel was a member, had reported in the strongest terms that the form of competition originally designed was both impracticable and undesirable, and that monopoly upon the same line, at all events as regarded passengers, must be looked upon as inevitable. "Your Committee," said the report, "deems it indispensable both for the safety and convenience of the public, that as far as locomotive powers are concerned, the rivalry of competing parties on the same line should be prohibited"; though, as some check to the consequent monopoly of the railway companies, they suggested that the Board of Trade should act as a supervising authority, with power to hear complaints, consider bye-laws, etc. A witness for the Grand Junction Railway Company, who gave evidence before this Committee, said that any person {260}might run his own engine on the Grand Junction, and in one instance this was done by a trader who had a locomotive on the company's line for drawing his own coal; but the witness apprehended the greatest possible inconvenience from any general resort to such powers. On the Liverpool and Manchester, also, anyone might run his own engines on the line; but, the witness added, "no one does." The Royal Commission of 1865 summed up the position thus:--"No sooner were railways worked on a large scale with locomotive power than it was found impracticable for the general public to use the line with carriages and engines, and railway companies were compelled to embark in the business of common carriers on their own line, and conduct the whole operations." When, in these circumstances, it was made certain that any idea of competition between carriers using a railway company's lines in the same manner as an ordinary highway would have to be abandoned, it became the established policy of the State to promote competition between the railway companies themselves by encouraging the construction of competitive lines or otherwise, thus still protecting, as was thought, the interests of railway users, and checking any monopolistic tendencies on the part of the railway companies. The futility, however, of seeking to compel railway companies to compete with one another had already been pointed out by Mr James Morrison, whose speech on the subject in the House of Commons on May 17, 1836, confirms, also, the theory I have suggested as to the attitude adopted towards the railway companies being traceable to fears engendered by the undue prosperity of the canal and navigation companies. If, argued Morrison, after one company had spent a large sum on a line to Liverpool, another company were encouraged to spend as much again, with a view to providing a competition which would keep down the charges, the two would inevitably arrive at some understanding by which the original charges would be confirmed; and the Legislature, he contended--though the Legislature never acted on his contention--was "bound to prevent, as far as it could, the unnecessary waste of capital" on the building of unnecessary lines to promote a competition he held to be futile. The safeguarding of the public interests could, he thought, be effected in another way. {261}"The history of the existing canals, waterworks, etc., afforded," he went on, "abundant evidence of the evils" of allowing too much freedom in the matter of rates; and he quoted the high prices at which the shares of the Loughborough Canal and the Trent and Mersey Canal were then still being sold,[40] adding: "The possession of the best, or, it may be, the only practicable line, and the vast capital required for the formation of new canals, have enabled the associations in question, unchecked by competition, to maintain rates of charges which have realised enormous profits for a long series of years." The remedy he recommended in preference to competition was that when Parliament established companies for the formation of canals or railroads it should invariably reserve to itself the power to make such periodical revisions of the rates and charges as it might deem expedient, examining into the whole management and affairs of each company, and fixing the rates and charges for another term; the period he favoured being one of twenty years.[41] There was no suggestion, at this time, that the railway companies _had_ abused their powers. The only suggestion--and expectation--was that _because_ the canal companies had abused theirs, the railway companies might, and doubtless would, do the same, unless they were prevented; and it will {262}be found that this was mainly the position throughout the whole of the subsequent controversies. Morrison's proposal was approved in the House of Commons, and on May 17 he brought in a Bill for giving effect to it in regard to all new railways, to be sanctioned in that or any subsequent Session. But the prospect of a Parliamentary limitation of the profits a railway might earn had a most depressing effect on the railway interests, and on July 11 Sir Robert Peel urged that the question should be decided without further delay inasmuch as "this branch of commercial enterprise was injured and almost paralysed." On the following day the Bill was brought up again, and it was then defeated. In the same Session (1836) the Duke of Wellington moved, and carried, in the House of Lords a general clause, to be inserted in all railway Acts, the effect of which would have been to give to Parliament the power of dealing as it might think fit with any railway company during the next year. John Herapath thereupon inserted in the current issue of his "Railway Magazine" a letter addressed to the Duke of Wellington, in the course of which he said:-- "No person can doubt your Grace's intentions are honourable to all parties. Fearful of the consequences of overgrown monopolies, you are anxious to put some salutary restrictions to those bodies riding, as you apprehend, rough-shod over the public; and you are anxious to do this before they become too powerful to be ruled. Every honest and right-minded man must be satisfied that such are needful; nor is there a company got up on honourable principles that would object to any reasonable measure, in which a due regard is paid to their own interests, and a proper consideration is had to all the circumstances of their situation and risk. But in common fairness these must be taken into account." Defending the railways, and keenly criticising the attitude of the State towards them, Herapath further said:-- "No man knows better than yourself that these works, if they are at all likely to be beneficial to the nation--which everyone in his sober senses admits--will form a great and brilliant era in its prosperity. Nay, my Lord Duke, permit me to ask you if they have not been a Godsend towards the preservation of this country, by giving a new impetus to {263}industry and trade, and saving us from that anarchy and confusion to which distress was fast hurrying a large proportion of our population? With all these advantages staring us in the face, what have the Government done to promote railways? Have they done a single thing? I am not conscious of one. Have they removed a single impediment? Not to my knowledge; but they have raised several. Have they contributed a single farthing? Rather, I believe, by the intolerable and vexatious oppositions permitted in passing the bills, have been the cause of spending many hundred thousands, which, like another national debt, will prey to the end of time on the vitals of public industry." The Duke's proposed clause was dropped, and was heard of no more; but Herapath's prediction as to the equivalent of "another national debt" being imposed on public industry was to be verified by the course of subsequent events still more than by any avoidable expenditure then already incurred. If, again, as Herapath said, the Government had done nothing to promote railways, they had not been backward in seeking advantage from them in the interests both of the Exchequer and of the Post Office. Within two years of the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester line, a tax of one-eighth of a penny per mile for every passenger conveyed on the railway was imposed, and the directors of the Liverpool and Manchester, then struggling into existence, announced that, in consequence of the tax, they would be obliged to charge the public higher fares. By 1840 the Exchequer receipts from the tax amounted to £112,000. Two years later, following on a great public agitation, Peel substituted for the mileage tax a tax of five per cent on receipts from passenger traffic, and in 1844 the tax (which had been especially oppressive on the poorer class of travellers) was abolished in the case of third-class passengers carried at fares not exceeding a penny a mile in "Parliamentary trains," stopping at every station.[42] The local authorities, with Parliamentary sanction, also subjected the railways to a degree of taxation against which {264}Mr G. C. Glynn, chairman of the London and Birmingham Railway, in a speech (at a meeting of his company) quoted by Francis, protested in the following terms: "Then comes the last item of local taxes and parochial rates; these, gentlemen, we do take exception to.... The county assessors and the parties to whom appeal from them is made seem actuated by one principle, namely, to extract every farthing they can from the railway property. We ask no boon, we ask for no favour from Government on this subject; but we do ask for justice." The railways had to submit to the taxation, but they won the day as against certain excessive and, as they considered, intolerable demands made upon them by or on behalf of the Post Office. In 1838, based on the recommendations of a Select Committee of the House of Commons on the transmission of mails by railway, the Government introduced a Bill which, in effect, placed the entire railway system of the country, then and for all future time, at the command and under the supreme control of the Postmaster-General. That functionary was empowered by the Bill to call upon the railway companies to provide him with--at their own cost--special or ordinary trains for carrying the mails at any hour of the day or night, proceeding at such speed, and calling or not calling at such places, as he might direct, the companies giving security to the Queen by bond for duly complying with all Post Office orders, and being made liable to a penalty of £20 in respect to every railway officer, servant or agent, who might disobey any Post Office order. If the Post Office wished to use its own engines and conveyances it was to be at liberty to do so without paying any rates or tolls whatever; and it was, also, to be free to clear away any obstructions to its engines, and use any of the railway company's appliances it wanted. The railway companies were, in return, to be assured a "fair remuneration" for (in effect) the wear and tear of the rails; but, lest this payment might be too much for the Post Office, the Postmaster-General was further authorised to recoup himself by carrying, not simply the mails, but _passengers_, in the trains he might think fit to command or to run, thus competing on the railway lines with the companies whose property he was virtually to annex. {265}The companies declared they were willing to render every reasonable facility to the Post Office; but they protested most vigorously against what they called "the absurd and tyrannical clauses" of the Bill. These were, nevertheless, defended in the Commons on behalf of the Government, the Attorney-General saying "he had no doubt if the prerogative of the Crown were put in force, the Post Office and the troops and stores might be transmitted along the railroads without the payment of any tolls whatever; though he thought the companies should have a fair remuneration for the accommodation given." Sir James Graham, on the other hand, wanted to know what were the Queen's rights on the Paddington Canal. He understood that troops were frequently moved from Paddington to Liverpool by canal, but were always paid for as passengers. Lord Sandon, too, declared that the question was whether the public interest conferred a right upon the Post Office to take possession of railroads, and make use of them without the slightest remuneration whatever. That the railways should be subject to control he readily admitted; but there was a wide difference between justifiable control and absolute sway, between fair remuneration and robbery, for such it would be to use the property of these companies without paying for it. The companies, according to a statement in the "Railway Magazine" for August, 1838, where a summary of the debate will be found, had been "prepared not merely to petition but to act"--whatever this may mean. The Government, however, adopted a more conciliatory attitude towards them by either withdrawing or amending the clauses which had evoked these protests, and an amicable settlement of the future relations between the railways and the Post Office was then effected. The rejection of Morrison's Bill and the withdrawal of the Duke of Wellington's motion, following on their adverse criticism by the railway interests, had committed the Government still more to their policy of stimulating competition between the railway companies themselves, thus, they considered, diminishing the risk of seeing any of them become too prosperous a monopoly. It was in full accord with this policy that encouragement was given to the creation of {266}many small, independent, and more or less competing lines, and that no attempt was made to encourage the provision, either by individual companies or by groups of companies, of "trunk lines" of the type which Thomas Gray and others had been urging on the country with so much though with such futile persistence. The advent of the new means of transport was, in fact, marked by the complete absence of any centralised effort with a view to securing the network of a railway _system_, so planned or so co-ordinated as to make the best possible provision for the country as a whole, and especially for the rapidly increasing necessities of trade, commerce and industry. The failure to act on these lines was, however, only in accordance with the previous policy, or no-policy, which had successively left the improvement of rivers, the making of roads, the construction of canals and the provision of turnpikes either to private benevolence or to private enterprise, influenced mainly by considerations of local or personal interests. Much had certainly been done in these various directions by those to whom the State had thus relegated the carrying out of public works which in most other countries--as regards main routes, at least--are regarded as a matter of national obligation. But, apart from any question of providing State funds, the lack even of intelligent direction and efficient supervision by a central power, qualified to advise or to organise private effort, had led both to a prodigious waste of money and to results either unsatisfactory in themselves or in no way commensurate with the expenditure incurred. The same conditions now were to lead, in regard to the railways, to a further waste of money, to disastrous speculation, to infinite confusion, to the piling up of a huge railway debt, and to the provision of innumerable small lines which were to remain more or less independent and disconnected _fragments_ of a railway system until the more enterprising companies began, on their own initiative, to amalgamate them into through routes of traffic.[43] The general position at the period here in question was well stated by G. R. Porter in his "Progress of the Nation" {267}(1846), where he wrote, on the subject of railway development:-- "The _laissez faire_ system which is pursued in this country to such an extent that it has become an axiom with the Government to undertake nothing and to interfere with nothing which can be accomplished by individual enterprise, or by the associated means of private parties has been pregnant with great loss and inconvenience to the country in carrying forward the railway system. Perhaps there never was an occasion in which the Government could with equal propriety have interfered to reconcile the conflicting interests involved, and to prevent public injury arising from the false steps so likely to be made at first in bringing about a total revolution in the internal communication of the country. It is not meant by these remarks to infer that Government should have taken into its own hands the construction of all or any of the railroads called for by the wants of the community; but only to suggest the propriety and advantage that must have resulted from a preliminary inquiry, made by competent and uninterested professional men with a view to ascertain the comparative advantages and facilities offered by different lines for the accomplishment of the object in view. If this course had been adopted before any of the numerous projects were brought forward for the construction of lines of railway between all imaginable places, and if it had been laid down as a rule by the legislature that no such projected line could be sanctioned or even entertained by Parliament which was not in accordance with the reports and recommendations of the Government engineers, the saving of money would have been immense. The expensive contests between rival companies in which large capitals had been so needlessly sunk would then have been wholly avoided; and it might further have followed from this cause that, a kind of public sanction having been given to particular lines and localities, much of that personal opposition which has thrown difficulties in the way of works of great and acknowledged utility would never have been brought forward." In making these remarks, Porter was only giving expression to views entertained in various influential quarters, and to a certain extent he did but anticipate, or re-echo, according to the precise date at which his observations had been {268}written, certain views and proposals put forward by the Select Committee of 1844, of which Mr Gladstone (then President of the Board of Trade) was chairman. In the Fifth Report of this Committee it is said:-- "The Committee entertain very strongly the opinion that in the future proceedings of Parliament railway schemes ought not to be regarded as merely projects of local improvement, but that each new line should be viewed as a member of a great system of communication, binding together the various districts of the country with a closeness and intimacy of relation in many respects heretofore unknown." So long, the Report continued, as railways were considered to be of problematical benefit, and were in general subject to extensive opposition on the part of the owners and occupiers of land, and of the inhabitants of the districts they traversed, there might have been reasons for ensuring a very full, and, in some points of view, a disproportionately full, representation to local interests; but "The considerations which tend to attach to railways a national rather than a local character gain weight from year to year as those undertakings are progressively consolidated among themselves, as the points of contact between them are multiplied, and as those that were first isolated in comparison are thus brought into relation with gradually extending ranges of space, traffic and population." The Select Committee went on to give their reasons for considering that the ordinary machinery of Private Bill Committees, with their separate and unconnected proceedings, and an individual existence commencing and ending with each particular Bill, was inadequate and unsatisfactory; and they especially pointed to the fact that hitherto it had not been customary to examine railway Bills "systematically and at large with reference to public interests." There were various questions which could not be thoroughly sifted under the mode of procedure then in vogue, and the Committee recommended that, with a view to assisting the judgment of the Houses of the Legislature, all future railway Bills should, previously to coming before Parliament, be submitted to the Board of Trade for their report thereon. They further said--and these observations have a special significance in view of events that were to follow:-- {269}"The Committee entertain the opinion that the announcement of an intention on the part of Parliament to sift with care the particulars of railway schemes, to associate them with the public interest (in the cases of all future schemes and of all subsisting companies which may voluntarily accede to such an arrangement) ... will produce very beneficial effects in deterring parties from the attempt to entrap the public by dishonest projects, in securing railway projects against the shocks to which in periods of great commercial excitement it must otherwise be liable from such causes," etc. Praiseworthy as was the design thus put forward by Mr Gladstone's Committee, it failed to bring about the results anticipated. In accordance with the recommendations made, a special department of the Board of Trade, under the direction of Lord Dalhousie, was created, in August, 1844, to inquire into and report to Parliament on all new railway schemes and Bills, with a view to guiding the Private Bill Committees of both Houses. The special department was more especially to report as to the positive and comparative advantages to the public of any Bills proposed for the construction of competing lines. A great deal was hoped for from this new arrangement, and the decisions of the department as to which of the schemes then being promoted they would recommend for first consideration by Parliament were keenly awaited. The expansion of the railway system had, by this time, proceeded so far that by the end of 1843 Parliament had authorised the construction of 2390 miles of railway, of which 2036 miles were then open for traffic. The capital of these lines was £82,800,000, and of this amount about £66,000,000 had been raised. A good deal of wild speculation in 1836-7 had been followed by a reaction, and the railway market was still depressed in 1843; but in 1844 interest in railway enterprise was greatly stimulated by the announcement that the Liverpool and Manchester, the Grand Junction, the London and Birmingham and the York and Midland were paying dividends of from ten to twelve per cent each, and that the Stockton and Darlington was paying fifteen per cent. The shares in existing companies rose in value, a number of new companies were formed, and companies already operating {270}projected branches in defence of their own interests against threatened competition. It was at this juncture that Mr Gladstone's Committee presented its Report and that, following thereon, the special department of the Board of Trade was called upon to undertake its responsible duties. On November 28, 1844, the department intimated that the points it would particularly inquire into in regard to railway Bills then before it were (1) ability and _bona fide_ intentions of the promoters to prosecute their application to Parliament in the following Session; (2) national advantages to be gained; (3) local advantages; (4) engineering conditions; and (5) cost of construction, prospective traffic and working expenses. On the last day of the year the department announced which Bills they proposed to recommend, and subsequently they issued reports giving their reasons. Strong protests were raised by the disappointed projectors, and on the opening of the Session of 1845 Sir Robert Peel announced that the Government intended to leave railway Bills, as before, to the judgment of the Private Bill Committees. This meant the virtual setting aside of the newly-formed department, though its actual existence was not terminated until the following August. It meant--since each Private Bill Committee would deal only with the merits of a particular scheme--the definite abandonment of any opportunity for securing, through an authority dealing with railway projects as a whole, the realisation of the ideal of Mr Gladstone's Committee that "each new line should be viewed as a member of a great system of communication, binding together the various districts of the country with a closeness and intimacy of relation" previously unknown. It meant, also, the adoption of a policy of free trade in railways, without protection for established interests, and to any and every honest promoter or dishonest speculator who had a scheme to propose it gave, in effect, _carte blanche_ to bring it forward. Much disappointment was felt at this collapse of Mr Gladstone's apparently well-devised scheme, and the policy adopted in regard to it was keenly criticised. Francis quotes, for instance, the following passages from "Railway Legislation," the authorship of which, however, I have been unable to trace:-- "Swayed by motives which it is difficult to fathom, the {271}two Houses, with singular unanimity, agreed ... to give unrestricted scope to competition.... Little regard was paid to the claims and interests of existing railway companies, still less to the interests of the unfortunate persons who were induced to embark in the new projects for no better reason than that they had been sanctioned by Parliament.... The opportunity of confining the exceptional gauge within its original territory was also for ever thrown away. By an inconceivable want of statesmanlike views and foresight, no effort was made to connect the isolated railways which then existed by new links into one great and combined system in the form in which they would be most subservient to the wants of the community and to the great ends of domestic government and national defence. Further, the sudden change from the one extreme of determined rejection or dilatory acquiescence to the opposite extreme of unlimited concession gave a powerful stimulus to the spirit of speculation, and turned nearly the whole nation into gamblers." Francis himself says of the position thus brought about:-- "All hope of applying great general principles passed away. Every chance of directing the course of railways to form a national system of communication was lost.... The legislative body--to appropriate the idea of Mr Morrison--committed the mistake of converting the Kingdom into a great stock exchange, and of stimulating the various members of the railway system to a deep and deadly struggle, destructive of order and fruitful of vice." This may seem to be unduly strong language; but what actually and immediately followed on the course of events here in question was--the Railway Mania of 1845-6. By the summer of 1845 the country had gone railway mad. In the Session of 1843 the number of railway Acts passed had been twenty-four, showing no more than a normal development of the railway system in meeting the legitimate needs of the country. In the Session of 1844 the number increased to thirty-seven. In the Session of 1845 there were no fewer than 248 railway Bills. In the next Session Bills were deposited with the Board of Trade for the construction of 815 new lines of railway, with a length of 20,687 miles, and capital powers to the extent of £350,000,000. Of these 815 Bills many were abortive for technical reasons, or {272}because the necessary deposit was not paid; but over 700 of them reached the Private Bill Office. How every class of society joined in the scramble for shares; how extravagant prices were given for the scrip of lines which, when completed, could not for years have covered their working expenses; how half-pay officers, ticket-porters and men, even, in receipt of parish relief put down their names on the "subscription" lists for thousands of pounds' worth of shares, on their being paid a fee--sometimes as low as five shillings--for so doing; how "frenzy seized the whole nation"; how "there was scarcely a family in England which was not directly or indirectly interested in the fortunes of the rail"; and how the inevitable collapse reached every hearth and saddened every heart in the Metropolis, bringing many families both there and elsewhere to ruin, will be found recorded in detail by John Francis, in his "History of the English Railway," and need not be enlarged upon here. In referring to the events of this period, the Report of the Joint Committee on the Amalgamation of Railway Companies, 1872, admits that "One effect of the favour shown by Parliament to competing schemes was to encourage a large number of speculative enterprises." Leaving aside the enterprises, of whatever type, that did not survive the passage through Parliament, I compile, from figures given in Clifford's "History of Private Bill Legislation," the following table showing new lines of railway actually sanctioned by Parliament during the Sessions 1845-7:-- YEAR. NUMBER. MILES. CAPITAL. 1845 118 2700 £56,000,000 1846 270 4538 £132,000,000 1847 190 1354 £39,460,000 --- ---- ------------ Totals 578 8592 £227,460,000 These figures indicate sufficiently the magnitude of the schemes in respect to which, during so short a period as three years, Parliament assumed the responsibility of giving its express sanction and approval. The period of speculation was followed by the inevitable reaction, and in 1850 it was found necessary to pass an Act {273}"to facilitate the abandonment of railways and the dissolution of railway companies." Of the 8592 miles of railway sanctioned in the three Sessions, 1845-7, no fewer than 1560 miles were (as shown by the Report of the Royal Commission on Railways, 1867), abandoned by the promoters under the authority of the Act; while a further 2000 miles of railway, requiring 40 millions of capital, are said by the Report of the 1853 Committee to have been abandoned without the consent of Parliament. To the extent indicated by these abandonments the railway situation was certainly relieved. But the mania and the resultant panic had serious consequences in regard not alone to investors in the schemes that failed but also to the companies that survived. Apart from projects designed to open up entirely new districts--many of them of a perfectly genuine and desirable character--there were others directly devised to compete with existing lines and capture some of the remunerative traffic these were then handling; and it was, as I have shown, quite in accordance with the accepted principle of State railway-policy that such competition should be encouraged, in preference to any "districting" of the country among particular companies or to the creation or co-ordination of an organised system of railways on the lines proposed by Mr Gladstone's Committee. The existing companies, finding that the territory already "allotted" to them (as they considered) was being invaded, or was in danger of being invaded, felt themselves forced, for the purposes of self-defence, to enter on a number of protective schemes which might not, at the time, otherwise have been warranted. Clifford says on this point in his "History of Private Bill Legislation": "As the Government took no steps to prevent the promotion of competitive railways, tending to diminish the profits of existing companies, the latter sought to protect themselves as they best could, and justified their many unprofitable extensions and amalgamations as measures forced upon them by the leave-alone policy of the Government." Confirmation of this statement will be found in a speech delivered on February 23, 1848, by Mr C. Russell, M.P., chairman of the Great Western Railway Company, at the {274}sixth half-yearly meeting, at Paddington, of the South Wales Railway Company (of which he was also chairman), and reported in "The Times" of the following day. Referring to a pamphlet which had been issued attacking the policy of the Great Western Railway Company, Mr Russell said:-- "If their engagements were extensive, and he did not deny that they were so, they had been entered in only as a matter of necessity. They all arose out of the mania of 1845-46, and even in the pamphlet in question it had been admitted that the Great Western was not one of those companies which at that time had promoted any of the many schemes which were afloat. He, as far as he was concerned, had not only not promoted these projects, but had taken every means in his power to check them. In January, 1846, in his place in Parliament he had predicted the results if some steps were not at once adopted to put a curb upon reckless speculation; but most unfortunately for all parties that was not the view which was taken by the House of Commons. Mr Hudson and other gentlemen maintained that the course he recommended would be an unfair interference with private enterprise, and the consequence was that schemes involving altogether the sum of £125,000,000 passed through the Legislature in that year. The Great Western had remonstrated with the President and the Vice-President of the Board of Trade, and, left to their own resources, they had been compelled, in self-defence, to look after their own interests by getting hold of all the rival or contemplated rival schemes." In some instances the existing companies guaranteed interest to the shareholders of branches and extensions which were feared as rivals. F. S. Williams, in "Our Iron Roads," says of such lines as these that while many of them were accepted as feeders they "proved for a time to be only suckers." The effects of the mania on the finances of existing railway companies was further shown by the fact that, in order to pay their contractors, some of the companies were obliged during the crisis to raise money at from ten to thirty, and, in some instances it is said, even at fifty per cent discount. Then, also, the shares in ten leading companies suffered between 1845 and 1847 a depreciation in value estimated at {275}£18,000,000. The following are typical examples of the falls experienced:-- COMPANY. SHARES. JULY,1845. APRIL 4,1848. DECLINE. £ £ £ £ London and Birmingham 100 243 126 117 Great Western 80(paid) 205 88 117 Midland 100 187 95 92 London and Brighton 50 76 28½ 47½ While the general situation in the railway world had been thus developing, there was a revival, in 1846, of the idea that the work of Private Bill Committees in respect to railway schemes should be supplemented by some other form of inquiry into their merits. Writing on this subject in the issue of his "Railway Magazine" for July, 1837, John Herapath had said:-- "It has long been anxiously expected that Parliament would take some steps to relieve itself from the onerous duties of investigating and deciding on railway matters. Probably no tribunals can be less fitted for inquiries of this kind than Parliamentary Committees, of which the House of Commons has lately given a demonstrative proof in the case of the Brighton line. After Committees of the two Houses had sat nearly the whole of last session, and a Committee of the Commons for thirty-five days of the present; after the Committee's reports had been made on each of the lines and near 300,000l. of the subscribers' money had been wasted, the House of Commons stamped its own opinion of all those labours by giving them the 'go-by,' and referring the whole four lines to the judgment of a military engineer." As for the element of uncertainty in the decisions of Parliamentary Committees, F. S. Williams is responsible for the statement that six railway Bills rejected by Commons Committees in 1844 were passed on precisely the same evidence in 1845; that of eighteen Bills rejected in 1845 seven were passed unaltered in 1846; and that of six Bills thrown out by Committees of the House of Lords in 1845 four were adopted by other Committees in 1846. The failure, however, of the special department of the Board of Trade, created on the recommendation of Mr {276}Gladstone's Committee to meet the requirements of the situation, was complete. In giving evidence before the Select Committee of 1881, the secretary of the Board of Trade, Mr T. Farrer (afterwards Lord Farrer), referring to the work of Lord Dalhousie's department, said the reports made "were very able, but they were thrown over immediately they got to the House." When, he declared, the Board of Trade had taken all the means in their power to make a full report, "it was treated as waste paper. The Board might just as well have made no report at all." On the other hand, he admitted that the reports had not been of much actual value, the Board of Trade having no power to call the parties before them and take evidence. Apart from a feeling of jealousy entertained by members in general and Private Bill Committees in particular towards any curtailment of their powers, privileges and functions by departmental officials, experience had shown that the Private Bill Committees, after examining witnesses, getting expert testimony and hearing counsel, were better able to ascertain the facts of particular schemes than the special department, while the latter had lost credit, also, on account of its recommendations in regard to amalgamations. The first scheme of this kind on which it was asked to report was one for an amalgamation between the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the Grand Junction Railway (from Liverpool to Birmingham) and the North Union (from Warrington to Preston). The Bill was opposed by public bodies and traders in the leading towns of Lancashire, and Lord Dalhousie's report favoured the opposition; but the Select Committee on the Bill nevertheless assented to an amalgamation which was, in effect, to lead to the creation of the London and North-Western system of to-day. The department also reported unsuccessfully in 1845 against the amalgamation of the Chester and Birkenhead with the Chester and Holyhead Railway--two other lines which were first united to each other and then to the London and North-Western. It further reported against various proposed amalgamations and arrangements in the Midland Counties; so that, as the Report of the Select Committee of 1872 points out, the department would have objected strongly to such combinations as the present London and North-Western Railway, the {277}Great Western, the North-Eastern, the Midland, the Great Northern and the Great Eastern. These considerations should be borne in mind by those who might otherwise be disposed to criticise the attitude adopted by the Government of 1845 towards the special department here in question. The one experiment had been a failure--with, as we have seen, deplorable consequences for the country and serious prejudice to _bona fide_ railways; but Committees of both Houses, appointed in 1846, were now to recommend another. They advised the creation of a Board of Commissioners of Railways who were to discharge the dual functions of (1) seeing that the railway companies did not contravene the provisions of their special Acts or of any general Statutes; and (2) report to Parliament, if so directed, upon any pending railway Bills. An Act to this effect was passed in 1846; but in the following Session there was introduced a Bill which proposed greatly to increase the powers of the Board of Commissioners. Clifford says, concerning this Bill, that it made the Commissioners, in effect, arbiters of all railway legislation. Promoters were not even to survey an intended line until the Commissioners gave permission. When the survey was made one of their officers was to report upon the project. With them plans and sections were to be deposited; they were to examine into compliance with Standing Orders and report to Parliament upon engineering merits and proposed rates. Considerable authority was also vested in them over existing railways. They were to report annually to Parliament upon tolls, fares and charges, and upon the regularity or irregularity of trains; and they might call for returns as to traffic and many other details of management, inspect the books and documents of railway companies, and settle disputes between companies having termini or portions of line in common. "Parliament," Clifford further tells us, "was again jealous of this proposed interference with legislation." The railway companies also protested, and the measure was received with such general disfavour that it was withdrawn before it reached a second reading. As for the Board of Commissioners, instead of getting more authority it got less. Part of its functions were re-united to those of the Board of Trade in 1848, and the {278}remainder followed in 1851, whereupon the new authority ceased to exist.[44] Once more, therefore, railway Bills were left to be dealt with on their individual merits by Private Bill Committees operating on lines to which, not simply John Herapath, but Mr Gladstone's own Committee, had taken exception; and once more was a set-back given to the aspiration for the establishment of some central authority which could organise, co-ordinate or otherwise consolidate the still rapidly increasing railways on the basis of a national system of rail communication. The difficulty might, perhaps, have been met by the creation of a Minister of Communications, who would have held a position somewhat similar to that of the Minister of Public Works in Prussia or in France, and have discharged a useful function as director-in-chief, or, at least, as adviser-in-chief, in regard alike to railways, roads, rivers and canals. Such a Minister, being a member of the Government, might have acted or recommended without wounding the susceptibilities of Private Bill Committees or of individual members; he might have organised or been the means of organising an efficient system of railways at an earlier date and at far less cost; and he might have saved both the country from its enormous losses on the wild-cat projects of unscrupulous schemers during the mania period and _bona fide_ companies from much of the excessive capitalization into which they were driven. Whether or not the problems of the situation could have been solved in this manner, the fact remains that it was the railway companies themselves who--in spite of the established policy of the State, directed to the maintenance of railway competition, and in spite of the disapproval of amalgamations by one Parliament Committee after another--brought about the conveniences of through travel or through transit. It was they themselves who, by amalgamation or otherwise, instigated the creation of the "great" companies which both ensured these conveniences and effected a complete transformation in the general railway position, to the great advantage of everyone concerned. {279}Before, however, reaching this stage in their development, the railways had had some other struggles with the Government on questions of State policy arising out of those aforesaid feelings of suspicion and distrust, and due to the same fear as before that the companies would be sure to abuse their position unless they were restrained from so doing. Following on the recommendations of the Committee of 1840, and with a view to safeguarding the public interests in regard alike to safety and to reasonable treatment, some important statutory powers had already been conferred on the Board of Trade. Under the Regulation of Railways Act, 1840, notice was to be given to the Board of Trade of the opening of all new lines of railway; such lines were to be inspected by Board of Trade inspectors; various returns in respect of traffic, tolls, rates and accidents were to be made to that body, to which, also, all existing bye-laws affecting the public were to be submitted for confirmation. In 1842 a further Act gave the Board power to delay the opening of any new line until they were satisfied that all the necessary works had been effectively constructed. Mr Glyn, chairman of the London and Birmingham Railway, said of this measure: "It is a Bill which I do not hesitate to say is, on the whole, calculated to do the interests of railways very considerable service." But the attitude of the companies was no longer favourable when Mr Gladstone's Committee of 1844 proposed to confer on the Board of Trade some drastic powers for the periodical revision of railway rates, and likewise sought to lay down the terms on which the State might acquire all future lines of railway. The proposals in question were incorporated in a Bill which was brought in by Mr Gladstone; but the measure met with strenuous opposition from the railway interests, and the modifications introduced before it became law were of such a nature that the Act has never been put into operation. In regard to the revision of rates, the Act laid down that if, after the lapse of twenty-one years (not fifteen, as proposed in Mr Gladstone's first Bill), any railway sanctioned after the passing of the Act had paid ten per cent for three years, the Treasury (not the Board of Trade) might reduce the rates, guaranteeing, however, a ten per cent dividend to {280}the company, while the revised rates and the guarantee were to continue for another twenty-one years. Needless to say, railway companies in general do not pay ten per cent dividends, though in 1844 ten per cent was regarded as quite a reasonable dividend for a railway, in view of what the canal companies had been paying; while no such guarantee as that suggested is ever likely to be made by the Treasury. Provisions authorising the Board of Trade to make deductions from the guaranteed income as penalties for what they might regard as mismanagement, and prohibiting a company from increasing its capital pending a revision of rates, without the sanction of the Board of Trade, were so vigorously opposed that they were abandoned. The clauses of the Act relating to State purchase were to apply only to new lines of railway, the 2320 miles of railway sanctioned prior to the Session of 1844--and including many of the chief links in the great trunk lines of to-day--being expressly excluded. As regarded railways sanctioned in the Session of 1844, or subsequently thereto, it was enacted that after the lapse of fifteen years the Treasury might acquire them for twenty-five years' purchase of the average annual profits for the preceding three years; but if those profits were less than ten per cent, the amount was to be settled by arbitration. It was further enacted that no railway less than five miles in length should be bought; that no branch should be acquired without purchase of the entire railway; that the policy of revision or purchase was not to be prejudiced by the Act; that "public resources" were not to be employed to sustain undue competition with independent companies; and, finally, that no revision of rates or State purchase of lines should take place at all without an Act of Parliament authorising the guarantee or the purchase, and determining how either was to be done. To argue, as many advocates of the nationalisation of railways habitually do, that the basis for State purchase has already been established by the Act of 1844 is to set up a theory which is obviously inconsistent with the real facts of the situation. Commenting on this Act of 1844 the Joint Committee on the Amalgamation of Railway Companies (1872) say in their report:-- {281}"It would be impossible to deal with railways made since 1844 without dealing with railways made before that time, since both form part of the same systems. "As regards the revision of rates, no Government would undertake to try experiments in reducing rates on an independent company whose income they must guarantee; and efficient or economical administration could scarcely be expected from a railway company whose rates were cut down and whose dividend at ten per cent was guaranteed by Government. "Whatever value there may be in the notice given to the companies by this Act of their liability to compulsory purchase by the State, over and above the general right of expropriation possessed by the latter in such cases, its terms do not appear suited to the present condition of railway property or likely to be adopted by Parliament in case of any intention at any future time on the part of Parliament to purchase the railways." The proposals contained in the Bill, and modified into the Act of 1844, were, of course, simply a further development of the then established policy of the State in taking precautions against the evils that might result from railway monopoly. A greater degree of apparent success was, at first, to attend those further precautionary measures which took the form of encouraging the construction of competing lines, leading both to new and to existing companies invading the so-called "territory" of other companies, as distinct from the provision of lines in districts which had no railways at all. There was at this time much discussion as to the rights of established companies. When the proposal for the appointment of the Committee of 1840 was under discussion in the House of Commons, Sir Robert Peel had contended that a material distinction was to be drawn between new companies approaching Parliament for the first time and companies which, relying on the faith of Parliament, had invested their capital in the construction of railways. "Parliament, it was true, might repent of the indiscretion and levity with which it had granted those powers ... but he would advise Parliament to be very cautious how it interfered with the profits or management of companies which had been called into existence by the {282}authority, and had invested their money on the faith, of Parliament." Mr Gladstone's Committee of 1844 also declared that they had been "governed throughout their consideration of the subject by the strongest conviction that no step should be taken by Parliament which would either induce so much as a reasonable suspicion of its good faith with regard to the integrity of privileges already granted, and not shown to have been abused, or which would prospectively discourage the disposition now so actively in operation to extend the railway system by the formation of new lines." On the other hand, there was that ever-present and ever-active dread of what _might_ happen if the railway companies _did_ become grasping and merciless monopolists. There was, also, the fact that while there would be direct competition between two railways having the same terminal points, each line might further serve a more or less considerable and important intermediate stretch of country which otherwise would be left without railway accommodation at all. For one or other of these reasons competing lines continued to be sanctioned, notwithstanding Special Committees' recommendations and railway companies' protests. One such protest, giving a specific example of the tendencies of the day, was made in a memorial to the Board of Trade, dated June 26, 1857, and headed, "Proposed Remedies for Railway Grievances." The memorial, signed by Sir John Hall, Bart., and six others, and addressed to Lord Stanley of Alderley, president, and Mr Robert Lowe, vice-president, of the Board of Trade, had been drawn up at the request of those two gentlemen as a more detailed statement of facts to which their attention had already been called. Five specific grievances were dealt with, and the first of these was "The Tendency of Parliament to concede competing or otherwise unnecessary lines." Under this head the memorialists state:-- "It is not our desire that the railway system should be legislatively restricted within its present limits, or that existing shareholders should by any process whatever be nominally or practically gifted with a monopoly of the means of railway transit. We should submit to the introduction of new lines of railway wherever called for by absolute public necessity.... In such cases, however, we consider that the Legislature would only be doing justice to its previous enactments in {283}giving former applicants time to complete their engagements so that they might be able, at the proper time, to exhibit their ability and their willingness to consider the wants of the public as well as their proper remuneration." The memorialists mention the fact that in 1853 several new lines were sanctioned, the period fixed for their completion being 1858, and they proceed:-- "Already, however, before these lines are opened, others are promoted in competition with them--promoted, not by a complaining locality, but in some cases by existing companies, in others by persons whose only apparent object is to sell the schemes to advantage when Parliament has sanctioned their construction. In such instances as these we humbly submit that the Legislature should not permit the introduction of new lines until it has seen whether or not the company in possession can fulfil its engagements, and whether, also, such company should not be permitted an opportunity of electing to extend its undertaking, or to leave further effort to the discretion of the Legislature." Whilst the State was thus maintaining its own policy of competition, the railway companies were equally persistent in keeping to their policy of amalgamation; so that, as the Joint Committee of 1872 remarked, "A new line was sure sooner or later to join the combination of existing railways, and to make common cause with them." Practical railway experience was showing that the ordinary ideas of competition, as regarded commercial undertakings in general, did not and could not be made to apply to railways beyond a certain point. The capital sunk alike in obtaining a railway Act, in acquiring and adapting land, with provision of embankments, cuttings, viaducts, bridges, tunnels, etc., for the railway lines, and in supplying the various necessary appurtenances, railway stations, and so on, was irredeemable, since, in the case of failure of the line, due to competition or otherwise, the capital invested could not be realised again, the land, rails, buildings, etc., on which it had been spent being of little or no value for other than railway purposes. There could thus be no transfer of capital from one undertaking to another, as in ordinary commercial affairs. In addition to this it might be that interest would have to be paid on two lots of railway capital in a district where the {284}traffic was sufficient to allow of the financial obligations of only a single company being efficiently met, any success achieved by the new company depending (until the available traffic increased) on its power to divert business and profits from the other company. Hence it might well occur that "the best laid schemes" of Parliament and Parliamentary Committees, in approving competitive lines, resulted only in the companies concerned coming to, at least, a friendly understanding; and it might even be that the public did not eventually benefit at all, because, as the Joint Committee of 1872 say, "The necessity of carrying interest on the additional capital required for the new line tends sometimes, in the end, to raise rather than to reduce the rates." Economic considerations, again, apart altogether from those monopolistic tendencies on the fear of which the policy of the State had been founded, were quite sufficient to account for the absorption of one company by another, and especially of small companies by larger ones, not so much to avoid competition as to ensure the provision of through routes operated under one and the same management, involving less outlay on working expenses, and providing greater advantages to the public than if the same length of line belonged to a number of different companies. The lines between London and Liverpool, for example, were originally divided between three companies, and the same was the case with the lines between Bristol and Leeds. In some instances the companies were not on good terms with one another, and they ran their trains to suit their own convenience. Even when they were on good terms, they might not have any interests in common, apart from (at one time) offering as few comforts and conveniences as possible to the third-class traveller, and compelling him at least to complete his journey by going first class, if he wished to get to his destination the same night. As early as 1847 attempts had been made by some of the companies to overcome the glaring defects of the original system of railway construction by establishing the Railway Clearing House, with a view to facilitating through traffic and allowing of a better adjustment of accounts when passengers or goods were carried over various lines in return for a {285}single payment. The companies persevered, however, in their further policy of amalgamation and consolidation, and in 1853 the number and magnitude of schemes with these objects in view created such alarm on the part both of politicians and of traders that a further Select Committee--known as Mr. Cardwell's Committee--was appointed. The members of this Committee pointed out in their report that the whole tendency of the companies was towards union and extension, that competition ended in combination, and that the companies were able in great measure to attain these ends by agreements with one another without the authority of Parliament. The economy and the convenience resulting from amalgamation were admitted by the report; but, though still no proof was offered, or suggestion made, that the companies were actually abusing the greater powers they had thus secured, there was an obvious under-current of alarm in the minds of the Committee as to the many undesirable things which large concerns _might_ do. The Committee were opposed to any "districting" of the country between different companies, and they recommended that, while working agreements might be allowed, amalgamations between large companies should not. As an example of the combinations they deprecated, I might mention that they pointed with evident feelings of much concern to the fact that if the amalgamation schemes then being proposed by the London and North-Western Railway Company were conceded, they would involve the union under one control of a capital of £60,000,000, a revenue of £4,000,000, and 1200 miles of railway, with the further result of "rendering impossible the existence of independent rival trunk lines." One wonders what the members of this Committee would have said had they been told that by the end of 1910 (as shown by the Board of Trade "Railway Returns") the London and North-Western would control a total authorised capital of (in round figures) £134,000,000, have gross receipts in a single year amounting to £15,962,000, and be operating 1966 route miles of line, equivalent to 5490 miles of single track (including sidings), besides being only one of half a dozen great trunk lines. A much more practical result of the deliberations of this Committee was seen in certain provisions of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1854, which laid down that every {286}railway company should afford proper facilities for receiving and forwarding traffic; that no undue or unreasonable preferences should be given; and that where the systems were continuous the companies should afford due and reasonable facilities for the interchange of traffic, without undue preference or obstruction. In this way it was sought to bring about greater co-ordination between the numerous small lines, and secure a better provision for through traffic. The Act is well described by the Select Committee of 1872 as "a measure valuable in fact and most important in its scope and intention." It may have been further anticipated that companies which, as the result of the Act, secured running powers or free interchange of traffic over the lines of other companies--and especially as regards lines having access to London--would be less ready to agree to absorption by them; but if this expectation were, indeed, entertained, it was not realised. The companies, in fact, continued to develop their commercial undertakings in accordance with what they regarded as commercial principles, and the Joint Committee on the Amalgamation of Railway Companies, 1872, taking a much broader view of the situation than previous Committees had done, pointed out how small had been the effect of the policy sought to be enforced against the railways, since the combinations which had enabled the great trunk lines to attain to the position they occupied at that date had been effected "contemporaneously with reports against large combinations," those reports having had "little influence upon the action of Private Bill Committees," and not staying "the progress of the companies in their course of union and amalgamation." The Committee further said, on the subject of "districting":-- "Among the various suggestions which naturally occur when dealing with the question of amalgamation, one of the most obvious and most important is to the effect that for the future some endeavour should be made to compel railways in amalgamating to follow certain fixed lines or principles.... If at an earlier period in railway history such an attempt had been successfully made, there is no doubt that it might have provided us with a railway system, if not more efficient, at any rate far less costly than that which we now possess. But considering _the policy, or want of policy_, which has hitherto {287}been pursued, and the interests which have grown up under it, the difficulties of laying down any fixed policy for the future are very formidable." The words in this extract which I have put in italics, representing, as they do, the views of a Joint Committee of the House of Lords and of the House of Commons, justify, I would suggest, much of the criticism in which I have here ventured to indulge. Among the conclusions at which the Committee arrived were the following:-- "Past amalgamations have not brought with them the evils which were anticipated." "Competition between railways exists only to a limited extent, and cannot be maintained by legislation." "Combination between railway companies is increasing and is likely to increase, whether by amalgamation or otherwise." "It is impossible to lay down any general rules determining the limits or the character of future amalgamations." In support of their views in regard to the first of these conclusions, the Committee pointed especially to the North-Eastern and the Great Eastern Railway Companies, each of which had so far pursued a policy of amalgamation that the report speaks of the former as "pervading and possessing one of the wealthiest and most important districts of the Kingdom," and of the latter as having "almost exclusive possession of the principal centres to which it extends." The Committee did not suggest that either of these companies had abused its powers, or taken undue advantage of such "monopoly" as it had secured in the districts concerned. In fact, of the North-Eastern Railway they said:-- "That railway, or system of railways, is composed of thirty-seven lines, several of which formerly competed with each other. Before their amalgamation they had, generally speaking, high rates and fares and low dividends. The system is now the most complete monopoly in the United Kingdom ... and it has the lowest fares and the highest dividends of any English railway." As for the Great Eastern, instead of abusing their "almost exclusive possession" of the Eastern Counties, everyone knows that the Company have won for themselves the credit of pioneering the movement for offering {288}exceptionally low rates and other special facilities for the transport of agricultural produce, and, also, of having done more, perhaps, than any other single railway company to enable working men to live in healthy suburbs around London. The whole position in regard to the prospective abuse of a so-called monopoly due to railway amalgamations is, in fact, much misunderstood. A railway company which controls, or practically controls, the traffic in a certain section of the country is especially interested in developing that traffic because it will enjoy all the advantages thereof, without having to share them with a rival. For this reason, instead of restricting facilities, such a company seeks to increase them; instead of imposing extortionate fares and rates it aims, not merely at immediate profits on the transport of particular commodities, but at encouraging such a development of the district in general as will ensure its prosperity, increase its population, expand its trade, _and_ create more traffic of all kinds in a not far distant future. It was precisely this idea that led the Great Eastern Railway Company to set the example it did in seeking to develop the interests of its agricultural districts. The more these interests expanded, and the more profitable the agricultural industry became to the people living in those districts, the greater would be the demand for household supplies, for furniture, for pianos, for building materials, and for countless other commodities, most of which would bring additional traffic to the line apart from the greater amount of agricultural produce carried, and apart, also, from the further inevitable increase in passenger traffic. Cornwall, again, might be regarded as the "monopoly" of the Great Western Railway; but what person would suggest that the Great Western have not sufficiently boomed "the Cornish Riviera"? Nor is there necessarily a "monopoly" simply because a particular district is served by a single railway. If the Great Eastern did not take people to East-coast resorts at reasonable rates, or if the Great Western charged excessive fares for the journey to Cornwall, holiday-makers would, in each case, go elsewhere. If either company, or any other company, sought to get too much for carrying milk to London, milk {289}would be obtained by the metropolitan dealers from other districts, instead; and so on with most other commodities. Indirect competition, on sound economic lines, may, therefore, still exist even when a railway company is, after many amalgamations, in the possession of an apparent monopoly. The law of supply and demand will still regulate both prices and charges. When, on the other hand, an attempt is made to enforce an artificial and non-economic competition by Act of Parliament, the inevitable result is that the companies concerned find it to their advantage to combine, or to agree, rather than to compete in rates and fares under conditions that would not only be mutually disadvantageous, but confer no lasting benefit on the public they seek to serve. How the ultimate result of railway policy, as here described, has been to bring about the creation of great systems out of small ones may be seen from the following typical examples, showing in each case the number of lesser companies absorbed, leased or worked as the result of amalgamations, of leases in perpetuity, or otherwise; though the figures do not include railways which have been vested in two or more companies jointly:-- COMPANIES NAME OF COMPANY. LENGTH OF LINE.[45] AMALGAMATED Miles. OR LINES LEASED. Great Central 753 15 Great Eastern 1133 26 Great Northern 856 22 Great Western 2993 115 Lancashire and Yorkshire 589 14 London and North-Western 1966 59 London and South-Western 964 40 London, Brighton and South Coast 454 19 Midland 1531 35 North-Eastern 1728 41 South-Eastern and Chatham 629 29 Caledonian 1074 41 North British 1363 45 Great Northern of Ireland 560 14 Great Southern and Western (Ireland) 1121 19 {290}The process of amalgamation has been carried even further than these figures suggest, some of the companies absorbed into the great systems having themselves previously amalgamated a number of still smaller companies. The North-Eastern, for example, came into existence in 1854, through a combination of three companies--the York, Newcastle and Berwick, the Leeds Northern, and the York and North Midland--which three companies then represented between them what had originally been fifteen separate undertakings. Since 1854 the North-Eastern Company have purchased or amalgamated thirty-eight other companies, one of which, the Stockton and Darlington (absorbed in 1863), was already an amalgamation of eleven companies.[46] That the conveniences of travel and the advantages to traders have been greatly enhanced by the substitution of these few great companies for a large number of small ones is beyond question, and actual experience has shown that the fears of grave evils resulting from prospective abuses of the railway "monopoly" brought about by amalgamations such as these have been mainly imaginary, notwithstanding the fact that they have formed the basis of so much of the policy of the State in its dealings with the railways. There are still various small and even diminutive companies which have escaped the fate of being swallowed up by their big neighbours. One of the smallest engaged in a general traffic--as distinct from dock or mineral lines--is the Easingwold railway, Yorkshire, which connects with the {291}North-Eastern at Alne, but still maintains an independent existence. According to the Board of Trade Returns for 1910 the Easingwold Railway consists of two miles of line, or three miles if we include sidings, and it owns one locomotive, two carriages for the conveyance of passengers and one goods waggon. It carried in 1910 a total of 33,888 passengers, 5547 tons of minerals and 11,214 tons of general merchandise. Its total gross receipts from all sources of traffic for the year amounted to £2358, and the net receipts, after allowing for working expenses, were £936. The authorised capital of the company is £18,000, of which £16,000 has been paid up. Small as this line is, it serves a useful purpose; but the policy of amalgamation, followed up by leading companies with such pertinacity, and in spite of so much distrust and opposition, has, happily, saved the railway system of the country from remaining split up among an endless number of companies of the Easingwold type--even though they might have had more than three miles of railway and a single locomotive each. Other developments of State policy towards the railways have applied to ensuring both perfection of construction and safety in operation. In the former respect the English lines have been built with a solidity and a completeness not to be surpassed by the railways of any other country in the world. Even in sparsely populated districts where, under similar circumstances, the American or the Prussian railway engineer would lay down only such a line as would be adequate to the actual or prospective traffic, would give the passengers no platform, would provide little more than a shed for a railway station, and would expect the public to be content with a level crossing and look out for the trains, a British railway company is obliged to respect State requirements by laying down a line equal to the traffic of a busy urban centre, give the passengers such platforms as will enable them to enter or leave the trains without the slightest inconvenience, erect well-built and more or less commodious station buildings, and, it may be, arrange for bridges, viaducts or underground passages such as in other countries would be found only in centres having a substantial amount of traffic. Apart, in fact, from any question as to expenditure on {292}Parliamentary proceedings and on the acquiring of land, the cost simply of building the railway itself has, generally speaking, been far greater in this country than, under corresponding geographical and traffic conditions, has been the case elsewhere. Judging from the example of the Prussian State Railway administration it is extremely doubtful if, had the British railway system been constructed, owned and operated by the State, instead of being left to private enterprise, any responsible Chancellor of the Exchequer would have authorised so great a degree of expenditure, in the interests of an absolute perfection of construction under all possible conditions, as that which has been forced upon commercial companies dependent for their capital on the money they could raise from investors. Less scope for criticism is offered by the provision of the most complete of safety appliances in regard to signalling and other phases of railway operation. The desirability of reducing the risk of railway accidents to an absolute minimum is beyond the range of all possible dispute. Yet, as a matter of detail, the substantial cost of ensuring this all-important element of safety, no less than the exceptionally heavy outlay on the lines themselves, has helped still further to increase that capital expenditure a return on which is only to be secured by the investors from the revenue the companies can get from the railway users. When we look for the ultimate and combined results of the various conditions touched upon in this and the preceding chapter--excessive cost of land, abnormal expenditure on Parliamentary proceedings and various aspects of State policy and control--we find them in the fact that, whether or not the British railways are really the best in the world, they have certainly been the most costly. Comparisons with other countries may be misleading unless we remember that published statistics as to the cost of construction of the world's railways apply to route mileage--or, otherwise, "length of line"--and that the English lines have a large proportion of double, treble and other multiple track, while in more sparsely populated countries the railways, except in and around the large towns, consist to a far larger extent of single track. The actual position is not, therefore, quite so bad as the comparative figures appear to show. But, even allowing for these considerations, the following table--which {293}I compile from data published in the "Bulletin of the International Railway Congress Association" for February, 1911--may be regarded as conveying the moral of the story I have here been seeking to tell:-- CONSTRUCTION COST OF THE RAILWAYS OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. CONSTRUCTION CAPITAL COUNTRY. SYSTEM. YEAR. MILES. TOTAL. PER MILE. Great Britain £ £ and Ireland Entire 1905 22,843 1,272,600,000 55,712 Germany " 1908 35,639 813,300,000 22,821 France Main lines 1906 24,701 706,700,000 28,611 Belgium State lines 1907 2,523 93,600,000 37,088 Netherlands Entire 1897 1,653 28,700,000 17,350 Denmark State 1909 1,218 13,250,000 10,884 United States of America -- 1908 233,632 3,521,200,000 15,071 Canada -- 1907 22,447 269,850,000 12,022 {294}CHAPTER XXII DECLINE OF CANALS Considering that, in spite of the unreasonableness, the exactions and the large profits of many of the canal companies in the later days of their prosperous monopoly, the canals themselves had rendered such invaluable service to the trade, commerce and industry of the country, the question may well have arisen why they were not allowed, or enabled to a greater extent than was actually the case, to continue their career of usefulness. There has, indeed, for some years been in the United Kingdom a canal-revival party which favours the idea that either the State or the local authorities should acquire and improve the canals with a view to enabling them better to compete with the railways--which, as the story of the Liverpool and Manchester line shows, were at one time expressly designed as competitors of and alternatives to the canals. So far has this resuscitation idea been carried that in December, 1909, the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways reported in favour of the State acquiring, widening and otherwise bringing up to date a series of canals radiating from the Birmingham district, and establishing cross-country connections between the Thames, the Mersey, the Severn and the Humber. The reasons for the decline of the canals and the practicability, or otherwise, of reviving them may thus be regarded as questions of more than merely historical or academic interest for (1) the traders who might benefit from the said revival; (2) the traders who certainly would not benefit, but who, in conjunction with (3) the general taxpayer, might have to contribute to the cost if the State did acquire the canals and failed to make them pay. The "real commercial prosperity of England" has well been dated from the period of early canal development, when artificial waterways began to supplement the deficiencies {295}of navigable streams limited to certain districts and liable to floods, droughts and other disadvantages, and of ill-made roads which even the turnpike system had failed to adapt to the requirements of heavy traffic. In these conditions the movement either of raw materials or of manufactured articles other than those which could be carried on packhorses had, as we have seen, been rendered all but impossible in many parts of the country on account either of the difficulties or of the excessive cost of transport. Canals, constituting a great improvement on any other existing conditions, came to the rescue, and supplied the first impetus to that industrial revolution which the railways were to complete. This was a great work for the canals to have accomplished, and it was a work that was essentially done by private enterprise. Clifford says that "Parliament, by its legislation in furtherance of canals and of agriculture, probably contributed more largely to the national prosperity than by any group of public measures passed towards the close of the last [eighteenth] century." There is here not a word of recognition for Brindley, the Duke of Bridgewater and the other pioneers of the canal movement, or for the private investors who provided the £14,000,000 spent on the actual "furtherance" of canals. Parliament did not inspire, originate or in any way improve the canals; it found none of the money which they cost, nor did it even seek to direct their construction on any such well-organised system of through and uniform lines of communication as would have made them far more useful, and assured them, probably, a longer lease of life. Yet Mr Clifford has no hesitation in giving all the praise to Parliament because it _allowed_ the canal promoters and proprietors to carry out the work on their own initiative, and at their own risk, as the improvers of rivers and the providers of turnpike roads had done before them. "Canals in this country," says the Final Report of the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways, "were constructed upon no general scheme or system. As soon as it was seen that they were a profitable investment, independent companies were formed in every district, and, according to their influence or their means, obtained from Parliament Acts conceding powers to make canals of the most varying length and character." If, in conceding these powers, Parliament {296}had established some central authority with a view to securing such uniformity in construction and such connected routes as were practicable, it would have rendered a greater service than by simply approving schemes put forward in what the Final Report itself describes as a "piecemeal" fashion. This, however, was not done; nor, in fact, was action taken to prevent the canal companies, after they had shown their enterprise and risked their millions, from becoming in the pre-railway days grasping monopolists whose one idea was to exploit the trader to their own advantage, leading him to welcome the railways, as an alternative to the canals, still more cordially than he had previously welcomed the canals as an alternative to the roads and rivers. So long as the locomotive remained in a comparatively undeveloped stage, the canal companies refrained from regarding railways as serious rivals, and continued to look upon them in the light, rather, of contributors of traffic to the waterways; but in proportion as the locomotive was improved and the rivalry of the railways became more and more pronounced the canal companies grew alarmed for the prospects of their own concerns. They entered on no new undertakings--the last inland canal, as distinct from ship canals, was completed about 1834--and they got anxious as to the future of those they had on their hands. They had first scoffed at the railways as "nothing but insane schemes," or as costly "bubbles," and they had then worked up a powerful opposition against them. Having failed in each of these directions, they next took steps which they would have done well to take earlier--they reduced their tolls, and they also began to consider how they could improve their canals. In 1835 there was a general reduction of rates on the Old Quay Navigation between Liverpool and Manchester, but this belated policy of seeking to make terms with the traders did not prejudice the fortunes of the new railway between those places. As regards the improvements sought to be introduced on the canals, Nicholas Wood, in the third edition (1838) of his "Practical Treatise on Rail-Roads," says:-- "Canals, ever since their adoption, have undergone little or no change; some trivial improvements may have been effected in the manner of passing boats from one level to another, and light boats have been applied for the conveyance {297}of passengers; but in their general economy they may be said to have remained stationary. Their nature almost prohibits the application of mechanical power to advantage in the conveyance of goods and passengers upon them; and they have not, therefore, partaken of the benefits which other arts have derived from mechanical science. "The reverse of this is the case with railroads; their nature admits of almost unrestricted application of mechanical power upon them, and their utility has been correspondingly increased.... "At the time of the publication of the first[47] and second[48] editions of this work scarcely any experiments had been made on a large scale to elucidate the capabilities of canal navigation--none, certainly, satisfactory; since then the competition of railways has aroused the dormant spirit of the canal proprietors, and various experiments have been made to ascertain the amount of resistance of boats dragged at different velocities; attempts have been likewise made to adapt the power of steam to propel the boats upon them, and other experiments have been adopted to increase their activity as a mode of traffic, and especially for the conveyance of passengers." These various experiments had little practical result, and the navigation companies found it more to their advantage, in many instances, to make good use of their position and influence, while they were still a power in the land, and force the railway companies either to buy them out entirely or to guarantee them against loss. Such results were generally secured either by first threatening opposition to the railway Bills, and then stating the price for withdrawing therefrom, or, alternatively, by projecting schemes for the competitive lines of railway specially favoured by the State policy of the day, and likely, therefore, to be readily conceded. When, in 1845, the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway Company--afterwards amalgamated with the Great Western Railway Company--were seeking powers of incorporation, they were opposed by the Severn Commissioners, who represented that they had spent £180,000 in improving the waterway, in anticipation of securing a revenue of £14,000 a year. In order to overcome this opposition and get their Bill, the railway company agreed to make up to the Severn {298}Commissioners any deficit between the amount of their tolls and £14,000 a year. Under this obligation the railway company paid £6000 a year for many years; but in 1890 the obligation was commuted by a payment by the Great Western Railway Company of £100,000, and by the giving up to them of certain mortgages to which they had become entitled in consideration of the Commissioners discharging them from the liability under their guarantee. In stating these facts in evidence before the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways, Mr T. H. Rendell, chief goods manager of the Great Western Railway Company, added (Question 23,834): "It is desirable to mention that, because it is rather suggested that State aid should be given to enable this very waterway to come into fresh competition with the railway. Of course, if that were so, it would be only fair that the Severn Commissioners should re-imburse the railway company the compensation they have received." The acquiring of the Stratford-on-Avon Canal by the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway was another of many instances of purchase by a railway company being the price of withdrawal of canal opposition to railway Bills. By threatening to apply to Parliament for powers to build an opposition railway, the Kennet and Avon Canal Company, in 1851, also induced the Great Western to buy them out, the railway company agreeing to pay £7773 a year for the canal, which has been a loss to them ever since. In the same way the London and Birmingham Railway Company, now the London and North-Western, originally acquired control over the Birmingham Canal Navigations as the result of a declared intention on the part of the canal company, in 1845, to seek for powers to build a competing line of railway through the Stour valley. The railway company only overcame the threatened opposition by guaranteeing the canal company £4 per share on their capital, obtaining, in return, certain rights and privileges, in regard to control and operation, in the event of their having to make good any deficiency in the revenue. This they have had to do every year since 1874, with the single exception of 1875; and down to 1910 the total amount paid by the London and North-Western Railway Company to the proprietors of the Birmingham Canal Navigations, under this guarantee, had been {299}no less than £874,652. The payments for the years 1906-10 were as follows: 1906, £37,017 14s. 9d.; 1907, £22,262 2s. 7d.; 1908, £44,690 3s. 11d.; 1909, £45,697 10s. 3d.; 1910, £39,720 3s. 9d. There has been much talk in the past of railway companies having obtained possession of canals in order to "strangle" the traffic on them. It is difficult to see why, except under pressure, railway directors, who count among the shrewdest of business men, should have incurred such substantial obligations towards canals which, at the time, everyone regarded as doomed to extinction before a superior means of transport. It is equally difficult to believe that, having incurred these costly obligations, the companies deliberately "strangled" the traffic on the canals, instead of allowing them to earn--if they could--at least sufficient to cover the cost of their upkeep. Whatever the precise conditions under which they acquired control, the railway companies were compelled by Parliament to incur obligations in regard to maintenance which have had the effect of continuing the existence of many a little-used waterway that would long ago have become hopelessly derelict if it had remained under the control of an independent canal company, instead of being kept going out of the purse of a powerful railway company in accordance with the statutory obligations imposed by Parliament. These obligations were, of course, based on the principle of ensuring competition even though canals and railways passed under the same control, the former being supported and kept more or less efficient out of the revenues of the latter. This policy, however, was regarded as only an alternative to another, to which Parliament gave the preference--that, namely, of maintaining, if possible, a still more effective competition by strengthening the position of the canals, now the weaker of the combatants in the economic struggle, and enabling them to continue their independent existence, in preference to seeking absorption by the railways. In 1845 an Act (8 & 9 Vic. c. 28) was passed, the preamble of which, after alluding to the provision in the Railway Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, giving power to railway companies to vary their rates, declared that "greater competition, for the public advantage, would be obtained" if canal {300}companies, etc., were to have like powers granted to them in respect of their canals, etc.; and the Act therefore conferred upon them the necessary powers for varying their tolls. The preamble of another Act passed in the same Session (8 & 9 Vict. c. 42) recited the powers given to railway companies as carriers of goods on their own lines, and stated that "greater competition, for the public advantage, would be obtained if similar powers were granted to canal and navigation companies." The Act accordingly extended to them the same powers. With a like object, and again adopting the principle sanctioned in the case of railway companies, the Act further authorised canal companies to make working arrangements between themselves, and, also, to lease their canals to other canal companies, with a view to a better provision of through water routes, and, consequently, a more active competition with the railways. Two years later another Act (10 & 11 Vict. c. 94) was passed, giving the canal companies power to borrow money for the purposes here specified. In his presidential address to the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1885, Sir Frederick Bramwell, dealing with various matters relating to the transport conditions of the country, said: "This addition to the legal powers of the canal companies made by the Acts of 1845 and 1847 has had a very beneficial effect upon the value of their property, and has assisted to preserve a mode of transport competing with that afforded by the railways." It is true that the powers to act as carriers were taken advantage of by leading canal companies, who worked up a good business as carriers, although, to a certain extent, with a result directly at variance with the widely accepted view that canals should carry heavy and bulky commodities, and railways the lighter and more compact goods. What actually happened was that the canal companies, as carriers, competed with the railways in the transport of domestic supplies, while the railways still carried most of the coal, iron-stone, etc., for which many people supposed that canal transport is specially adapted. While, however, as the result of these particular powers, some of the canal companies improved their financial position, and were enabled to maintain a better competition with the railways, very little use was made of the authority given to {301}them to combine among themselves and establish through routes, converting series of small canals into connected waterways under one and the same control, if not actually owned by one and the same company, as was being so actively done with the railways. Some action had certainly been taken in this direction. The Birmingham Canal system of to-day is composed of three canal companies which had amalgamated prior to 1846, supplemented by a fourth which joined them in that year. The Shropshire Union, also, is formed of four canal companies originally independent. But these are only exceptions to the rule, for though the Joint Select Committee of 1872, following up what had already been done at an earlier period, recommended that the utmost facilities should be given for amalgamations between canal companies, few of such amalgamations have, as the Final Report of the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways points out, taken place since the full establishment of railways. Goods sent to-day by canal from Birmingham, for instance, to London, to Liverpool or to Hull will pass over waterways controlled by from six to eight different authorities, according to the route followed. One must, however, recognise the fact that the securing of uniformity of gauge and the establishment of through routes presented far greater difficulties in the case of artificial waterways than in that of railways. The physical geography of England is wholly unfavourable to efficient cross-country water transport, and this fact, in itself, is sufficient to render impracticable any such scheme of canal resuscitation as that which has been put forward by the recent Royal Commission. The physical condition of England in relation to the building of canals is well shown in the article on "Canals" published in "Rees' Cyclopædia" (1819) where it is said, in this connection:-- "Great Britain ... has a range of high land passing nearly its whole length, which divides the springs and rain waters that fall to the opposite coasts: we shall call this range dividing the eastern and western rivers of Britain the _grand ridge_.... No less than 22 of our canals now do or are intended to pass this grand ridge, forming as many navigable connections between the rivers of the east and west seas!... The Dudley canal crosses this grand ridge twice, the two ends {302}being on the eastern side, and the middle part on the western side thereof; the Kennet and Avon crosses the eastern and western branches, into which it divides on the Chalk Hills, west of Marlborough, by which parts of this canal are in the drainage of the west, the south and the east seas! The Coventry Canal, also, by means of its Bedworth branch, crosses the grand ridge twice. The populous and remarkable town of Birmingham is situate on high ground, near to the grand ridge, and has six canals branching off in different directions, either immediately therefrom or at no great distance, and, what is singular, owing to a loop, or sudden bend of the ridge at this place, no less than five of them traverse the grand ridge, either by means of tunnels or deep-cutting." While the grand ridge here in question presents no difficulty to powerful locomotives, the position is altogether different with canals fed by streams of water that will not flow up-hill. In the case of the Birmingham Canal, specially referred to in the extract just given, there are three separate "levels." The lowest is 209 feet, and the highest 511 feet above sea level. Boats doing the cross-country journey, or passing between Birmingham and the coast, would have to overcome such heights as these by means of locks, lifts or inclined planes. Here we have a very different proposition from that which is presented by canals on the flat surfaces of Holland, Belgium and North Germany--with, also, their abundant water supplies, from great rivers or otherwise--whereas the upper levels of the Birmingham Canal are kept filled with water only by means of costly and powerful pumping machinery, supplemented by reservoirs. When the original builders of canals had to cross the grand ridge, or any other elevation over which they required to pass, they sought to economise water consumption and to keep down both cost of construction and working expenses by making the locks on the top levels only just large enough to pass boats of a small size. The dimensions of any boat making a through journey are thus controlled by those of the smallest lock through which it would require to pass. On lower levels where the water problem did not arise--or not to the same degree--the locks could well be made larger, to accommodate larger boats engaged only in local traffic. {303}The material differences in cost of construction and operation between waterways on a low and uniform level and those crossing considerable eminences, by means of locks, were well recognised by Parliament when approving the lists of tolls to be paid on different waterways. On the Aire and Calder the minimum toll, if a boat passed through a lock, was fixed at five shillings. On the Rochdale Canal the minimum toll for a boat crossing the summit level was ten shillings.[49] The reason for this difference is that whereas the Aire and Calder navigation is but little above sea level throughout, the summit of the Rochdale Canal is at a height of 600 feet above sea level, and is crossed by means of ninety-two locks in thirty-two miles. The reader will see, therefore, that the want of a common gauge in the construction of artificial waterways, mainly designed, at the outset, to supply the needs of particular districts, may often have been due to more practical reasons than simply a lack of combination or a difference of view on the part of canal constructors, the problem of gauge on canals built at varying elevations, and all depending on water supply, being entirely different from any question as to the gauge or the running of railways on the same or similar routes. "The necessity of a uniform gauge on canals as on railways," says Clifford, "is now clear enough. We need not wonder that, in the eighteenth century, Parliament was no wiser than the engineers, and had not learned this lesson." It was, however, not entirely a matter of wisdom. There were, also, these inherent defects of the canal system itself to be considered. It is very doubtful if even Parliament, had it possessed the greatest foresight, could have forced, or have persuaded, the canal companies to construct locks of precisely the same dimensions at elevations of 400, 500 or 600 feet, where water was difficult to get or costly to pump, as on canals more or less on the sea level, and deriving an abundant water supply from mountain streams or navigable rivers. Forbes and Ashford, in "Our Waterways," also think it is much to be regretted that in this country no standard dimension was ever fixed for canals, "as has been done in France." But the superficial area of the United Kingdom, {304}with its mountains and valleys, and hills and dales, presents a wholly different problem, in the matter of canal construction, from that offered by the flat surfaces of France, of Holland, of Belgium or of North Germany. In 230 miles of waterway between Hamburg and Berlin there are three locks. In this country there is an average of one lock for every mile and a quarter of canal navigation. The total number of locks is 2,377, and for each of these there must be allowed a capitalised cost of, on an average, £1360. The fate that overtook the once prosperous canals of South Wales when the railways could no longer be suppressed by the canal companies, and were allowed to compete fairly with them, has been materially due to their own physical disadvantages in respect of the large number of locks they require to overcome the steep inclines of the mountainous district in which they were made. These facts are brought out in the Fourth (Final) Report of the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways, where it is said:-- "The Glamorganshire and Aberdare Canals were bought by the Marquis of Bute in 1885. They form a continuous narrow waterway with a total length of about 32 miles. In this distance there are 53 locks.... The waterway is used at the Cardiff end by small coasting vessels, but above this point the traffic has fallen off considerably. The total tonnage carried on the canals amounted in 1888 to 660,364 tons; in 1905 to 249,760 tons. Two railways run parallel to the canals and carry almost all the coal brought down from the collieries near the canals. The gradients from these collieries to the port are considerable. This makes the haulage of full railway trucks easy, and, on the other hand, in the case of the canal makes necessary a great number of locks relatively to the mileage, with consequent slowness of transport. "The Swansea Canal belongs to the Great Western Railway Company. It is a narrow canal, 16½ miles in length, and has 36 locks. The traffic has diminished ... for reasons similar to those given with respect to the Glamorganshire Canal." Much more, however, than the provision of locks was necessitated by the physical conditions of a country naturally unsuited for artificial waterways. In some instances the canals were taken across broad valleys by means of viaducts designed to allow of the waterway being maintained at the same {305}level; and certain of the works thus carried out were, in their day, deservedly regarded as of considerable engineering importance. The Chirk aqueduct, which carries the Ellesmere Canal across a 700-feet stretch in the Ceriog valley, and at a height of 70 feet above the level of the river, and the Pontcysyllte aqueduct, 1007 feet long, which takes the same canal over the river Dee, are spoken of by Phillips, in his "General History of Inland Navigation" (1803), as "among the boldest efforts of human invention in modern times." Elsewhere the canals had to pass along high embankments or through deep cuttings. Canal tunnels of up to three miles in length were not infrequent, though some of these were made so narrow--in the interests of economy--that they had no towing-path, the boats being taken through by men who lay on their backs on the cargo, and pushed against the sides of the tunnel with their feet. Alternatively, it was sometimes possible to avoid rising ground or deep valleys, necessitating locks, by making wide detours in preference to taking the shortest route, as a railway would do. Thus the distance by canal between Liverpool and Wigan is thirty-four miles, as compared with a distance of only nineteen by rail. From Liverpool to Leeds is 128 miles by canal and eighty by rail. These windings made the canal compare still more unfavourably with the railway when it was considered that the speed of transport on the former was only about two and a half miles an hour, without counting delays at the locks; and of these there are, between Liverpool and Leeds, no fewer than ninety-three. But just because these engineering works had been so bold and so costly, or left so much to be desired in regard to length of route, and just because so many physical difficulties had had to be overcome, it may well have happened that when what was universally considered a better means of transport was presented, general doubts arose as to the wisdom and practicability of reconstructing, in effect, the whole canal system to enable it to compete better with the railways in catering for that through traffic for which the canals themselves were so ill adapted. Supplementing these considerations as to the physical configuration of the country is the further fact that in the colliery districts the keeping of the canals in working order involves great trouble, incessant watchfulness and very {306}considerable expenditure on account of subsidences due to coal-mining. In my book on "Canals and Traders" (P. S. King & Son) I have told how "throughout practically the whole of the Black Country, the Birmingham Canal, for a total distance of about eighty miles, has been undermined by colliery workings, and is mainly on the top of embankments which have been raised from time to time, in varying stages, to maintain the waterway above the level of the ground that has sunk because of the coal mines underneath." Many of these embankments, as I have had the opportunity of seeing for myself, are now at a height of from twenty to thirty feet above the present surface of the land, and in one instance, at least, the subsidences have been so serious that an embankment twenty feet high and half a mile long has taken the place of what was formerly a cutting. If the Birmingham Canal had not been controlled by the London and North-Western Railway Company, who are under a statutory obligation to keep it in good and effective working condition, it would inevitably have collapsed long ago. No independent canal company, deriving its revenue from canal tolls and charges alone, could have stood the heavy and continuous drain upon its resources which, in these circumstances, the canal would have involved; and like conditions apply to various other railway-owned canals in the north, in Wales, and elsewhere. Concerning the Glamorganshire Canal, it is said in "Transport Facilities in South Wales and Monmouthshire," by Clarence S. Howells:[50] "The present owners have spent £25,000 on the canal since 1885 in an ineffectual attempt to revive its waning fortunes. One of its many difficulties is the subsidence caused by colliery workings." Dealing with the general position in regard to canal transport in the United Kingdom, J. S. Jeans remarks in "Waterways and Water Transport" (1890):-- "The railway companies have been accused of acquiring canal property in order that they might destroy it, and thereby get rid of a dangerous rival. This is probably not the case. The railway companies are fully aware of the fact that water transport under suitable conditions is more economical than rail transport. It would therefore have suited them, at the {307}same rates, to carry by water heavy traffic, in the delivery of which time was not of so much importance. But the canals as they came into their possession were naturally unadapted for such traffic without being more or less remodelled, and this the railway companies have not attempted. "When we consider the enormous disadvantages under which the majority of the canals of this country now labour, the great matter for wonder is, not that they do not secure the lion's share of the traffic, but that they get any traffic at all." If, for the sake of argument, we leave out of account all the "enormous disadvantages" here alluded to, and assume that the physical difficulties already detailed could be overcome without much trouble or great expense (though this would, indeed, be a prodigious assumption), we should still have the fact that the number of traders in the country who could hope to benefit from any possible system of internal navigation would necessarily be limited to those in certain districts, whereas the railway can be taken anywhere, and be made to serve the interests of each and every district or community in the country. It is true that when commodities can be sent direct from an ocean-going vessel to a works situated immediately alongside a canal, the waterway may have the advantage over the railway; and the same may be the case as regards manufactured goods forwarded in the opposite direction. Of the 235,000 tons of flints, clay and other potters' materials brought into the Potteries district of North Staffordshire during 1910, no fewer than 200,000 tons, imported at Runcorn, Ellesmere Port or Weston Port, were taken by canal to pottery works located on or near to the canal banks. In these circumstances the North Staffordshire Railway Company, who also control the Trent and Mersey Navigation, cannot, as railway owners, compete with themselves as canal owners. In the case of the Aire and Calder, the physical conditions of which are exceptionally favourable, coal can readily be sent from the collieries immediately alongside the waterway to the steamers or the coal ships in the port of Goole. On the Birmingham Canal, also, the traffic between collieries and works, or between works and railway transhipping basins, on the same level, is already so considerable that no great increase could be accommodated without carrying out on the canal a widening {308}which would be fabulously costly, and, also, wholly impracticable, on account of the great iron-works and other industrial establishments which line almost the entire twelve-mile route between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, forming, with their hundreds of private basins, the actual boundary of the canal on one side or the other. To "adapt" the Birmingham Canal to through traffic would produce chaos for the local traffic. Mr Jeans thus goes a little too far when he makes the sweeping statement that "Canals as they were built a century ago have no longer any function to fulfil that is worthy of serious consideration. Their mission is ended, their use is an anachronism." Even the title given to the present chapter, "Decline of Canals," is to be read subject to the exceptions represented by those of the waterways that still answer these useful local purposes and should have every encouragement therein. Mr Jeans is, however, fully warranted in declaring that "it would be the idlest of idle dreams to expect that the canal system of this or any other country as originally constructed can be resuscitated, or even temporarily galvanised into activity, in competition with the railways." There is a still further consideration. Whatever the prospective advantages of resuscitation when the point of despatch and the point of delivery are both on the same canal--and especially when both are on the same level of the canal, so that passage through locks is unnecessary--it must be obvious that when commodities are despatched from, or consigned to, places situate at such a distance from a canal that supplementary transport is necessary, the cost thereof must be added to the amount of the canal charges. The sum of the two may then be so little below the cost of rail transport that the latter--coupled with the greater speed and the greater convenience in the way, perhaps, of sidings or of lines of rails coming right into the works--will be preferred. Academic theories, on paper, as to the comparative costs of hauling given weights of commodities on water and rail respectively may, in fact, be rendered futile by (1) the supplementary cost of transport to or from the waterway and of various services or conveniences included in the railway rate but not included in the canal charges; and (2) the consideration that if a large sum of money be spent on {309}improving the canals the interest thereon must either be met by means of increased canal charges--in which event the canal-users would have no advantage over the railway-users--or remain as a permanent burden on the community. How the cost of the supplementary charges and services operates in practice may be shown by a reference to the London coal trade, coal being a commodity which is regarded by those who favour State ownership of the canals as one specially adapted for waterway transport. Except as regards the consignments of sea-borne coal, the domestic coal supply of London is carried almost exclusively by rail. The trucks can generally go right up to the collieries; they convey the coal to special and extensive railway sidings, there to await orders; and they proceed thence, as required, to the suburban railway station or depôt nearest to the premises of the actual consumer, in any part of the country; whereas coal sent by canal would first have to be taken from the colliery to the canal, and there be discharged into the boat, then be conveyed, say, to the Thames, next be transferred from boat to cart, and finally be taken by road across London to destination, with the subsidiary considerations (1) that with each fresh handling the coal would deteriorate in value; (2) that the traders would lose the advantage of railway coal sidings and station depots; and (3) that the railway truck is a better unit than the canal boat for the various descriptions or qualities of coal dealt in by the average coal merchant, whose prejudices in favour of rail transport over canal transport, when the consumers are not actually located on or quite close to the waterway, can thus be accounted for by strictly business considerations. The conclusion is forced upon one that, notwithstanding the useful purposes which a certain number of canals are still serving, any resuscitation of canals in general, or even any provision of improved cross-country canal routes passing over the "grand ridge," at the cost of an indefinite number of millions to the country, can hardly be regarded as coming within the range of sound economics. It certainly is favoured by a larger number of traders than the comparatively small proportion who would be able, or willing, to use the canals when they had been improved; but this support is directly due to a belief that nationalisation--though what is proposed {310}is only a partial nationalisation--of the canals would tend towards keeping down railway rates. In other words, the scheme is but a further development of that policy which aims at enforcing the principle of competition irrespective of cost, and without regard for the capital expenditure on which a fair return ought to be assured. One of the witnesses examined before the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways said there was a local feeling against the Wilts and Berks Canal being taken in hand by the county council "because," he said, "we are all afraid of the rates; but," he added, "from what I have heard from traders and others, they would like to see it back again, mainly as a means of cutting down railway rates." Mr Remnant, one of the Commissioners, says in his separate report, in alluding to import and export traffic, that most of the evidence given on this question "seemed to point to a desire on the traders' part, not so much for the waterways as for lower railway rates, in order to enable them to face foreign competition"; while Mr Davison, another of the Commissioners, who also dissents from the recommendations of the Majority Report, speaks of many of the canals as being "of little economic value to the trade of the country, apart from whatever influence they may have in keeping down railway rates," though he adds: "If this latter result were otherwise secured their continued existence could not be justified on economic grounds." Any effect which the carrying out of the Majority Report scheme of canal improvement _might_ have on railway rates would, all the same, be felt only in the towns or localities directly concerned. Benefit would result to (1) those traders who could use the canals, and (2) those who, though not using the canals, obtained the lower railway rates, if reductions really were secured through the canal competition; while traders at a distance from the waterways would not only have to help to pay the cost, though themselves deriving no benefit therefrom, but might even see two classes of their own competitors in the favoured districts gain an advantage over them--one set from State-owned and State-aided canals, and another from the local reductions in railway rates to which those canals might be expected to lead. The proposals of the Royal Commission may well be approved by certain localities or individual traders on the line {311}of route of the canals proposed to be taken in hand. They are hardly likely, however, to commend themselves to the traders and taxpayers of the country in general. My own view is that if the State is prepared to find money for the purpose of cheapening the cost of transport, it could do so to better advantage if, instead of spending millions on an impracticable and partial scheme of canal resuscitation, it lightened the burden of taxation now falling on the railway companies, and thus improved their position in regard, not merely to traders in particular districts, but to the trade and industries of the United Kingdom as a whole. {312}CHAPTER XXIII DECLINE OF TURNPIKES The inherent defects of the turnpike system must in themselves have been fatal to its permanent continuance, irrespective of the influence of the railways, which did not kill the turnpikes so much as merely give them the _coup de grace_. No one can deny the adequacy of the time that Parliament had devoted to the kindred subjects of roads and waggons. By 1838--and only a few years, therefore, later than the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway--Parliament had passed no fewer than 3800 private and local turnpike Acts, and had authorised the creation in England and Wales of 1116 turnpike trusts, controlling 22,000 miles of road. But the whole system was hopelessly inefficient, wasteful and burdensome, besides being as unsatisfactory in its administration as it was in its results. Managed or directed by trustees and surveyors under the conditions detailed in Chapter X, the actual work on the turnpike roads was mainly carried out by statute labour, pauper labour or labour paid for out of the tolls, out of the receipts from the composition for statute duty, or, as a last resource, at the direct cost of the ratepayers, who were thus made responsible for the turnpike as well as for the parish roads. Statute labour was a positive burlesque of English local government. Archdeacon Plymley says in his "General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire" (1803): "There is no trick, evasion or idleness that shall be deemed too mean to avoid working on the road: sometimes the worst horses are sent; at others a broken cart, or a boy, or an old man past labour, to fill: they are sometimes sent an hour or two too late in the morning, or they leave off much sooner than the proper time, unless the surveyor watch the whole day." In the article already quoted from the "Westminster {313}Review" for October, 1825, it is said: "Statute labour on the parish roads is limited to six days work and on the turnpikes to three. But it is now found generally expedient to demand or take money in lieu of labour, according to a rate to be fixed by the justices in different places.... In practice the statute labour was frequently a farce, half of the time being spent in going and returning and in conversation and idleness." An authority referred to in Postlethwayt's "Dictionary" (1745) had suggested that criminals condemned to death for minor offences should, instead of being transported, be ordered to do a year's work on the highway. He further recommended, in all seriousness, that arrangements should be made with the African Company for the importation of 200 negroes as road-repairers, they being, as he said, "generally persons to do a great deal of work." Failing criminals and negroes, some of the parishes did employ paupers, gangs of whom were to be seen pretending to work at road-mending, and getting far more degeneration for themselves than they did good for the roads. In 1835 Parliament abolished both statute labour and statute labour composition, thenceforward wholly superseded by highway rates as applying to the whole of the minor roads for which the parish was responsible. Bad as the statute labour system had been, its abolition involved a loss to the turnpike trusts estimated at about £200,000 a year; and this was a serious matter to trustees whose financial position was becoming hopeless in view of their liabilities and the discouraging nature of their outlook. Such discouragement was due in great part to the advent of the railways, but not entirely so, the Select Committee of 1839 on Turnpike Trusts saying in their report that "the gradual decline in the transit on turnpike roads in some parts of the country arises not only from the railways formed but from steam vessels plying on rivers and as coasting traders"; and they added: "Whenever mechanical power has been substituted for animal power, the result has hitherto been that the labour is performed at a cheaper rate." The cost of making and repairing turnpike roads, especially under the primitive conditions still widely retained, notwithstanding the improved methods introduced by Telford {314}and McAdam, was in itself a most serious item, apart from the excessive expenditure on administration. Dr James Anderson says on this subject in the issue of his "Recreations" for November, 1800:-- "I have been assured, and believe it to be true, though I cannot pledge myself for the certainty of the fact, that there is annually laid out on repairs upon the road from Hyde Park to Hounslow considerably above £1000 a mile. A turnpike road cannot be made in almost any situation for less, as I am told, than £1000 per mile; but where it is of considerable width, as near great towns, it will run from £1500 to £2000 per mile; and in annual repairs, including the purchase price of materials, carting them to the road, spreading, raking off, and carting away again, from £100 to £1000 a mile." The trustees generally raised loans to meet their first expenses, payment of interest being guaranteed out of the tolls levied; but though, at one time, and especially before the competition of railways became active, the security was regarded as adequate, an unduly costly management, combined with decreasing receipts from tolls, resulted in the piling up of huge financial liabilities which the trusts found it impossible to clear off in addition to meeting current expenditure. The Select Committee on Turnpike Trusts in 1839 reported on this subject: "The present debt of the turnpike trusts in England and Wales exceeds £9,000,000, and it is annually increasing, in consequence of the practice prevailing in several of the trusts of converting the unpaid interest into principal, the trustees giving bonds bearing interest for the amount of interest due." At this time there were no fewer than eighty-four trusts which had paid no interest on loans for several years, and there were said to be some trusts which had paid no interest for sixty years. Sir James McAdam, son of John Loudon McAdam, informed the Select Committee of 1839 that the amount of unpaid interest on the trusts at that time was £1,031,096. In order to improve their financial position, the trustees generally adopted the expedient either of seeking Parliamentary authority to increase their tolls or of setting up the largest possible number of toll-gates along their own particular bit of road. In either case it was the road-user who paid. The Select Committee of 1819 reported that in the three {315}preceding Sessions ninety turnpike trusts, seeking renewal of their Acts, had asked for authority to increase their tolls on the ground that they could not pay their debts without the assistance of Parliament. The alternative to an increase of tolls was carried so far that it became customary for the trusts to set up a toll-gate wherever there was the slightest excuse for so doing. "In some places," says J. Kearsley Fowler, in "Records of Old Times," "as, for instance, my native town of Aylesbury, the place was literally hemmed in like a fortified city,--not even an outlet to exercise a horse without paying a toll." There were, he tells us, seven different trusts to maintain at Aylesbury alone. Mr George Masefield, a solicitor residing at Ledbury, Herefordshire, said when giving evidence before the Select Committee on Turnpike Trusts in 1864 that in the twenty-one miles between Ledbury and Kingston, a journey he frequently made, he had to go through eight turnpike gates. In the eight miles' journey to Newent he passed through four gates and paid three times; and in the thirteen miles to Worcester he went through six gates and paid at five. In Gloucestershire, said the "Morning Star" of September 30, 1856, "it sometimes happens you have to pay five turnpikes in twelve miles"; though such were the inequalities of the burden that in some other counties, said the same paper, one could go for miles without paying anything. These inequalities had been previously pointed out in the "Westminster Review" article. In speaking of the practice followed in the location of turnpikes, the writer declared that "gates are sometimes placed so as to tax one portion and exempt another, so as to make strangers and travellers pay, while those who chiefly profit by the roads, and who destroy them most, are exempted." He further said that "the Welsh, with their characteristic cunning, have contrived to exempt their own heavy carts and to levy their tolls on the light barouches of unlucky visitors"; that one might see, in Scotland, three toll-gates, and all to be paid, in the space of a hundred yards; that one might, as against this, ride thirty miles without paying one toll; and that "the inhabitants of Greenwich pay the tolls for the half of Kent." London in 1818 had twelve turnpike trusts for 210 miles of {316}road. The tolls they collected in that year amounted to £97,482; the expenses were £98,856, and the accumulated debt of the dozen trusts was £62,658. On the Middlesex side of London there were 87 turnpike gates and bars within four miles of Charing Cross, or, including the Surrey side, a total of 100 within a four-mile radius. "Let the traveller drive through the Walworth gate southward," says J. E. Bradfield, in his "Notes on Toll Reform" (1856), "and note how every road, every alley, every passage has its 'bar.' The inhabitants cannot move north, east, south, or west without paying one toll; and some of them cannot get out of the parish without two tolls. The cry at every corner of Camberwell is 'Toll.'" The position of Walworth and Camberwell does not, however, appear to have been at all exceptional. In Besant's "Survey of London" it is stated that a map of London and its environs, published in 1835, shows that it was then impossible to get away from town without going through turnpikes. On every side they barred the way. In the case of a stage-coach with four horses running every day between London and Birmingham, the tolls paid amounted to £1428 in the year. At one gate on the Brighton road the tolls collected came to £2400 in the year, and of this amount £1600 was from coaches. The payment of these tolls was a serious tax on the coaches, though an important source of revenue for the turnpike trustees; and in proportion as the coaches were taken off the roads, owing to the competition of the railways, the financial position of the trusts became still worse. Mail-coaches were exempted from tolls in England, though they had to pay them in Scotland. The amount of the tolls varied according to the trusts or the locality. Kearsley Fowler says that in Aylesbury for a horse ridden or led, passing through the gates, the toll was 1½d.; for a vehicle drawn by one horse, 4½d.; for a carriage and pair, 9d., and so on. The tolls, he adds, fell with particular hardship on farmers, and became a tax on their trade. When sending away their corn or other produce with a waggon and four horses they paid, in some instances, 1s. 6d. or 2s. 3d. If, as often occurred, the waggon passed through two gates in eight or nine miles, the payments came to 3s. or 4s. 6d. If the waggon returned with coal or feeding stuffs it had to pay the same tolls over again. {317}Nor did the toll-payers get anything like value for their money. About fifty per cent of the amount received by the trustees, either direct from the tolls or from the persons farming them, went in interest and management expenses; and although the remainder might be spent on road repairs, a good proportion of this was wasted because of the inefficient way in which the work was too often done. Mr Wrightson, a member of the Special Committee of 1864, declared that every toll-gate cost on an average £25 a year, and that every turnpike trust had, on an average, five toll-gates. The total number of trusts in 1864 was stated in the Fifteenth Annual Report of the Local Government Board (1886) to be 1048. An average of five toll-gates for each would give them a total of 5240; and an average cost of maintenance of £25 a year for this number of toll-gates gives a total of £131,000 a year as the cost simply of toll-gate maintenance, apart from salaries of official staff and other items. Mr R. M. Brereton, surveyor for the county of Norfolk, said in the course of his evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Highway Acts (1881): "In Norfolk we collected £15,000 a year for tolls, but we only spent £7000 a year of that actually on the roads." It might even happen that, after costs of management and payment of interest had been met, there was no balance left for road maintenance. In the Report of the Select Committee of 1839 on Turnpike Trusts it is stated that in several instances the creditors of the trusts had exercised the power given to them under the General Turnpike Act (3 Geo. IV., c. 126) of taking possession of the tolls to secure payment of their mortgage or bonded securities and the interest due to them. "The result," says the report, "must be to throw the burden of repairs and of the maintenance of such roads on the several parishes through which they pass. Should such measures now taken by some creditors become general throughout the kingdom, the proprietors and holders of land will not only have to pay the tolls as usual, but must also be called on to defray the expense of keeping the road in a proper state for the public use, by an additional highway rate to be levied on the parishes where the tolls paid by the public are seized by the creditor." In addition to management expenses, expenditure on the roads and payment of interest, allowance had to be made {318}for the profits expected by those to whom the trustees farmed the tolls, offering them by auction to the highest bidder. The contractors generally had a private understanding among themselves as to the terms they were prepared to give. One of them, Lewis Levy by name, farmed from £400,000 to £500,000 of turnpike tolls within a radius of from sixty to eighty miles of London; and we may assume that he would not have gone into the business on so large a scale as this unless it had brought him an adequate return. The ultimate result of these various conditions was that the sum total of the indirect taxation thus collected from the public was not only great in itself, and out of all proportion to the benefits received, but was inadequate to cover an expenditure already swollen to abnormal proportions. In his evidence before the Select Committee of 1839 Sir James McAdam stated that in 1836 the gross income of the different roads was £1,776,586, and the expenditure for the year was £1,780,349, exceeding by £3,763 the whole of the income. In Lancashire alone the turnpike tolls came to £123,000 a year. Collection of this considerable revenue from the community had, of course, been duly authorised by Parliament; yet the trustees were under no obligation to account for the moneys they received. Not only was there free scope given for jobbery, embezzlement and malpractices in general, but the turnpike commissioners could, as the "Edinburgh Review" pointed out in 1819, abuse their trust and yet go on levying tolls, keeping possession of the road and defying complaints. The writer on "Roads" in "Rees' Cyclopædia" (1819) further declares that "either from bad management, from party influence or from chicanery and ignorance of surveyors and contractors, the roads in many places are not only laid out in the most absurd direction but are so badly constructed and kept in so wretched a state of repair that they are almost impassable." On the other hand, the great advancement in coaching, and the higher speeds attained by the coaches during the first three decades of the nineteenth century suggest that the improvements introduced by Telford and McAdam could not have been without good effect on the chief of the main roads, at least, however inefficient the making and repairing of the turnpike and parish roads in general may still have remained. {319}All the same, and in spite of the greater road traffic, the financial difficulties into which the trusts drifted and the burdensome nature of the tax imposed by the toll-system on traders, agriculturists and the public were beyond all doubt. Various attempts were made to improve the position of the trusts. A Committee of the House of Commons recommended in 1821 that Continuance Bills for the periodical renewal of Turnpike Acts should be exempted from fees. Another Committee made a like recommendation in 1827, and subsequently a measure was passed scheduling in an annual public statute the continuation of any trusts on the point of expiring. Then, as there was so obviously an excessive number of trusts, with a consequent undue expenditure on management, a Committee which sat in 1820 strongly recommended the consolidation of turnpike trusts around London. An Act consolidating those on the north of the Thames was passed, the preamble thereof reciting no fewer than 120 other Acts of Parliament which the new measure superseded. In 1833, 1836 and 1839 other Committees recommended a general consolidation of trusts; but little, apparently, was done in this direction in England, though in several counties of Scotland, as mentioned in the Report of the Select Committee of 1864, the system was greatly improved by the appointment of Road Boards which, by a consolidation of various trusts and the association of several counties for the repair and maintenance of roads, effected a material diminution in the expenses. In Ireland, also, the abolition of the system of statute labour in 1763, the placing of the business of roadmaking under the control of the grand juries, and the meeting both of the cost of road repairs and the payment of interest on the existing debts out of the rates of the counties and baronies led to better roads being provided at a less burdensome cost. By a General Turnpike Act passed in 1841, justices were authorised, on proof being given to them of a deficiency in the revenue of a turnpike trust, to order the parish surveyor to pay to the trust a portion of the highway rates, to be laid out in actual repairs on parts of the turnpike road within the parish. Bondholders petitioned Parliament that any deficiency {320}in their profits owing to railway competition should be made good by the railway companies; but although this principle was already being enforced, in effect, in the case of many of the canal companies, it was not adopted in that of the turnpike trusts. The various measures resorted to did no more than afford temporary relief to the trusts, and, in the meantime, the obligation cast upon the community of having to support so inefficient and so wasteful a system was found to be intolerably vexatious and burdensome. While some persons were praising turnpikes because of such improvement as they had effected on the roads, the "Gentleman's Magazine" of May, 1749, had spoken of them as "a great disadvantage in our competition for trade with France, where they have excellent roads without turnpikes, which are no small tax on travellers and carriers." Not only were the tolls a tax on all commodities carried by road, but they constituted, to a large extent, an unprofitable tax, because so considerable a proportion of the total amount collected went to the support of officials, contractors, lessees, toll-gate keepers and others, who lived on the system, and so small a proportion--after allowing for money wasted--was usefully spent to the direct advantage of the traders in facilitating actual transport. The Committee of 1864 condemned the whole system of turnpike tolls as "unequal in pressure, costly in collection, inconvenient to the public, and injurious as causing a serious impediment to intercourse and traffic." In Wales popular dissatisfaction with the great increase of toll-gates had led in 1843-4 to the "Rebecca riots," bands of men 500 strong, their leaders disguised in women's clothes, promenading the roads of Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire and Breconshire at night and throwing down the offending gates. It was only with considerable difficulty and much bloodshed that the disturbances were eventually suppressed by a strong force of soldiers. A commission appointed to inquire into the matter found there was a genuine grievance, and an Act of Parliament was passed which consolidated the trusts in South Wales, regulated the number of toll-gates there, and provided for the extinction of the debt on the roads by the advance of about £200,000, at three per cent interest, by the {321}Public Works Loan Commissioners, to be repaid by terminable annuities within thirty years. The loan was duly paid off by 1876. Inasmuch as English traders and travellers simply grumbled and paid, and refrained from demonstrating as the more emotional Welshmen had done, they had to wait longer for any material relief from the grievances from which they, also, were suffering. Down to 1864 the duty of deciding in what order turnpike Acts should be permitted to expire, instead of being renewed, was, as Mr George Sclater-Booth (Lord Basing), formerly President of the Local Government Board, informed the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Highway Acts, when giving evidence before them in 1880, one of the functions of the Home Office, and the Home Office, he said, "was timid at that time in allowing these turnpike trusts to lapse." Pressure was brought to bear on the department with a view to effecting a more rapid extinction of the trusts; though the ratepayers had not then realised the results to themselves of the cost of maintenance of disturnpiked roads being thrown on the parish. Following on the report of a Special Committee of the House of Commons, recommending that the Turnpike Acts should be allowed to expire as rapidly as possible, a House of Commons Turnpike Committee was appointed in 1864 to take over the whole business from the Home Office. Thenceforward this Committee prepared every year a schedule of turnpike trusts which they thought should expire, the schedule being embodied in an annual Turnpike Acts Continuance Bill which was duly passed by Parliament. So great was the zeal shown by the Committee that from 1864 roads were disturnpiked at the rate of from 1000 to 1700 or 1800 miles a year. "This," said Mr Sclater-Booth, "has been most distinctly the policy of representative members of the House of Commons, and not the policy of the Government of the day, except in so far as the Government of the day has foreborne to exercise any interference with the Turnpike Continuance Act in Parliament." While the reduction in the number of turnpike trusts had been an undoubted boon to users of the roads, it had thrown heavy burdens on the local ratepayers. For a period of a {322}century, at least, most of them had, in effect, and except in certain circumstances, been relieved by the turnpike system of their common law obligation to keep main roads in repair; but in proportion as the trusts expired the obligations in respect to maintenance fell back again on the parishes. Under, also, old enactments which still remained in force, not only land and houses but many other kinds of property--stock-in-trade, timber and "personal estate" generally--were assessed for highways and other purposes. These conditions remained until 1840, when an Exemption Act suspended the power of levying rates on stock-in-trade, and other changes in the law of assessment were made subsequently. With the greater activity, from the year 1864, of the House of Commons Turnpike Committee the burdens on the unfortunate parishioners became heavier than before; and in the Turnpike Continuance Act of 1870 there was inserted a clause to the effect that the cost of repairing any roads disturnpiked after the passing of that Act should be borne by the highway district, where there was one, and not by the parish. In 1874 and 1875 the House of Commons Turnpike Committee "made very strong complaints," Mr Sclater-Booth stated in his evidence, that they would not have proceeded so fast as they had done, and would not have recommended Parliament to allow so many miles of road to be disturnpiked year by year, if they had not felt satisfied that the Government would have provided some remedy for the injustice they occasioned. "They seemed to me," the witness continued, "to have had no compunction in causing the injustice to be occasioned before any remedy was provided for it; but, having permitted that injustice to take place, they complained year after year of the action, or, rather, of the non-action, of the Government in not applying a remedy for these grievances." No effective remedy was, in fact, provided until 1882. Early in the Session of that year notice was given in the House of Commons of a resolution which declared that "in the opinion of this House immediate relief should in some form be afforded to ratepayers from the present unjust incidence of rates appropriated for the maintenance of main roads in England." Mr Gladstone undertook that something should be done in conformity with the spirit of this resolution, and thereupon a grant designed to cover one-fourth of the cost of maintaining {323}disturnpiked roads was made annually by Parliament down to the year 1888, when the relief granted was increased to one-half of the total cost by a further sum of £256,000 allocated by Mr Goschen to the same purpose from his Budget for that year. The actual expenditure under these successive grants is shown in a Report on Local Taxation made, in 1893, by Mr H. H. Fowler (afterwards Lord Wolverhampton). The amounts there given are as follows:-- YEAR. AMOUNT EXPENDED. £ 1883 167,165 1884 195,649 1885 205,965 1886 229,490 1887 237,123 1888 498,797 ---------- Total £1,534,189 After the passing of the Local Government Act of 1888 the grants were discontinued, the said Act providing that from the 1st of April, 1889, all main and disturnpiked roads should, with certain exceptions (and as distinct from parish highways), be maintained by the county councils. Parliament had thus at least broadened out the ratepayers' burden in respect to road maintenance by spreading the charges over a larger area; and it was, also, affording a very considerable measure of relief to the road-users in freeing them from the obligations to pay tolls for the keeping up, not simply of the roads, but of a machinery as costly as it was inefficient. There was still a third set of interests to be considered, as represented by those who had lent money to the turnpike trusts for road construction or repairs, in the expectation of getting a fair return. The proportions of the turnpike debt, the falling-off in tolls, and the mismanagement of the system generally made the outlook for the bondholders very unfavourable; but the best that was possible, in the circumstances, was done for them. Under an Act passed in 1872 it was laid down that, for the purpose of facilitating the abolition of tolls on any turnpike {324}road, the highway board and the trustees might mutually agree that the former should take upon itself the maintenance and repair of such road, and, also, pay off and discharge either the entire debt in respect thereto or such sum by way of compensation as the Local Government Board, after an inquiry, might determine. By a further Act, passed in 1873, highway boards were authorised to raise loans for the more effective carrying out of this arrangement, while Clifford states in his "History of Private Bill Legislation" that "there have, also, been Acts confirming more than 200 Provisional Orders passed to arrange the debts of these unlucky trusts, extinguish arrears of interest, allow compositions, and generally make the best of some very disastrous investments."[51] How rapid the actual decline in the number of trusts was from the year 1864, when the House of Commons Turnpike Committee came into existence, is shown by the following figures, taken from the annual reports of the Local Government Board for 1886 and 1890:-- DATE. NUMBER OF TRUSTS. MILES. December 3, 1864 1048 20,589 January 1, 1886 20 700 " 1890 5 77 Of the five survivals on January 1, 1890, three were to expire in that same year and one in 1896, leaving only one the fate of which was then undecided. It may be assumed that by the end of 1896 the system of turnpikes on public (as distinct from private) roads, which had for so long a period played so prominent, so vexatious, and, in many respects, so unsatisfactory a rôle in inland communication, had wholly disappeared. Turnpike roads, no less than canals, undoubtedly conferred great advantages on the growing trade and industries of the country. Each, however, had its serious drawbacks and disadvantages, and, in the result, the shortcomings of the turnpikes, added to the shortcomings of the canals, gave still greater emphasis to the welcome offered by traders to the railways which were to become, to so large an extent, substitutes for both. {325}CHAPTER XXIV END OF THE COACHING ERA What are known as the "palmy days" of the coaching era began about the year 1820, and lasted until 1836. By 1820 the improvements in road-making of Telford and McAdam had led to quicker travelling and the running of far more coaches, at greater speeds, than had previously been the case. By 1836 it was evident that coaching had reached the climax of its popularity, and could not hope to maintain its position against the competition of the railways which were spreading so rapidly throughout the land. Over 3000 coaches were then on the road, and half of these began or ended their journeys in London. Some 150,000 horses were employed in running them, and there were about 30,000 coachmen, guards, horse-keepers and hostlers, while many hundreds of taverns, in town or country, prospered on the patronage the coaches brought them. From one London tavern alone there went every day over eighty coaches to destinations in the north. From another there went fifty-three coaches and fifty-one waggons, chiefly to the west of England. Altogether coaches or waggons were going from over one hundred taverns in the City or in the Borough. Big interests grew up in connection with the coaching enterprise. William Chaplin, who owned five yards in London, had, at one time, nearly 2000 horses, besides many coaches. Out of twenty-seven mail-coaches leaving London every night he "horsed" fourteen. He is said to have made a fortune of half a million of money out of the business; but when he began to realise what the locomotive would do he took his coaches off the road, disposed of his stock before the railways had depreciated it, joined with Benjamin Horne, of the "Golden Cross," Charing Cross, who had himself had a large stock of horses, and founded the carrying firm of {326}Chaplin and Horne, which became exclusive agents for the London and Birmingham Railway. When the London and South-Western Railway Company found themselves faced with serious difficulties he devoted alike his means, his experience and his energies to helping them out of their trouble, rendering services so invaluable to the company that he soon became deputy chairman of the line, and was raised to the chairmanship in 1842. Another coach proprietor, Sherman, who had had a large number of coaches running between London and Birmingham, threw in his lot with the Great Western Railway as soon as it was opened, and did much of the London carrying business in connection with that line. Other coach proprietors there were who, less far-sighted, or less fortunate, held on to their old enterprises, influenced, it may be, by the views of such authorities as Sir Henry Parnell, who, in the second edition of his "Treatise on Roads" (1838), declared in reference to railways:-- "The experience which has been gained from those already completed, and from the enormous expense incurred on those which are in progress, has led to a general opinion that there is little probability of more than a few of these works affording any ultimate return for the money expended upon them. "The heavy expense which is proved by experience to be unavailable in keeping the railways and engines in repair, where great speed is the object, will in numerous cases soon make it evident that no dividends can be paid to the shareholders, and the cheaper method of using horse-power will be adopted.... "The attaining of the speed of 25 or 30 miles an hour, at such an enormous expense, cannot be justified on any principle of national utility. The usefulness of communication, in a national point of view, consists principally in rendering the conveyance of all the productions of the soil and of industry as cheap as possible.... But a speed of 10 miles an hour would have accomplished all these purposes, and have been of great benefit to travellers, while it could have been attained at from one half to one third of the expense which has been incurred by the system that has been acted upon. It is no doubt true that travelling at the rate of 25 or 30 miles an hour is very convenient, but how it can be made to act so as {327}to contribute very much to the benefit of the country at large it is not easy to discover. Economy of time in an industrious country is unquestionably of immense importance, but after the means of moving at the rate of ten miles an hour is universally established there seems to be no very great advantage to be derived from going faster." It is true that an acceleration had been effected in the rates of speed attainable on improved roads, under the stimulus of mail and "flying" coaches. But these results had only been secured with consequences for the unfortunate horses which no one possessed of a spark of humanity could fail to deplore. Several coach proprietors, each owning between 300 and 400 horses, informed a House of Commons Select Committee in 1819 that those of their horses which worked within fifty miles of London lasted only three or four years, in which period the entire stock had to be renewed. Mr Horne, of Charing Cross, who kept 400 horses, said he bought 150 every year. On some roads, it was affirmed, the mortality of the horses, due in part to the bad state of the roads and in part to the accelerated speed, was so great that the average coach-horse lasted only two years. On certain roads around London it was necessary to have six horses attached to a coach in order to drag it through the two feet or so of mud which, in wet weather, was to be found on such roads as the one across Hounslow Heath. In accounting for an increased demand for coach-horses in 1821, a paragraph from the "Yorkshire Gazette," quoted by the "Morning Chronicle" of December 27 in that year, declared that it arose out of the new regulations of the Post Office, which caused the death of two horses, on an average, in every three journeys of 200 miles. "The Highflyer of this city," the paragraph continued, "lately lost two horses, and it has cost the Manchester and Liverpool coaches seventeen horses since they commenced to cope with the mail and run ten miles an hour in place of seven or eight.... Several horses, in endeavouring to keep time, according to the new Post Office regulations, have had their legs snapped in two on the road, while others have dropped dead from the effort of a ruptured blood-vessel or a heart broken in efforts to obey the whip." On one of the southern roads a coach was put on which {328}was run at the rate of twelve miles an hour; but seven horses died in three weeks, and the pace was then reduced to ten miles an hour. An average speed even of six and a half miles an hour was declared to be scarcely possible on some of the roads. "It tore the horses' hearts out." One cannot wonder that, when the fact of trains on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway doing an average of fifteen miles an hour with the greatest ease, and attaining to double that speed when necessary, became known, humanitarian considerations were, in themselves, sufficient to win preference for rail over road transport. There was also a practical as well as a humanitarian side to this appalling death-rate among the coach-horses. Thomas Gray, in the course of his "Observations on a General Iron Rail-way," showed that, reckoning the number of coach and postchaise horses at no more than 100,000, and allowing for renewal of stock every four years, keep and interest on capital expenditure, the outlay would amount in twelve years to £34,700,000; while a like calculation, for the same period, in regard to the 500,000 waggon, coach, and postchaise horses employed on the main turnpike roads of the country, gave a total of no less than £173,500,000. While, again, fair-weather travellers may have enjoyed the scenery and the poetry of motion when seated on the top of a coach going across country in the summer-time, there were possibilities of great discomforts and dangers having to be faced, as well. Accidents were so frequent that it was usual for the coaches to carry a box of carpenters' tools, supplemented in the winter by a snow shovel. Sometimes the coaches stuck in the mire; sometimes they upset. They passed through flooded roads, they were detained by fog, they got snowed up, or their passengers might run terrible risks from frost. On the arrival of the Bath coach at Chippenham one morning in the month of March, 1812, it was found that two passengers had been frozen to death on their seats, and that a third was dying. In the winter of 1814 there was a prolonged fog, followed by a severe snow-storm which lasted forty-eight hours. In one day thirty-three mail-coaches due at the General Post Office failed to arrive. At Christmas, 1836, there was a snow-storm which lasted nearly a week. On December 26 the Exeter mail had to be dug out of the {329}snow five times. The following day fourteen mail-coaches were abandoned on different roads. So, in proportion as the railways spread, the coaching traffic declined. In 1839 a London coach proprietor, Mr E. Sherman, of the "Bull and Mouth," told the Select Committee on Turnpike Trusts that the persons then being carried by coach were mostly timid people who did not like to go by railway, though every day it was found that the timidity was lessening, and that many individuals who formerly would not have travelled by train for any consideration were doing so in preference to going by coach. The severity of the railway competition with the coaches was, indeed, beyond all question; but the coach proprietors considered that their difficulty in facing it was rendered much worse by the heavy taxation on their enterprise. The earliest stage-coaches, patronised mostly by the poorer class of travellers, were not taxed at all; but when the "flying coaches" and the "handsome machines with steel springs for the ease of passengers and the conveniency of the country" were put on the road and attracted passengers of a better class, the owners of private conveyances began to complain of the unfairness of their being taxed while the owners of public coaches were not. Wanting more money to meet the heavy expenditure on the American war, North met the complaints of the private-carriage owners by putting a tax on the stage-coaches; and the precedent thus established, in or about the year 1780, was followed by later Chancellors of the Exchequer, the taxation being subsequently extended alike to every class of vehicles used for coach traffic and, in 1832, to all classes of railway passengers. In 1837 a Select Committee appointed to inquire into the taxation of internal communication reported that the taxes then in force in respect to land travelling by animal power were as follows:-- 1. Assessed taxes on carriages and horses kept for private use. 2. A post-horse duty. 3. A duty on carriages kept to let for hire, being £5 5s. on each carriage with four wheels, and £3 5s. for each carriage with two wheels. {330}4. A license duty paid by each postmaster, being 7s. 6d. per annum. 5. Mileage duty on stage-coaches. 6. A license duty on stage-coaches, being £5 on each coach kept to run, and 1s. on each supplementary license. 7. An assessed tax on coachmen and guards. 8. An assessed tax on draught horses. There were many variations in the mileage duty on stage-coaches. In 1780 it was one halfpenny for every mile travelled; in 1783 it was raised to a penny; in 1797 it was twopence, while subsequent increases led up to the highest rate of all--one of fivepence halfpenny per mile for coaches licensed to carry more than ten passengers inside. It was, in part, to moderate the pressure of this tax that Shillibeer introduced the omnibus into London,[52] his first conveyance being a huge, unwieldy conveyance which, drawn by three horses, spread the fivepence-halfpenny mileage duty over twenty-two inside passengers. The yield from the mileage duty was £194,559 in 1814, £223,608 in 1815 (when there was an increase of one halfpenny per mile for every coach) and £480,000 in 1835. So long as the stage-coaches were well patronised, little or nothing was heard about all this taxation, which was, in effect, passed on to the traveller, who either paid without grumbling or else grumbled and paid. But when the railways began to divert more and more traffic from the roads, the duties in question fell with special severity on the coach proprietors, who then divided their maledictions pretty equally between the railway companies and the tax-gatherers. The mileage duty was especially burdensome under the new conditions. Being assessed on the number of persons each coach was licensed to carry, and not on the number of passengers actually carried, it remained at the same amount whether the coaches ran full, half full or empty. The fact that the railways, which were depriving the coaches of their patrons, then paid their halfpenny per mile only on every four passengers actually conveyed became a grievance with the coach proprietors, who thought that the railways should be taxed on the same basis as themselves. {331}That the taxation pressed heavily on a declining business was beyond all possibility of doubt. A petition drawn up in 1830 by proprietors of stage-coaches employed on the turnpike roads between Liverpool and various Lancashire towns showed that the taxes they paid to the Government worked out for the year as follows:-- £ s. d. Duty on 33 coaches 8,455 16 8 Assessed taxes for coach servants 261 0 0 Mileage duty 5,779 3 4 ------------ Total 14,496 0 0 In addition to this they had to pay £8005 13s. 4d. a year for turnpike tolls, while their general expenses, including horses (renewed every three years), harness, hostlers, rent of stables, hay, corn and straw, etc., but allowing for value of manure, came to £64,602 13s. 4d., their total annual expenditure thus being as follows:-- £ s. d. Government duty and taxes 14,496 0 0 Turnpike tolls 8,005 13 4 Expenses 64,602 13 4 ------------ Total £87,104 6 8 W. C. Wimberley, a coach proprietor of Doncaster, who gave evidence before the Select Committee of 1837, said that the Government taxation on a single coach, the "Wellington," running between London and Newcastle, for a period of 364 days, was as follows:-- Duty for four passengers inside and £ s. d. eleven out, sixpence per double mile, that is up and down 278 miles 2529 16 0 Stamps for receipts on payment of ditto 1 12 6 Four licenses (four coaches being used successively up and down) 20 0 0 Assessed taxes on coachmen and guards 17 10 0 ----------- £2568 18 6 {332}The coach also paid, in the same period, £2537 7s. 8d. for tolls. Another coach proprietor, W. B. Thorne, told the same Committee that on five coaches to Dover he paid for mileage duty alone in the previous year a total of £2273. On his coaches to Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham he paid £7017 in the twelve months, and the total amount of duty he paid for all his coaches in the year was £26,717. He did not think, however, that relief from taxation would save them from being annihilated by the railways, except as regarded certain roads where the railways did not directly operate against them. Still another coach proprietor, Robert Gray, admitted to the Committee that he did not think it would be possible for the coaches to compete on the Bath road with the Great Western Railway even if all the duty were taken off. There was no doubt that the coaches could not have held their own permanently against the railways even if they had been relieved of taxation as soon as the success of their rivals became assured. On the other hand, if the coaches could have been afforded such relief that, while not attempting to compete with the railways on main routes where competition was hopeless, they would have been encouraged to cater for business on routes not then served by the railways, an advantage would have been gained, not only by the coach proprietors themselves, but by the public. The early days of the railway undoubtedly brought serious inconvenience to people who found themselves set down at a station ten, fifteen or twenty miles distant from their home, with no chance of their getting a coach because rail competition and Government taxation combined had made it no longer possible to run a coach on that road. If the taxation had not, as was often the case, made all the difference between profit and loss, many of the coaches would probably have held on a few years longer, by which time the railways would have been more generally developed. As it was they were withdrawn in larger numbers, at an earlier period, than would otherwise have been the case, and there were many instances of great hardship to travellers whose means did not allow of their supplementing an incomplete railway journey by hiring a vehicle specially for themselves. {333}The report presented by the Select Committee of 1837 admitted the inequalities of the taxation on land travelling as between the coaches and the railways; but, instead of recommending, as the coach proprietors had wanted, that the demands on the railways should be increased, the Committee expressed strong disapproval of any tax at all being imposed on internal communication. They said, among other things:-- "Very valuable evidence was submitted to your Committee by Sir Edward Lees, secretary to the Post Office at Edinburgh, as to the increased speed, security and cheapness with which the post might be conveyed over the cross-roads of Scotland by the establishment of mail cars similar to those now in use in Ireland, thereby increasing the Revenue and opening up districts now altogether destitute of any mode of public conveyance; the same remarks would necessarily apply to many cross-roads in England. The grand obstacle, however, to the establishment of these cars is the heavy taxation on travelling, which utterly deters individuals from engaging in such speculations; while in Ireland, where the roads are decidedly inferior, but where none of these taxes exist, cheap and expeditious public conveyances are everywhere to be found." The ultimate findings and recommendations of the Committee were summed up in the following emphatic declaration: "Your Committee earnestly recommend the abolition of all taxes on public conveyances and on carriages generally at the earliest period consistent with a due regard to the financial arrangements of the country." Unfortunately, the financial arrangements of the country never have allowed of this recommendation being carried out, and a further period of thirty-two years was to elapse before even the moribund stage-coach business was relieved altogether of the obligation to pay mileage duty. The burdensome nature of these duties on internal communication led to the formation of a "Committee for the Abolition of the Present System of Taxation on Stage Carriages in Great Britain"; and in some "Observations on the Injustice, Inequalities and Anomalies of the Present System of Taxation on Stage Carriages," by J. E. Bradfield, issued by this Committee in 1854, a strong case was made out in favour of such abolition. Bradfield based his main arguments on the {334}contention that by removing restrictions placed upon the freedom of communication the general welfare of nations was promoted. The taxation of the stage-coaches conferred, he said, no advantage on the coaching enterprise, since none of the money raised in this way was expended on road improvement, while the amount of the taxation often formed an abnormally large proportion of the receipts. He mentions the case of one coach-owner in the Lake District, thirty per cent of whose receipts in the winter had to go to the Government for the duties imposed, not on the amount of business he did, but on the seating capacity of his coaches. In another instance the duties paid were forty-five per cent of the takings. Bradfield thought a fair average for the country in general would be fifteen per cent. The existing system of mileage duties enforced, he declared, an average tax of £80 per annum upon every stud of eight horses employed in stage-coaches, as against £30 for the same number used for postchaises, and £11 8s. in the case of those for private carriages. Bradfield further quotes a Windermere coach-owner as being of opinion that there was "still great scope for coaches as feeders to the railways if only they were given greater relief in the matter of duties." He expresses his own opinion that "coaches are legitimately the streams by which the traffic should be conducted to the railways," and asks, "Why tax the stream more than the river?" The steady decrease in the yield from the stage-coach duties was in itself sufficiently significant of the changes in travel that were then proceeding. In 1837 the revenue from the duties was £523,856; but it began to decline steadily as the "palmy days" of coaching came to an end, and in 1841 it had fallen to £314,000. In 1853, when, after various modifications, the mileage duty was three-halfpence a mile, the yield was only £212,659. In 1866, after further modifications, the duty was reduced to a farthing; and in 1869 it was repealed altogether; though by that time the locomotive had supplanted the stage-coach except in a comparatively few localities where it still lingered, mainly, however, as a feeder to the railway. The recent revival of coaching comes under the category of sport or recreation rather than under that of internal transport and communication. {335}CHAPTER XXV RAILWAY RATES AND CHARGES The combined result of (1) a vast increase in industrial production; (2) the decline in river, canal and road transport; and (3) the various conditions which checked competition on and between the railways was to increase greatly the need for transportation facilities, and to make traders and the public in general more and more dependent on the one means of consignment and locomotion thus so rapidly becoming paramount. Coupled with the many technical details which, as pioneers of the railway system, the English companies had to work out for themselves, and, also, with the questions arising as to the future relations between the railways and the State, there were the further problems as to (a) the means to be adopted to ensure that the rates and charges were reasonable, and not likely to become unjust or oppressive, and (b) the bases on which the rates and charges should themselves be fixed in order to secure due regard for the public interests, to guarantee the operation of the railways on commercial lines, and to ensure for the railway investors a reasonable return on their investments. The earliest railway rates of all were simply a toll (as on a turnpike road) at the rate of so much per mile, or so much per ton per mile, for the use of the rails, with an extra charge if the railway owners supplied the waggons. This was the practice in vogue down to the Surrey Rail-way period, the tolls for such use of road being fixed by Parliament because of the railway lines being a monopoly. The next development came when the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company obtained powers to supply haulage by steam power or steam-engine, and were authorised by Parliament to charge a "locomotive toll," in addition to the road toll, when the trader made use of the company's engines. There was a further development when the railway {336}companies undertook the functions of carriers, provided waggons, carriages and staff, and were authorised to make a charge for the "conveyance" of goods. Parliament did not, at first, specify the amounts of the locomotive and conveyance tolls, but simply required that they should be "reasonable," the expectation at that time being that these tolls would be kept to reasonable limits by the competition of the outside carriers. When it was found that the outside carriers would not run their own locomotives on the railway, and that the railways would do their own carrying, the amounts which could be levied as locomotive and conveyance tolls were specified in the special Acts of the companies concerned. At one time, therefore, the railway companies were authorised by their Acts to impose three separate charges, (1) road tolls, (2) locomotive tolls, and (3) conveyance tolls; but in 1845 a "maximum rates clause" was introduced which grouped these different tolls into a total charge something less than the aggregate of the three. In proportion as the railway companies themselves performed the duties of carriers, instead of leaving this branch of the transport business to the outside carrying firms, it became necessary for them to provide goods depôts and warehouses, and to have a staff available for a variety of services--loading and unloading, covering and uncovering, etc.--which were necessary in the handling of the traffic. The companies then claimed that for these "station terminals" and "terminal services" they were entitled to make charges in addition to the maximum rates, whereas it was contended on the part of the traders that these services were included in the maximum rates, and that the companies had no right to charge for them separately. After prolonged controversy and much litigation, the dispute was eventually decided in favour of the companies; but Parliament required them to distinguish the charges for conveyance, terminals, and collection and delivery, and, finally, by the Charges Acts of 1891 and 1892, fixed the amounts of the maximum station and service terminals that each company might demand. In the meantime much trouble had also arisen as the result of the haphazard fashion in which the railways of the country had been called into being. {337}The original classification of goods for transport was of the most primitive kind. In the canal companies Acts the authorised tolls and charges were generally specified in respect to only about a dozen different articles. The early railway Acts followed the canal precedent in so far that each of them contained a classification of the goods expected to go by rail, the main difference being that the list given in the railway Acts generally comprised from forty to sixty articles, divided into five or six groups. As the railways extended, and began to deal with the great bulk of the commerce of the country, these original lists were found to be hopelessly crude and inadequate, and one of the duties undertaken by the Railway Clearing House, first set up in 1847 and incorporated by an Act of 1850, was the preparation of what became known as the Clearing House classification--a work required in the interests equally of the railways and of the traders. At the outset the Clearing House classification comprised about 300 articles. By 1852 the number had increased to 700, and in 1864 it had further expanded to 1300. The Royal Commission of 1865 recommended that the new and improved classification thus compiled and put into operation by the companies themselves should be the basis of the classification imposed by the special railway Acts. The Committee pointed out that the rates authorised by Parliament were no longer necessarily an indication of the charges actually made in practice since these charges depended, not on the classifications in the companies' Acts, but on the Clearing House classification, by reason of which they were often lower than the statutory maxima. The Committee regarded the classification of the private Acts as defective and inharmonious, and they advised that the Clearing House classification should be enacted by some general Act which might be adopted in the private Acts by reference. The Joint Select Committee of 1872 also advised the adoption of a uniform classification; but it was not until the passing of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act of 1888 that the recommendation was carried out. This Act of 1888 was, in part, the outcome of reasonable dissatisfaction among the traders. In the absence, from the outset, of any real and effective system for the organisation of railways in accordance with {338}well-defined general principles, based on the needs of the country as a whole, great uncertainty existed as to the rates and charges to be paid. There were then no fewer than 900 Acts of Parliament which dealt with the charging powers of 976 past or present railway companies, while the only uniform classification was that of the Railway Clearing House, which had almost entirely superseded the primitive classification in the railway companies' Acts but had not yet received legal sanction. A recommendation to the effect "that one uniform classification be adopted over the whole railway system" had been made by a House of Commons Select Committee in 1882. They considered that the adoption of this course was necessary in view of the imperfection and want of uniformity in the special Act classifications and charges, in which they had failed to discover any general principle. "In some cases," they said, "reference must be had to more than fifty Acts to determine the various rates the company is authorised to charge." The position in regard to a new and uniform classification thus so persistently recommended was, however, complicated by the fact that the adoption thereof would involve new maximum rates, since the rates charged for the commodities carried naturally depended on the particular "class" to which those commodities had been allotted. Hence when, by the Railway and Canal Traffic Act of 1888, provision was at last made for a revised and uniform classification, each railway company was further required to submit to the Board of Trade, within a period of six months, revised schedules of maximum rates, with a view to these ultimately--after approval by Parliament--taking the place of the schedules in the existing special Acts. The new scales were, also, to include fixed maxima for "station terminals" and "service terminals," the controversy in regard to which, as already spoken of, was thus to be definitely settled. The railway companies complied with these requirements, the revised classification and schedules of maximum rates being sent in by March, 1889, to the Board of Trade, which appointed two special Commissioners, Lord Balfour of Burleigh and Mr (afterwards Sir) Courtenay Boyle, to hold an inquiry into them on its behalf. The traders were invited to {339}send in any criticisms they might wish to offer to the companies' proposals, and by June 3rd no fewer than 4000 objections had been received from over 1500 individuals or trading associations. By this time the formidable nature of the work that had been undertaken began to be more fully appreciated. Not only were there the 900 Railway Acts dealing with rates and charges, but there were about 18,000 railway stations and some 40,000 pairs of stations between which business was actually transacted in regard to one or more of the 2500 articles that, by this time, were included in the Clearing House classification. As for the rates in force, we have the statement of Sir Henry Oakley that on the Great Northern Railway alone they numbered 13,000,000, while Sir Richard Moon estimated that on the London and North-Western Railway the total at this period was no fewer than 20,000,000. The task thus imposed by Parliament on the Board of Trade in the revision of rates whose total number seemed almost as countless as the stars themselves was, indeed, of stupendous magnitude, apart altogether from the very heavy labours devolving upon each individual company in the preparation of schedules for its own particular lines. The task itself was, however, rendered still more difficult by the fact that, as pointed out by Mr Temple Franks--[53] "No principles of revision had been laid down for guidance. The Commissioners were not told to regard either the existing statutory maxima or the actual rates then charged. Amendments to this effect had been rejected in Parliament. The Commissioners, therefore, held that the Legislature contemplated a departure from existing maxima, and that it is equitable 'to make a reduction in their present powers and fix rates based to a great extent on existing rates, but with a reasonable margin of profit for possible changes of circumstances injuriously affecting the cost of or return from the carriage of merchandise by railway.' In determining, however, the principles upon which the future maxima were to be governed, they refused to accept the proposition that they shall cover _all_ existing rates and non-competitive charges." {340}With regard to a uniform classification, the Commissioners recommended the adoption, with certain slight changes, of the existing Clearing House classification. There is no need to record here, in detail, the exhaustive nature of the inquiries, protests, rejoinders, discussions and controversies to which the preparation of the new schedules led. Suffice it to say that these and the revised classification were eventually embodied in a series of Railway Rates and Charges Orders Confirmation Acts which, as applying to the different companies, either individually or in groups, were passed in the Sessions of 1891 and 1892, and came into operation on January 1, 1893. Under these Acts the scales of charges are divided into six parts, viz.: (1) goods and minerals, (2) animals, (3) carriages, (4) exceptional, (5) perishable commodities by passenger train, and (6) small parcels by merchandise train. Each rate is made up of two parts--conveyance and terminals. The conveyance scales for all companies are as near alike as circumstances will allow, and the maximum terminals (station terminal at each end and service terminals in respect to loading, unloading, covering and uncovering) are common to all the Confirmation Acts. Sir Henry Oakley, who was at this time acting as secretary of the Railway Companies' Association, declared concerning the new conditions thus brought about in regard to the bases of railway rates and charges that "practically they amounted to a revolution." The maximum powers were reduced almost universally; the classifications of the companies' own Acts were abolished, and a new and uniform one substituted; various new scales were introduced; the obligation was now for the first time thrown upon the companies of carrying perishables by passenger train; and a new system of calculating rates was established. "It was not," said Sir Henry, "so much per mile for any distance beyond six miles, as it was in the original Acts, but for the first twenty miles a certain rate, for the next thirty miles a certain less rate, and for the next fifty miles a still further reduction, the effect being that, by that mode of calculating, the longer the distance the goods were carried the less the average rate per mile that was to be charged." Within a very short time, however, of the new rates coming into force, there were louder and more vehement protests {341}than ever on the part of the traders. The advantages of a uniform classification were fully realised, and the traders naturally did not object to the fact that (as stated in evidence by Sir Henry Oakley, in 1893), from thirty to forty per cent of the existing rates had been lowered. But they did object most strongly when they found that certain of the rates had been increased. It was explained by some of the railway companies that, owing to the vast number of the rates involved, and to the short time between the passing of their Rates and Charges Orders Confirmation Act and the 1st of January, 1893, when such Act came in force (the period in question being in some instances not more than about four months), it had been impossible for them to complete the revision of their rate-books by the date mentioned. The class rates were ready, and what had happened was that these had been temporarily substituted for the special rates when time had not allowed of the latter being duly revised. On the other hand it was alleged against the companies that, apart from any question of shortness of time for their revisions, they had sought to adopt a policy of recoupment, specially low non-competitive rates having been raised to the new maxima with a view to counterbalancing the decreases. While the plea of the companies in respect to shortness of time was abundantly warranted, the counter-allegation of the traders would appear to have been not without foundation, in view of the fact that the setting of increases against the decreases was defended by the companies on the ground that, being corporations based and operated on commercial principles, they were bound to see that their revenue did not suffer, while, it was further pleaded, they were still charging no more than the rates which, having been expressly sanctioned by Parliament, were, presumably, reasonable. They gave the assurance, however, that the rates were still undergoing revision, and that the increases made were not necessarily final. They further undertook that no increases should be made which would interfere with trade or agriculture, or diminish traffic, and that, unless under exceptional circumstances, there should be no increases at all which exceeded by five per cent the rates in force in 1892. {342}The undertaking thus given failed to satisfy the Select Committee appointed in 1893 to inquire into these further grievances. The Committee, in their report, expressed the opinion that the course taken by the companies had been "mainly actuated by their determination to recoup themselves to the fullest extent by raising the rates of articles where the maximum rates were above the actual rates." They were of opinion that the rates not reduced by the new maxima should have been left untouched; and they affirmed that "the margin between the old actual rates and the present Parliamentary maxima was not given by Parliament in order that immediate advantage should be taken of it, or that the policy of recoupment should be carried on, but only to meet certain contingencies, such as rises in prices and wages," etc. They also recommended that further steps should be taken to protect traders from any unreasonable raising of rates within the maxima, the Railway and Canal Commission being empowered to deal with such questions as they arose. The outcome of all this controversy was the passing by Parliament, in the following Session, of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1894, which introduced an entirely new principle in railway operation. Turnpike trustees had always had full power to reduce and subsequently to advance their tolls, at their own discretion, provided they never sought to exceed the maxima imposed under their special Acts; and down to this time it had been assumed that railway companies had similar powers in regard to maxima which Parliament had already expressly sanctioned in the Act or Acts of each individual company. There was--and still is--no question (except in cases of "undue preference" or "through rates") as to the right of a company to _reduce_ a rate, or to transfer a commodity to a lower class, thus effecting the same object; and there was, down to 1894, equally thought to be no question as to their right to increase a rate within the same limitations as those applying to turnpike trustees. What the Act of 1894 did was to restrict the powers of railway companies to increase their rates even within the range of their statutory maxima. It enacted that in the event of complaints being made of any increase of rates, direct or indirect, since December, 1892 (and under the Act of 1888 {343}a railway company had already been required to give public notice of any increase in tolls, rates or charges it proposed to make), "it shall lie on the railway company to prove that the increase is reasonable"; and for this purpose it is not to be "sufficient to show that the charge is within any limit fixed by an Act of Parliament or by any Provisional Order confirmed by Act of Parliament." Complaint is first to be made to the Board of Trade, and, if agreement between the trader and the railway company should not follow thereon, the trader has the right of appeal to the Railway Commissioners, to whom jurisdiction to hear and determine such complaint is given. "So that," as Butterworth remarks in his "Maximum Railway Rates," "the legislation of 1888-1894 presents this remarkable result--that Parliament in 1892, after probably the most protracted inquiry ever held in connection with proposed legislation, decided that certain amounts were to be the charges which railway companies should for the future be entitled to make, and in 1894 apparently accepted the suggestion that many of the charges, sanctioned after so much deliberation, were unreasonable, and enacted that to entitle a company to demand them it should not be sufficient to show" that the charge was within the limit which Parliament itself had previously fixed. Whether traders have really gained any balance of advantage from this further outcome of legislative policy in the assumed protection of their interests, as against the railway companies, is open to question. On the one hand they have a guarantee against increases that offer even the slightest suggestion of unreasonableness. On the other hand the Act has destroyed the element of elasticity in rate-making, inasmuch as railway managers must needs show extreme caution in granting reduced or "experimental" rates--in the interests of growing industries--when, if the experiment should fail, and the expected traffic not be forthcoming, the company must go through the formality of advertising the "increase" involved in putting the rate back to its former level, and must, also, run the risk of having to "justify" such increase before the Board of Trade or the Railway and Canal Commission. "I know of my own knowledge and my own experience," Sir George Gibb once told a Departmental Committee of the Board of Trade, "that the effect of these sections has been to {344}prevent many reductions of rates that would have been tried experimentally." When we pass on to consider the principles on which railway rates and charges are based we are met with so many complexities in the solution of transport problems, and with such direct conflict of interests on the part of different groups of traders, that we can in no way be surprised at the controversies and the grievances, real or imaginary, to which the subject has given rise from time to time. The original idea that railway rates and charges should be fixed on a mileage basis, on the same principle as tolls on turnpike roads and canals, was soon found to be impracticable, and successive Parliamentary Committees have demonstrated its futility; though its advocacy, in one form or another, has not even yet been discarded by those who think that railway rates for any given commodity should be so much per ton per mile for all traders alike, irrespective of distance and all other considerations. One effect of such a principle of rate-fixing as this would have been to exclude the long-distance trader from any particular market, and to confer an undue advantage on the trader in the immediate neighbourhood, or at a short distance therefrom, who would thus have gained a monopoly of the market, to the disadvantage of other traders and of the local community. Nor would such a system of rate-making have answered for the railway companies themselves, since the discouragement of long-distance traffic would have restricted the area of business, and limited their sources of revenue. Another once much-favoured theory is that the railways should charge so much for cost of service, plus a reasonable profit for themselves. Here, in the first place, there is the impossibility of deciding what is the cost of the service rendered in regard to each commodity and each consignment thereof that is carried. No basis exists on which the most expert of railway men could decide the respective costs of transport for each and every article in a train-load of miscellaneous goods, nor could any one apportion the exact amount that each should bear in regard to interest on capital outlay and other standing charges which must needs be covered as well as the proportionate cost of actual operation. {345}Then we have the fact that, even if these figures could be arrived at, many of the commodities carried would be unable to pay the rates fixed thereon. This would especially apply to coal, iron-stone, manure and other things either of low value or of considerable weight or bulk. Whatever may be the real cost of carrying them, commodities of this kind cannot pay more than a certain rate. If that rate is exceeded either they will be sent in proportionately smaller quantities or they will not be sent by rail at all. We arrive, in this way, by the logic of actual facts, at the fundamental principle, adopted by railway companies, of charging "what the traffic will bear"; and by this is meant "charging no more than," rather than "charging as much as," the traffic will bear. Findlay, in his book on "The Working and Management of an English Railway" (fourth edition, 1891) says of the practice based on this principle:-- "The rates are governed by the nature and extent of the traffic, the pressure of competition, either by water, by a rival route, or by other land carriage; but, above all, the companies have regard to the commercial value of the commodity, and the rate it will bear, so as to admit of its being produced and sold in a competing market with a fair margin of profit. The companies each do their best to meet the circumstances of the trade, to develop the resources of their own particular district, and to encourage the competition of markets, primarily, no doubt, in their own interest, but nevertheless greatly to the advantage of the community." The application of the principle is worked out by the division into various classes of all minerals and merchandise carried on the railway. The classes are known respectively as A, B, C, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, the rates charged being lowest for commodities in Class A and highest for those in Class 5. The type of article included in each class may be indicated by the following examples:-- Class A (applicable to consignments of four tons and upwards).--Coal, coke, gravel, iron-stone, limestone, stable manure, sand. Class B (applicable to consignments of four tons and upwards).--Bricks, concrete, various articles of iron and steel, granite (in blocks), lime (in bulk), salt (in bulk), common slates. {346}Class C.--Parsnips, pitwood (for mining purposes), potatoes (in bulk or in sacks), salt (packed), soda, straw (hydraulic or steam-packed), waste paper (for paper-making). Class 1.--Cardboard, cotton (unmanufactured), onions, printing paper, finished wrought iron in shafts (for driving mill wheels), soap, sugar (in bags, cases or sacks), tallow, vinegar (in casks). Class 2.--Bacons and hams (cured and packed), celery, coffee, copper, earthenware (in casks or crates), crucibles (plumbago or clay), oranges, ropes, raw wool or yarn. Class 3.--Baths, calicoes, carpeting, china (in hampers), combs, cotton and linen goods (in bales, boxes, etc.), cutlery, groceries, hardware, lead pencils, tea, wheelbarrows. Class 4.--Light drapery (various), footballs, garden arches, grates, ovens or stoves, haberdashery, hats (soft felt), lamps, umbrellas. Class 5.--Amber, engravings, feathers, cut flowers, hothouse fruit, furs, dead horses, lace, looking-glasses and mirrors, musical instruments, picture frames, silk. These examples indicate the gradual rise in value in the articles included in the several classes, though, assuming that the traffic will bear the rate, other considerations as well as value will apply, among these being liability to damage during transit, weight in proportion to bulk, and nature of packing or cost of handling. It is further to be remembered that although a good deal of raw material is carried in the lowest classes at rates which might work out at less than "cost" price, when every item in respect to "cost of service" and interest on capital expenditure had been allowed for, the commodities in question may reappear in various successive forms as part-manufactured or, eventually, as manufactured, articles, paying a successively higher rate, in accordance with their progressively greater value, on the occasion of each further transportation. Even when these results do not follow, the commodities carried at these low rates may help to develop the resources, or to expand the population, of a particular district, and thus serve to create traffic in other directions. While, also, the rates for the low-value articles may not cover every item in the so-called cost of service, they do contribute to the revenue an amount which might otherwise {347}have to be made good by the fixing of higher rates on goods in other classes. Traders dealing in commodities of the latter type do not themselves lose by the fact that minerals, raw materials, or other things are carried at rates which, although exceptionally low, are the most they can be expected to pay. No injustice is done to them because the other classes of traders concerned get lower rates than they do themselves. They may even gain--directly, because they are saved from having to cover a larger proportion of the total railway expenditure; and indirectly, because the help given to those other lines of business may either bring trade to them or else keep down the cost of production in regard to manufactured articles they deal in or which they themselves require. The principle of charging "what the traffic will bear" does more than govern the rates as applying to visible traffic. It embraces the further principle of what Hadley, in his "Railroad Transportation," calls "the system of making rates to develop business." An immediate result of its application, not alone in England but in various Continental countries, was to bring about a substantial reduction in rates, so that, as Hadley further says, between 1850 and 1880 railway rates were reduced, on an average, to about one-half of their former figures. It may be assumed, also, that these former figures were themselves a substantial reduction on the rates once charged under the toll system in force among the "get-rich-quick" canal companies. There was thus a gain to the traders as regards both an increase in facilities and a reduction in the cost at which those facilities could be obtained, as compared with previous conditions. The principle in question necessarily involved discrimination between trades; but it became one of the objects of the Legislature to prevent discrimination between individual traders in the same line of business as carried on in the same town or centre. The general position has been further influenced by the existence of an ever-active sea competition, which is said to affect probably three-fifths of the railway stations in the United Kingdom. The rates for traffic between Newcastle and London, or any other two ports, will necessarily be influenced, if not controlled, by the possibility of the commodities going by a coasting vessel if the railway company {348}should try to get more than, in these particular circumstances, such traffic will bear. The amount of the railway rate in such a case as this will, in fact, be determined far more by the element of sea competition than by any question as to either presumptive cost of service or actual mileage. It may well happen that between two other points, in regard to which there is no sea competition, the rates are higher than between two where there is sea competition, although the distance is the same. Here we have the elements of one of those "anomalies" which have often been urged as a reason for equal mileage rates. The inequality in the rates is, however, directly due to the inequality in the conditions. It is not a case of making the no-sea-competition places pay a rate in itself unreasonable; it is simply a case of charging the sea-competition places no more than they would be likely to pay. There may be an apparent inconsistency; but an increase in the rates where the sea competition exists would not necessarily be of advantage to the trader in the district where there is no such competition, though it might lead to the traffic going by sea, and involve the railway company in a loss of revenue which would not improve their position in giving the best possible terms to the inland trader. Nor could any claim by the latter to be put on the same footing as the trader on the coast, who has the alternative of sea-transport open to him, necessarily be made good. Discrimination of places, in addition to the discrimination of trades, there certainly may be; but it is a discrimination due essentially to geography and economic laws. Other apparent anomalies arise from the fact that where two or more railway companies have lines running to the same destination, the rates charged by each and all of them are, by arrangement between the companies concerned, generally governed by the shortest distance. Here, again, the idea of equal mileage rates is found impracticable. If the rates charged by each of the companies were arbitrarily fixed at so much per ton per mile, the line with the shortest route would naturally get all the traffic. When all charge the same between the same points all of them benefit, and the traders have the advantage of several routes instead of only one; though there is still the "anomaly" that the trader whose consignment is carried twenty miles, and the trader whose {349}goods are conveyed thirty miles or more to the same destination both pay the same rate. How the general principle of a sliding scale, under which the charge per ton per mile decreases with distance over twenty miles, works out in practice may be shown by taking the case of merchandise in Class 5, the rate for which would be 4.30d. per ton per mile for a distance of up to twenty miles. For the next thirty miles the rate would be 3.70d. per ton per mile, for the next fifty miles 3.25d., and for the remainder of the distance 2.50d. If, however, the consignment travels over the lines of two or more companies on a through rate, the application of the scale begins over again in respect to the territory of each company concerned. The greatest degree of relative advantage is thus gained by the trader whose consignments travel throughout on the lines of one and the same company. In any case, however, the effect of the principle is that traders in, say, Cornwall or Scotland are enabled to compete far more effectively on the London market with other traders who are located much nearer to London and thus pay less for rail transport, yet, it may be, do not have the same advantages in respect to economical production as the trader at the greater distance. The "tapering" railway rate--in addition to giving the companies a greater volume of long-distance traffic, and bringing greater prosperity to the long-distance places--thus helps to establish equality in the general conditions in regard to a particular market, whereas the equal mileage rate would keep the distant trader to markets within a circumscribed area, and shut him out from others at which he might otherwise hope to get a far better sale. In the United States the effect of this "tapering" rate, when applied to large volumes of traffic carried for distances of 1000 or 2000 miles or even more, is to give a very low average rate per ton per mile, and especially so when such average is worked out for the whole of the goods and mineral traffic in the country. The United States average is, in fact, for these reasons, much lower than the corresponding average for this country, where both the average haul and the average weight per consignment are considerably less. Then, also, as the charges for terminals remain the same, whatever the length of haul, they make a material difference in the rate per ton per mile for a haul of five, ten or twenty miles while {350}assuming infinitesimal proportions per ton per mile when spread over a haul of a thousand miles. There is thus no real basis for the comparison formerly so often made between average cost of transport per ton per mile in the United States and the United Kingdom respectively. The only fair method of comparison is to discard averages altogether, and contrast charges for actual consignments of equal weight carried equal distances in the two countries; and comparisons made on this basis will be found to favour the British lines rather than the American. In some instances group rates are in operation for a series of producing centres or for a series of ports, the rates being common to all the places or ports included in the group. This arrangement is of advantage to the general body of the traders concerned, since it puts them all on a footing of equality, without reference to differences in distance; and it is, also, of benefit to the railway companies since it simplifies the clerical work and helps further to avoid unremunerative competition. Another important feature in connection with railway rates is the distinction between "class" rates, which represent the authorised maxima given in the railway companies' scales for the various classes already mentioned, and "special" or "exceptional" rates, in which the companies concerned have made reductions below their maximum powers, whether for the encouragement of traffic or because of such reductions being warranted by the volume or other conditions of the traffic already carried. In "The Fixing of Rates and Fares," by H. Marriott (1910), it is stated that "probably about seventy per cent of the traffic between stations in the North of England is conveyed at 'exceptional rates,' much below the statutory authority." In my book on "Railways and their Rates" I have already given, as follows, the general principles on which these special or exceptional rates are fixed:-- (a) Volume and regularity of traffic between the points concerned. (b) Weight per truck or by train which can be maintained by such regular traffic. (c) General earning power of the traffic. (d) Liability or non-liability to damage. {351}(e) Competition, direct or indirect, by water, by road or by other means. (f) Special requirements of shipping traffic to or from ports. (g) The creation of traffic by enabling new or increased business to be done. (h) A general consideration of what the traffic will bear. The following examples illustrate the actual difference between the class rates and the special rates at which the traffic is actually carried:-- CLASS RATE. SPECIAL RATE. MILES. COMMODITY. per ton. per ton. s. d. s. d. 17 Soap 8 9 (a) 7 11 (a) 107 " 21 9 (a) 17 6 (a) 154 " 28 2 (a) 22 9 (a) 46 Undressed leather 17 6 (a) 15 0 (a) 179 Cotton and linen goods 45 7 (a) 40 0 (a) 54 Common window glass 21 9 (a) 15 10 (a) 207 " " " 43 4 (a) 30 5 (a) 20 Iron in Class C 5 3 (b)(c) 3 8 (b)(d) 51 Grain 9 5 (b)(c) 7 6 (b)(d) 150 Common bricks 11 0 (b)(d) 10 5 (b)(d) Notes: (a) Collection and delivery. (b) Station to station. (c) 2-ton lots. (d) 4-ton lots. Yet another characteristic of English railway rates is their division into "company's risk" rates and "owner's risk" rates, the latter being a lower scale on which consignments are carried provided the trader signs either a general indemnity for the whole of his traffic or a separate owner's risk consignment note on the occasion of each despatch relieving the railway from "all liability for loss, damage, misdelivery, delay or detention, except upon proof that such loss, damage, misdelivery, delay or detention arose from wilful misconduct on the part of the company's servants." The difficulty of proving such "wilful misconduct" in case of damage or loss has long been a grievance with traders consigning under "owner's risk" rates, and vigorous efforts have been made by them, or on their behalf, from time to time to obtain a modification of these conditions. The railway point of view in regard to this vexed question was thus expressed by Mr F. Potter, in an address on "The {352}Government in Relation to the Railways of the Country," given to the Great Western Railway (London) Lecture and Debating Society on February 11, 1909:-- "Traders are apt to conveniently overlook the fact that owner's risk rates did not precede the ordinary rates, but that they have depended from the latter, and proposals have actually been made that the order of things should be reversed, and the owner's risk rates made the base rates, the company's risk rates being arrived at by the addition of some percentage. Traders well know the value of the insurance which the difference between the two classes of rates represents to them, and, indeed, base their practice in making use of either rate upon this knowledge. If the trader is prepared to be his own insurer, that is, when there is a sufficiently wide margin between the two rates, he takes the owner's risk rate; but if he considers his goods are too valuable for him to accept the risk himself, he makes the company do so by sending his freight at the ordinary rates." In the controversies which have arisen on this question of owner's risk frequent reference has been made to the fact that in Germany there is only one kind of rate, and that under it the State railways do, nominally, assume the risk. I have, however, already shown in my pamphlets on "German _versus_ British Railways" and "German Railways and Traders" that unless the consignments forwarded on the German State railways are packed so securely that it is practically impossible for them to come to any harm, they are accepted by the railway officials only after the trader has signed a form of indemnity declaring that the goods are either "unpacked" or "insufficiently packed," thus absolving the State railways of the responsibility they are supposed to accept. Complaints respecting "preferential rates" have been an especially fertile source of controversy and litigation. The phrase as here used is somewhat misleading. The real ground of complaint is against, not simply "preference," but "_undue_ preference." If a lower rate is given for a 2-ton or a 5-ton than for a 2-cwt. or a 5-cwt. consignment, the trader in the former case gets a distinct advantage over the trader in the latter case, just in the same way as the wholesale man buys a large quantity of goods at a lower price than that asked for from {353}the purchaser of only a very small quantity. Here, in each instance, we have "preference" strictly in accord with commercial principles. The question really at issue turns upon the consideration whether there is undue or unfair preference. It is thus dealt with in a proviso to sub-section 2, section 27 of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act of 1888:-- "Provided that no railway company shall make, nor shall the Court, or the Commissioners, sanction any difference in the tolls, rates or charges made for, or any difference in the treatment of home and foreign merchandise, in respect of the same or similar circumstances." The position is thus controlled by the words "same or similar circumstances." In what is known as the "Southampton case," decided by the Railway and Canal Commission in 1895, the fact that foreign produce was being carried at lower rates by the London and South-Western Railway Company from Southampton to London than were being charged for English produce was not disputed; but it was successfully argued (1) that lower rates might reasonably be granted for train-loads of produce capable of being loaded into the waggons at the docks and carried through, under the best transport conditions, direct to London than for small consignments, picked up at wayside stations, and loaded and carried under far less favourable traffic conditions; (2) that there was no real detriment to local producers, since the towns concerned were importing more than they were sending away; and (3) that in no respect were the circumstances "the same or similar." There was, said Sir Frederick Peel, one of the Commissioners, "no concurrence between the two classes of traffic, and the greater economy of transport in the dock traffic justified the lower rate." The principle here involved disposes of, probably, most of the complaints which have been made from time to time on the subject of undue preference; but as these complaints were especially rife in 1904, a Departmental Committee, presided over by Lord Jersey, was appointed by the Board of Trade to inquire whether or not the railway companies were according preferential treatment to foreign and colonial farm, dairy and market-garden produce from ports to urban centres as compared with home produce. The Committee declared {354}in their report "that the evidence tendered has failed to show that the railway companies are giving undue preferential treatment to foreign and colonial produce as compared with home produce contrary to the intention and effect of existing legislation." They found that some of the traders who complained had compared rates which did not include terminal services with rates that did; had quite wrongly divided what were, in effect, "through" rates, first subtracting the full charge of the shipping company and then assuming that the remainder could be compared with the rate from the first; or had omitted to take into account differences in regard to bulk of consignments, packing, etc. In effect, no British railway rate may give a preference to foreign as distinct from British produce so far as quantities, conditions and circumstances are the same. The rates are to be available for like consignments whatever the source of their origin. Where the home producer has been unable to provide the same quantities, under the same conditions and circumstances as the foreigner, he has equally been unable to avail himself of a rate open to all the world. He has had the disadvantage of the retail trader as compared with the wholesale trader. The principle involved is practically the same as that in operation on Continental State railways, where the traders who can provide the biggest loads get the advantage of the most favourable rates. On the Belgian State railways, for instance, there are special rates for 50, for 100 and even for 300-ton consignments which can obviously be taken advantage of by only a limited number of traders. But while the retail man cannot expect to get the same terms as the wholesale man, there is no adequate reason why the wholesale man should be kept to the same level as the retail man, and be refused the lower rates for his consignments to which he is entitled on account of their greater bulk or better loading. The question is certainly complicated by the fact that the wholesale man here in question is generally a foreigner; but the railway companies could not be required to discriminate against him, and to penalise him on account of his nationality. The matters at issue must needs be looked at from the point of view of a business proposition rather than from that of expecting the railway companies to usurp the functions of the State in carrying out a policy of Protection. {355}Of late years far less has been heard, in the agricultural world, at least, of these allegations of undue preference. The whole position has been changed through the praiseworthy efforts of the Agricultural Organisation Society in spreading among the agricultural community a practical appreciation of the advantages of combination, as adopted by their foreign competitors, included in such advantages being the lower rates which the railways already offer for grouped or other large consignments. The excellent work carried on by the society is calculated to confer, in many different directions, much more benefit on market gardeners, dairy farmers and agriculturists in general than would be gained by them simply from seeking to persuade, or even to force, the railway companies to carry at wholly unremunerative rates the small consignments of non-associated producers, forwarded under the least favourable conditions in respect to economical transport. As regards the machinery provided by Parliament for dealing with traders' grievances, there is, in the first place, the Railway and Canal Commission, which, taking the place of the earlier Railway Commissioners, was made a permanent body under the Act of 1888. The Court consists of two Commissioners appointed by the Board of Trade, and three _ex-officio_ members, chosen from the judges of the High Court, and nominated by the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President of the Court of Session and the Lord Chancellor of Ireland for England, Scotland and Ireland respectively; though in practice only one of the three takes part in the proceedings in connection with any case brought before the Court. The jurisdiction of the Commissioners includes powers to enforce obligations under special Acts, and to deal with questions of traffic facilities, private sidings, undue preference, through rates, etc. Whether or not procedure before this body is too costly for other than wealthy litigants to take advantage of is a question which need not be discussed here; but traders have the further advantage of what is known as the Conciliation Clause of the Act of 1888, which provides that "(1) Whenever any person receiving, or sending, or desiring to send goods by any railway is of opinion that the railway company is charging him an unfair or an unreasonable rate of charge, or is in any other respect treating him in an oppressive or {356}unreasonable manner, such person may complain to the Board of Trade. (2) The Board of Trade, if they think that there is reasonable ground for complaint, may thereupon call upon the railway company for an explanation, and endeavour to settle amicably the differences between the complainant and the railway company." A resort to this expedient by aggrieved parties involves the payment of no fees or costs. The eleventh report by the Board of Trade of their proceedings under the Conciliation Clause shows that during 1908 and 1909 the number of complaints made to them was 280--a total insignificant in comparison with the many millions of separate transactions in which the traders and the railway companies must have been concerned during the two years in question. The 280 complaints are classified as follows: Rates unreasonable or excessive in themselves, 39; undue preference, 65; rates unreasonably increased, 22; classification, 30; delay in transit, 27; owner's risk, 17; rebates, 23, through rates, 15; miscellaneous, 42. Settlement or partial settlement was effected in 91 cases; in 62 the complaints were not proceeded with; in 122 an amicable settlement could not be arrived at; and in five the proceedings had not been completed. "In certain of the cases," the report further states, "in which an amicable settlement was not reached, it seemed clear to the Board of Trade that the complainants had no real ground for complaint." Boyle and Waghorn are of opinion that in matters more or less personal to the applicant, or of comparatively minor importance, the procedure under this Conciliation Clause has saved much litigation; though when questions of general principles are at issue the Board of Trade, as a rule, prefer to remit the determination of them to the Railway Commission. They further say: "The principal cause of the comparative absence of litigation lies in the fact that a law of railway traffic is being gradually evolved, reasonably considerate of the rights of both parties, and adapted to the actual circumstances of the traffic. In the early days of railways this was very far from being the case." ("The Law Relating to Railway and Canal Traffic.") Much of the adverse criticism of railway rates and charges which has been indulged in of late years, without even any resort to an inexpensive complaint to the Board of Trade, {357}has been due to comparisons with railway conditions in other countries. At one time the comparison specially favoured was between English and American railway rates; and this was persisted in until it was conclusively shown that there was, and could be, no basis of comparison between huge consignments, carried long distances, on comparatively inexpensive lines, and small average consignments, carried short distances, on the most costly railway system in the world. The element of "the same or similar circumstances" was obviously lacking. Comparisons were then made with railway conditions in Continental countries, and various tables of comparative rates were published from time to time, in support of railway nationalisation theories or otherwise. But many of these comparisons have been wholly untrustworthy because, once more, they have not compared traffic carried under the same or similar circumstances. Exceptional rates granted, say, by the Prussian Government in the special interests of their commercial policy, but (1) applying to large consignments sent to a port for shipment, the rates being substantially higher when the commodities do not go further than the port, (2) granted in competition with routes passing through adjoining countries, and (3) being simply haulage rates, which include no additional services whatever, have been compared with English "domestic" rates for smaller quantities of traffic, or, it may be, with "paper" rates for traffic that is practically non-existent, and, therefore, has not called for special rates, while the English rates may also include a variety of supplementary services by the railway company (loading, unloading, collection, delivery, warehousing, etc.), which the Continental trader would either have to perform himself or pay for as extras. The comparisons may thus be wholly misleading; but, assuming that complete equality of conditions could be assured, or allowed for, and assuming that the Continental rates were then found to be lower than the really corresponding English ones, it would still be necessary to remember that in this country there have been, from the earliest period of railway development, many circumstances and conditions, due to State policy or to other causes, which have tended to swell {358}to abnormal proportions the capital expenditure that the revenue based on rates and charges must needs cover if any reasonable return at all is to be made to the investors. There would, in fact, be no cause for surprise if rates and charges on British railways could be proved to be higher than those in force on the Continent, where the conditions attendant on railway construction and operation have differed so materially from our own. The wonder is, rather, in view of all that I have said as to the past history of our railway system, that British railway rates and charges should, generally speaking, be as low as they are. {359}CHAPTER XXVI THE RAILWAY SYSTEM TO-DAY Whatever the difficulties which have attended the development of British railways, the lines themselves have been spread throughout the three kingdoms to such an extent that there are now very few districts not within easy reach of a railway; while though the different lines are still owned by, altogether, a considerable number of companies, the physical connections between them and the arrangements of the leading companies, not only for through bookings but for through trains, supplemented by the operations of the Railway Clearing House, have brought about as close an approach to a really national network of railways, connecting all the different sections of the country one with another, as could well be expected in view of the lack of co-ordination when the lines were first called into being. At the end of 1910, according to the Railway Returns issued by the Board of Trade, the "length of line" of the railways in the United Kingdom was 23,387 miles. By itself, however, this figure does not give an adequate idea of the extent of the railway system. This is better realised by taking the figures for track mileage and sidings. A far greater proportion of the railways in England and Wales than in any other country consists of double, treble or other multiple track, so that for one mile in length of line there may be two, three or more miles of separate pairs of rails, increasing the transport facilities in proportion. The percentage of single track to total length of line in various countries is shown by the following figures:-- PER CENTAGE OF COUNTRY. SINGLE TRACK. England and Wales 33.0 Scotland 59.0 Ireland 80.2 United Kingdom 44.2 Prussian State railways 57.3 Germany (the entire system) 61.7 France (main line system) 57.0 {360}"Track mileage" in the United Kingdom is shown in the Board of Trade Returns for 1910 as under:-- TRACK. MILES. First 23,389 Second 13,189 Third 1,517 Fourth 1,192 Fifth 236 Sixth 143 Seventh 70 Eighth 44 Ninth 24 Tenth 14 Eleventh 10 Twelfth 7 Thirteenth 5 Fourteenth 4 Fifteenth 3 Sixteenth--nineteenth 1 each Corresponding figures for the United States of America, taken from an abstract issued in July, 1911, by the Interstate Commerce Commission, give the following classification of track mileage, excluding yard track and sidings:-- TRACK. MILES. First 240,831 Second 21,659 Third 2,206 Fourth 1,489 It will be seen from the figures relating to track mileage in the United Kingdom that there is at least one mile of railway in the United Kingdom which really consists of nineteen pairs of rails alongside one another, though counting, in length of line, as only a single mile. In the United States there seems to be no suggestion of any railroad having more than four tracks. The length of track in the United Kingdom is 39,851 miles. To this must be added a further 14,460 miles, the length of sidings reduced to single track, giving a total, including sidings, of 54,311 miles. Rolling stock was owned in 1910 by the different railway companies throughout the United Kingdom as follows: Locomotives, 22,840; carriages used for conveyance of passengers only, but including rail motor carriages, 52,725; other vehicles attached to passenger trains, 20,090; waggons of all kinds used for the conveyance of live stock, minerals or general merchandise, 745,369; any other carriages or waggons used on the railway, 21,360; total number of vehicles, excluding locomotives, 839,544. These figures are exclusive of about 600,000 waggons owned by private traders.[54] {361}The total weight of goods and minerals conveyed in 1910 was 514,428,806 tons, and the total number of passengers carried (exclusive of 752,663 season-ticket holders) was 1,306,728,583. The miles travelled were--by passenger trains, 266,851,217; by goods trains, 154,555,559; by mixed trains, 1,814,762, giving a total of 423,221,538 miles. It is difficult to grasp the real significance of these figures; but, taking the train mileage alone the total distance run by trains in the United Kingdom in 1910 was equal to nearly 17,000 journeys round the world, and to four and a half journeys to the sun. The total amount of railway capital returned as paid-up at the end of 1910 was £1,318,500,000, of which about £197,000,000, or approximately fifteen per cent, was due to nominal additions on the consolidation, conversion and division of stocks, showing a net investment of £1,120,500,000. The gross receipts of the companies during 1909 were as follows:-- PROPORTION TO SOURCE. £ TOTAL RECEIPTS. Passenger traffic 52,758,489 42.57 Goods 61,478,643 49.61 Miscellaneous[55] 9,688,433 7.82 ---------- ----- Totals 123,925,565 100.00 The working expenditure in the same period amounted to £76,569,676, a proportion to total receipts of 62 per cent. The net receipts, therefore, were £47,355,889, the proportion of which to paid-up capital was 3.59 per cent. The average rates of dividend or interest alike on ordinary {362}and on all classes of capital paid in the years from 1900 to 1909, were as follows:-- YEAR. ORDINARY. ALL CLASSES. 1900 3.34 3.45 1901 3.05 3.33 1902 3.32 3.45 1903 3.30 3.44 1904 3.26 3.42 1905 3.29 3.43 1906 3.35 3.46 1907 3.31 3.45 1908 2.99 3.32 1909 3.15 3.39 1910 3.48 3.53 It is pointed out in the Returns, however, that on account of the nominal additions made to the capital of the companies the rates of dividend or interest given in the tables are lower than they would otherwise be. Thus the average rates of dividend or interest for the United Kingdom in 1910 calculated on capital exclusive of nominal additions would show: Ordinary, 4.28 per cent (instead of 3.48 as above), and "all classes" 4.15 (instead of 3.53) per cent. These averages, nevertheless, allow for a large amount of capital on which the dividend or interest paid is either _nil_ or substantially below the averages stated. The rates of dividend on ordinary capital in 1910 were as follows:-- ORDINARY. RATES OF DIVIDEND OR INTEREST. Amount of Per cent of Capital. Total. Nil £67,358,262 13.7 Not above 1 per cent 29,427,057 6.0 Above 1 and not above 2 per cent 18,072,847 3.7 " 2 " 3 " 87,676,759 17.8 " 3 " 4 " 109,788,247 22.3 " 4 " 5 " 38,193,955 7.7 " 5 " 6 " 85,503,721 17.4 " 6 " 7 " 54,962,066 11.2 " 7 " 8 " 362,000 0.1 " 8 " 9 " 40,000 0.0 " 9 per cent 694,907 0.1 ------------ ----- Total 492,079,821 100.0 {363}The various classes of capital on which the rates of dividend or interest paid in 1910 were either _nil_ or not above three per cent may be shown thus:-- RATES OF DIVIDEND OR INTEREST. Above Above 1 per cent 2 per cent DESCRIPTION OF Not above and not above and not above CAPITAL. Nil. 1 per cent. 2 per cent. 3 per cent. £ £ £ £ Ordinary 67,358,262 29,427,057 18,072,847 87,676,759 Preferential 16,607,907 631,967 2,296,250 103,019,553 Guaranteed -- -- 101,180 23,318,760 Loans and Debenture Stock 558,782 676,789 4,666 189,122,426 ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------- Totals 84,524,951 30,735,813 20,474,943 403,137,498 ----------------------------------------------------- £538,873,205 There are those who regard railway shareholders as "capitalists," and consider that the keeping of railway dividends at a low level, together with any depreciation in the value of railway stock that may result therefrom, are matters only likely to affect a comparatively few wealthy men, and not, therefore, of material concern to the country so long as the railways give the best possible service at the lowest possible rates. In the United Kingdom, however, the ownership of the railways is distributed among a far greater number of persons than is the case in the United States, where the control and the dividends of a great railway system may alike be in the hands mainly of a few financiers. That by far the larger number of shareholders in British railways have comparatively small holdings was well shown by a table published a few years ago giving the percentage of holdings of £500 or under by shareholders, exclusive of debenture-holders, in thirty-nine leading railways of the United Kingdom. An analysis of this table gives the following results:-- Number of Percentage of Holdings of Companies. £500 or under. 2 32 to 40 per cent. 10 41 " 50 " 8 51 " 60 " 9 61 " 70 " 7 71 " 80 " 3 81 " 90 " -- Total 39 {364}It is true that many of the shareholders here in question might have invested in several companies, so that their £500 or less would not represent the full extent of their railway holdings. On the other hand, there is the fact that many of the single investments are those of friendly societies, trade unions, or other organisations representing the interests and dealing with the savings of a large number of members of the artisan class. In any case, whether the railway shareholder be a capitalist large or small or only an ordinary thrifty middle-class person who has saved a little money which he seeks to put into something both safe and remunerative, the fact remains that since the advent of the railway era he is the person who, though supplying the means by which this huge system of inland communication has been brought into existence, has had the least consideration of all. The trader, the passenger and the railway servant have all been the subject of much legislative effort for the protection or the furtherance of their own interests, whereas the railway shareholder has been too often regarded with an absolute lack of sympathy, and treated as a person who must be severely restrained from becoming unduly wealthy at the expense of these other interests, and should be thankful that he is not deprived of his property altogether. It has really seemed as though the aim alike of the State and of local governing authorities has been less to ensure to the railway shareholders, who have undertaken a great public work at their own risk and expense, a fair return on their enterprise than to extract from the railway system huge sums in the way of taxation. What the railway companies have paid in the way of "rates and taxes" since 1894 is shown by the following table, which I compile from the Board of Trade Returns for 1903 and 1910: INCREASE (+) or DECREASE (-) as AMOUNTS PAID FOR compared with YEAR. RATES AND TAXES. previous year. £ £ 1894 2,816,000 -- 1895 3,011,000 (+) 195,000 1896 3,149,000 (+) 138,000 1897 3,249,000 (+) 145,000 1898 3,425,000 (+) 131,000 {365} 1899 3,582,000 (+) 157,000 1900 3,757,000 (+) 175,000 1901 3,980,000 (+) 223,000 1902 4,228,000 (+) 248,000 1903 4,493,000 (+) 265,000 1904 4,736,000 (+) 243,000 1905 4,933,000 (+) 197,000 1906 4,965,000 (+) 32,000 1907 4,863,000 (-) 102,000 1908 4,884,000 (+) 21,000 1909 5,010,000 (+) 126,000 1910 5,102,000 (+) 92,000 Total payments in ---------- 17 years 70,228,000 These figures show a continuous increase since 1894, with the exception only of the year 1907, when there was a decrease of £102,000 as compared with 1906, due to the activity of the railway companies in appealing against excessive assessments. The advance in the total paid in 1910 over the total for 1894 was no less than £2,286,000, or 77.9 per cent. It should be remembered, also, that the figures given relate to sums paid for rates and taxes, and do not include the expenses incurred by the railway companies in respect both to their rates and taxes departments (conducted by highly skilled officers) and to litigation arising on their appeals against assessments they consider unfair. The total expenditure under these two heads has been estimated at over £80,000 per annum. Since comparisons are frequently made between English and German railway rates, with a view to showing that the former are higher than the latter, it may be of interest to compare, also, the amount paid for taxation by the railways of the United Kingdom with the corresponding payments of the Prussian State railways. The length of line of the two systems is approximately the same; yet while the taxation of the British system comes to £5,000,000 a year, that of the {366}Prussian State railways is only £750,000 a year. Naturally, when a Government owns the railways, it is much more interested in checking excessive taxation of the lines by the local authorities than when the railways are owned by commercial companies; and one of the questions to which proposals in regard to the nationalisation of the British railways gives rise is whether, when the Government owned the railways, they would be willing to continue the payment from the railway revenues of all the taxation which local authorities are now able to exact from the railway companies. Presumably not; and in that case the trader, whether or not he got lower railway rates from the State, would probably have to pay higher local rates in order to make up for the tolls no longer levied, or levied only to a much less extent, on the railway traffic. The growth in the payments made by individual companies for rates and taxes between 1902 and 1910 may be illustrated by giving the figures for the London and North-Western, the Great Western and the Midland Companies respectively:-- LONDON AND YEAR. NORTH-WESTERN. GREAT WESTERN. MIDLAND. £ £ £ 1903 520,000 524,000 418,000 1904 572,000 558,000 435,000 1905 599,000 592,000 453,000 1906 603,000 621,000 475,000 1907 603,000 608,000 458,000 1908 610,000 638,000 436,000 1909 631,000 663,000 438,000 1910 638,000 669,000 456,000 In addition to the items coming under the head of "rates and taxes" the railway companies still have to pay to the Government the passenger duty of which I have spoken on page 263, their function here, presumably, being that of honorary tax-gatherers who are required to get the money from the British public in the interests of the national exchequer, and save the Government the cost and the trouble of collection. The passenger duty thus collected by them in 1910 came to £319,404, the total contributions of the railways to the public finances for that year being thus increased to £5,421,715. {367}The amounts paid in 1910 by some of the leading companies under the two heads in question may be shown thus:-- GOVT. RATES PASSENGER COMPANY. AND TAXES. DUTY. TOTAL. £ £ £ Great Central 149,899 4,156 154,055 Great Eastern 322,894 14,296 337,190 Great Northern 223,254 13,099 236,353 Great Western 669,330 29,640 698,970 Lancashire and Yorkshire 261,734 18,141 279,875 London and North-Western 638,443 50,359 688,802 London and South-Western 268,130 34,356 302,486 London, Brighton and South Coast 209,491 31,617 241,108 Midland 455,759 16,423 472,182 North-Eastern 467,404 12,982 480,386 South-Eastern and Chatham 278,505 53,015 331,520 Caledonian 150,609 8,905 159,514 North British 129,486 8,721 138,207 The following table shows how the sum total of the payments both for rates and taxes and for Government duty in the years from 1900 to 1910 work out (a) per train mile and (b) per mile of open railway:-- PER TRAIN MILE. PER MILE OF RAILWAY. Rates and Govt. Rates and Govt. YEAR. Taxes. Duty. Taxes. Duty. d. d. £ £ 1900 2.24 .21 172 18 1901 2.39 .22 180 19 1902 2.53 .23 190 19 1903 2.73 .23 200 19 1904 2.86 .22 209 18 1905 2.95 .22 216 18 1906 2.87 .21 215 18 1907 2.72 .20 210 18 1908 2.77 .20 210 17 1909 2.86 .20 215 17 1910 2.89 .19 218 16 This question of the taxation of railways is a matter of material concern as regards (1) the direct results thereof on {368}(a) rates and charges and (b) dividends paid--or not paid; and (2) the general policy of the State towards the whole problem of internal communication. As in the case of cost of land, of expenditure on Parliamentary procedure, of capital outlay on construction, and of any undue increase in cost of operation, the payments in respect to rates, taxes and Government duty can be met by the railway companies only by one or other of two expedients: either by getting the money back through the rates, charges and fares levied on the railway users (an expedient necessarily curtailed both by legislative restriction and by the economic necessity of not charging more than the traffic will bear), or, alternatively, by leaving the railway investors with only an inadequate return--if not, in respect to a large proportion of the capital, with no return at all--on their investments. The system of assessing railways for the purpose of local rating is one of extreme complexity. It grew out of the earlier system of the taxation of canals, and, had the railway companies fulfilled the original expectation of being simply owners of their lines and not themselves carriers, the principles on which the system was based might have applied equally well to rail as to canal transport. But, while rail transport underwent a complete change, there was no corresponding adaptation of local rating to the new conditions, and the system actually in force is the outcome far less of statutory authority than of custom, as sanctioned by the judges--who have themselves had to assume the role of legislators--while the machinery of railway valuation differs materially in England and Wales, in Scotland, and in Ireland.[56] In England and Wales there is a separate assessment of a railway for each and every parish through which it passes. Such assessment is divided into two parts: (1) station and buildings, and (2) railway line. The former, arrived at by a per centage on the estimated capital value of buildings and site, is a comparatively simple matter. It is in regard to the latter that the complications arise. The main consideration in each case is the amount of rent which a tenant might reasonably be expected to pay for the property assessed; and such {369}presumptive amount is arrived at in regard to the lines by calculating the amount of net earnings the railway is able to make through its _occupation_ of the particular length of line that passes through the parish in question, and according to the actual value of such length of line as an integral part of one concern. The extent of these net earnings is ascertained, in effect, by first taking the gross receipts on all the traffic that passes through the parish, and then making a variety of deductions therefrom. The cost of construction of the railway does not enter into consideration at all. The calculations are on what is called the "parochial earnings principle"--that is to say, the amount earned _in_ the parish, and not the amount received from traffic arising in the parish. The railway company may have no station in the place, and the amount of traffic derived from the parish may be practically _nil_; but the assessment of the line, on the basis mentioned, is followed out, all the same. The main principle is the same in Scotland and Ireland, but with this important difference in detail: that in each of those countries a railway is first valued as a whole, the total value being then apportioned among the several rating areas. It will be seen that the taxation of a railway line--as distinct from that of railway buildings--is, to all intents and purposes, the enforcement of a toll, on all traffic carried, for the privilege of passing through the parish concerned; while there is no suggestion, as there was in the case of turnpike roads, that those who collect the toll confer an advantage on those by whom the toll is paid. The turnpike trustees did provide a road, and they were, also, under an obligation to keep it in order. The toll-payers thus got some return for their money, and, though the trade of the district, or of the country, was taxed, it was, also, directly facilitated by the toll-receivers. The railway company, on the other hand, provide and maintain their own road, without putting the parish to the slightest expense, yet the parish is authorised to levy upon them what is, not only a toll, but a supplementary Income Tax for local purposes, based on the principle of the profits the company are supposed to make in the parish, often only because, for geographical reasons, it is necessary their lines should pass through it in going from one part of the country to another. {370}On page 114 I have told how, in the early part of the sixteenth century, the local authorities of Worcester, Gloucester and other towns on the Severn sought to raise funds for their local exchequers by taxing the traders who used the river for the transport of their commodities; and I have further told how, in 1532, it was enacted that any person attempting to enforce such toll or tax should be fined forty shillings. But a practice held in the sixteenth century to be unjust in itself as well as prejudicial to the interests of trade, and penalised by the Legislature accordingly, is considered quite right and proper, and receives express legislative sanction, in the twentieth century, though the local authorities upon whom the toll-privilege is conferred to-day may do no more to help the railways than Worcester and Gloucester and the other Severn towns did to help the river traffic--and that was nothing at all. One result of the power thus given to local authorities to bleed the railway companies as an easy and convenient method of providing themselves with funds is that in a large number of parishes throughout the country a railway company pays the bulk of the rates, even though it may not even have a railway station in the place. In Chapter IV of my book on "Railways and their Rates" I have given a table showing that in a total of 82 parishes, divided into four groups, the proportion of local rates paid by the London and North-Western Railway Company ranges from 50 per cent to 86.9 per cent, although in 53 of the parishes the company have no station. In a further table I specify sixteen parishes in which the area of the same company's property ranges from four to fifty-eight acres, or from 1.3 per cent to 5.1 per cent of the whole of the land in the parish, while the proportion which the railway assessment bears to that of the entire parish ranges from 66.9 per cent to 86.1 per cent. Being thus enabled to depend for the greater part of their revenue on railway companies, who are given the privilege of paying but are denied the privilege of representation or of having any voice in the way the money they contribute shall be spent, there are local communities which show the greater readiness to carry out comparatively costly lighting, drainage, education, road improvement or other such schemes because {371}it is a railway company that will pay most of the cost, the proportion thereof falling on the great bulk of the individual ratepayers in the parish being thus inconsiderable. Social reformers tell us of the improvements they find proceeding to-day in village life in England. What is happening to a large extent is that rural centres are providing themselves with urban luxuries at the cost of the railway companies--that is to say, at the cost either of the railway shareholders or of the railway users or both together. The same tendency may, however, be carried further still. On the occasion of the coronation of King George and Queen Mary, various local authorities had the less hesitation in voting supplies to defray the cost of festivities out of the rates because they knew that most of the money so voted would have to be paid by a railway company. In a letter to "The Times" of June 3, 1911, on this subject, Mr James E. Freeman, of Darlington, says:-- "The village of Carlton Miniott, near Thirsk, lately held a parish meeting to consider whether the £30 or so that will be spent in local festivities in connexion with the Coronation should be raised by means of private subscriptions or from the rates. It was decided to levy a penny rate, with the result that the North-Eastern Railway Company, which had and could have no voice in the decision, will pay £21 13s. 4d., and the loyal residents, who receive the whole of the benefit, will pay £9 11s. 8d. towards the £31 5s. that is to be expended. At the neighbouring village of South Otterington the keen-witted Yorkshiremen have profited even more from the law's absurdities. They have voted a precept of £30 on the overseers for their merry-making, and of this amount the North-Eastern Railway Company will have the satisfaction of paying a little over £25." The "Great Western Railway Magazine" for July, 1911, in referring to the same subject, tells of "a parish having the good fortune to have a railway running through one end of it, in which a rate of threepence in the £ has been imposed. This has produced £200, all of which has been spent on eating and drinking in a population of less than 2000, while the governing idea in raising the rate appears to have been that the railway company would have to pay some £70." Without stopping to discuss the question as to the exact {372}proportion in which the results of this taxation system should ultimately fall on, or be made good by (a) shareholders, or (b) traders and travellers, the policy, if not the justice, of allowing the internal transport of the country, and, therefore, the trade and industry of the country, to be subjected to this abnormal taxation, if not to this actual plundering, by constituted authorities, may well be open to question, and especially so when one bears in mind the already heavy expenditure which has fallen on the companies, and the dissatisfaction expressed, from time to time, by traders with the railway rates, by railway servants with their pay, and by shareholders with their dividends. Certain it is that in the Board of Trade "Railway Returns" all these payments on account of rates and taxes and Government duty are included among the items of "working expenditure," and are deducted from the gross receipts before arriving at the amount of the net income available for dividends or to be taken in account in regard either to reductions in rates and charges or to increases in wages. There is no suggestion that railways should be exempted altogether from the payment of local rates; but the complicated, anomalous and exorbitant system of taxing the traffic on their lines has long called for amendment. So far back as 1844 Mr Gladstone's Committee declared they were "satisfied that peculiar difficulties attach to the application of the ordinary laws of rating to the case of railways which give rise to great uncertainty and inequality, as well as to expense and litigation, and they therefore consider that the subject is one which will properly call for the attention of the Legislature when any general measure for the amendment of the law and practice of rating is before it." In 1850 the unsatisfactory nature of the law and practice in regard to railway assessments was pointed to by a Select Committee of the House of Lords on "Parochial Assessments." In 1851 Lord Campbell adjourned the case of R. _v._ Great Western Railway Company, and expressed the hope that "before the next term Parliament might interfere" and relieve the court from the difficult position in which they were placed when called upon to administer the existing law {373}with regard to the rating of railways. He added, in reference to the matters arising in the case then before the court: "If we settle those questions we may be considered as legislators rather than as judges, making rather than expounding law." In 1859 Mr Justice Wightman, in R. _v._ The West Middlesex Water Company, said: "The whole subject matter appears to me to be involved in so much difficulty and uncertainty that I cannot but hope that the Legislature may interfere or make some provision adapted to the rating of such companies as that in question." Among still other judges who have expressed similar views and indulged in similar hopes may be mentioned Lord Justice Farwell, who, in January, 1907, in the case of the Great Central Railway _v._ the Banbury Union, said: "Fifty-six years ago Lord Campbell protested and implored the Legislature to intervene. His voice was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and I suppose ours will be equally ineffectual if we make the same appeal." Then, also, the Royal Commission on Local Taxation, in the report they presented in 1901, made various recommendations in regard to the assessment of railway companies; but the advice of Committees and Commissioners has been no less unavailing than the protests of judges. Meanwhile, and pending the long-delayed action by the Legislature, the railway companies have themselves done what they could to protect the interests of those they represent, or of those for whose wants they cater, by appealing against excessive and unjust assessments, and in many of these appeals they have been successful. Such appeals have been warranted, not alone by unfair increases of assessments but by the fact that taxation based on earning powers ought to be reduced as those earning powers decline; and on this last-mentioned point the Assessor of Railways and Canals in Scotland is quoted in "The Rating of Railways" as having said:-- "There is the undeniable fact, which the Board of Trade returns amply prove, that the companies are now carrying on their business at less remunerative rates than formerly. The average fare per passenger carried, and the rates per ton for goods and minerals handled, have fallen enormously; while, at the same time, working expenses have been {374}continually going up, mainly owing to the demands for higher wages and shorter hours of employment, and the more stringent regulations of the Board of Trade as to block-telegraph working, brake-power, etc. Further, the increased gross or net revenues could not have been earned without a large capital expenditure for additional and more costly plant. It is well known that what would have satisfied the public twenty years ago would be deemed wholly inadequate to-day. Competition has compelled the companies to advance with the times; engines are now more powerful, carriages more comfortable, in many cases even luxurious; trains are better heated and lighted; continuous brakes and also the newest type of telegraphic instruments for signalling and working have been provided; stations are better furnished and equipped--all of which would mean a greatly increased outlay on the part of a tenant, which outlay he would undoubtedly take into account before deciding what rent he could afford to pay." The considerations here presented in regard to the general question of railway taxation are strengthened by the fact that, although a railway company is a commercial enterprise, it has not the facilities possessed by commercial enterprises in general in meeting any increase in cost of production or working expenses by an increase in its charges to the consumer, or the person equivalent thereto. In this respect an ordinary industrial concern, producing goods for sale, is a free agent to the extent that it is restrained in its charges only by market and economic conditions; whereas the railway company, producing for sale the service known as transport, may not raise a single rate or charge in regard to the transport of goods without incurring the liability of having to "justify" such increase before either the Board of Trade or the Railway and Canal Commission. It has even been recommended recently by a Departmental Committee of the Board of Trade that like restrictions should be made to apply in the case of increases of passenger fares. The alternative for a railway company lies in the possibility of reducing expenses; but there are limitations in this direction if perfect efficiency in all branches of the service is to be maintained, and no one would be likely to suggest that these exactions of local authorities should be made good by {375}reductions in, for example, that especially large item of working expenses represented by the wages of railway servants. What I have said in regard to rates and taxes in general applies no less to the increased financial burdens that would fall on railway companies in respect to the National Insurance Bill. With the main issues presented by that measure I have here no concern; but the difference between railway companies which cannot "pass on" the heavier taxation that all measures of this type involve and the ordinary industrial companies which can should be sufficiently obvious.[57] Clear, at least, it is that if both the Government and the local authorities continue to pile up these burdens of taxation on transport companies, themselves subject to the restrictions mentioned, the traders of the country cannot expect much relief in the railway rates of which many of them complain. It may be that the primary effect of the financial conditions thus brought about falls on the railway shareholders. It is, also, the case that the traders are well assured against any increase in rates. But the traders suffer a disadvantage as well as the shareholders because, though the railway companies may be prevented from raising their rates, they may, also, find it practically impossible to reduce rates which they would otherwise be willing to put on a lower scale. On the one hand the traders are protected from being charged more. On the other hand they are prevented from being charged less. They may not lose, but they may not gain; and inability to secure a benefit that might otherwise be secured amounts, after all, to the equivalent of a loss. In regard, also, to the wages of the staff, these may not be reduced yet the power of companies to advance them may be curtailed by any undue swelling of working expenses in other directions. {376}A good idea of the magnitude of the capital, the scope and extent of the operations, and the greatness and variety of the interests concerned in the working even of a single great railway company is given by the following table of what are deservedly called "interesting statistics," drawn up in regard to the Midland Railway for the year ending December 31, 1910:-- Capital expended £121,304,555 Authorised Capital £193,900,517 Working Expenses £7,716,665 Salaries and Wages £5,015,017 Revenues:-- Coaching £4,058,129 Goods, Mineral & Cattle £8,375,673 Miscellaneous £607,581 Rates and Taxes £450,379 Lines owned (miles) 1,680 Constructing or Authorised 10¾ Partly owned 329 Worked over by Engines 2,378 Train Mileage 48,472,172 Passengers carried 46,481,756 Season Tickets 221,862 Coal and Coke consumed (tons) 1,773,179 Minerals & General Merchandise passing over line (tons) 47,533,420 Engines 2,800 Carriage Stock 5,489 Waggon Stock 117,571 Horses 5,158 Road Vehicles 7,009 Signal Cabins & Stages 1,942 Miles of Teleg. Wire 31,446 Railway Telegrams 14,542,689 Steam Fire Engines, Pumps, &c 511 Fire Hydrants 1,619 Men qualified to render first aid to the injured 10,037 Contributions to Friendly Society £21,916 Sick Allowance paid by Friendly Society £36,367 Contributed to Superannuation Fund £34,858 Total number of Employés 69,356 Uniform Staff 29,500 Clerical Staff at Derby 2,519 Workmen in all Shops 13,443 Area of Carriage Works (Acres) 126 Acreage of Loco. Works 80 The organisation and working of the English railway system as it exists to-day are matters as to which a good deal of interest has been shown from time to time, and a certain degree of knowledge thereof is essential to an appreciation of the position that has developed from the primitive conditions already detailed. The subject is treated very fully in "The Working and Management of an English Railway," by the late Sir George Findlay, formerly general manager of the London and North-Western Railway Company, whose line {377}he naturally dealt with in his book. Much, however, has happened since the first edition of that book was published, in 1889, and some of the details given are not applicable to present conditions. I do not propose to bring them all up to date, but it may be of advantage if I attempt to convey to the reader a general idea of the basis on which the London and North-Western, as a typical English railway, is organised and managed, leaving aside the technical data concerning construction and operation with which, although they occupy a considerable space in Sir George Findlay's book, I have here no direct concern. The London and North-Western Railway had, on December 31, 1910, a total length of line of 1966 miles, of which 380 miles were single track and 1586 double or more. The total length of track, including sidings, in equivalent of single track, was 5490 miles. The authorised capital was £133,989,000 and the paid-up capital £125,038,000. The magnitude of the company's operations is indicated by the following figures in regard to traffic, etc., in 1910: Number of passengers carried (exclusive of season-ticket holders), 83,589,000; minerals, 43,384,000 tons; general merchandise, 10,511,000 tons; number of miles travelled by trains, 47,463,000; receipts (gross) from passenger traffic, £6,699,000; receipts (gross) from goods traffic, £8,900,000; total working expenditure, £9,937,000. The supreme control is exercised by a board of twenty directors, including a chairman and a deputy chairman. Four retire annually, and are eligible for re-election. The directors are appointed by the shareholders, all of whom have the right to express their views thereon at the half-yearly meetings of the company; and when it is stated that the number of shareholders--debenture, preferred and ordinary--in the North-Western is 100,000, representing 90,000 holdings, and that in 45,000 cases the holding is £500 or under, it will be seen that an English railway company is a far more democratic institution than one of those great railroad systems in the United States which may be completely dominated by a single individual. Any shareholder in the London and North-Western who possesses the necessary qualification, by being the owner of ordinary stock to the value of £1,000, is eligible for appointment on the board. {378}The main functions of an English railway board are--to decide questions of principle and policy; to keep close watch over the interests of the shareholders in regard to all questions of finance; and to exercise a general control and supervision in order to ensure the thorough efficiency of the line. Subject to such general control and supervision, the working details are entrusted to railway officers possessed of the skill, judgment, experience and technical knowledge requisite thereto. It is thus no more necessary that railway directors should be railway experts than it is that the proprietor, the manager and the editor of a great daily newspaper should themselves be able to write shorthand, set up type, cast a stereo and run the machines. They can dictate policy, attend to business details and direct heads of departments without these, in their case, superfluous accomplishments. Railway directors who, going beyond their legitimate functions as aforesaid, sought to interfere with or dictate to skilled railwaymen on matters of ordinary detail or office routine would, in fact, cause friction without necessarily promoting efficiency in operation. In practice it is not unusual for a retiring general manager to be invited to take a seat on the board either of his own or of another company; but, generally speaking, the main qualification for a railway director, apart from the extent of his holding, is found in his possession, or assumed possession, of good business qualities, coupled with an interest in some particular part of the district the railway serves. The full board of the London and North-Western Railway meets twice a month; but much work is also done by committees which, as in the case of a county council or other important public body, exercise supervision over certain departments, or groups of departments, presenting minutes of their proceedings to the board for confirmation. The principal committees are the Finance Committee, the Permanent Way Committee, the Locomotive Committee, the Passenger Traffic Committee, the Goods Traffic Committee and the Debts and Goods Claim Committee. There are, in addition, various smaller committees which deal with questions arising in connection with legal business, stores, hotels, refreshment rooms, etc. The heads of the different departments concerned attend, either regularly or as desired, the meetings of these various {379}committees, whose members are thus kept thoroughly in touch with everything going on in regard to matters under their special cognisance. On the subject of finance, Sir George Findlay says (and the position is still as here stated, except that certain members of the Finance Committee now meet weekly to pass current accounts for payment):-- "The system of control over the expenditure of the Company's money is a very complete one. The general theory is that no expenditure is incurred without the direct sanction of the directors, expressed by a minute of some committee approved by the board. The district officers are, indeed, allowed to make small necessary payments, but for these vouchers are submitted monthly and, after being carefully examined, are passed by the Finance Committee. No work is done by any of the engineering departments, except ordinary maintenance and repairs, without a minute of the directors to sanction it, and, in like manner, no claim is paid, except those of trifling amount, without the authority of the 'Goods Claims Committee.'" The executive management is carried out by the general manager, the chief goods manager, and the superintendent of the line, the heads of the various other departments--and, also, the district officers--reporting to, and being under the direction of, one or other of these three officers, or, in the case of the chief goods manager and the superintendent of the line, of their assistants. The general manager naturally exercises general control. He is accountable to the chairman and directors for the good working of all departments, and when one takes into account the magnitude of the financial interests at stake; the extreme complexity of the movements and details involved in the operation of so many miles of railway transporting so huge a volume of traffic; the responsibilities of the company towards the multitudes of travellers who depend for life or limb on the perfection of the arrangements made for their safety; the enormous value of the goods of which temporary charge is undertaken; the questions of principle or precedent that arise in connection with a whole army of workers, no less than the matters of policy as regards development of the line or the relations with other companies, involving, it may be, {380}introduction of or opposition to Railway Bills; the preparation of evidence to be given before one or other of those oft-recurring Parliamentary or Departmental Committees; together with the ever-present need of reconciling, as far as possible, the conflicting interests of public, of staff and of shareholders--when one tries to realise the full extent of all these duties, obligations and responsibilities devolving upon the general manager of a great English railway company, the holder of such a post would seem to occupy a position more onerous than that, probably, of any other British subject, even if he should not deserve to rank as a ruler of what, in the variety and extent of the interests concerned--interests greater far than those of many a Continental State--is itself the equivalent of a small kingdom. In the chief goods manager's department there are, besides himself, an assistant goods manager, two outdoor goods managers, a mineral traffic manager and a large staff of clerks. The chief goods manager and his assistants take charge of all matters connected with merchandise and mineral traffic, apart from the actual running of the trains. They arrange the rates and conditions of carriage; control the handling, the warehousing, and the collection and delivery of the goods; deal with all questions of goods accommodation and goods rolling stock; negotiate the arrangements in regard to private sidings for traders, and discharge a great number of other duties besides. The main function of the superintendent of the line, in whose department there is, also, an assistant superintendent of the line and several assistants, is to deal with all passenger, horse, carriage and parcels traffic, and, also, the running of all trains, whether passenger, merchandise, live-stock or mineral. All questions relating to the actual working of the line, passenger stations, signals, etc., are referred to him, and the issue of all time-tables is also under his control. The other heads of departments include: Secretary; solicitor (with assistant solicitor); chief accountant; locomotive accountant; cashier; chief of expenditure department; chief of audit department; registrar; estate agent; rating agent; chief engineer (with a chief clerk and two assistant engineers, one for new works and one for permanent way); chief mechanical engineer (with a chief indoor assistant {381}in locomotive department, general assistant and two outdoor assistants); signal superintendent; electrical engineer; rolling-stock superintendent; carriage superintendent; waggon superintendent; stores superintendent; horse superintendent; police superintendent; marine superintendent; hotel manager; and chief medical officer. The total number of persons engaged in these various departments, as carried on in the general offices at Euston station, without reckoning those employed elsewhere, is about 1500. For administrative purposes the entire system, with its close on 2000 miles of railway, is divided into a number of districts, each of which is in charge of a district superintendent who is responsible for the working of the trains and the control of the staff in his district. Each district superintendent has an assistant and several travelling inspectors working under his direction, their duty being to visit regularly every station and signal box, and deal with any matters requiring attention. In some districts the superintendents are responsible both for passenger traffic and for goods traffic. In this case they are called district traffic superintendents. They report in regard to the passenger business to the superintendent of the line and in regard to the goods business to the chief goods manager. In the most important districts the district superintendent is relieved of the management of the goods business (except as regards the working of the trains) by other district officers known as district goods managers, or goods superintendents, who are responsible to the chief goods manager at Euston. In Dublin there is an Irish traffic manager who takes charge of all the interests of the company in Ireland, and there are agents in Paris and New York who look after the Continental and American business. The same general principle, as applied to the various districts, operates, also, in regard to individual towns and the management of the stations therein. At the majority of the company's stations there is an agent, popularly known as the station master, who is in charge of both the passenger and the goods traffic; and at the larger stations the work is divided between a station master--who attends to passenger traffic, and is accountable to the district superintendent--and a goods agent, who is responsible for the goods work, and is under {382}the control of the district goods manager. The station master, in turn, has authority over the signalmen, porters and lamp-men at his station, just as the goods agent has authority over the local goods department. The chain of responsibility thus works out as follows:-- Station staff. Goods staff. Station master. Goods agent. District superintendent. District goods manager. Superintendent of the line. Chief goods manager. ---------------------------------------------------- General manager. Committees of the board. Chairman and full board. While the control through the board of directors and the general manager is complete yet, at the same time, it would be impossible to keep pace with the rapidity with which business is done at the present day unless the district officers were able to act on their own responsibility in those cases where time did not permit of matters going through the usual routine, and for that reason the district officers of a company like the London and North-Western are capable men who are able, and are encouraged, to take full responsibility when it is necessary for them to do so. Just as the committees of the board of directors keep in touch with the chief officers and heads of departments, so do the chief officers keep in touch alike with one another and with the country officers, doing this by means of periodical conferences. There is, in the first place, what is known as the "Officers' Conference." Held once a month at Euston or elsewhere, as convenient, it is presided over by the general manager, and is attended alike by the chief officers and by the district officers for both the passenger and the goods departments. At this conference the matters discussed include proposed alterations in the train service, mishaps or irregularities and their avoidance, suggested changes in the rules, and everything appertaining to the working, loading and equipment of the trains. Another conference, known as the "Goods Conference," is also held monthly--generally on the day preceding the Officers' Conference--and is presided over by the chief goods {383}manager, who meets the district officers responsible for the goods working, and discusses with them the various subjects that arise from time to time in connection with the goods traffic. The minutes of both conferences are submitted to the directors, who are thus kept still better informed of all that is happening. Nor do the officers themselves, whether chief officers or district officers, fail to benefit from the opportunities for the exchange of views and experiences which the conferences afford. Periodical inspections of the line, or of the stations, in various districts by the directors and the chief officers--whether both together or by the chief officers alone--afford further opportunities for checking any possible irregularities, for ensuring the provision of adequate station accommodation, for seeing that rules and regulations are properly observed, and for maintaining the thorough efficiency of the system in general. The locomotive works of the London and North-Western Railway Company at Crewe extend over 140 acres, including 48 acres of covered-in shops, mills, etc. These works give employment to about 10,000 men and boys. In addition to the making of locomotives, the various processes carried on include the production of steel rails, girders for bridges, underframes for carriages, hydraulic machinery, cranes, bricks, gas-pipes, water-pipes, drain-pipes, and a great number of other objects and appliances necessary to the construction and operation of the railway. Created by the London and North-Western Railway Company, Crewe has developed from an agricultural village into a flourishing industrial town of 42,000 inhabitants. At Wolverton, half-way between London and Birmingham, the company build and repair their own railway carriages and road vehicles, and do much work besides in the making of station furniture, office fittings, and other requirements. The works cover 90 acres, and give employment to about 4000 hands. The Earlstown waggon works extend over 24 acres and employ 1800 persons, Earlstown, like Crewe and Wolverton, being essentially a railway colony. In each instance--as will be shown more fully in Chapter XXVIII--liberal provision is {384}made for the educational, social and recreative needs of the workers and their dependents. No fewer than 82,000 persons are included in the industrial army which to-day constitutes the staff of the London and North-Western Railway. Of this total 11,000 are salaried officers and clerks and 71,000 are employed at weekly wages. A company which employs such a multitude as this, and, indirectly, ensures sustenance to a much greater number of persons, incurs obligations that are not met entirely by a stated salary or wage. Hence the company, in addition to their encouragement of schools and educational institutes, support a Superannuation Fund Association and a Widows and Orphans' Fund for the salaried staff, and various funds, on a contributory basis, for the wages staff. Other organisations supported by the company include a savings bank, a literary society, chess, rifle and athletic clubs, a temperance society and numerous coffee taverns for the staff. {385}CHAPTER XXVII WHAT THE RAILWAYS HAVE DONE To say that the railways have revolutionised trade and industries would be simply to repeat one of the commonplaces of modern economic history. Taking the general statement for granted, I would invite the reader to look a little more closely at some of the actual results that railways have, or have not, brought about. In the first place it would be going too far to say that the Railway Age inaugurated the Industrial Era. The invention of, or the improvements in, machinery which gave so immense an impetus to our national industries preceded the opening of the particular lines of railway--the Stockton and Darlington and the Liverpool and Manchester--that were more especially to lead to the great development of the railway system on present-day lines. All the same, it was the railways that, by offering a far more effective means of transport than was already afforded by canals, rivers or roads, made it possible for the industries then already started, or for those following thereon, to attain to their present proportions. For the creation of what is known as the factory system, with its teeming industrial populations aggregated into busy urban centres, the railways are certainly far more responsible than the earlier modes of transport. The merits or the drawbacks of that system, from the point of view of general interests, are matters that need not be discussed here. Suffice it to say that as soon as the railways had allowed of great quantities of raw material being conveyed, at especially low rates, to particular localities; of machinery being set up there, also at lower cost than before; of labour from the rural districts being brought in and concentrated in the same localities, and of an efficient distribution, again at lower rates, of commodities produced on a large scale under the most economical conditions;--it was inevitable that factories should supplant home {386}industries, that manufacturers should succeed small masters, and that great towns should grow up in proportion as rural centres declined. In helping to bring about these results--results that so materially accelerated the "economic revolution" already proceeding--railway transport also supplied a ready means for providing these urban communities with the necessaries of life. It is only with the help of the railways that the provisioning of such vast collections of humanity as are to be found in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow and other centres is rendered possible. As compared with the earlier conditions of life, when households were mainly self-supporting, each providing for its own needs from its own fields, pasture or garden, the average urban family to-day is dependent on the trader for practically all domestic necessaries, and the same is mostly the case in suburban or even in country districts except, it may be, in regard to vegetables, eggs and table poultry. It is doubtful if London or any other of these great centres ever has more than, at the outside, a fortnight's supplies on hand. The complete stoppage of the railway system for any such period would thus be a national disaster. Food might still come to the ports in the same quantities as before; but without the railways there would be no adequate means for its distribution, and the large inland towns would more especially be at a disadvantage. The mere possibility of such an eventuality may help one to realise the extent of our dependence to-day on rail transport from the point of view, not alone of trade, industry and commerce, but of our daily life and sustenance. While it is true that many rural centres suffered a decline in population when the railways led indirectly to so many agricultural workers leaving the fields for the attractions and the supposed advantages of urban life, it is no less true that the expansion of the towns gave to those who remained in the rural centres greater markets for the sale there of such produce--and especially for such market-garden produce, eggs and poultry--as they could supply to advantage. The railways may not have annihilated distance, but they were engaged in curtailing distances; and such curtailment became still more effective when the achievements of the locomotive were {387}followed by the adoption of the sliding-scale principle under which the rates per ton per mile decreased in proportion as consignments were sent for a greater distance than twenty miles. The towns and the industrial centres expanded further as rail transport afforded increased facilities for the conveyance of raw materials to works which, thanks to the steam-engine, could be set up in any part of the country, regardless of the once indispensable water power; and the procuring of these raw materials not only gave a further great expansion to national wealth, but led to the opening up to industrial activity of many a district previously isolated and undeveloped. Increased congestion in the towns was thus none the less supplemented by a widespread development of the interior resources of the country; and in this respect the railways accomplished results that could not have been attained by the most complete system either of canals or of turnpike roads. There certainly were losses, besides those in the rural districts, and this was notably the case in some of the county, market, or smaller towns which no longer command the same distinction in the social and economic world as before; but the balance as between gains and losses was in favour of an industrial expansion, a commercial development, and an unexampled increase in general prosperity. On the general trade of the country the railway was to produce results no less striking than those that related to individual industries. When the facilities for distributing domestic and other necessaries throughout the inland districts, and even in the most remote parts of the country, were so greatly increased, the reason for the fairs which had for many centuries played so all-important a part in English trade and commerce no longer existed, and the country hastened to deserve Napoleon's sarcasm by becoming "a nation of shopkeepers." To the country trader the railway gave new opportunities. There was no longer any need either for his going to one of the periodical fairs or for his awaiting a call from a travelling middleman with his troop of packhorses in order to obtain supplies. Nor was it now necessary for him to purchase comparatively substantial quantities of wares at a time. Thanks to the railway, he could generally have goods sent to him {388}direct from the manufacturer or the warehouseman in London, Manchester, Sheffield, Glasgow or elsewhere, and those goods, sent for one day and delivered the next, could be ordered by him in exactly such quantities as would suit his immediate requirements. In this way he was enabled to keep smaller stocks of a greater variety of articles, trade with less, or with better distributed, capital and anticipate a much larger turnover. The advantage of these facilities became greater still in proportion as the post, the telegraph and the telephone gave the retailer greater opportunities for communicating his wants to the wholesale trader who supplied them. In these circumstances village stores are to be found to-day in rural districts where shops had been non-existent down to the Railway Age, while the conditions of retail trade in probably every country town have no less changed, and have altered to a proportionate extent the conditions, also, of wholesale trade. On the other hand, the same transport facilities which gave these opportunities to the small trader are now, to a certain extent, operating to his disadvantage, since there is an increasing tendency for retail trade to be done by the large houses which are to-day more and more dealing direct with the public, consigning to retail customers either by rail or by parcel post. In this way many of the small traders are sharing the fate of the small masters who had already been suppressed by the factory system. The movement here in question is, of course, only a development of the dual tendency now prevalent throughout the commercial world for (1) the substitution of large or associated undertakings for numerous small and independent ones; and (2) the abolition of middlemen; yet such a movement could hardly have been carried out to its present actual extent but for the opportunities offered by the railway for the regular, speedy and economical transport of commodities under just such conditions as will alone allow of this further transition in trade being brought about. So far as the railways themselves are concerned, these various developments have not been an unmixed blessing, since they have increased the tendency for the general merchandise traffic to travel in small or comparatively small consignments or parcels, involving a greater amount of {389}handling and of clerical work, and, therefore, an increase in working expenses, without a proportionate gain in revenue. The vast majority of traders in the country seem content to live "from hand to mouth," ordering only just what they want from day to day or from week to week, and depending implicitly on prompt delivery by the railway whenever they need fresh supplies. Thus we get such conditions of trade in respect to general merchandise (distinct from minerals and raw materials) as are suggested by the following table, showing the total tonnage of traffic dealt with, and the average weight per package handled, at the goods depôts mentioned:-- AVERAGE WEIGHT DEPOTS. TOTAL OF TONS NO. OF PER PACKAGE. HANDLED. PACKAGES. Qrs. lbs. Broad Street, London 906 23,067 3 4 Curzon Street, Birmingham 1615 51,114 2 14 Liverpool Stations 3895 79,513 3 26 London Road, Manchester 1341 28,277 3 22 How this small-parcel-at-frequent-intervals arrangement, so convenient for a large number of traders, increases the work of the companies in a greater ratio than it increases their receipts is shown by the following typical figures, worked out by a leading railway company in respect to the comparative increases in traffic receipts and number of invoice entries respectively at four large stations on their system:-- INCREASE IN INCREASE IN NO. OF INVOICE STATION. YEARS COMPARED. TRAFFIC RECEIPTS. ENTRIES. A. 1899 and 1906 2.93 40.0 B. 1903 " 1907 5.74 28.46 C. 1902 " 1905 10.36 22.0 D. 1902 " 1905 14.33 24.3 The tendencies in the direction of repeat orders for small consignments are no less prevalent in the case of raw materials and bulky commodities than in that of general merchandise. The cotton-spinner has frequent consignments of cotton, in quantities sufficient to meet immediate needs, rather than less frequent consignments in greater bulk. The average builder saves yard expenses and cartage by ordering from time to time {390}the exact quantities of timber or the precise number of bricks he wants for the particular work, or for a certain stage of the work, on which he is engaged. The coal merchant orders forward from day to day, or at intervals according to the state of business, only the particular quantities of coal he requires for present or prospective early needs, since the railway arrangements generally render it unnecessary for him to provide for more than a few days' supply at a time. So it goes on through almost every department of present-day trade. The advantages for the trader himself are enormous, and the railways have encouraged him in the tendency here in question by giving, for 2-ton or 4-ton lots, minimum special or exceptional rates which on the State railways of the Continent would be available only for 5-ton, 10-ton or still higher quantities. Yet when a trader has delivery made to him in several consignments rather than one, it is evident that, whatever the convenience to himself, the company must do more work for their money and incur the risk, also, of having to run two or more partly-filled waggons on separate days in place, it may be, of one full one. Hence a further problem in the railway world of recent years has been how to adjust traffic arrangements to commercial conditions based on the now established requirements of the British trader for small consignments at frequent intervals, and yet secure for the railways themselves the advantage of economical loading. Much has been done in this direction by the leading companies in the setting up of transhipping depôts and otherwise, and substantial economies have been effected thereby. Another respect in which railway facilities have influenced the course of trade lies in the fact that the large warehouses, provided by the railway companies at certain of their goods depôts enable a large number of merchants, agents or other traders to dispense with warehouses of their own and carry on their business from a city office, whence they send their instructions to the railway companies as to the destination of particular consignments when these are to be despatched to the purchaser. The railway companies are thus relied on to (1) collect the goods, (2) load them into the railway waggons, (3) transport them from one town to another, (4) unload them, (5) remove them to the railway warehouse, (6) store them there until they are wanted, (7) pick out, as and when required, {391}a particular bale or parcel from a possible pyramid of bales or parcels warehoused for the same trader; and (8) deliver it to a given address. In some instances all these services are included in the railway rate, a certain period of free warehousing being then allowed. In other instances, or when the free period is exceeded, a charge is made for rent; but the trader still saves considerably as compared with what he would have to pay for a separate warehouse for himself, with rates, taxes and cost of cartage in addition. At the autumnal meeting, on October 3, 1906, of the Executive Council of the National Chamber of Trade, held at Bradford, it was declared, in reference to the inequality in assessments for local rates, that there were in Bradford certain large concerns whose business turnover amounted to more than £40,000 a year, while the rental of the premises they occupied was not more than £100. Some exceptionally large and commodious railway warehouses in Bradford are certainly made use of by local traders under precisely such conditions as those here in question; and it is, probably, because of these railway warehouses that the concerns alluded to are able to carry on a £40,000 business in £100 premises. Even when the traders own extensive mills or factories they often find it convenient to allow the railway company to warehouse most of their raw material for them, sending on supplies to them as needed, a saving thus being effected in respect alike to capital outlay on land and buildings for store rooms and to rates and taxes thereon. In other instances goods are sent, as ready, to the railway warehouses at the port to await shipment, the manufacturers once more saving in not having to provide extra accommodation on their own premises for the storing of goods until a large order has been completed or until a vessel is due to leave. The extent of this railway warehouse accommodation will be better understood if I mention that two sets of premises which constitute the Broad Street goods depôt of the London and North-Western Railway Company, in the heart of the City of London, have a total floor space of 29,500 square yards; that the same company have at Liverpool a series of warehouses with a total of about 30,500 square yards of floor space; that the Great Northern Railway Company have at Bradford one {392}wool-warehouse which can accommodate from 50,000 to 60,000 bales, and another that has a storage capacity of 150,000 bales; and that an exceptionally large goods depôt and warehouse in Manchester, with floor space equal to one and a quarter acres, cost the Great Northern Railway Company no less a sum than £1,000,000. To illustrate the nature of the accommodation offered by, and the work carried on, in these great goods stations and warehouses, I offer a few details respecting the Bishopsgate Goods Station of the Great Eastern Railway Company. Situate in the midst of one of the busiest of London's commercial centres and in the immediate proximity of docks, wharves, markets and warehouses carrying on, in the aggregate, an enormous business, the Bishopsgate Goods Station is a hive of activity of so extensive and varied a type that the working bees employed form a staff of no fewer than 2000 persons. The premises, which have nine exits and entrances, are divided into three levels, known as the basement level, the rail level and the warehouse level. The total area covered by the goods station, including railway lines, yard and buildings, is twenty-one acres. The basement level consists of a series of arches on which the lines leading into the goods station have been built. Originally the arches were designed by the railway company to serve the purposes of a general fruit, vegetable and fish market, and this market was opened in 1882; but the lessee of the Spitalfields market claimed certain monopoly rights under an ancient charter, and the Bishopsgate market had to be closed; though the railway company continued to carry on a market they had previously opened at Stratford, E., subject to the payment of certain tolls to the aforesaid lessee in respect to his rights. The Stratford market, located immediately alongside lines of railway bringing produce from the most important agricultural districts of the Eastern Counties, has conferred great advantages alike on traders and on residents in the East of London. The basement arches at Bishopsgate are to-day let mainly to potato salesmen and others, who find them of the greatest convenience because loaded trucks arriving on the rail level can be lowered into the basement, there to be moved by hydraulic power to the particular arch for which the consignment is destined. {393}The rail level is the goods station proper. It has eleven sets of rails and five loading or unloading platforms, or "banks," while two shunting engines are constantly employed in taking loaded or empty trucks in or out. In 1910 the business done gave a daily average of 725 trucks inwards traffic, and 632 outwards traffic, a total daily average of 1,357 trucks. About eighty goods trains leave or arrive at the station during the twenty-four hours. These include two which are fitted with the vacuum brake, and give the traders and inhabitants of Lincoln and towns beyond all the advantages of an express goods service at ordinary rates--a service, that is, equivalent to what, in Germany, traders would have to pay double or treble their own ordinary rates for if they wished to ensure a corresponding speed. Of potatoes from the fenland districts of the Eastern Counties the total quantity received at Bishopsgate during 1910 was 100,000 tons. Of green peas from Essex as many as 1000 tons have been received in a single day. Fish from Lowestoft and Yarmouth runs into an annual total of many thousands of tons. Passengers' luggage in advance is also dealt with at Bishopsgate. This system, saving the traveller much trouble, and greatly facilitating the working of passenger traffic at the stations, is evidently advancing in favour, the packages handled at Bishopsgate having increased from 18,617 in 1900 to 87,129 in 1910. In the matter of general merchandise, the experiences of the other railway depôts already mentioned are confirmed by those at Bishopsgate, the taking there of the number and weight of all consignments of merchandise forwarded on a particular day having shown the following results:-- Number of consignments 7,932 Average weight per consignment 3 cwt. 2 qrs. 25 lbs. Number weighing less than 3 cwts 6,056 The total "carriage paid" entries on outwards goods traffic in 1910 numbered over 970,000. For the month of November alone the total was 87,659. A large proportion of the commodious and well-lighted warehouse level on the top storey is let off to individual traders in what are known as "fixed spaces," the demand for {394}which is always in excess of the supply. Goods of great variety and of great value are stored here. The warehouse is found especially useful in connection with the extensive goods traffic carried by the Great Eastern Railway Company between England and the Continent. Mention might also be made of the fact that the cartage work done at Bishopsgate requires a stud of about 1100 horses and 850 road vehicles, and gives employment to nearly 800 carmen and van-guards; that nine weighbridges have been provided; that a large staff of railway police is always on duty to regulate the traffic in or out of the station and to protect property; that the station has its own steam fire-engine and fire brigade (the company likewise undertaking the fire insurance of goods warehoused); and that the general arrangements include a complete ambulance equipment for the rendering of first aid in the event of accidents to the workers.[58] Apart from the provision of depôts and warehouses, the railway companies facilitate the operations of traders by giving them certain free periods in respect to the unloading of coal, potatoes, hay, straw and various other commodities from the railway trucks, which serve the purposes of warehouses on wheels and involve the trader in no further cost, in addition to the railway rate, provided he can find a customer and arrange for the unloading to be done within the free period allowed to him, thus escaping the alternative charge for demurrage. Other conveniences afforded by the English railway companies to traders include the provision--for hire at cheap rates--of grain sacks, meat hampers and meat cloths. The Great Eastern Railway, for instance, who serve a district mainly agricultural, keep on hand, for the convenience of traders, from 700,000 to 750,000 sacks, 1200 meat hampers, and between 4000 and 5000 meat cloths. Railways, as developed in England, have thus done more than increase the facilities and decrease the cost of actual transport. They have, in various ways, increased the facilities for, and decreased the cost of the exchange of, commodities, since there is many a trader in the country who conducts his business much more with the help of a railway company's {395}capital than he does with his own. It is not alone that trade and industry have vastly increased in volume as the result of railway operation. Trade and industry have, also, completely changed in method, while thousands of men can carry on a business of their own to-day who, in the pre-railway epoch, must have been content to be little more than hewers of wood and drawers of water. The economy in time, also, due to the speed at which the general merchandise traffic of the country is carried, has been of no less importance than the economy in cost of transport. Of these two elements speed in delivery may often be by far the more important. Slowness in transport, as is the case on canals, may cause no inconvenience where time is immaterial and large, or comparatively large, stocks can be kept on hand; but these considerations do not apply to the great bulk of English trading and industrial enterprises as carried on under present-day conditions. Hence to the direct saving in the cost of transport, and to the greater advantages in the exchange and distribution of commodities brought about by railways, must be added a fair allowance for gains secured indirectly through this further saving of time. So far back as 1838, and long, therefore, before goods trains were run at an equivalent to express speed, Nicholas Wood wrote in the third edition of his "Practical Treatise on Rail-roads," in comparing rail and canal transport:-- "In our comparison of the two systems of transit, we must not lose sight of the very important consequences, resulting to the commerce of the country, by the rapidity of communication effected by the railways, which far outweighs any trifling balance of economy in favour of canals, even if such do exist; and, therefore, we presume, whenever the balance between the two modes in any degree approach each other, a preference will be given to railway communication." Against the various advantages that improved means of transport have thus brought to the British trader must, nevertheless, in his case, be set certain disadvantages. If he can forward his commodities with greater ease, at lower rates, and in less time, to the leading markets of the country than his grandfather before him could do, he finds that, in practice, the foreigner can do the same. Where the foreigner produces at lower cost, gets the lowest available rates by reason of size {396}of consignment, style of packing, etc., has the benefit of an earlier season and so on, he may well be able, under a system of free imports, to compete with the home producer on his own markets; though the cost of transport to the foreigner has naturally to be reckoned from the place of origin, and not simply from the English port through which his consignments pass. The general effect of rail transport on the trade and industry of the country was thus described by Sir John Hawkshaw in his presidential address at the Bristol meeting of the British Association in 1875:-- "Railways add enormously to the national wealth. More than twenty-five years ago it was proved to the satisfaction of the House of Commons, from facts and figures which I then adduced, that the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway, of which I was the engineer, and which then formed the principal railway connection between the populous towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire, effected a saving to the public using the railway of more than the whole amount of the dividend which was received by the proprietors. These calculations were based solely on the amount of traffic carried by the railways and on the difference between the railway rate of charge and the charges by the modes of conveyance anterior to the railways. No credit whatever was taken for the saving of time, though in England pre-eminently time is money. Considering that railway charges on many items have been considerably reduced since that day, it may be safely assumed that the railways in the British Isles now produce, or, rather, save to the nation, a much larger sum annually than the gross amount of all the dividends payable to the proprietors, without at all taking into account the benefit arising from the saving of time. The benefits under that head defy calculation, and cannot with any accuracy be put into money; but it would not be at all over-estimating this question to say that in time and money the nation gains at least what is equivalent to 10 per cent on all the capital expended on railways." Sir John Hawkshaw, it will be seen, arrived at this result on the basis of the saving in rates and charges and in speed; but one must further allow for those various supplementary services on which the railways enable the traders to effect savings in the carrying on of their business. {397}Nor have the political and social results of the railway system been in any degree less remarkable than the economic. Politically, the railway has been a factor in the rise of Democracy. The construction of railways, by giving employment to large numbers of navvies in various parts of the country, to which they moved freely as occasion required, did much to break down the restrictions to which the labouring classes had so long been subjected under laws of settlement now found to be no longer operative; and this greater freedom of movement, combined with the wider opportunities opened out to them, had effects on the workers far beyond the results accruing to them from an industrial standpoint alone. Under, again, the influences following on the spread of railways throughout the country, England ceased to be simply a collection of isolated communities, and attained to a greater degree of national life. Better communication helped to make men better acquainted with one another, to broaden their sympathies, to spread a better knowledge of public events at home and abroad and to establish closer links between town life and country life. Then the railways which rendered this closer communication possible proved to be among the greatest of social levellers. The claims of the third-class passenger were recognised in course of time, in spite of the unwillingness of the pioneer companies to make them due acknowledgment; and the day was to come when the artisan would go by the same express train as the noble lord, arrive at his destination just as soon, and, though not having quite so luxurious a seat, be afforded facilities of travel greater far than those that could once be commanded even by kings and princes. Cheap excursion trains gave to artisan and agriculturist the opportunity of visiting great towns or pleasure resorts to which, in the old coaching days, the well-to-do would alone have thought of travelling. In the same way the advantages of a concentration of life, of thought and of movement in the capital were spread by the easier means of communication to country districts, and brought the population in general into closer touch with the leaders of public opinion. The railways were the greatest disseminators of intelligence through the newspapers or books carried by train or by the post, itself no less dependent, in turn, {398}on the railway for the facilities it conferred on the country. Without the railway a cheap and widely distributed newspaper press, such as exists to-day, would have been impossible. So the tendency of the railway was not only to advance trade, travel and transport, but to open men's minds, to broaden the intellectual outlook of the artisan and the labourer, to place them more on a level with their social superiors, and to make them better fitted for the exercise of greater political powers. Socially, too, the railway system constitutes a paramount factor in the national life. Thanks to the greater facilities the railways afforded for the distribution of commodities, and thanks, also, to the greater division of labour following on the changed economic conditions, there was no need in the Railway Age for householders to practise the same domestic arts that had been more or less obligatory in the case of their forefathers. There was no longer the same necessity for each family to brew its own ale, to bake its own bread and make its own cloth, or to provide stores of salt beef and other supplies in the autumn as if for a winter siege. When the railway enabled the village shopkeeper to satisfy promptly all local requirements, in winter as readily as in summer, the whole conditions of rural life were changed. In towns, as in villages, the railways allowed not alone of a better distribution of domestic necessaries but of distribution at lower prices. The distance at which a commodity was produced or from which it came had, as a rule, comparatively little effect on the actual selling price. The large towns, especially, had the entire country open to them as their sources of supply, and were no longer limited to the produce--and the prices--of, say, a fifteen or a twenty-mile radius. Following closely on the necessaries came the luxuries, the cheapening of which, mainly owing to the lower cost of transport, gave even to artisans' families alternative food supplies of a kind beyond the reach even of the wealthiest in the land a century ago. The greater consumption of fruit and vegetables, sold at the lowest possible prices, must have been of incalculable advantage to the health of the community; though this advantage would not have been possible but for the facilities {399}afforded by the railway in the bringing of huge quantities at a low rate from even the most distant corners of the three kingdoms.[59] If, again, the railways had to share with invention and industrial expansion the responsibility for the great increase in town life, and for the overcrowding of many an urban centre, they have, on the other hand, helped the towns to spread out into healthy suburbs, or have otherwise relieved them of much of their overcrowding by providing workmen's trains for the conveyance of artisans and labourers between their place of labour and entirely new centres of population in what once were country districts. As for the town workers who can afford to live at greater distances, the issue of cheap season tickets and the running of business trains morning and evening have greatly extended the suburbs of London, so that City men now have their homes as far away as Brighton, Folkestone and Southend. The encouragement thus offered by the railways to the setting up of country or even seaside homes for town workers has further tended to the improvement of the public health, in addition to effecting a complete revolution in social conditions as compared with the days when the merchant or the tradesman lived over his place of business in the very heart of the City of London. What shall be said, also, of the effect on the national life of that "travel habit" which received its greatest development from the railways, though further encouraged in recent years by the bicycle and the motor-car? Under the combined influences of fast trains, corridor carriages, dining, luncheon and sleeping cars and cheap fares, whether for day excursions, short-date or long-date periods, tours at home or abroad, or any other of the various combinations for which facilities are offered, the making of pleasure trips has entered so thoroughly into the habits and customs of all grades of society that the social and domestic conditions of to-day offer a complete contrast from those that prevailed in the pre-railway period. It is now only the poorest of families that fail to have an annual holiday at a seaside resort or in the country, and even in their {400}case the children may be provided for by one of the philanthropic organisations established for this purpose. Nor does the annual summer or autumn holiday now suffice in a vast number of British households. There are supplementary holidays at Easter and Whitsuntide; there are the trips taken on the other bank holidays besides; and, lest all these opportunities may not suffice, the railway companies now enable their patrons to take a little holiday, at reduced fares, every week-end. Thanks, in fact, to the ever-expanding facilities for travel, holiday-making--a former innovation now developed into an established national institution--is no longer confined to a regular holiday season. Winter holidays, also, are coming rapidly into vogue. The question might well be asked if indulgence in the holiday habit is not often carried too far, especially when trips unduly long for the time at the tripper's disposal leave it doubtful whether the holiday-maker should not have a second holiday in which to rest after the fatigues of the first; though if English people are indeed giving themselves up far too much to pleasure, sport and recreation, the railways must certainly share the responsibility for what is happening. Leaving medical authorities and social reformers to decide on the questions just raised, one may, at least, safely affirm that the railway has been a great promoter of friendship and family life, since visits can now readily be exchanged between those resident in distant parts of the country, and ties can thus be maintained that, at one time, would have been in danger of complete severance by the difficulties or the undue cost of journeys by road. In addition to doing so much to re-establish our industries, our trade and our social life and manners on the new bases here indicated, the railway companies have also sought to play their part in the great and responsible question of national defence. The gravity of the issues that, in case of invasion, would depend on the railways being able to arrange for the rapid and safe movement of troops, of war material and of supplies from one part of the country to another is self-evident. It is equally clear that the necessary plans should be carefully prepared long in advance by those most competent to make them. Happily the requisite provisions to this end exist in an {401}organisation known as the "Engineer and Railway Staff Corps," concerning which Mr C. H. Jeune says in the "Great Eastern Railway Magazine" for June, 1911, in an article accompanying a portrait (in uniform) of the general manager of the Great Eastern, Mr W. H. Hyde, who is a Lieutenant-Colonel of the corps in question:-- "In the case of the great Continental powers, with their system of compulsory military service and the State ownership of railways, immediately war is declared practically the whole of the efficient male population, including the railway staff, is ready to place itself under military discipline; the effect being that the transport or railway department, like the infantry or artillery, becomes an integral part of the armed forces of the country. But in England the transport arrangements must of necessity be largely carried out by the railway companies with the aid of their civilian employés. As a link between the army and the companies there is an organisation, the existence of which is not widely known, designated the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps. One of the peculiar features of this body is that it consists of officers only, many of whom we dare to say have no practical knowledge of the goose step. It never drills, no band of music heralds its approach, yet its members are men of high technical ability, and the duties it performs are of great value in the schemes of national defence. "The corps was formed in 1864 by the patriotic exertions of Charles Manby, F.R.S., an eminent civil engineer, who held the post of adjutant with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the corps. It is composed of civil engineers and contractors, also general managers and other officers of railway and dock companies. At present there are, in addition to the Commandant, one honorary Colonel, thirty Lieutenant-Colonels, and twenty-four majors. Their function is to advise on the transport of troops by rail and the construction of defensive works; to direct the application of skilled labour and of railway transport to the purposes of national defence, and to prepare in time of peace a system on which such duties should be conducted." Selected members of the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps join with representatives of the Admiralty and the War Office in forming the War Railway Council, which {402}deals with transport and other arrangements for mobilisation. Before leaving this branch of the subject I may, perhaps, be excused if I look still further afield, and turn, for a moment, from what railways have done for the nation to a few examples of what they are doing for the Empire. In Australia the railways allowed of settlements established on the coast-line of a continent (covering three million square miles) gradually stretching far inland, utilising for agricultural purposes great areas of land that must otherwise have remained little better than barren wastes. Canada, as we know it to-day, owes her existence to the railways. "Without them," said Mr E. T. Powell, in a paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute on February 14, 1911, "the vast dominion which we are proud to call the Canadian Empire would have remained a loose aggregate of scattered agricultural communities. Quebec and Alberta must have known as much of each other as do Donegal and Kamschatka.... A few thousand miles of steel rail ... have saved Canada for the Empire.... Every year they draw the Dominion into closer cohesion as a self-governing unit, while at the same time they cement it more firmly into the Imperial fabric." In South Africa the railways have rendered invaluable service from the point of view alike of trade, of commerce, of colonial expansion, and of Imperial policy. Rhodesia, especially, will have been indebted to her railways for much of the future greatness to which she hopes to attain; and no one would yet venture to limit the possible results of the Cape-to-Cairo line, when that bold undertaking shall at last have been completed. Less generally known, perhaps, is the story of what the railway is doing both for the Empire and for civilisation on the West Coast of Africa. Little more than a dozen years ago no railways at all had been constructed there, and most of the colonies were in a more or less disturbed condition, even if they had not been the scene of successive massacres, of sanguinary wars, of much expenditure thereon, and of human sacrifices in districts steeped in slavery, barbarism and superstition. This was especially the case on the Gold Coast, where the {403}Ashantis waged wars against us in 1875, 1896 and 1901. Two years after the last of these wars the Gold Coast main line of railway was taken up to Coomassie, the capital of Ashanti. To-day the Ashantis carry on strife with us no longer. They work in the gold mines instead; and the railway that brings the gold down to the coast has paid a five-per-cent dividend from the day it was opened.[60] Of "Sierra Leone and Its Commercial Expansion" Mr T. J. Alldridge said, in a paper he read before the Royal Colonial Institute on March 21, 1911 (reported in "United Empire," May, 1911):-- "The extraordinary increase in the revenue of Sierra Leone during the last few years fills one who knows the circumstances of the Colony with amazement. It could never have been achieved had communication by railway into oil-palm belts, formerly quite unworked, not been introduced by the Government. The results have been extraordinary, although as yet hardly more than the fringe of these rich forests has been reached.... Only since the putting down of railways into our Protectorate has the Colony of Sierra Leone made such noticeable or commercial progress. The extension in the volume of imported merchandise, the expansion in its export products, and the greatly increased revenue, stand out to-day as an extraordinary revelation of what railway communication is capable of effecting in places that were not long since un-get-at-able, but which Nature has lavishly filled with a never-failing store of indigenous wealth." Southern Nigeria and Northern Nigeria--the former having an area of 77,000 square miles and a population of 6,500,000 Africans, and the latter an area of 256,400 square miles and an estimated population of 8,000,000--are both of them countries of enormous natural resources which are being steadily developed by railways already built or in course of construction. A writer in "United Empire" for July, 1911, says of South Nigeria: "The trade returns of 1910 have surpassed even the most optimistic expectations, but there is good reason to look forward to further considerable increases in view of railway developments, harbour improvements, road {404}construction, river clearing," etc., while of Northern Nigeria he says: "When we remember that a densely-populated area, twice as large as the United Kingdom, and little more than a decade removed from the horrors of slavery, savage warfare and wholesale human sacrifices, is run by about 300 Europeans on £500,000 a year, and is rapidly arriving at conditions favourable to a great development of commerce"--such conditions including the fact that a trader can now travel from Lagos to Zaria in three days by rail, instead of taking three weeks, as before--"it is, perhaps, a record in the annals of British expansion." As for the civilising effects of railways in West Africa, Mr P. A. Renner, an educated native, said at a Royal Colonial Institute meeting on May 24, 1910: "In the few years I have lived on the coast I have seen an improvement which has so astonished us as to make us almost worship the white man. Previously to the introduction of railways the clan feeling and tribal strifes and feuds were very rife, and the people of one village would scarcely visit those of another. Now all this is changed." When one looks back from the work the railway is doing to-day, in all these different directions, to those very primitive beginnings of which I have told in earlier chapters, the whole story appears to be far more suggestive of romance than of sober fact and reality. From the colliery rail-way along which John Buddie's "waggon-man" led his horse, encouraging it to greater exertion with a handful of hay, to the railway that conveys, not only passengers, but goods, at express speed, that has revolutionised our industrial, our commercial and our social conditions, and is now consolidating our Imperial interests and effecting the civilisation of once barbarian lands, it is, indeed, a far cry; yet the sequence of events can readily be traced, while all has been done within a century and a half of the world's history. {405}CHAPTER XXVIII RAILWAYS A NATIONAL INDUSTRY Having seen the part that railways have played in helping to develop the industrial interests of the country in general, we may now consider (1) to what extent the railways themselves constitute a national industry, and (2) various conditions relating thereto. The latest available statistics as to the number of all classes of railway servants connected with the working of railways, and including, as I understand, both salaried and wages staffs with the exception of heads of departments, are to be found in "Returns of Accidents and Casualties" as reported to the Board of Trade by the railway companies of the United Kingdom for the year ending December 31, 1910 [Cd. 5628]. These figures give a total of 608,750 persons, classified as follows:-- No. of Persons NATURE employed on OF EMPLOYMENT. 31st Dec., 1910. 1. Brakesmen. (_See Goods Guards._) 2. Capstan-men and Capstan-lads: (1) Men 1,421 (2) Boys 140 3. Carmen and Van-guards: (1) Men 18,382 (2) Boys 6,604 4. Carriage-cleaners: (1) Men 6,572 (2) Boys 286 5. Carriage and waggon examiners 3,811 6. Checkers: (1) Men 9,112 (2) Boys 77 7. Chockers, Chain-boys and Slippers: (1) Men 288 (2) Boys 271 8. Clerks: (1) Men 61,361 (2) Boys 9,044 9. Engine-cleaners: (1) Men 13,912 (2) Boys 4,267 10. Engine-drivers & Motormen 27,330 11. Firemen 25,419 12. Gatekeepers 3,543 13. Greasers: (1) Men 943 (2) Boys 753 14. Guards (Goods) and Brakesmen 15,339 15. Guards (Passenger) 8,239 {406} 16. Horse drivers 1,159 17. Inspectors: (1) Permanent-way 1,029 (2) Others 8,603 18. Labourers: (1) Men 54,981 (2) Boys 1,333 19. Lamp-men and lamp-lads: (1) Men 1,655 (2) Boys 418 20. Loaders & Sheeters 4,274 21. Mechanics & Artisans: (1) Men 78,389 (2) Boys 8,294 22. Messengers: (1) Men 1,124 (2) Boys 2,468 23. Number-takers: (1) Men 1,252 (2) Boys 671 24. Permanent-way-Men 66,305 25. Pointsmen 708 26. Policemen 2,130 27. Porters: (1) Men 53,388 (2) Boys 4,501 28. Shunters 13,281 29. Signal Fitters and Telegraph Wiremen 3,905 30. Signalmen 28,653 31. Signal-box lads 1,894 32. Station-masters 8,684 33. Ticket-Collectors and Examiners 3,904 34. Watchmen 1,151 35. Yardsmen 1,299 36. Miscellaneous: (1) Adults 33,620 (2) Boys 2,563 ------- Total 608,750 The foregoing table serves to show the great extent of the railway industry from the point of view of the number of persons directly employed therein, and it also suggests a great variety in the occupations or grades of those employed. In the latter respect, however, the information given fails to offer a complete idea of the actual situation, since over 36,000 men and boys (that is, persons under eighteen years of age) are, as will be seen, classed as "miscellaneous." Whatever the further variety in the particular occupations included under this head, it is certain that the railway service affords employment for a greater range and diversity of talent, skill, ability or effort than probably any other single industry or enterprise on the face of the earth. From the general manager to the railway navvy, and from the chief engineer, working out intricate problems calling for a high degree of skill and scientific knowledge, to the boy who helps in the unpretending but necessary work of cleaning the engines, there is opportunity for almost every possible class or type of labour, whether skilled or unskilled. Over and above the employees, of all grades, concerned in {407}"the working of railways," as here shown, there is a very considerable body of men employed by the railway companies in the building of rolling stock, the making of rails, in the provision of many other requirements, or in the doing of much other work, necessary in the construction, equipment and operation of their lines. The smaller companies are content to buy their rolling stock, and they mostly have repairing shops only; but the larger companies have their own locomotive, carriage and waggon works in which a very considerable volume of employment is afforded to mechanics and labourers who would hardly come under the ordinary designation of "railwaymen" proper; while in this respect the companies concerned may be regarded as not only providers of transport but as, also, in effect, engineers and manufacturers. In order to give the reader some idea of the extent of the employment afforded by these subsidiary branches of what is still actual railway work, I give on the next page a table--for the data of which I am indebted to the companies mentioned--showing the actual or the approximate number of men employed in the leading railway works of the type in question; though it should be added that the figures relate only to the particular works mentioned, and do not include men who may be engaged in engineering or productive work elsewhere on the same company's system. Information as to the extent to which the railway companies of the United Kingdom in general afford employment in the directions here in question will be found in the "Census of Production (1907)" [Cd. 5254], issued in 1910, included in these returns being three tables which are given under the heading "Railways (Construction, Repair and Maintenance of Permanent Way, Plant, Rolling Stock, etc.)," and relate to (1) output; (2) cost of materials used; and (3) number of persons {408}employed. NO. OF PERSONS COMPANY. WORKS. WHERE SITUATED. EMPLOYED. Great Central Locomotive Gorton 2512 " " Carriage and waggon Dukinfield 1741 Great Eastern Loco. and carriage Stratford, E. 4578 " " Waggon Temple Mills, E. 618 Great Northern Loco., carriage Doncaster 6000 and waggon Great Western Loco., carriage Swindon 11,700 and waggon Lancashire and Locomotive Horwich 3850 Yorkshire " " Carriage and waggon Newton Heath 1960 London and Locomotive Crewe 9000 North-Western " " Carriage Wolverton 4000 " " Waggon Earlstown 1800 London and Loco., carriage Eastleigh 3600 South-Western and waggon London, Brighton Loco., carriage Brighton 2035 and South Coast and waggon " " " " " " " Lancing 129 Midland Locomotive Derby 3988 " Carriage and waggon " 4300 North-Eastern Locomotive Gateshead and 3953 Darlington " Carriage and waggon York and Heaton 2932 " Waggon Shildon 1161 South-Eastern Locomotive Ashford, Kent 733 and Chatham " " Carriage and Waggon " " 1211 Caledonian Loco., carriage St. Rollax, Glasgow 2695 and waggon Glasgow and Locomotive Kilmarnock 986 South-Western " " Carriage and waggon Barassie 269 North British Loco., carriage Cowlairs, Glasgow 2297 and waggon Great Northern Loco., carriage Dundalk 576 (Ireland) and waggon Midland Great Loco., carriage Broadstone Station, Western (Ireland) and waggon Dublin 549 {409}It is shown that the total value of all goods manufactured or of the work done by railway companies' employees in construction, maintenance and repair of permanent way, works, buildings, plant, rolling stock, etc. (such values being sums representing only the actual cost of manufacture or work done, and made up of wages, materials and a portion of the establishment charges), amounted for the year 1907 to £34,703,000. The details are grouped under seven different heads, as follows:-- Value. £ I. Engineering Department (New Works, Repairs, and Maintenance):-- Permanent Way 9,346,000 Roads, Bridges, Signals, and Other Works 2,686,000 Station and Buildings 1,749,000 Docks, Harbours, Wharves, and Canals 745,000 ---------- Total--Engineering Department 14,526,000 II. Locomotive Department:-- Engines, Tools, &c. (Construction and Repairs) 7,917,000 Buildings (New Works, Repairs, and Maintenance)--not included under Head I. 175,000 ---------- Total--Locomotive Department 8,092,000 III. Carriages, Waggons, &c.:-- Carriages (Construction and Repairs) 4,454,000 Waggons (Construction and Repairs) 3,701,000 Road Vehicles for Passengers and Goods (Construction and Repairs) 272,000 Buildings (New Works, Repairs, and Maintenance)--not included under Head I. 33,000 ---------- Total--Carriages, Waggons, &c. 8,460,000 IV. Waterworks (Repairs and Maintenance) 155,000 V. Electric Works:-- Buildings and Lines (New Works, Repairs, and Maintenance) 148,000 VI. Steamboats (Repairs) 323,000 VII. Other Productive Departments:-- Lamps and Fittings for Lighting Purposes 150,000 Saddlery and Harness 32,000 Tarpaulins, Waggon Covers, &c. 345,000 Clothing 19,000 Printing 69,000 Hoists and Cranes (if not previously returned under Head I.): Construction and Repairs 303,000 Gas manufactured for Companies' use (not included under other Heads) 286,000 Electricity for Stations, &c. 128,000 Telegraphs and Telephones 481,000 Buildings (not returned under other Heads): New {410} Works, Repairs, and Maintenance 92,000 Provender 308,000 Iron and Steel Manufactures 178,000 Grease 115,000 Trucks, Barrows, &c. 39,000 Other Manufactures and Work Done 454,000 ---------- Total--Other Productive Departments 2,999,000 ---------- Grand Total--Goods Made and Work Done 34,703,000 The cost of the materials used was £17,600,000. Deducting this amount from the total of the foregoing table, there is left a net sum of £17,103,000 to represent wages and establishment charges; though it may fairly be assumed that a good deal even of the £17,600,000 which stands for cost of materials was on account of wages previously paid for the procuring or the preparation of those materials by other than non-railway servants. The total number of persons employed by the railway companies in the manufacture of the goods or in the execution of the work comprised in the statement was 241,526, in the proportion of 232,736 wage-earners and 8790 salaried persons. This figure of 241,526, however, is not necessarily to be added to the 608,750 previously given as the number of railway servants connected with the working of railways. There is nothing to show to what extent the two tables overlap, though overlapping there obviously is, since the first table includes 66,305 permanent-way men, while the second table evidently includes the persons employed on permanent-way work, since the value of that work is put down at £9,346,000. On the other hand, some classes of servants included in the Census of Production returns are excluded from the Railway Accidents return, so that although the exact number of persons directly employed by the railway companies of the United Kingdom cannot be stated, it must be somewhere between 608,750, the total of the one return, and 850,276, the sum of the totals for both returns. All the figures thus far given relate to work done by persons directly employed by the railway companies themselves; but there is, in addition, a vast amount of work done for the {411}railways by independent companies or manufacturers. Taking, for instance, railway-carriage and waggon-building factories in the United Kingdom, providing for the wants of the smaller companies at home or for railway companies in the colonies or abroad, I find from the Census of Production that this particular phase of "the railway industry" (for it must needs be regarded as included therein, notwithstanding the fact that a few of the items relate to tramcars, horse vehicles, etc.), led in 1907 to an output of goods made or of work done valued at £9,609,000. The items are:-- £ Railway carriages for passengers, and parts thereof 1,676,000 Railway waggons, trucks, etc. 5,340,000 Parts and accessories of railway carriages and waggons, not distinguished 129,000 Railway wheels and axles complete 771,000 Tramcars and parts thereof 572,000 Vehicles for goods, horse-drawn 75,000 Machinery and accessories 135,000 Iron and steel manufactures and structural work 174,000 Other products 93,000 ---------- Total value of goods made 8,965,000 Repair work (including repairing contracts) 644,000 ---------- Total value of goods made and work done 9,609,000 The number of persons engaged in these railway-carriage and waggon-building factories when the census in question was taken was 28,193, namely, 26,492 wage-earners, and 1701 salaried staff. When one tries to form some idea of the further volume of employment that results from the supply of the thousand and one necessaries which even the most enterprising and independent of railway companies must still procure from outside manufacturers, makers, growers or providers, it is obvious that the railways, both as an industry in themselves and in their dependence, in endless ramifications, on other industries concerned wholly or in part in supplying railway wants, must provide more or less employment for an army of workers vastly in excess even of the aforesaid 600,000 or 800,000. In many respects the railway service proper--that is to say, the particular branches thereof which deal with actual {412}transport, as distinct from construction and manufacture--offers features that are unique in their way, even if they do not, also, bring about types of workers of a class distinct from those to be found in the majority of other industries. In the latter dependence is being placed more and more on the efficiency of the machinery employed, and the person of greatest importance to them is the machinery-inventor or the machinery-improver. The one who works the machine may require to have a certain degree of skill or dexterity in carrying on the necessary process, but the more nearly he can approach the perfection of his machine and become, as it were, part and parcel of it, the greater will often be his degree of success as a worker. In his case the personal equation hardly counts. He is merely the penny put into the slot in order that the figures may work, and any other man, or any other penny, that fulfilled the requisite conditions might be expected to produce the same results. In railway operation great importance must certainly be attached to the efficiency of the machinery, or of the system; but final success may depend to a very material extent on the efficiency of the unit. Everything that human foresight and railway experience can suggest may be done--both in the provision of complex machinery and in the drawing-up of the most perfect rules and regulations--to ensure safe working; yet the ultimate factor in grave issues on which safety or disaster will depend may be a worker who has either risen to, or has failed to meet, a sudden emergency. In this way, not only does the individual unit count, but the individual unit in railway operation may be the Atlas upon whose shoulders the railway world does, in a sense, rest. A blunder in an ordinary factory or workshop may involve no more than the spoiling of a machine or the waste of so much material. A blunder on the railway may involve a terrible loss of human life. Railway operation is thus calculated to give to the workers engaged in transport a keener sense of responsibility, and to develop therewith a greater individuality, than any other of our national industries. The railway man concerned in operation requires to be capable both of foresight and of initiative. It is said of a certain railway in India that a telegraphic message was one day received at head-quarters from {413}a station down the line to the following effect: "Tiger on platform. Send instructions." In England there is no probability of railway-station platforms being taken possession of by wandering tigers; but if anything equivalent thereto, in the form of a sudden and dangerous emergency not provided for by rules and regulations did arise, the officials on duty would be expected to show alike resource and energy in meeting the circumstances promptly and efficiently, so far as they could, instead of waiting to ask the district superintendent or the superintendent of the line for instructions. Independently of the ever-present dangers of actual operation, to which I shall revert later on, the fact of having to deal with such varied types of humanity as are met with on the platforms of a busy railway station, under conditions ranging between the extremes of amiability and irritability, must also tend to sharpen the wits of the average railway worker, and make a different man of him than he would be if he were to spend his working days in feeding a machine in a factory with bits of tin or leather to be shaped into a particular form. Nor, whether the railway man be concerned in passenger traffic, in goods transport, or in checking claims and accounts in the general offices, must he fail to be ever on the look-out for those who, though they may be the most honest of men in the ordinary affairs of life, never scruple to defraud a railway company when they can. Another factor tending to differentiate the railwayman from the ordinary industrial worker is the sense of discipline--and the consequent subordination of each unit to an official superior--which must needs prevail if a great organisation is to be conducted, not simply with success for the shareholders, but with safety for the public. The maintenance of effective discipline is obviously essential to the safety of railway operation, just as it does, undoubtedly, further help to form the special type of the railway servant. The development of the same type is being fostered to an ever-increasing degree by the special training which junior workers undergo with a view to making them, not only better fitted for the particular post they already occupy, but qualified to succeed to higher positions as opportunities for their advancement may arise. A railway manager is not alone concerned in the working {414}of his line, and in the doings of his staff, day by day. He looks forward to the requirements of the line and to the constitution of the staff at least five or ten years hence, and he wants to make sure that, as the experienced men around him are lost to the service, others will be at hand equally, or even still better, qualified to take their place. He further realises that in an undertaking in which, notwithstanding its magnitude, so much depends on the unit, that unit should be encouraged, and enabled, to attain to the highest practicable stage of efficiency. This tendency is leading to results that are likely to be both far-reaching and wide-spreading. It is a matter not only of giving to railway workers, and especially to those in the clerical and operative departments, a higher degree of technical knowledge, but, also, of rendering them equal to responsibility, of fostering their efficiency still further through their social, physical and material well-being, and of retaining them for the railway service notwithstanding (in the case of the clerical staff) the allurements of traders who look upon well-trained goods clerks, especially, as desirable assistants in the counting-house, and seek to attract them with the offer of a somewhat better wage. The training and the higher education of railway workers have undergone important developments alike in the United Kingdom, in the United States, in Germany, in France, and elsewhere. In the early days of the railway the most eligible person for the position of general manager was thought to be some retired naval or military officer, accustomed to controlling large bodies of men; and the first appointments were based on this principle. But experience soon showed that in undertakings where technical, commercial and economic considerations were all-important, the real recommendations for leading positions were to be found, rather, in proved capacity and in thorough knowledge of railway operation and management. Under the company system, as it prevails in the United Kingdom and the United States, railwaymen, of whatever class, are now generally taken on as boys, are trained for the position to which they are found to be adapted, and rise to higher posts according to capacity _and_ opportunity--for these must needs go together. In this way it is not unusual for the general {415}manager on an English railway to have started as an office boy. Many a head of department to-day entered the service as junior clerk, and worked his way up to his present position; there are station-masters who began as ticket clerks; there are guards who gained their first knowledge of railway work as station porters, while engine-drivers are recruited from firemen, and firemen from engine-cleaners. For details as to what the American railway companies are doing in the matter of "Education for Efficiency in Railroad Service" I must refer the reader to a bulletin written by J. Shirley Eaton and published, under this title, by the United States Bureau of Education. Here I can do no more than reproduce the following extract, giving in brief Mr Eaton's view on the general situation as he finds it on the other side of the Atlantic:-- "Railroads, as a whole, through a representative body such as the American Railway Association, should in a comprehensive way take up the matter of the education of railway employees. As they now have committees devoted to standards of construction, maintenance, and operating practice, they should also have a standing committee, of a character to command confidence, who should sedulously foster a closer relation between the railroad and educational agencies. This could be done by roughly grouping railroad service into classes according to the requirements of service, indicating the efficiency required in a broad way, and studying the curricula and course of experience leading up to such efficiency. Such a body should officially gather all railroad literature and accumulate the nucleus of a railroad museum. In various ways the teaching force of educational agencies, training toward railroad employ, could be drawn into study and discussion of the practical everyday problems of railroad work. The large public policies involved in railroad operation are to-day left to the doctrinaire or accidental publicist, when they should be a subject of study and effective presentation by the highest grade of trained experts which the associate railroads could draw into their service. On the other hand, such a standing committee could stimulate and guide the practice of railroads in their methods of handling and instructing apprentices. Between the instruction and practice in the service on the one side, and the instruction outside {416}the service on the other side, they could foster a closer relation, making them mutually supplementary. In developing approved plans for recruiting the service they would necessarily indicate the lines of a more direct access than now exists from the various schools to apprenticeships in the service, and suggest the best methods by which such apprenticeships would be gradually merged into the full status of regular employ at the point of special fitness." On this side of the Atlantic the railway servants' education movement has assumed two phases--(1) secondary or technical education of junior members of railway staffs in mechanics' institutions or kindred organisations, created or materially supported by the railway companies, and already carried on during a period of, in some instances, over sixty years; and (2) a "higher education" movement, of a much more advanced type, developed since about 1903, and conducted either in special classes held at the railway offices or in connection with a University, a mechanics' institution, a local educational body, or otherwise. It is impossible in the space at my command to give a detailed account of what every railway company in the United Kingdom is doing in these directions. Some typical examples must suffice. To begin with mechanics' institutions and other kindred bodies, these are by no means purely educational in their scheme of operations. They include many social and recreative features which, in effect, should play a no less important part than educational efforts in promoting the general efficiency of the railway worker by helping to give him a sound body, a contented mind, and a cheerful disposition as well as more skilful fingers or a better-cultivated brain. In the United States, judging from what Mr Eaton says on the subject, all such "welfare" work as this, though carefully fostered, is regarded by the railroad companies as a purely business proposition; and he does not attempt to credit them with any higher motive than regard for the almighty dollar. Here, however, while there has been full recognition of the financial value of increased efficiency, the companies have, also, not failed to realise their moral obligations towards their staffs. Hence in seeking to promote the welfare of their employees they have been inspired by motives of humanity, {417}goodwill and honourable feeling in addition to, or even as distinct from, any pecuniary advantage the shareholders themselves might eventually gain therefrom. Crewe Mechanics' Institution dates back to 1844, when the Grand Junction Railway Company provided a library and reading-room, and, also, gave a donation for the purchase of books for the men employed in the railway works then being set up in what was, at that time, a purely agricultural district. In the following year this library and reading-room developed into a Mechanics' Institution, the primary object of the railway company being to afford to the younger members of their staff at Crewe greater facilities for acquiring theory in classes at the Institution to supplement the practical knowledge they were acquiring in the works, though the benefits of the Institution were also to be open to residents of Crewe who were not in the company's employ. The management was vested in a council elected annually by the directors and the members conjointly; and this arrangement has continued ever since. Larger premises were provided in 1846, in which year the Grand Junction combined with the London and Birmingham and Manchester and Birmingham Companies to form the London and North-Western Railway Company. The classes were added to from time to time until they covered the whole range of subjects likely to be of service to the students. Beginning, however, with the 1910-11 session, the art, literary and commercial classes which had been held at the Institute for sixty-four years were transferred to the local education authority, the Institute retaining the scientific and technological subjects. In addition to the ordinary work of the classes, the more recent developments of the "higher education" movement have led to systematic courses of instruction--extending over four-year periods--in (1) pure science, (2) mechanical engineering, (3) electrical engineering and (4) building construction. An Institution diploma is given to each student who completes a course satisfactorily. Visits are, also, paid to engineering works, electrical generating stations, etc. Most of the teachers are engaged at the Crewe works, and the instruction given is thus of the most practical kind. One feature of the Institution is the electrical engineering laboratory, provided by the directors of the London and {418}North-Western Railway, who have further arranged for a number of apprentices to attend at the laboratory one afternoon every week to receive instruction, their wages being paid to them as though they were still on duty in the works. There is, also, a mechanics' shop, with lathes, drilling machines, etc., electrically driven. Since 1855 the directors of the London and North-Western have given an annual donation of £20 for books to be awarded as prizes to successful students employed in their locomotive department and various other prizes and scholarships, including Whitworth scholarships, are also awarded. The Institution is affiliated with the Union of Lancashire and Cheshire Institutes, the City and Guilds of London Institute and the Board of Education, each of which bodies holds examinations and awards prizes and certificates. The library has now over 12,000 volumes. In addition to the reading-room the Institution has coffee, smoking and recreation-rooms. Special attention is being paid to the social side of the Institution's work through the appointment of a "Teachers' Committee for Social and Recreative Development," the particular purpose of this committee being to organise sports and entertainments and to secure the formation of a literary society. At Wolverton there is a Science and Art Institute at which many classes are held, and, although none of these are directly under the management of the London and North-Western Company, as at Crewe, the very successful and numerous courses in engineering subjects and railway-carriage building conducted by the committee of management, working in connection with the Bucks County Council, receive the active support and encouragement of the company's directors. Science, commercial, art and domestic economy classes are also held at the L. & N.-W. Institute at Earlstown, where definite courses of instruction, in groups of subjects, and extending over at least two years, are given. The Great Eastern Railway Mechanics' Institution, established in 1851 at Stratford New Town, has made generous provision for the education, recreation and social life of employees of that company resident in London, East. The Institution comprises a library of 9000 volumes; reading-room; baths (patronised by 10,000 bathers in the course of {419}the year); a large hall for lectures, entertainments, balls or concerts; and a billiard-room, three quoit pitches and a rifle range, the last-mentioned being the gift of the Great Eastern directors. Science, art, technological, commercial and other evening classes to the number of over forty were held in the Institution during the Session of 1910-11. Among the subjects taught were: machine construction, applied mechanics, mathematics, electrical engineering, heat-engines, motor-car engineering, rail-carriage building, drawing, book-keeping, shorthand, physical culture, the mandoline and the violin; while still other classes included an orchestral class and ladies' classes in "first aid" and "home nursing." A series of practical classes, in connection with the same Institution, is also held during working hours in the Great Eastern Railway Company's works at Stratford. Arrangements are further made to extend the usefulness of these classes by visits to engineering works and electrical generating stations. Examinations are conducted in connection with the Board of Education, the City and Guilds of London Institute and the Society of Arts, and prizes, certificates and scholarships are awarded to successful students. The total number of students attending the various classes in 1910-11 was 958. The Institution at the end of 1910 had 1471 members, of whom all but 79 were in the employ of the railway company. In 1903 the directors of the Great Eastern Railway Company gave a further proof of their appreciation of the educational work thus being carried on by granting to employee-students in the locomotive, carriage and waggon department who could fulfil certain conditions leave of absence with full pay for one or more winter sessions of about six months each, in order to afford them increased facilities for taking up the higher branches of technical study. Opportunities are also given to such students for visits to manufactories, works in progress, etc. Of the twenty-one students who had taken advantage of the arrangements in question down to the end of 1910, four had obtained the University degree of B.Sc. (Faculty of Engineering); four had passed the intermediate examination for the same degree; two had obtained Whitworth scholarships, and five had been awarded Whitworth exhibitions. {420}Clubs formed in connection with the Institution include an athletic club, a rifle club, a quoit club, a cricket club and a football club. Concerts, illustrated lectures and various entertainments are given in the Institution during the course of each session. The Midland Railway Institute at Derby, also going back to 1851, had a membership in 1910 of 2621. Classes in French and shorthand are held, but technical subjects are not taught, special facilities in this respect for the company's staff being provided by a large municipal technical college in the town. The Institute has a library of over 17,000 volumes, a well-stocked reading-room, a dining hall, a restaurant (for the salaried staff), a café (for the wages staff), committee rooms and a billiard-room; while the various associations include an engineering club (which holds fortnightly meetings during the winter months for the reading and the discussion of papers, and, also, pays visits to engineering works), a natural history society (which holds indoor meetings and organises Saturday rambles), a dramatic society, a fishing club, a photographic society and a whist and billiard club. A Mechanics' Institute and Technical School opened at Horwich in 1888 was mainly due to a grant of £5000 by the directors of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company and to the gift of the "Samuel Fielden" wing by the widow of that gentleman, for many years a director of the company. In October, 1910, there were 2224 members, of whom all but 53 were in the employ of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company. The leading features of the Institute include a dining hall, reading, magazine and smoke-rooms, a library of about 13,000 volumes, a lecture hall with seating accommodation for 900 persons, the Fielden gymnasium, a miniature rifle-range, class-rooms, and chemical and mechanical laboratories. Science, art, technical, commercial and preparatory classes are conducted at the Institute in connection with the Board of Education, London, and the instruction given includes a continuous course of study designed to enable engineering students to make the best use of classes of direct service to them. The special arrangements thus made comprise a preliminary technical course (extended over two years), a mechanical engineering course (five years) and an electrical {421}engineering course (four years). The classes of the Institute (exclusive of those for ambulance work) were attended in 1910-11 by over 500 students. Examinations are conducted by the Union of Lancashire and Cheshire Institutes, the Royal Society of Arts, the City and Guilds of London Institute, and the Board of Education, and numerous prizes and exhibitions are awarded. Useful service from an educational standpoint is also rendered by the Institution's engineering and scientific club, at whose meetings the papers read and discussed have been on such subjects as "Prevention of Waste in Engineering," "Evaporation and Latent Heat," "Electric Motor-cars and their Repairs," etc. Other affiliated societies or clubs include a photographic society, an ambulance corps and a miniature rifle club (also affiliated to the National Rifle Association and the Society of Miniature Rifle Clubs). Popular lectures are given on six Saturday evenings during the winter session. Other railway institutes are to be found at Swindon (Great Western Railway), at Vauxhall and Eastleigh (London and South-Western Railway), at York and various other centres on the North-Eastern Railway, and elsewhere. I pass on to deal with recent developments of the higher education movement in the railway service as operated (1) by the companies themselves, or (2) by the companies in combination with outside educational authorities. The Great Western Railway Company, on the recommendation of their general manager, Sir James C. Inglis, inaugurated at Paddington station in 1903 a school of railway signalling, designed to offer to the employees of the company a definite means by which they could acquire technical knowledge of railway working and management. The classes are conducted by the company's signalling expert, and the instruction given is based on the object lessons afforded by a model railway junction, furnished with a complete set of signalling appliances on the standard lines as laid down by the Board of Trade requirements. The experiment was so complete a success that similar schools, provided with similar models, have since been set up at various centres throughout the company's system. In the "Great Western Railway Magazine" for November, 1911, it was announced that a revised circular dealing with {422}these classes was then in course of preparation, and that it would include the following clause, setting out an important amendment of the scheme:-- "In order to maintain the value of the certificates awarded and the standard of efficiency of certificate holders, each holder will in future be invited to sit for re-examination before the expiry of five years from the date of his certificate. Endorsement certificates will be awarded to candidates who successfully pass the second and subsequent examinations. This step is felt to be desirable having regard to changing conditions and developments in connection with modern railway working. The date of the last certificate will be taken into account in connection with appointments, promotions, etc." Other classes at Paddington, controlled by the chief goods manager, afford instruction in railway accounts, and enable the clerical staff to gain a better insight into matters connected with the receipt, transport and delivery of goods, and, also, the preparation of accounts and statistics both for the Railway Clearing House and for the company's audit office. Shorthand classes are also held. Annual examinations take place in connection with all these various classes, and the students passing them receive certificates which are naturally taken into account when questions as to advancement arise. On the occasion of the distribution of certificates on January 14, 1910, the chief goods manager, Mr T. H. Rendell, said that facilities for gaining information on railway subjects were far more numerous to-day than they were forty years ago, when he joined the service. "Continuation classes of any kind," he proceeded, "were then conspicuous by their absence, and practically the only classes of this kind were those held at the Birkbeck Institute, which he attended, though he had to pay a substantial fee in respect to each subject taken. Formerly there was no organised method of acquiring knowledge of railway working, and they learnt to do right chiefly by being blamed for doing wrong." The London and North-Western Railway Company established block telegraph signalling classes in 1910, the instruction given being facilitated by a complete working model of a double-line junction, fitted with signals and {423}interlocking; a set of standard block instruments and bells; an electric train staff apparatus for single line working, and various diagrams. The lectures, given in the shareholders' meeting-room at Euston by the company's expert in signalling, were attended by students representing nearly all the different departments on the station, and the results of the examinations subsequently held were so satisfactory that the company have since established similar classes at various other centres, in addition. To ensure the general efficiency of their clerical staff the London and North-Western Company hold (1) an educational examination which a boy must pass before he enters the service; (2) a further examination, at the end of two years, to test the clerk's knowledge of shorthand, railway geography and the railway work on which he has been engaged; and (3) an examination before the clerk's salary is advanced beyond £50 per annum, it being necessary for him to show a thorough knowledge of shorthand, and to write a paper on such subjects as block working, train working or development of traffic. The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company have also established, at their head offices in Manchester, a School for Signalling, the complete equipment with which it is furnished including a full-sized lever frame. Instruction is given free both to the head office staff and to the staff at the stations within a radius of twelve miles. Special lectures, also, have occasionally been given to the staff in the chief engineer's department by that officer's assistants. Another feature of the educational work of the Lancashire and Yorkshire is the sending round to the various locomotive sheds of what is known as an instruction van. A full description of this van will be found in the "Railway Gazette" for January 22, 1909. The Great Central Railway Company, to meet their requirements more particularly at the head offices and in connection with their Continental business, adopted in 1908 a scheme designed to enable them to secure the services of a certain number of young men with higher educational qualifications than were usually possessed by those who previously presented themselves for junior clerkships. The company accordingly offer six positions annually to members of the existing staff, under twenty-five years of age, who display the highest standard of knowledge and ability in a competitive {424}examination, the successful candidates in each year being promoted to an advanced scale of pay, and taking a "higher grade course of training," which, it is thought, should fit them to hold positions of responsibility in the future. This higher grade course consists of periods of work, varying from three to twelve months, in eight of the principal departments, viz. the engineering, locomotive-running, goods, traffic, rolling stock, stores, marine and general manager's departments. The entire course covers a period of four years. During his stay in each of these departments the student is required to pursue a course of reading in the theory of the work in which he is engaged in that particular section; he is given an opportunity to acquire practical knowledge of the work; he must report at the end of every month to the head of the department on the progress he has made, and, on leaving any one section, he is to send an essay to the general manager, showing the knowledge he has gained. Heads of departments or sections are also required to submit confidential reports to the general manager on the ability displayed by the student while under their supervision. The North-Eastern Railway Company have an elaborate educational system which resolves itself into (1) preliminary tests; (2) Part I., and (3) Part II., of a secondary examination. The subjects for examination in Part I. of the secondary examination are--(i) Regulations for train signalling by block telegraph and general rules and regulations; (ii) goods station accounts; (iii) passenger station accounts; (iv) shorthand and typewriting or practical telegraphy. Those in Part II. are--Railway subjects: (i) Railway operating; (ii) railway economics (general); (iii) railway and commercial geography of the United Kingdom; (iv) law relating to the conveyance of goods and passengers by railway. Other subjects: (v) Mathematics; (vi) commercial arithmetic and book-keeping; (vii) methods employed in import and export trade of Great Britain; (viii) French; (ix) German. Instead of examining candidates in Nos. v, vi, vii, viii and ix the company will, as a general rule, accept certificates of proficiency in these subjects of recent date obtained at various specified examinations elsewhere. Each candidate is required to pass in railway operating and three other subjects, one of which must be (ii), (iii) or (iv) of the railway subjects. {425}It will be seen that while the subjects for Part I. cover the practical work at a station, those for Part II. deal more with the principles of railway operation. To assist clerks in preparing for these tests the company have issued several brief textbooks; they have arranged for the delivery of series of lectures; they are utilising railway institutes for the purpose of instruction, and they offer facilities for the circulation of standard works on railway subjects. The company also conduct at various centres railway block-telegraph signalling instruction classes fully provided with the necessary apparatus, examinations being held and certificates awarded. Coming next to what is being done by educational bodies working in connection with railway companies, reference should first be made to the London School of Economics and Political Science. Railway transport is a subject in which the authorities of the school have always taken great interest, and in the session of 1896-7 a course of lectures on railway economics was given at the school by Mr W. M. Acworth. On this occasion the Great Western Railway Company paid the fees for members of their staff to attend the course. When Mr Acworth gave a further series of lectures in 1897-8, the Great Eastern Railway Company also paid the fees for members of their staff who desired to attend. In 1904 seven of the leading railway companies gave a definite guarantee which allowed of a more elaborate system of railway instruction being organised at the school (now one of the schools of the University of London, as reconstructed in 1900). Under the scheme in question a complete course of instruction is given in the "History, Theory and Present Organisation of Transport," leading up, if desired, to the degree of B.Sc. (Econ.), with honours in transport. The course is under the general supervision of a "Committee of Governors on Railway Subjects," consisting of five prominent members of the railway world. The lectures are as follows:-- (A) Courses on railway subjects:-- 1. Railway economics: operating (20 lectures). 2. Railway economics: commercial (20). 3. Economics of railway construction and locomotive operation (20). 4. The law of carriage by railways (20). 5. The consolidation of English railways (4). {426} (B) Courses on subjects useful to railway students:-- 1. Accounting and business methods. Part I. (30). 2. Accounting and business methods. Part II. (30). 3. Methods and applications of statistics (15). 4. Mathematical methods of statistics: elementary (15). Examinations are held, and certificates and medals are awarded to successful students. The School of Economics has, also, in its library, a collection of works on transport questions which it believes to be the best of the kind in existence. It comprises no fewer than 12,000 books, pamphlets, plans, reports, etc., and, as over 5000 of these were presented by Mr Acworth, the name of the "Acworth Collection on Transport" has been given to this unique and invaluable mine of information on everything appertaining to railways and transport at home or abroad. With the University of Manchester the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company (in addition to what they have done in other directions, as already mentioned) made arrangements in 1903 for evening classes on railway economics in the interests of their staff, and these classes have been continued ever since. They are in three-year cycles, and students who go through a complete course have the advantage of receiving, from thoroughly qualified teachers, instruction in the following subjects: Railway geography and railway history of the United Kingdom and of other leading countries; economic analysis of the railway business in relation to other businesses; motor power and rolling stock; goods traffic; passenger traffic; theory of freight rates; accounts; Government in relation to railways; and railway law. The directors of the Lancashire and Yorkshire pay the fees for any members of their clerical staff within a radius of twelve miles of Manchester who desire to attend these classes, and at the close of each session they grant to three of the most promising of the railway students scholarships which are tenable at the University for a further three years, and allow of attendance during the daytime at the classes in political economy, organisation of industry and commerce and accounting. It was in connection with the scheme here in question that {427}Mr H. Marriott, now chief goods manager of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, delivered the excellent course of lectures which, republished by "The Railway Gazette," under the title of "The Fixing of Rates and Fares," has become a recognised textbook on that subject. In 1907 the directors of the same company arranged with the Victoria University, Manchester, for the delivery of a series of University Extension Lectures on railway economics at the Burnley Grammar School, paying the fees of any member of their clerical staff within a radius of twelve miles of Burnley who wished to attend. The subjects chosen were "Organisation of a Railway," "Goods Traffic," "Passenger Traffic" and "Economics," and each subject extended over three lectures. In the autumn of 1911 arrangements were concluded between the North-Eastern Railway Company, the University of Leeds and the Armstrong (Newcastle) University for the giving at those Universities of courses of evening lectures on a variety of railway subjects, the company undertaking to pay half the fee for all members of their staff who might wish to attend. Finally I would mention, in this connection, that, by arrangement between the Midland Railway Company and the University of Sheffield, a course of 40 lectures on economics, to extend over two years, was begun at the Midland Railway Institute, Derby, on October 11, 1911, by Mr Douglas Knopp, the special purpose of the course being to afford to members of the Midland Railway staff an opportunity of studying, free of expense to themselves, the economic features of modern industrial and commercial problems, including transportation. Literary societies and lecture and debating societies, formed by various railway staffs, are another outcome of the aspirations of railwaymen for wider knowledge and increased efficiency. The Great Western Railway Literary Society, established in 1852, is one of the oldest institutions at Paddington. It has a library of 10,000 volumes and various social off-shoots. Another typical institution, the Great Western Railway (London) Lecture and Debating Society, founded in 1904, serves a useful function in affording opportunities for the reading of papers by heads of departments or other {428}qualified persons on subjects likely to be of practical service to members of the staff. It was before this society that the paper on "The Government in Relation to the Railways of the Country," referred to on page 352, was read by Mr F. Potter, chief assistant to the general manager of the Great Western Railway. Apart from the educational, literary or social organisations directly associated with particular railway companies, there are other bodies formed mainly by experts or workers in particular departments of railway construction, maintenance or operation who, whatever their position or attainments, find they are not yet too old to learn, that in the railway world there is always something new, and that advantages are to be gained by themselves from an exchange of views, opinions and experiences, apart from the benefits they may confer on juniors in helping them to advance their knowledge on technical questions. These associations are certainly to be classed among those which promote the "higher education" of the railwayman, though they may also serve various other purposes, social, provident, etc. Among organisations of this type the Permanent Way Institution, established in 1884, and incorporated in 1908, occupies a leading position. It seeks to promote among inspectors of way and works a more thorough knowledge of all technical details connected with the discharge of their duties, and it publishes for the use of members, and persons qualified to be members, "information which may be likely to encourage and exert interchange of thought, especially with a view to create a friendly and sympathetic feeling between members and such other persons in their duties and labours, and for mutual help of members in the discharge of the same." Sections are formed in important centres throughout the United Kingdom, and the reading and discussion at the meetings of the sections of short practical papers by members, dealing mainly with matters appertaining to their employment, is regarded by the Institution as an important phase of its system of technical education. The sections are kept well supplied with literature, reports, and communications affording good material for discussion at their meetings, "and much benefit," says a prospectus issued by the Institution, "has been derived for the members from this interchange of ideas {429}with men in similar capacities in other parts of the world, whereas the former isolation and rare opportunities for intercourse frequently caused narrow-mindedness, prejudice, reservation of manner, and the natural loss of much useful information and experience to both employer and employed." Summer meetings, held in a centre where there are features of special interest to railwaymen, are another valuable means for the exchange of ideas between members of the Institution, for enabling them to gain fresh experiences, and for promoting social intercourse. These summer meetings have developed into "conventions" lasting a week each, and they are spoken of as having been "of untold benefit to those participating in them." The Institution has, also, various beneficent funds. The Association of Railway Locomotive Engineers of Great Britain and Ireland is a body whose members have, for a number of years, held two meetings annually--in London in winter, and in the country in summer--for the discussion of matters of interest to railway engineers and to railway companies generally. The Institution of Signal Engineers (Incorporated) includes in its objects "the advancement of the science and practice of signalling by discussion, enquiry, research, experiment and other means; the diffusion of knowledge regarding signalling by means of lectures, publications, the exchange of information and otherwise; and the improvement of the status of the signalling profession". Only railway signal or telegraph engineers, superintendents in charge of railway signalling, telegraph or kindred work, and qualified engineers in Government service are eligible for full membership; but other officers engaged in technical work in engineering departments are eligible for associate membership, while in the autumn of 1911 the Institution was considering a scheme for student membership and the offering of annual prizes to members of the student class for papers and essays on technical subjects. The Association of Railway Companies' Signal Superintendents and Signal Engineers was formed in 1891 with the object of affording facilities for the discussion of signalling questions by the chiefs of signalling departments on the railways of the United Kingdom. Two meetings are held each year at the Railway Clearing House. A very useful purpose in developing the higher education, {430}not alone of railway workers but of the ever-widening circle of those who are interested in railway work, is being served by the Railway Club, which is established at 92, Victoria Street, London, S.W., and has, also, various provincial centres, with district representatives in Birmingham, Huddersfield, Lancaster, Glasgow and Newhaven. Founded in 1899, the club is designed to afford opportunities for bringing together all who are concerned in railway questions in general; though some of the members specialise in locomotive problems, others in traffic problems, and so on. At the London head-quarters there is a club room well stocked with railway papers, and here, also, the members can find a comprehensive library. In the same building monthly meetings are held for the reading and discussion of papers. Some of these are of a technical character, appealing only to experts; but subjects of more general interest are also dealt with, the programme for the 1910-11 session including papers by the Rev. W. J. Scott (president) on "Railway History: 1860-80," and by Mr E. J. Miller (hon. secretary) on "Belgian State Railways." Meetings are also held in the provincial centres, and visits are paid both there and in London to railway works, running sheds and other places of interest. The utility of the Club is greatly enhanced by the publication of its excellent little organ, "The Railway Club Journal." From the details here given it will be seen, not only that the movement for increasing the efficiency of the railway worker, by furthering his training in railway and cognate subjects, has undergone great and varied expansion, but that railway operation and management are coming more and more to be regarded as a science, and one that, with its many problems and complexities, calls for prolonged study, effort and experience on the part of those who would attain to perfection, or even to exceptional knowledge and skill, therein. Nor should the said details fail to excite a more sympathetic feeling on the part of the trading and travelling public towards railway workers who find they can attain to greater proficiency, and acquit themselves better of their responsibilities to the public, as well as to their company, by undergoing as much of this training, or by securing as much of this advancement in the technicalities of railway work, as their powers may warrant or their opportunities allow. {431}One may further anticipate that, as the various tendencies here in question are developed, there will, not only inside but outside the service, be a greater disposition to adopt the view of the American authority already quoted in his suggestion that "the large public policies involved in railroad operation are to-day left to the doctrinaire or accidental publicist when they should be the subject of study and effective presentation by the highest grade of trained experts which the associate railroads could draw into their service." When this latter result is brought about, whether through the higher education movement or otherwise, not only will the railway service be rendered still more efficient, and not only will even greater advantages be conferred on the country, but the position of the railway interests themselves should be strengthened on questions of State control in regard either to the principles of railway policy or to the details of railway operation. Recreation and physical culture, as part of the general scheme which aims at promoting the efficiency and the personal well-being of railwaymen, are fostered in the railway world by the athletic clubs formed by the staffs of the various companies, with more or less official countenance and support, and whether in connection with mechanics' institutes or otherwise. These clubs favour, not only athletics proper but cricket, football, tennis, hockey, bowls, harriers, swimming, angling, etc. They are supplemented by a London Railways Athletic Association, which brings together the members of the different clubs in friendly rivalry, while the various gatherings and competitions have an excellent result--apart from the other advantages they confer--in fostering that social life of the railway service which tends so much to its widespread popularity. Mention should, also, be made of the musical societies, the horticultural societies, the rifle clubs, the chess clubs and other organisations. The staff or society dinners, the outings, the smoking concerts and the presentations to retiring colleagues help still further to promote feelings of comradeship, mutual sympathy and goodwill not always to be found to anything like the same extent in commercial undertakings of other types. Such sentiments as these continue to be fostered, indeed, after the service has been left, the Retired Railway Officers' Society having been formed, {432}in 1901, "for the purpose of bringing together those who in past years have held executive positions in the railway service of Great Britain, the Colonies or India, and for the renewal and keeping up of former friendships on the part of gentlemen once associated, in official relations, either on the same or on different railways." The objects of the society are exclusively social and friendly. Sobriety being a virtue especially desirable on the part of those to whom so vast a number of the British public daily entrust their lives or limbs, temperance is encouraged in the railway service by the formation of Railway Temperance Unions for all the leading lines. Each union has numerous branches, and the various unions constitute, in turn, a federation known as the United Kingdom Railway Temperance Union. This movement receives much practical encouragement from railway directors and chief officers, and an active propaganda is carried on. In some places the local Temperance Union provides a Temperance Institute where the men employed at a station or in a goods yard can take their meals in comfort or spend their leisure time. The present membership (1911) of the Temperance Union in connection with the London and North-Western Railway Company is 22,172, spread over 19 districts. The members of the same union in 1905 numbered only 4777. Thrift in the railway service is facilitated by means of savings banks. One of these, the Great Western Railway Savings Bank, states in its nineteenth annual report that in 1910 it had 6385 depositors, who paid in a total of £109,166, drew out £69,828 and had £495,504 to their credit at the end of the year. The bank pays 3½ per cent on deposits up to £1000. Nor are still higher things overlooked. For over forty years it has been customary for workers in the Midland Railway locomotive department at Derby to meet in one of their mess-rooms at breakfast-time, and, while having their meal, take part in a short religious service conducted by one of their number, a harmonium being provided as an accompaniment to the singing. On the day preceding the Christmas holidays the service is devoted entirely to Christmas carols or appropriate anthems. A distinct advantage offered by the railway service is that, {433}subject to the ability and good conduct of the individual, employment once obtained with a railway company offers a tolerable assurance of permanent and regular work. Railway companies do not run the same risk of becoming bankrupt, and of having to wind up their business, that ordinary commercial companies do, and though slackness of work may, indeed, lead to unavoidable reductions of staff, or to reduced time, in the locomotive and carriage works, the full staff will be required on the railway itself to keep it going, whatever the amount of traffic. Should the traffic fall off, and become non-remunerative, it is the shareholders who will suffer rather than the railway servants engaged in the running of trains. This fact is of the greater importance because there may be in the railway service certain actual disadvantages, thus referred to in the "Report of the Departmental Committee on Railway Agreements and Amalgamations," issued in May, 1911:-- "The contention of the railway servants as to the specialisation of their industry and the peculiar difficulty they find in changing their employment has a substantial foundation as regards many classes of railway servants. Men leaving one railway can seldom rely upon obtaining employment on another, except in the lower grades, as the companies usually have their own men waiting promotion. The value of a railway servant often consists largely in a special skill which is of no worth in other employments." On the other hand, the Departmental Committee recognise that "one of the main inducements to compete for admission to the railway services is the strong presumption of the permanence of employment during good behaviour"; and they further say that "while it would seem that the rates of pay to all ranks in the railway service do not compare unfavourably with those given in other commercial and industrial occupations, the railway companies undoubtedly profit in the quality of their services by the large range of selection they enjoy owing to the competition for situations under them." On the subject of railwaymen's wages, various considerations arise which tend to make any general assertions, or even carefully prepared "averages" in respect thereto, of little real value. {434}The range of employment, from unskilled to highly skilled, is so great in the railway world that to lump together all the different grades, and then strike a so-called "average," which gives too high a figure for one large body of men and too low a figure for another, must needs be far from satisfactory. General averages are further reduced by the inclusion therein of a large number of boys. The table given on pages 405-6 shows that the total number of railway servants employed on December 31, 1910, was 608,750; but in this total there are no fewer than 43,584 boys (including signal-box lads), and their wages, as boys, must needs reduce the average of the wages paid to the adults. If, for example, we add together the six shillings a week paid to a boy of fourteen or fifteen employed as engine-cleaner and the thirty shillings a week paid to a certain grade of signalmen, we get an "average" of eighteen shillings a week for the two; but no one could argue that this result would give a real idea of actual conditions. Then the average for the United Kingdom is below the average for England and Wales because of the inclusion in the former of the wages paid in Ireland, where the scale is distinctly lower than is the case of England and Wales; whilst the inclusion in the figures for England and Wales of the wages for numerous small and none too prosperous lines gives a general average below what would be the actual average on the lines of the leading English companies. Subject to these considerations, I reproduce from the Board of Trade "Report on Changes in Rates and Wages and Hours of Labour in the United Kingdom, in 1910," two tables which give the average weekly earnings of railwaymen in (1) the United Kingdom, and (2) various parts of the United Kingdom separately. The figures are based on information supplied by twenty-seven railway companies, employing over 90 per cent of the total number of railway servants in the United Kingdom; they relate to workpeople employed in the coaching, goods, locomotive and engineers' departments, exclusive of clerical staff and salaried officers; and they refer to actual earnings (including overtime), and not simply to rates of wages. The tables are as follows:-- I. UNITED KINGDOM {435} Period to which the figures relate. Number Amount paid in Average First week in employed in wages in the weekly earnings December:-- selected week. selected week. per head. £ s. d. 1901 440,557 551,114 25 0¼ 1902 448,429 559,179 24 11¼ 1903 448,321 557,819 24 10½ 1904 445,577 557,820 25 0½ 1905 449,251 568,338 25 3½ 1906 457,942 582,207 25 5¼ 1907 478,690 618,304 25 10 1908 459,120 574,059 25 0 1909 459,444 582,782 25 4½ 1910 463,019 596,342 25 9 II. ENGLAND AND WALES, SCOTLAND AND IRELAND ENGLAND AND WALES. SCOTLAND. IRELAND. Average Average Average weekly weekly weekly Number earnings Number earnings Number earnings Year. Employed. per Head. Employed. per Head. Employed. per Head. s. d. s. d. s. d. 1901 378,121 25 6¼ 43,710 23 1½ 18,726 19 5 1902 383,883 25 5¼ 45,240 23 1¼ 19,306 19 3¼ 1903 384,465 25 4½ 44,922 22 11½ 18,934 19 5 1904 380,610 25 7 45,216 23 1¼ 19,751 19 1½ 1905 384,321 25 10¼ 45,399 23 3¾ 19,531 19 2¾ 1906 391,661 25 11½ 46,407 23 4¼ 19,874 19 9½ 1907 412,804 26 4¾ 46,416 23 5½ 19,470 19 8¼ 1908 395,271 25 6¼ 44,809 22 8½ 19,040 19 8¼ 1909 394,928 25 10½ 45,147 23 3¾ 19,369 19 11 1910 397,715 26 3½ 46,105 23 3 19,199 20 7 Whatever the precise amount of the remuneration received, allowance must be made for various subsidiary advantages of the railway service. Free uniforms or clothes are given to various grades, the recipients thereof on one of the leading lines including station-masters, district police and traffic inspectors, platform inspectors, yard inspectors, passenger guards, ticket collectors, foremen porters and foremen parcel porters, foremen shunters, brakesmen, shunters, signalmen, parcel porters, vanmen and {436}boys, porters, sergeants and policemen, telegraph messengers, sleeping-car attendants and corridor attendants. Passenger guards, for example, get a summer coat and vest every two years, winter coat and vest every two years, summer trousers every year, winter trousers every year, topcoat every three years, mackintosh every four years (main line) or every three years (local line), belt (main line) when required, cap every year, and two neckties every year. The amount which a man saves by the supply of this free clothing naturally adds proportionately to the actual value of his position. On many of the lines the companies have provided for their workers a considerable amount of cottage accommodation, with gardens and allotments, charging rentals which yield little more than a nominal return on the capital expenditure. The Glasgow and South-Western Railway Company have organised, at Cockerhill, a model village for the accommodation of the principal section of the locomotive staff employed in the engine-sheds there. Purchase of land and construction of buildings involved the company in an expenditure of £70,000. To-day the village has a total population of 700 persons. Each tenant gets three large rooms and a kitchen for a rental of £13 a year, _plus_ local rates, which amount to about 17s. a year. Attached to every house is a plot of ground where the tenant can grow his own vegetables, or cultivate his favourite flowers. The centre of social life in the village is the Railway Institute, a commodious building erected by the company, and still maintained to a certain extent at their cost. Administration of the affairs of this Institute is entrusted to a General Committee of thirty-two of the tenants, elected annually, and having different subcommittees, each of which takes charge of a particular phase of the work. The Institute has a hall (reserved on Sundays for religious meetings of a strictly non-sectarian character), reading and recreation-rooms, library and baths. The village also has a fire brigade, a children's savings bank, and a committee for the organisation of ambulance work. A rent club, the subscription to which is one penny a week, ensures for its members the continued payment of their rent in the event of their being absent from work on account of sickness. Still another advantage offered to the tenants is {437}that of a season ticket between Cockerhill and Glasgow for themselves or for members of their household at the nominal charge of five shillings a year. One of the latest developments in connection with the housing of railway companies' workers has been on the Great Eastern Railway, the chairman of the company, Lord Claud Hamilton, saying at the half-yearly meeting on July 28, 1911:-- "We have been asked by a portion of our staff to do something for them in respect of cottages, for although in some districts they can obtain adequate lodging, in other districts it is exceedingly difficult to obtain, at a reasonable rent, the decent accommodation which they require. Now that our prospects are improving, we have settled as from the 1st of July to spend £10,000 a year on cottages for our workmen. It is not a large sum, but it is as much as we can afford, and I must tell you we can only expect to get, at the most, 2½ per cent interest on that money. But although that is a low rate of interest, and not remunerative, the extra comfort, satisfaction and happiness which these men and their families will derive from healthy and adequate accommodation repays us, I am sure, indirectly, over and over again in their more willing service to their employers." Railwaymen have, again, exceptional opportunities for getting cheap holidays. In addition to the regular holidays given to members of the salaried staff, most of the grades of the wages staff who have a certain period of service to their credit get from three to six days' holiday a year, with pay. In some cases the railway company provide special trains enabling their employees in some railway colony--Swindon, for example--to take a holiday _en masse_, the said colony becoming, temporarily, a deserted village. The free passes given to members of the staff are sometimes available for travel over the lines of other companies as well. The concession, also, to railway servants of what are known as "privilege tickets" enables them and their families to travel at exceptionally low rates. These tickets are granted so freely that the number issued by one company alone during the course of a single year has been nearly 800,000. Provision for the railwayman's old age is assured by {438}superannuation funds in the case of the salaried staff and by pension funds in the case of the wages staff. The whole question in regard to the standing of these funds was investigated by a Departmental Committee which was appointed by the Board of Trade in 1908, and presented its report [Cd. 5349] in 1910. It was the position, more especially, of the superannuation funds that gave rise to the uneasiness leading up to the appointment of this Committee. The earliest of the said funds was started by the London and North-Western Railway Company in 1853, and other companies followed the example thus set, the Committee reporting on, altogether, fifteen superannuation funds brought to their notice. At first no doubt was felt as to the stability of the funds; but when the railway companies, with a view to maintaining the efficiency of the service, enforced the retirement of officers at the age of sixty-five, or in some cases at the otherwise optional age of sixty, heavier demands were made on the funds at the same time that the benefits were being increased. Actuarial investigations disclosed substantial deficiencies, and some of the companies sought to cover these by abandoning actuarial valuations altogether and guaranteeing payment of claims out of their revenue, this being in addition to the ordinary contributions which, in one form or another, all the companies were making to the funds. A certain want of uniformity followed, and the Committee now made various recommendations in regard to the future working both of the fifteen superannuation funds and of seventeen pension funds applying to the wages staff. There is no need here to enter into the details of the actual or proposed arrangements. Suffice it, therefore, to point to the existence of these funds, with their accumulated reserves of close on £11,000,000, as designed to assure the future of nearly 300,000 railwaymen, over and above whatever salary or wage they may receive while in active employment. The Railway Guards' Universal Friendly Society was established in 1849 to encourage thrift and to provide, among other benefits, permanent pay for life to disabled members and annuities for the widows and orphans of deceased members. The total amount expended in relief down to the end of 1910 {439}was over £358,000, and there were then 250 members and widows in receipt of life allowances amounting to £4758 per annum. Further provision either for railwaymen themselves in times of distress or for their widows and orphans is made through various organisations which are supported by the contributions alike of railway servants, of the railway companies and of the general public. At the head of these excellent bodies stands the Railway Benevolent Institution, which attained its jubilee in 1908. The objects in view, as summarised by Lord Claud Hamilton at the fifty-third annual dinner on May 4, 1911, are: (1) To grant permanent annuities to railway officers and servants in distressed circumstances; (2) to grant permanent pensions to widows in similar circumstances; (3) to educate and maintain orphan children between six and fifteen years of age, and then give them a start in life; (4) to give by gratuities and by contingent annuities temporary assistance until permanent relief can be secured from the funds of the Institution; (5) to grant gratuities from the casualty fund to injured servants and to widows of deceased servants; (6) to enable officers and servants to insure their lives in the best approved companies on special terms; and (7) to relieve distress whether arising among subscribers or non-subscribers. No fewer than 157,000 railwaymen of all classes are subscribers in one form or another to the funds of the Institution, which, apart from amounts given as gratuities, conferred its benefits in 1910 on 2,672 annuitants and children, the total outgoings for the year under all heads being £55,396. To particularise only one phase of this varied activity, the number of children--mainly orphans of railwaymen killed in the service--who have been educated in the great Railway Orphanage at Derby (a branch of the Institution) has been over 2000. Another leading railway charity, the United Kingdom Railway Officers and Servants' Association, founded in 1861 to grant assistance in time of distress and necessity to railway officers and servants, their widows and orphans, held its jubilee festival on April 28, 1911, when Viscount Castlereagh, M.P., who presided, announced that since the establishment of the Association the relief afforded had been as follows:-- £ s. d. {440} Annuitants 51,233 13 0 Sickness 100,411 7 6 Widows and members, at death 58,956 0 0 Orphans 4,595 3 0 Special grants 9,390 11 0 Total 224,586 14 6 Of great advantage, also, to railway workers is the Railwaymen's Convalescent Home, opened at Herne Bay, Kent, in 1901, with its recent extension in the form of a similar home at Leasome Castle, Wallasey, Cheshire, to which, by permission of King George, has been given the title of "The King Edward VII Memorial Convalescent Home for Railwaymen." The London and South-Western Railway Servants' Orphanage was originally opened at Clapham, in 1886, for children whose fathers, at the time of their death, were in the employ of the railway company. Since July, 1909, it has been located in a commodious range of buildings erected at Woking, Surrey, for the purpose. From the time the orphanage was first opened over 400 children have been admitted to its benefits. Thanks to a generous benefaction left by the late Mr F. W. Webb, locomotive superintendent of the London and North-Western Railway Company, the railway colony at Crewe is acquiring an orphanage which will accommodate twenty girls and twenty boys, the construction cost being estimated at about £16,000, while a further sum of £35,000 will be available for the purposes of the endowment of what has, appropriately, been named "the Webb Orphanage." In appreciation of the value of the services rendered by Mr Webb to the company, and as an indication of their sympathy with the institution, the directors of the London and North-Western Railway Company have subscribed £1000 towards the funds of the orphanage. In addition to such support as they may render, directly or indirectly, to the recognised railway beneficent organisations, the railway companies of the United Kingdom contribute to various other institutions and associations, of various character, not directly controlled by them, and not for the exclusive benefit of their servants. Such contributions are reported to the Board of Trade, which issues an annual {441}return on the subject. Among those for 1910 were the following:-- £ s. d. Hospitals, infirmaries and dispensaries 7,832 10 6 Convalescent homes and nursing associations 440 17 0 Ambulance, medical, surgical aid and truss societies 308 1 0 Benevolent and friendly societies, orphan asylums, etc. 790 19 0 Mechanics', seamen's and fishermen's institutes 1,278 14 0 Church funds 1,365 17 8 Missions 340 6 6 Schools and technical institutes 1,137 18 0 These contributions are made by the railway companies not so much, presumably, from motives of ordinary philanthropy, but in return, more or less, for benefits derived, or that might be derived, from the institutions in question by members of their staffs. Adding these further subsidiary advantages to the educational, social and recreative facilities offered by the institutes, societies and clubs already spoken of, it will be seen that there is more to be taken into account in regard to the railway service in general than the question of wages alone, and especially so when the statements concerning wages are based on "averages." Having seen what are the advantages of the railway service, we may pass on to consider some of its possible disadvantages. A return issued by the Board of Trade in August, 1911, gives the latest available information as to the once much-discussed question of railway servants' hours of labour. The special interest in this subject lies, of course, in the fact that if men engaged in the movement of trains work excessive hours the risk of accident is increased; and the Board of Trade are authorised, under the Act of 1889, to call for particulars of the hours of labour of railway servants. At one time the returns published were presented in such a way as to make the position appear much worse than really was the case, even after allowing for unavoidable delays from fog, snowstorms, floods, fluctuations in traffic, and breakdowns or other unforeseen mishaps which have been, and must needs be, contributory causes of prolonged hours of duty. Thus, if an engine-driver, having taken a train to some distant station, returned home comfortably seated in a third-class carriage, he counted in the official returns as being on duty, {442}as though he were still undergoing the strain of driving the engine instead of being occupied, perhaps, in smoking his pipe, or having a doze. Following on protests by the railway companies, the returns are now published in a form less open to criticism, while the agitation raised has also led the companies to make further efforts to prevent the occurrence of excessive hours of labour as far as possible. The return for May, 1911, dealing with 109,041 servants in certain grades (guards, brakesmen, enginemen, signalmen, examiners), who worked during that month a total of 2,740,693 days, shows that the number of days on which the men were on duty for periods exceeding twelve hours by one hour and upwards amounted to 14,813, or only .54 per cent of the total days worked. One of the greatest drawbacks in the railway service lies in the risks of accident. The extent of these risks is shown by the General Report of the Board of Trade on Accidents on Railways of the United Kingdom during 1910. From this I find that the number of railway servants killed in "train accidents" in 1910 was nine, and the number injured was 113. Of these, eight were killed and 109 were injured in the work of running trains; and the proportions of these last-mentioned figures to the total number (76,327) of engine-drivers, firemen and guards employed on December 31, 1910, were: killed, one in 9541; injured, one in 700. Considering that the number of miles run by trains on the railways of the United Kingdom in 1910 was 423,221,000, the figures given as to injuries or fatalities to railway servants through actual train accidents do not constitute a bad record. They suggest, rather, both the extreme care with which the railway servants concerned discharge their duty and the effectiveness of the precautions taken in the interests of themselves as well as of the travelling public. Excluding train accidents, the numbers of accidents to railway servants due to the "movement of trains and railway vehicles" in the same year were: killed, 368; injured 4587. The number of railway servants exposed to danger from the movement of railway vehicles being 331,296, the proportion of accidents to number employed was: killed, one in 900; injured, one in 72. When these last-mentioned figures in regard to injured are {443}compared with the averages for earlier years, there appears to be a substantial increase; but a "Note" thereon is given in the official returns to the following effect: "An order of the Board of Trade on the 21st December, 1906, required non-fatal accidents to be reported whenever they caused absence from ordinary work for a whole day (instead of absence preventing five hours' work on any of the next three days). This alteration caused a large apparent increase in the number of non-fatal accidents in 1907 and later years." The details in regard to the killed afford, therefore, safer guidance if one wishes to see whether the various appliances, precautions and regulations adopted by the railway companies to ensure the greater safety of those of their servants who are exposed to danger from the movement of railway vehicles are having the desired effect. Turning to Table X in the official returns, I extract therefrom the following figures:-- PROPORTION OF KILLED YEAR. TO NUMBERS EMPLOYED. 1885-1894 (average) 1 in 501 1895-1904 " 1 " 665 1905-1909 " 1 " 879 1910 1 " 900 Here, therefore, we have distinct evidence of improvement in the element of risk in railway operation. A third group of accidents to which railway servants are liable relates to those that arise in the handling of goods, in attending to engines at rest, or in other ways not connected with the movement of trains or of railway vehicles. Here the figures for 1910 are: Killed, 36; injured, 20,305. "The number of injured is large," says the return, "but the proportion of serious injuries is smaller than it is in the case of railway accidents proper, and it will be seen that the proportion of killed to injured is relatively low." The proportion of killed, in this third group, to the average number of railway servants exposed to risk was one in 12,546, and the proportion of injured was one in 22. A considerable number of accidents in railway goods sheds and warehouses which at one time were included in the returns of accidents in factories are now included in the returns of railway accidents. Liability to accident, whether grave or slight, lends additional importance to the encouragement given to {444}railwaymen by their companies to acquire a knowledge of "first aid" and general ambulance work. Ambulance corps or classes are now not only general but highly popular throughout the railway system. Instruction is given by qualified teachers; certificates, vouchers, medallions or labels are presented to those who pass the examinations held, and not only do competitions for money or other prizes take place between teams representing the various districts of a single company's system, but an Inter-Railway Challenge Shield is annually competed for by the picked experts of the various companies, the winning of this shield being regarded as conferring a great honour on those who achieve the victory for their company. I have here sought to give a comprehensive survey of the railway service, as a national industry, alike from its economic and from its human side, conveying some idea--even if wholly inadequate--of its extent and widespread ramifications, and showing the various influences, educational, social and otherwise, that are eminently calculated both to create a "railway type" and to give to the service characteristics that distinguish it in many respects from any other of our national industries. While not being, perhaps, actually an ideal industry--and there are very few workers, of any rank, who would be prepared to admit that their occupation in life was absolutely free from drawbacks--the railway service offers, as we have seen, many advantages. It is, in fact, really a "service," and not simply a means of employment. One might regard it as the equivalent of a civil service operated on commercial lines. Workers in all of the many classes or grades "enter the service," as they are accustomed to say, when they are young, and they generally do so with the idea of spending their lives in it, and retiring on superannuation allowance or a pension in their old age. Railway managers, too, want workers who come to stay. In the United States women typists are being gradually got rid of on the railway because they so often retire at the end of two or three years and get married, the experience of office work they have gained in that time being thus lost to the company. Consequently American railway managers are now showing a preference for male workers who will regard {445}the service in the light of a future career rather than in that of a temporary employment. That the railway service is a popular one is shown by two facts: (1) the invariably large surplus of candidates over available vacancies; and (2) the long-service records of many of the railway workers. In regard to the former of these points, it will suffice to say that the chairman of one of the leading English railway companies has stated that in 1906 the number of applicants for appointments on the staff of his company alone in excess of the number for whom places could be found was over 19,000. As regards long service, instances of from forty to fifty years' work for one and the same railway company are so common that they hardly call even for passing mention. More exceptional was the case of the worker on the Great Western whose father had served the company for forty-one years, and who himself retired at the end of forty-two years, leaving a son who had then been with the company twenty-three years--a total of 106 years for one family, during three generations. In another instance four generations employed successively on the Great Western showed a total of 147 years; but even this record is surpassed by that of a Cardiff family. The founder of the dynasty joined the Great Western in 1840. He remained with the company forty-two years, and left with them two sons, of whom one served forty-five years, and the other forty-two years. Each of these two sons had five boys, and all ten followed the example of fathers and grandfather in becoming servants of the same company, keeping their positions for periods ranging from six to thirty years. The fourth generation is represented by four members, one of whom has already been with the company for over ten years. The total service of those members of the family who were still working on the Great Western a year or two ago was 147 years, and the aggregate for the four generations was then over 800 years. Each of the workers concerned has been employed in the locomotive department. Notwithstanding the general popularity of the railway service, agitations and strikes have occurred from time to time; though down to 1907 most of these arose in connection {446}with questions of conditions of labour in regard to particular lines of railway. In 1907 an agitation was promoted by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants in favour of what was called a "National All-Grades Programme" of demands for higher wages, reduced hours, etc.; and there was a further demand that the negotiations in respect thereto should be carried on through the officers of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. The companies declined to grant the concessions asked for in the "Programme," alleging that to do so would involve them in a wholly impracticable increase in their working expenses. It was subsequently stated that acceptance of the "Programme" would have increased the expenditure of the companies by between £6,000,000 and £7,000,000 per annum; that the cost to the London and North-Western Railway Company alone would have exceeded £500,000 per annum, equal to 1¼ per cent of the company's dividend; that on the London and South-Western it would have been equal to a two per cent dividend on the ordinary stock; and so on with other companies in like proportion. In the result the demand for the concession of the "Programme" became subordinate to the demand of the A.S.R.S. for "recognition"; but this, again, was refused by the railway companies on the ground, not alone that the membership of the society included only a minority of the men qualified to join but, also, and more especially, because "recognition," involving the carrying on of negotiations through the union leaders, would, it was argued, lower the standard of discipline in a service where considerations of the public interests, and especially of the public safety, made it a matter of paramount importance that a high standard of discipline should be maintained. Threats of a general railway strike caused much alarm, and led the Government to intervene. The negotiations carried on at the Board of Trade were based mainly on the possibility of arranging some system of conciliation by means of which further disputes would be avoided; and eventually a four-fold scheme was arranged, comprising, in the case of each company accepting it, (1) consideration of applications by officers of the department concerned; (2) sectional {447}conciliation boards; (3) a central conciliation board, and (4) the eventual calling in of an arbitrator if the matters in dispute should still be undecided. Forty-six companies adopted the scheme. The conciliation boards were elected; agreements were in many instances arranged as the result of their proceedings; and, where no settlement could be arrived at by the boards, arbitration was resorted to. Dissatisfaction with the course of procedure and its results was, however, expressed from time to time more especially by members and officers of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants; and such dissatisfaction became acute during the prevalence of the "labour unrest" which spread throughout the country in the summer and early autumn of 1911, affecting, more especially, the various transport services. Joint action was now taken by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, the General Railway Workers' Union and the United Pointsmen and Signalmen's Society. At the outset attempts had been made to show that the railwaymen had some genuine grievances against the conciliation boards on account of their "slowness," etc.; but it soon became apparent that the trouble was mainly based on fresh demands for "recognition." On Tuesday, August 15, representatives of the four societies issued from Liverpool an ultimatum in which they offered the railway companies "twenty-four hours to decide whether they were prepared to meet immediately members of those societies to negotiate the basis of settlement of the matters in dispute"; and they added: "In the event of this offer being refused, there will be no alternative than to respond to the demands now being made for a national railway stoppage." The railway companies expressed their firm resolve to adhere to the principle of conciliation, and on the following Thursday the "signal" was given for a general railway strike. Only about one-third of the railway workers responded, and, though great and very grave inconvenience and loss were caused in some parts of the country, there was (owing, in part, to the calling out by the Government of a large body of troops to protect the railway operations) no such "paralysis" of the railway traffic in general as had been threatened, while {448}public opinion was distinctly unsympathetic towards the strikers. Meanwhile active steps had been taken by the Government to effect a settlement, and late on the Saturday night (August 19) an agreement was drawn up and signed by the parties to the negotiations. Under this agreement the men were to return to work forthwith; pending questions were to be referred to the conciliation boards, while the Government undertook to appoint, at once, a Royal Commission to investigate the working of the conciliation and arbitration scheme, and report what changes, if any, were desirable with a view to the prompt and satisfactory settlement of differences. It was further announced that the Government had given an assurance to the railway companies that they would propose to Parliament in the Session of 1912 legislation providing that an increase in the cost of labour due to the improvement of conditions of the staff would be a valid justification for a reasonable general increase of charges within the legal _maxima_, if challenged, under the Act of 1894. Two statements, giving the result of the negotiations, were issued by the Board of Trade on the night of August 19. In one of these it was announced that Mr Claughton (chairman of the London and North-Western Railway Company) and Sir Guy Granet (general manager of the Midland Railway Company), who represented the railway interests at the Conference, had "stated that the recommendations of the Commission would be loyally accepted by the railway companies, even though they be averse to the contention of the companies on any question of representation, and, should a settlement be effected, any trace of ill-will which might have arisen during the strike would certainly be effaced." In the other of these official announcements it was said: "Assurances have been given by both parties that they will accept the findings of the Commission." The statements were repeated in "The Board of Trade Labour Gazette" for September, 1911. The Royal Commission, which consisted of five members, viz. Sir David Harrel (chairman), Sir Thomas R. Ratcliffe Ellis, Mr Arthur Henderson, M.P., Mr C. G. Beale and Mr John Burnett, held twenty-five sittings, between August 28 {449}and October 3, for the purpose of taking evidence, the witnesses examined by them during this period including thirty-four on behalf of the various railway workers' unions, ten non-unionist workers and twenty-three representatives of the railway companies. The case presented on behalf of the railwaymen's unions was, in effect: (1) that the working of the conciliation and arbitration scheme had in various respects been very unsatisfactory, and changes therein or alternatives thereto were recommended, though in regard to the details of these changes and alternatives the witnesses did not all agree among themselves; (2) that "recognition" of the unions, allowing of the labour unions officials--with, as was said, their "trained and experienced minds"--taking part in the negotiations with the railway companies, was essential to full justice being done to the men, who were either not competent to state their own claims or might have their position in the service prejudiced; (3) that such recognition would be in the interests of industrial peace because of the increased powers of the unions in enforcing the maintenance of any bargains that were made; (4) that discipline on the railways would be strengthened if the men were confident that there would be an impartial investigation of their complaints; and (5) that, as the principle of recognition was accepted in other great industries, the railway companies were not justified in refusing it to their own men. On the other side it was contended (1) that much of the disappointment felt at the results of the awards--which had, nevertheless, led to substantial concessions being made--was due to the unreasonable hopes raised by the "National Programme," and that, although certain modifications might be made in the conciliation scheme, the principle thereof was sound, while the companies had made a "tremendous departure" by themselves proposing, in 1907, in the interests of peace, to concede the principle of arbitration, which involved the "revolutionary" step of taking from the directors the power of deciding what the rates of payment and the hours of labour of their workmen were to be; (2) that the four unions concerned still included only about one-fourth of the men, and that "recognition" of them would inevitably lead to interference with questions of management and {450}discipline, without--as shown by the experiences of the North-Eastern Railway, where "recognition" had not prevented the occurrence of repeated disputes--offering any guarantee for peace, while a partial strike on certain of the Irish lines during the sittings of the Royal Commission was pointed to as showing that the union officials were unable to control their members; (3) that the allegations as to railwaymen being unable or afraid to present their case to their own companies were unfounded, and that the real object aimed at in demanding "recognition" of the union officials was to coerce non-unionists into joining the unions which, with their increased membership, would then be in a better position to force the railways to agree to all demands; (4) that if the companies were compelled to accept "recognition," with all the risks it would involve, they should, at the same time, be relieved of their present responsibilities in respect to the public safety and public interests; and (5) that no analogy, in regard to "recognition," could be drawn between the railways, the continuous operation of which was essential to the wellbeing of the community, and ordinary commercial undertakings, which could suspend their working with only a limited degree of inconvenience to the public, or none at all. The Commissioners, in their report, issued October 20, 1911, declared that in their opinion it was of the utmost importance that the initial stage of conference between the men and the companies--apt to be regarded as simply a preliminary to the later stages under the settlement scheme--should not only be maintained but facilitated. They recommended the abolition, as "redundant," of the central boards and the reference to the sectional boards of "any matter dealing with hours, wages, or conditions of service, except questions of, or bearing upon, discipline and management." Each sectional board should have a chairman selected from a panel to be constituted by the Board of Trade, but such chairman should be called on to act (virtually as arbitrator) only in the event of the sectional board being unable to agree. The men should be free to combine in the same person the duties of men's secretary and advocate at all meetings of the Board, and be at liberty to appoint to such post "any suitable person, whether an employee of the company or a person from outside"; though this arrangement was "not intended {451}to prevent the men from obtaining the services of a special advocate before the chairman." Much dissatisfaction with the report--and mainly so on account of what was regarded as a wholly inadequate extension of the principle of recognition--was expressed by the men's leaders and endorsed at meetings of the men's societies, where demands were made for a general strike on a greater scale than before, while the leaders repudiated any suggestion that they had given a pledge to accept the findings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry. A new National Programme of improved conditions was put forward, but simultaneously therewith various of the leading railway companies announced revisions of their rates of wages as applying to the lower grades among their workers. In the case of the Great Western Railway Company it was reported that between 20,000 and 30,000 men would benefit from the concessions, the immediate cost of which to the company would be £56,000 per annum, with an eventual cost, at the end of three or four years, of £78,000 per annum. The London and North-Western Company announced increases amounting in the aggregate to £80,000 a year, these being an addition to increases already made, under the arbitrator's award, at a cost to the company of £70,000 a year. The Midland Railway Company gave notice that from November 3 the minimum rate of pay for all adult members of their staff would be 22s. per week if employed in London, 20s. per week in certain large towns, and 19s. per week at all other places, the actual advances thus made to individual workers ranging from 1s. to 4s. the week. Material concessions were also announced by the Great Central and the Caledonian, and intimation was given by other companies that they had the matter under consideration. All these concessions were, however, apparently disregarded by leaders of the extremest section among the men, who declared, in effect, that they would be satisfied with nothing short of recognition. In the week ending November 4 representatives of the men's unions held a four-days' conference in London to consider what action should be taken, and there would seem to have been some hope on their part that, influenced by the threat of a further general strike, the Government would {452}exercise its influence with a view to inducing representatives of the railway companies to meet the other signatories of the August agreement and discuss with them the terms of the report. On November 3 the Prime Minister, Mr Buxton and Sir George Askwith did confer with selected representatives of the companies at 10 Downing Street. No official announcement was made as to the result, but this was evidently well indicated by the following statement in "The Times" of November 4:-- "We understand that the attitude of the directors of the railways of the country collectively is that, while they are prepared to carry out to the full the whole of the recommendations of the Inquiry Commission, they are not prepared to go any further." Later in the same day the joint executive committee of the railway unions informed the Press that they had decided to take a ballot of their members--the papers to be returnable by December 5--on the question as to whether or not they were prepared to accept the findings of the Royal Commission and, also, "to withdraw their labour in favour of the recognition of trade unions and of a programme of all railwaymen," to be agreed upon by members of the joint executive committee. Whatever may be the final outcome of all these controversies, the position in regard to the troubles both of 1907 and 1911 has obviously been most materially, if not, indeed, mainly, influenced by questions of trade union recognition which do not necessarily cast any reflection on the railway service itself, or detract from it as being one of the most important, most popular and most sought after of our national industries. {453}CHAPTER XXIX TRAMWAYS, MOTOR-BUSES AND RAILLESS ELECTRIC TRACTION In previous chapters I have shown that the first great highway for the citizens of London passing from one part of the capital to another was the River Thames; that the livelihood of the watermen became imperilled by the competition successively of private carriages, hackney coaches, and cabriolets, or "cabs"; and that these, in turn, had afterwards to face the competition of omnibuses. A still further development, leading to competition with the omnibuses, was brought about by the re-introduction of the tramway, for the purposes of street transport. It was in the United States that street tramways first came into vogue, and it was by an American, George Francis Train, that the pioneer tramway of this type in England was laid at Birkenhead at the end of the '50's. A few other short lines followed, and some were put down--without authority--in certain parts of London, only, however, to be condemned as a nuisance on account of the hindrance to other traffic. It was not until 1868 that lines laid in Liverpool secured public favour for the innovation. Fresh tramways were laid in London between 1869 and 1871, and others followed in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dublin and elsewhere. All the early lines were operated by horses; but various expedients were resorted to with the idea both of obtaining greater speed and of carrying more persons at comparatively less cost. Among these expedients were steam locomotives and underground cables, the latter for cars furnished with a grip attachment conveying to them the movement of the cables, as operated by machinery at a central depôt. The greatest impetus to the street tramway system came, however, with the application of electricity as the motive power. The first line opened on the "trolley" system of overhead {454}wires, conveying electric current to the cars, was in Kansas City in 1884. Electric tramways were tried in Leeds in 1891, and the system was afterwards adopted in many other towns. Underground conduit and surface-contact systems were also employed, with a view to avoiding overhead wires, to which widespread objection was, especially at first, entertained; but the latter system has been the one generally adopted. Development of the tramway system in England was slow on account, not of any lack of enterprise on the part of business men, but of the discouraging nature of tramway legislation. Just about the time when the original horse tramways began to come into vogue certain local authorities were cherishing strong grievances against the gas and water companies in their districts. They complained that the charges of these companies were extortionate and that the terms they asked, when invited to dispose of their undertakings to the said local authorities, were excessive. The companies, nevertheless, controlled the situation because their Parliamentary powers represented a permanent concession, and because, also, they were able to fix their own price in any negotiations upon which they might be invited to enter. When the introduction of another public service, in the form of street tramways, seemed likely to create still another "monopoly," it was thought desirable to prevent the tramway companies from attaining to the same position as that of the gas and water companies. Powers were accordingly granted to enable the local authorities, if they so desired, to acquire the undertakings, at the end of a certain period, on terms which would be satisfactory to themselves, at least. It was motives such as these that inspired some of the main provisions of the Tramways Act of 1870, the full title of which is "An Act to Facilitate the Construction and to Regulate the Working of Tramways"; though in a statement presented to a Committee on Electrical Legislation of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, in 1902, the late Sir Clifton Robinson, manager of the London United Tramways Company, declared that "if it had been described as an Act to discourage the construction of tramways it would have better described the action of some of its clauses." The Act did, undoubtedly, confer certain advantages on {455}tramway promoters, as well as on local authorities, since it abolished the obligation previously devolving upon them to obtain--as in the case of a railway company--a Private Bill in respect to each fresh line they desired to construct. It authorised them to apply, instead, to the Board of Trade for a Provisional Order which, on its formal confirmation by Parliament, would have all the force of a Private Act. In this way the procedure was both simplified and rendered less costly. On the other hand, the Act of 1870 laid down (1) that the assent of the local and road authorities to a new line of tramway should be obtained; though where the assent of authorities in respect to two-thirds of the mileage was secured the Board of Trade might dispense with that of any other objecting authority; (2) that the frontagers were also to have a power of veto; (3) that the original concession should be granted for a period of twenty-one years only; and (4) that at the end of such period, or at the end of any subsequent period of seven years, the local authorities should have the option of acquiring the tramway at the "then value" of the plant, without any allowance for compulsory purchase, goodwill, prospective profits or other similar consideration. So long as these provisions applied to horse tramways only, the companies may not have found them specially oppressive, inasmuch as there was still a prospect of their being able to make a profit within the twenty-one-year period before they were compulsorily bought out at "scrap-iron" rates, while they could expect to realise the value of their stock of horses; though, in effect, the statutory obligations meant, even then, that towards the end of their tenure the tramway company did not spend a single shilling on the line more than was absolutely necessary to keep it in working order until the day of their eviction arrived, generally grudging even a coat of paint for the cars and refraining from any avoidable labour on the roadway. Individuals, and especially foreign visitors, unacquainted with the facts of the case, might well have considered some of the old tramway systems a discredit to the country. When electric traction for tramway operation was introduced, there was a natural expectation on the part of the British public that the tramway companies would adopt it {456}in place of horse traction. The companies were hampered, however, by the Act of 1870, which remained in force though a complete revolution in the conditions of street rail-transport was being brought about. The substitution of electricity for horse-power meant (1) the provision of power stations, sub-stations and new car depôts; (2) the fixing of overhead wires, together with fresh track-work, in the streets; (3) the use of a heavier type of car; and (4) the running of a much more frequent service, since only under these conditions can an electric tramway possibly be made to pay. All these things involved a very substantial increase in the capital outlay, and companies may well have hesitated to incur so great an expense with the prospect of only a twenty-one years' tenure before them; while the position was even more hopeless in the case of companies whose tenure had already half expired. The dissatisfaction of the public when they found that the tramway system of the country was not being brought up to date, and compared most unfavourably with tramway systems abroad, gave to the local authorities an apparent justification both for providing and for operating tramways as a special phase of municipal enterprise. At the time the Act of 1870 was passed it was assumed that, although local authorities might construct or acquire tramways, they would certainly lease them to private companies to operate.[61] In proportion, however, as the movement for municipal enterprise developed, local authorities were the more inclined to operate tramways in addition to owning them. There was no general Act giving them authority so to do, but the difficulty was overcome by the insertion in Local Bills of clauses giving to the local bodies promoting the Bills power to operate their own tramways, the reason advanced being that there were difficulties in the way of leasing the lines to companies on satisfactory conditions. Matters were not left entirely in the hands of the municipalities, various tramway companies having sought, as their twenty-one years' tenure came to a close, to make such arrangements as would warrant an adaptation of their existing {457}system to electric traction; while other companies applied for powers to construct new lines or extensions of lines on the same system. Parliament had certainly sanctioned a longer period of tenure than twenty-one years when the promoters could make an arrangement to this effect with the local authorities concerned; and it was hardly likely that a company would incur the great expense of constructing an entirely new tramway, with electrical installation and other requirements all complete, unless they had some guarantee of a longer tenure than the statutory period. But these very factors enabled the local authorities concerned to control the situation; and their power to exercise this control was made still more complete by the operation of Standing Order No. 22, which applied to Private Bills for tramway schemes requirements similar to those of the Tramways Act as regards the obligation on promoters to obtain the assents of local and road authorities. These authorities had thus an absolute veto over any new tramway schemes, and such veto might finally rest in the hands of a single local authority, controlling a sparsely populated section of the proposed mileage, yet having, perhaps, the controlling voice in being the one authority whose approval was needed to make up the requisite two-thirds. There had been some expectation on the part of tramway promoters that the general position would be improved by the Light Railways Act, 1896, many light railways being indistinguishable from tramways. Under this Act the assent of the local and road authorities is not required, and the frontagers' veto was done away with by it in the case of light railways; but authority to oppose was given to railway companies, and in practice the Light Railway Commissioners held that they ought not to authorise a tramway as a light railway unless it connected the area of one local authority with another. For these and other reasons the Act was not so beneficial in regard to tramways as had been anticipated. In the case of tramway companies it became a matter either of paying to the local authorities the "price" they asked for their assent, or else seeing the schemes fail at the start, without any chance of having them even considered on their merits. How local authorities have used--or abused--the power of control thus possessed by them is suggested by some remarks {458}made by Mr Emile Garcke in an article published in "The Times Engineering Supplement" of July 25, 1906, where he says:-- "The right of veto is exercised not so much with the desire to destroy a projected enterprise, but rather to exact the utmost conditions which a promoter will accept sooner than abandon the project. When a scheme is proceeded with in spite of these exactions it is taken as evidence that the conditions imposed have not been exacting enough; and whenever the operating company has occasion subsequently to ask the local authority to approve anything, the company is expected to offer more than commensurate consideration, although the object for which the approval is desired may be primarily for the benefit of the public. All these obstacles imply increased capital outlay or increased working costs, and perhaps both. If, notwithstanding these conditions, the company earns a moderate profit, it is accused of striving only after dividends to the prejudice of the public. If non-success of the enterprise follows, then the company is accused of being over-capitalised and mismanaged, and it has come to be considered an impertinence for a company to offer ever so mild a protest." On the same subject it is stated in "The Dangers of Municipal Trading," by Robert P. Porter (1907):-- "The use of the veto has had disastrous effects on private enterprise. In many districts it has led to utter stagnation of personal initiative. Good schemes have been barred by local authorities out of pure caprice or prejudice. Other schemes have been allowed to proceed under barely tolerable conditions; the undertaking has been crippled from the start by the high price municipalities have exacted for their consent. Others, again, have been withdrawn by the promoter because he found it impossible to agree to the extortionate demands of the governing bodies." Mr Porter quotes various authorities who have expressed strong views on the subject of the veto. The chairman of the Parliamentary Committee which considered a scheme of tramways promoted in Scotland said: "The Committee desire to put on record that in their opinion the original scheme was a good one, and calculated to be of much use to the district; but it has been so mutilated and loaded with conditions by conflicting interests and the {459}excessive demands of several local bodies that it now appears to the Committee to be wholly unworkable." In 1902 Mr Chaplin, at one time President of the Local Government Board, stated that "what local authorities would describe as conditions are regarded by promoters--and very often, no doubt, with good reason--as neither more nor less than blackmail. This has been the subject of great complaint for years, and I do not think I should be going too far if I said that on several occasions it has led to considerable scandals." Lest these expressions of opinion may be considered unduly severe by any reader unacquainted with the facts, I turn for some definite data to the "Exhibit to Proof of Evidence," handed in by Sir Clifton Robinson to the Royal Commission on London Traffic when he was examined before that body in 1904.[62] In the early days of his company (the London United), the local authorities, Sir Clifton said, "had not, perhaps, fully recognised their opportunity," and the company got their assents comparatively cheaply under their first Act in 1898. Two years later the price they had to pay for the assents of local authorities to a group of tramways in the Twickenham, Teddington and Hampton district was £202,000, or £16,000 a mile. The requirements imposed on the company took the form of "wayleaves" and of street improvements, the greater part of the latter being entirely apart from the actual needs of the tramway. The improvements in Heath Road, Twickenham, giving a 45-ft. roadway, cost for properties and works alone some £30,000. A like sum had to be spent in Hampton and Hampton Wick, where the work done included the setting back of the entire frontage of the Royal Deer Park of Bushey. In 1901 the company sought for powers to construct twelve miles of tramway in Kingston-upon-Thames and neighbourhood. On this occasion the "concessions" wrung from {460}them by the local authorities amounted to £66,000 for street improvements, £20,000 for bridges, and a further £68,000, capitalised value of annual payments for so-called "wayleaves." This made a total of £154,000, or £12,800 per mile, merely for assents to the construction of their lines. The details of the account included a sum of £1500 extorted by an urban district council as "a contribution towards some town improvement, not necessarily on the company's proposed line of route, but anywhere in their district the council might desire." One item to which the company had to agree in 1902, before they could obtain an Act authorising them to build another thirteen miles of tramway, was the construction at Barnes of an embankment and terrace along the river side. It made a very pleasant promenade, and was certainly an addition to the amenities of the neighbourhood; but it cost the tramway company £40,000. The "price" of local authorities' assents for these thirteen miles of line worked out thus: Street improvements (properties and works), £72,000; Barnes Boulevard, £40,000; "wayleaves" (capitalised), £100,000; a total of £412,000, or £31,600 per mile. Altogether, in the four years, 1898-1902, the total expenditure of the company on street and bridge improvements in respect to less than fifty miles of tramway amounted to £745,000; and although, to a certain extent, the widenings, etc., were necessary for electric tramway purposes, "the bulk of the expenditure under this head," Sir Clifton declared, "was undertaken with a view to conciliate the local authorities, or was forced upon us by them as the 'price of their assents.'" To this £745,000 was to be added £241,000, the capitalised value, at five per cent, of the "wayleaves" the company had also agreed to pay, making a total of £986,500, irrespective altogether of the cost of construction and equipment of the lines. When, in 1904, the company proposed to construct still another twenty-one miles of tramway in the western suburbs of London, "they recognised their obligations to the local and county authorities," Sir Clifton said, by proposing to undertake street, road and bridge widenings which would have cost them £217,932. They thought this a sufficiently generous "price" to pay for permission to provide the district with {461}improved transport facilities. Instead of being satisfied, the local authorities made demands which would have involved the company in a further expenditure of £642,630, making a total of £860,562. One urban district council included in its demands the construction by the tramway company of public lavatories and a subway. In a district where the company were prepared to spend £30,000 on road improvements the county council demanded a carriageway of forty feet and wood paving throughout six and a half miles of country roads, involving the expenditure of a further £30,000. Rather than submit to all these exactions the company abandoned their Bill. They had already abandoned sixty miles of proposed tramway extensions "owing," said Sir Clifton, "to the demands or the uncompromising attitude of the local authorities," although many of these lines would have been valuable connections with the existing tramway system, and would have served in no small degree the traffic needs of the districts concerned. "It is not too much to say," added Sir Clifton Robinson, in concluding his statement, "that instead of giving such proposals sympathetic consideration, if not practical encouragement, the attitude assumed by the average local authority of to-day is one of hostility, inspired by a desire to extort the uttermost farthing from promoters." In the face of experiences, or the prospect of experiences, such as these, many would-be promoters of tramway enterprise developed a natural reluctance to put their own money, or to try to induce other people to put theirs, into the business; and even some American financiers, who thought we were much too slow in tramway matters in this country, and came over here with the combined idea of showing us how to do things and of exploiting us to their own advantage, abandoned their plans and went home again when they got to understand the bearing of our legislative enactments on the situation. So, as time went on, the local authorities had greater excuse than ever for constructing the tramways themselves; and most of the principal urban centres built lines of their own, sooner or later. That there have been certain resemblances between State policy towards the railways and State policy towards the {462}tramways may have been already noticed by the reader. Just as the one was primarily based on suspicion and distrust due to the earlier action of the canal companies, so was the other inspired by what were regarded as the shortcomings of gas and water companies. Just, also, as the local authorities, while not aiding the railways at all, were given authority to levy an abnormal taxation on them, so have they been given a free hand to exploit the tramway companies in making them pay a heavy price for assents to their enterprises. The story of tramways, again, like that not only of railways but of canals and of turnpike roads, shows the same early lack of centralised effort with a view to securing a national system; and this piecemeal growth of tramways, rather than of a tramway system, was, undoubtedly, fostered in proportion as (1) discouragement was given to private companies, which could have operated without respect to borough boundaries and county areas, and (2) tramway construction drifted more into the hands of local authorities, whose powers did not go beyond the borders of their own particular districts. While recognising these resemblances, one must admit that the handicapping of the tramway companies has been far more severe than that of the railway companies, by reason of the power of absolute veto possessed by local authorities in regard to tramway schemes, and the use they have made of it. Parliament certainly never foresaw the extent of such use, or abuse, when it granted the said power of veto; and the practices in question, like the operation of tramways by the local authorities themselves, were due to a policy of drift and "leave alone" rather than to deliberate intention or expressed approval on the part of the Legislature. The misfortune is that when the new developments in tramways occurred, or that when the abuses arose and the innovations were introduced, Parliament did not revise its legislation to meet the new conditions. The Royal Commission on London Traffic reported in 1905 in favour of the abolition of the power of veto, saying: "We consider it unreasonable that any one portion of a district should be in a position to put a stop to the construction of a general system of tramways required for the public benefit, without even allowing the case to be presented for the consideration of Parliament.... It appears to us that instead of a 'veto' it would be sufficient that local and {463}road authorities should have a _locus standi_ to appear before the proposed Traffic Board and Parliament, in opposition to any tramway scheme within their districts, by whomsoever such tramway scheme might be promoted." But nothing has yet been done in the way of carrying this recommendation into effect. The proportions in which street and road tramways and light railways in the United Kingdom were owned by (a) local authorities and (b) companies and private individuals respectively in 1909-10 are shown by the following table, taken from official returns:-- CAPITAL TOTAL LENGTH EXPENDITURE ON EXPENDITURE NUMBER OF OPEN FOR LINES AND WORKS ON CAPITAL BELONGING TO UNDERTAKINGS. TRAFFIC. OPEN FOR TRAFFIC. ACCOUNT. M. Ch. £ £ Local authorities 176 1710 17 36,807,264 49,568,775 Companies, &c. 124 851 34 19,294,077 24,372,884 --- -------- ---------- ---------- Totals 300 2561 51 56,101,341 73,941,659 To this table I might append the following statistics as to the operation of street and road tramways and light railways in the United Kingdom in 1909-10:-- Capital authorised £93,124,187 Capital paid up £73,260,225 Number of horses 2,365 Number of locomotive engines 31 Number of cars: Electric 11,749 Non-electric 601 Total number of passengers carried 2,743,189,439 Quantity of electrical energy used (Board of Trade unit) 483,671,806 Gross receipts £13,077,901 Working expenditure £8,132,114 Net receipts £4,945,787 Appropriations:-- Interest or dividends £1,913,872 Repayment of debt or sinking fund £1,133,134 Relief of rates £346,274 Added to Common Good funds £54,028 Aid from rates £64,215 It will have been seen from the table given above that the total length of tramways and light railways owned by local authorities is double the length of those owned by companies; {464}but, in the circumstances already narrated, the cause for surprise is, rather, that private companies should have been sufficiently bold or enterprising to do as much in the way of tramway construction as they have. To the tramway patron it may seem to be a matter of no great concern whether the tramways are owned and operated by local authorities or by companies, provided they are satisfactory; and there may even appear to be various advantages on the side of public ownership of what, since the public streets and roads are used, may be regarded as essentially a public service. There have, however, been many suggestions that municipal tramways are too often managed on lines involving a disregard of commercial principles, and that much of the financial success claimed for them is due less to real "profits" than to the omission from the expenditure side of their accounts of inconvenient items which, if included therein, would show much less favourable results than those desired. Thus it has been represented from time to time by opponents of "municipal trading"--who have advanced many facts and figures in proof of their assertions--that large sums of money spent on street widenings for tramway purposes--that is to say, sums which a tramway company would pay from its capital account, and put down as costs of construction--are omitted from the municipal tramway accounts and classed under the head of "public improvements," to be covered out of the local rates. The general practice is to debit a third of such expenditure to the tramway, the other two-thirds coming out of the rates; but the critics allege that, in some instances, a far greater proportion even than the two-thirds has been left to be defrayed by the general ratepayer.[63] It is further alleged that inadequate amounts are set aside for depreciation, and that the sums allowed for the use of the central office and the services of the central staff may be considerably less than the figures which ought to be allocated thereto, if the municipal tramway business were really conducted on business lines. {465}Whatever the actual position may be in regard to these matters of account, which the financial experts may be left to decide, it has long been a question (1) whether it would not have been better either from the early days of street tramways or, at least, from the time when electric tramways were introduced, to have given a greater degree of encouragement to private enterprise; and (2) whether, assuming it was necessary, or desirable, that local authorities should own the tramways, it would not have been more prudent to arrange with private companies for their operation, as is done, for example, in the case of the light railway system in Belgium. On this latter point the Royal Commission on London Traffic say in their report (1905):-- "We think it reasonable that some profit should be derived from the tramways for the benefit of the municipality, but it does not follow that the best way of securing the largest profit will be that the municipality, even if it finds the money for construction, should undertake the task of operating. In other countries it is not unusual for municipalities to construct, purchase or otherwise acquire the tramways, but in such cases the actual working is generally left to operating companies, with provision for proper rates and general control. It is claimed that such methods yield a better financial result to municipalities, and avoid difficulties which might arise from municipal authorities carrying on a business of this kind on a large scale." To-day we have the further question whether electric tramways, which have always constituted a more or less speculative business, have not attained the height of their possible development, and whether they are not already on their decline in face of other systems more efficient or, at least, less costly and less cumbersome. The whole history of transport shows constant change and progress, the achievements of one generation or the "records" of one pioneer being only the starting-point of fresh advance or of still greater triumphs later on. Electric tramways themselves were, undoubtedly, as great an improvement on horse tramways as the drawing of vehicles by horses along a pair of rails had already been an advance on locomotion over the rough and rugged surfaces of badly made streets or roads. But electric tramways did not necessarily constitute finality, {466}and local authorities who built them as though for eternity are now faced by the rivalry of the motor-omnibus. Motor-omnibuses are still to a certain extent in the experimental stage, since no one would suggest that they have yet attained to the greatest possible perfection, while further improvements in them are constantly being announced. Yet already their number has enormously increased, and they are not only competing severely with the tramway but threatening eventually to supersede it. The motor-omnibus requires no special track, no overhead wires, no power station and sub-stations, and no costly widenings of streets and roads or rebuilding of bridges. Consequently, the capital expenditure involved in the provision of a large stock of motor-omnibuses is far less, in proportion, than that entailed by electric tramways providing an equivalent service. The motor-omnibus, too, has greater freedom in a busy thoroughfare--and is thus quicker in its movements--than the tramway car, limited to a fixed track and much more liable to be detained by blocks of traffic. The motor-bus, again, can readily be transferred from one route to another where greater traffic is likely to be found, whereas the tramway, once laid, must remain where it is, whether the takings are satisfactory or not; while another material factor in the case of an electric tramway, namely, that owing to the cost of the standing equipment (power house, etc.), a fifteen-minute service is, generally speaking, the lowest economic limit,[64] does not arise in the case of the motor-omnibus, which can be run according to the actual requirements of traffic. Still greater attention is now being paid to the subject of motor-omnibuses, inasmuch as the discouragement given to the provision of electric tramways by commercial companies--by reason of the exactions levied as the price of assents or because of the preference shown for municipal ownership--has driven private enterprise to seek alternative methods in supplying facilities for street and road traffic with the prospect of a reasonable return on the capital invested; and one ideal in these alternative methods naturally is, in the circumstances, that they should involve a minimum of possible control by the local authorities. If, in the result, private enterprise, thus driven to adopt new expedients in locomotion, should so far {467}perfect a motor-omnibus, or any other alternative service, that the electric tramway will not only have a powerful competitor but be largely superseded, the position of the municipalities which first sought to exclude or to exploit private enterprise and then invested large sums in speculative tramway undertakings of their own will be sufficiently serious. While, on the one hand, certain local authorities which have no municipal tramways are now establishing municipal motor-omnibuses--showing in this practical manner their own view of the respective claims of the two systems--others, with the intention of safeguarding the interests of their tramway undertakings rather than of securing greater transport facilities for the public, are renewing towards the motor-omnibus, as a direct competitor with municipal tramways, the hostility shown by the canal companies towards the railways when the probability of the former being supplanted by the latter began to be realised; though it is, of course, now no longer a matter simply of one set of commercial companies competing with another. A further rival to the electric tramway is arising in the system of railless electric traction, the fundamental principle of which is the application of electric power, derived from overhead wires, to electric cars, resembling motor-omnibuses (or alternatively, to goods lorries and vans), driven on ordinary roads without rails, and capable of being steered in and out of the traffic over the whole width of the roadway. The advantages claimed for the system are (1) that the cost of installation is only from one-fourth to one-third of the average cost of British tramways per mile of route, the permanent way of the latter being responsible for from two-thirds to three-quarters of the capital expenditure, while maintenance of tramway lines is also very expensive; (2) that costly street widenings are avoided; (3) that Bills for railless electric traction projects can be laid before Parliament without first obtaining the assent of the local authorities; (4) that such traction can be profitably installed in towns having populations insufficient to support a tramway, or having streets unsuitable for tramway rails; (5) that it is especially useful for linking up outlying districts with tramways and railways; for developing country and seaside places; for the conveyance of agricultural produce from rural districts {468}to neighbouring towns or the nearest railway; and for the transport of goods or minerals to or from railway stations or harbours over the same routes as passengers; (6) that the cars are more reliable and cheaper to operate than petrol, petrol-electric, steam or battery-driven vehicles; and (7) that inasmuch as the running of railless electric traction is practically noiseless, house property is not likely to be depreciated in value as in the case of the tramway. The disadvantages of the system as compared with the motor-bus are (1) that the railless electric traction bus can only run along streets which have been provided with overhead wires; (2) that, even allowing for the absence of rails, the expense involved in overhead wires and power stations will still be necessary, as in the case of a tramway; (3) that by reason of the standing expenses, and in order to utilise the electric current to the best advantage, a frequent service will have to be maintained, whether the traffic really warrants it or not, whereas the motor-omnibus can be brought out and run only at such hours of the day as remunerative traffic is likely to be obtained; and (4) that railless electric traction goods vans or lorries--being able to go only along certain streets, and being unable even there to load or unload, inasmuch as these operations would prevent other railless cars from passing--would be less better adapted for urban trading purposes than commercial motors. Railless electric traction seems to have been first adopted at Grevenbruck, Westphalia, in 1903, and since that date it has been resorted to in various other places on the Continent. In this country, apart from a short experimental line constructed at the Hendon depôt of the Metropolitan Electric Tramways, the first applications of railless traction have been at Leeds and Bradford, where, following on the obtaining of Parliamentary powers in 1910, municipal railless electric traction systems were formally opened in June, 1911, the system adopted being that of the Railless Electric Traction Construction Company, Ltd. In each case the railless traction supplements the existing municipal tramway. At Leeds the tramway route from the City Square is followed for about a mile, and then, with the help of a special set of wires, the new system diverges, and continues to a point three miles further on; though the Parliamentary {469}powers allow of a still further extension to the city boundary. At Bradford the railless system establishes a link a little over a mile in length between two tramway routes. In the Session of 1911 there were about sixteen Bills before Parliament applying for powers in respect to railless traction. Some of these were promoted by local authorities, one or two were by tramway companies, one was by an omnibus company, and the remainder were schemes by various private promoters. Municipal corporations already owning and operating tramways would seem to favour the railless electric traction system because it enables them (1) to utilise to greater advantage the electric power they are already generating for tramway purposes; and (2) to provide transport facilities for parts of their district where, as is said, the traffic prospects would not warrant the laying of a tramway. It is open to consideration, however, whether the recognition by municipalities of the advantages of railless electric traction over the tramway does not itself foreshadow the eventual doom of the latter, apart altogether from any considerations that arise in respect to the motor-omnibus. It is certainly significant that in his presidential address to the ninth annual conference of the Municipal Tramways Association, in September, 1910, the general manager of the Bradford Corporation Tramways, Mr C. J. Spencer, is reported to have said:-- "In considering future developments the trackless trolley system naturally comes first into view. The introduction of this new method of transit into this country ... will undoubtedly extend the sphere of usefulness of the trolley system. The tramway construction boom stopped, not because every district that required better facilities was supplied, but because financial reasons made it impossible to proceed any further into districts unable to support a capital expenditure of £14,000 to £15,000 per mile of tramway laid.... The railless system, however, comes along with a vehicle as reliable as a tramcar, and at least as cheap to operate, but with a capital expenditure on street work so low that the bugbear of heavy interest and sinking fund charges is practically nonexistent." It remains to be seen to what extent companies or corporations will be likely to start entirely new and independent schemes of railless electric traction, setting up power-houses, {470}etc., for the purpose, in preference to running motor-buses or commercial motor vehicles. This will be the real test of the respective merits of the two systems, apart from any further utilisation of existing tramway power stations; and it is always to be remembered that still greater improvements in self-propelled buses, vans, etc., will certainly be brought about. There is certainly significance, in this connection, in the following report, published in the "Engineering Supplement" of "The Times" of November 8, 1911:-- "The Tramways Committee of the Edinburgh Corporation have decided that nothing further is to be done for the present in connection with the proposal to adopt rail-less tramways for the city and district, in view of information which they have obtained regarding an improved type of petrol-electric omnibus which has been introduced in London. In the latter class of vehicle, they are informed, many of the disadvantages of the motor-omnibus as hitherto known have been overcome, and they consider that it would be prudent to await further developments before taking any action with regard to rail-less tramways." Whatever the eventual issue of the rivalry between the two new systems themselves, the fact that they have been introduced at all would seem to confirm the assumption that in the dictionary of transport there is no such word as "finality." We are also left to conclude-- (1) That in the struggle between governing authorities and private enterprise the last word is not always with the former; (2) That the resort by local authorities both to motor-omnibuses and to railless electric traction suggests that, even in their opinion, electric tramways are being improved upon, even if they have not already had their day; (3) That the municipalities which checked the development of tramways by private companies--from whom an assured return might have been gained--and themselves spent, in the aggregate, many millions of public money on a form of municipal enterprise yielding doubtful results, involving great liabilities, and now, apparently, being superseded by superior systems, may eventually find abundant reason for regretting their past policy; and (4) That when local governing authorities do enter upon speculative commercial enterprises, they cannot, any more than {471}commercial companies, set up the plea of "vested interests" as against new-comers in the march of progress, but must themselves also submit to economic laws, and run the risks which commercial undertakings, even under municipal direction, necessarily involve. {472}CHAPTER XXX CYCLES, MOTOR-VEHICLES AND TUBES In addition to the developments in locomotion spoken of in the previous chapter, there have been various others to which reference should be made. The principle of a manu-motive machine, furnished with wheels, by means of which an individual could propel himself along a road with greater speed and less exertion than in walking, goes back to the very earliest days of human history, evidences of an attempt to adapt such principle having come down to us from the times both of the Egyptians and the Babylonians. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, various contrivances were introduced in our own country under such names as "the velocipede," "the dandy horse," "the hobby horse," "the wooden horse," and the particular form of bicycle known as "the bone-shaker." The last-mentioned became, in spite of its drawbacks, a craze in the late '60's; but it was the substitution of indiarubber for iron tires, and the production, in 1885, by J. K. Starley, of the modern rear-driven "safety," that established the practical utility of the bicycle. A succession of improvements followed, including pneumatic tires, free wheels, two-speed and three-speed gears, the adaptation of the bicycle to the use of ladies, and the supplementing of the bicycle by tricycles, sociables, tandems and the motor-cycle. Cycles have been well defined as "the poor man's carriage"; but they are to-day favoured by every class of the community. Thanks, more especially, to the numerous local cycling clubs and the great touring clubs, of which the latter count their members by tens of thousands, cycles have materially developed the taste for travel; they have led to indulgence in outings or pleasure trips at home and abroad to an extent previously unknown; they have vastly increased the means of {473}communication; they have exercised a powerful influence on our general social conditions, and they have become, in a variety of ways, and with different modifications of the bicycle or the tricycle principle, an important auxiliary to the despatch of business. Cycling has thus attained to a place of recognised usefulness in the professions, in trade, in country life, in the Post Office and even in the Army. It is no longer a hobby, a craze or exclusively a source of recreation. The cycle has definitely and permanently established its position as one of the most popular of "carriages," and, in doing so, it has itself led to the creation of a very considerable industry. By 1895 the demand for cycles had become so great that it was then impossible for the manufacturers to meet all requirements. Over-speculation and over-production, accompanied by severe foreign competition, followed, and for a time the position of the home industry was very unsatisfactory. It has since re-established itself on sounder lines and now constitutes an enterprise of considerable local importance in various parts of the country, including Coventry, Birmingham, Nottingham and Wolverhampton. Public prejudice and State policy were factors in the arrested development, in this country, of the application of mechanical power to road vehicles, so that while such application has its ancient history equally with the bicycle, the actual expansion thereof--on such lines that it has now become the dominating feature in road transport generally--has been brought about in quite recent times. When, in the early years of the nineteenth century, general attention was attracted to the possibilities and prospects of using locomotives on the railway in place either of horses or of stationary engines, further projects were mooted for employing steam-propelled vehicles on ordinary roads. Trade expansion and the inefficiency of existing road-transport conditions combined to strengthen these proposals, and from about 1827 to 1835 or 1840 much enterprise was shown in the construction of steam-carriages, and more especially steam-coaches and steam-omnibuses of which various regular services, in London or in the country, were run with, at first, considerable success. The vehicles in question were designed mainly for the conveyance of passengers, and some of them {474}attained a speed of over twenty miles an hour. There were even those who anticipated that steam-carriages on roads would be successful rivals of the locomotive on rails. Alexander Gordon, civil engineer, and an ardent supporter of steam-driven road vehicles as against railways, wrote in "An Historical and Practical Treatise upon Elemental Locomotion by means of Steam Carriages on Common Roads" (1832):-- "It will be found that, with the exception of the Liverpool and Manchester line, and of those lines formed solely for the purpose of conveying heavy materials on a descending road, railways are, at least, of very questionable advantage where there is the possibility of having a good turnpike road and steam carriages.... Rail-roads have a very formidable rival in steam communication upon the common road, and the latter is of vastly greater advantage than the former." Opposition, however, to steam-driven road coaches was hardly less vigorous than the opposition offered to the rail locomotive itself. Not only were obstructions constantly placed on the roads to prevent the steam-coaches from passing, but country squires, horse-coach proprietors, post-horse owners and representatives of the turnpike road interests combined to show the most active hostility to the new form of locomotion. The turnpike road trustees sought to make the running of the steam-coaches impossible by imposing prohibitive tolls on them. It was shown in evidence before a Parliamentary Committee that where on the road between Liverpool and Prescot horse-coaches would pay a 4s. toll, the steam-coach was charged £2 8s., while on other roads the tolls in the case of the latter were equally extortionate. There were pioneers in those days who devoted time, toil and fortune to attempts to establish steam locomotion on the roads, only, one after the other, to retire from the contest discomfited and impoverished. Among them was Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, who laboured for five years and expended £30,000 on his attempts to bring steam-carriages into practical and permanent use. Finding, at last, that the turnpike trustees controlled the situation, Gurney and other steam-carriage builders petitioned Parliament to investigate the subject of the opposition shown to them, and a Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed for this purpose in 1831. It reported in favour of {475}steam road-carriages, and recommended a repeal of the old turnpike Acts. A Bill to this effect was passed in the Commons but thrown out in the Lords. Disheartened by his losses, Gurney ceased to build and to run coaches on his own account and tried to form a company. He failed in the attempt, and he then appealed to Parliament to make him some recompense for all he had done in the interests of the public. A proposed grant of £10,000 was objected to, however, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Gurney got nothing. Concluding that it was useless to continue his attempts in the face of so much discouragement, he sold off his stock-in-trade and retired from the business. By 1835 nearly all the steam-carriages had been taken off the road, and by 1840 the considerable industry which had been developed was engaged almost exclusively--so far as it survived at all--in the production of traction engines, only spasmodic attempts being made between 1840 and 1860 to produce improved types of steam-carriages for private use. In 1861 traction engines had so far increased in numbers that a Locomotive Act was passed mainly to fix a scale of tolls applicable to them on all turnpike roads; though this Act further stipulated that each "locomotive" should be in charge of at least two persons, and that the speed should not exceed ten miles an hour when the vehicle was passing along any turnpike road or two miles an hour when passing through a city, town or village. An amending Act, which became law in 1865, laid down that each locomotive should be in charge of three persons; that one of these must walk in front carrying a red flag, and that the maximum speed should not exceed four miles an hour on the highway or two miles an hour in passing through a town or village. Various other restrictions were also imposed. It was this "red flag Act" that virtually killed off the self-propelled road-vehicle business here for the time being, except as regarded traction engines proper. A few enthusiasts made steam-carriages as a hobby, and certain manufacturers made them for export to the colonies or to India, where there were no such restrictions on their use as in this country. In India, especially, these carriages were found very serviceable in localities then unprovided with railways, though any {476}manufacturer who even tested their capacity on a public road in England was liable to prosecution. British inventors, thus effectively prevented by hostile legislation from improving self-propelled road-vehicles, turned their attention, instead, to tricycles and bicycles, while continental inventors, not being hampered by legislative restrictions in their own country, first converted the tricycle into a motor-vehicle, then applied the motor principle to four-wheeled waggonettes, and finally evolved some useful types of motor-vehicles which, by 1895, were being widely adopted on the Continent and more especially in Paris. A few bold pioneers who introduced them here were repeatedly prosecuted and fined. The general position had, in fact, become even worse since 1865, because not only was a motor-car still regarded in the eye of the law as the equivalent of a traction engine or "locomotive," but, under the Highways and Locomotives (Amendment) Act, 1878, every county council was authorised to exact up to £10 for a licence which would allow of the use of such traction engine or "locomotive" only within the boundary of the authority in question, a fresh licence being thus required for each county council district through which a vehicle might pass. The only exceptions were locomotives used solely for agricultural purposes. Notwithstanding all these restrictions, there were--exclusive of vehicles of the agricultural type--about 8000 traction engines in use on our roads in 1895. Much vigorous and practical protest led to the passing of the Locomotives on Highways Act of 1896, which became the Magna Charta of automobilism in this country. Making at last a distinction between motor-cars and traction engines, it relieved from the said restrictions any vehicle, propelled by mechanical power, the weight of which (unloaded) did not exceed three tons, or, together with that of a trailer (also unloaded), four tons. It further sanctioned the driving of such vehicle at a speed of up to fourteen miles an hour, but gave authority to the Local Government Board to reduce the speed if it thought fit--an authorisation of which the Board availed itself by fixing the speed limit at twelve miles an hour. A great impetus was given to the use of light vehicles, and November 14, 1896, when, under the Act, the motor-car became a legal vehicle in this country, is known in automobile {477}circles as Emancipation Day. But the Act afforded no relief in the case of motor-vehicles suitable for trade or public service purposes. Within the weights specified vehicles of these types would have been commercially unprofitable because they could not have carried a paying load. Above the said weights they were still regarded by the law, and were subject to the same regulations, as road locomotives or traction engines. Strong representations on the subject were made by the Royal Automobile Club (then the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland), the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the Commercial Motor Users' Association, which bodies claimed the right of the trading interests of the country to a greater degree of reasonable consideration. These further protests again led to good results. In 1903 a Motor-car Act was passed which, among other things, raised the speed limit to 20 miles an hour (subject to authority given to the Local Government Board to reduce the limit to 10 miles an hour in dangerous areas), and provided for the licensing of drivers and the registration and identification of cars, with a view to checking reckless driving; while power was, also, given to the Local Government Board to increase the maximum weights allowed by the earlier Act. In January, 1904, the Board appointed a Departmental Committee to inquire into the question of increasing the maximum tare, and, after taking counsel with technical experts, trading bodies and commercial authorities, it finally issued the Heavy Motor-car Order, 1904, effecting changes in the maximum weights (unladen) as follows:-- MOTOR CAR MOTOR CAR AND TRAILER Act of 1896 3 tons 4 tons. Order of 1904 5 tons 6½ tons. This Order, which came into force on the 1st of March, 1905, made possible the provision of commercial motor-services, and the full development of the motor industry, on present-day lines. It led, especially, to the creation of new types of vehicles previously unknown here, and, by allowing "heavy motor-cars"--the designation now applying to motor-vehicles over two tons in weight--to take their place in ordinary road traffic, foreshadowed changes in inland {478}transport to which one could hardly attempt, at present, to fix any limit. In respect to pleasure cars, detailed figures published in the issue of "The Car" for December 14, 1910, show that the number of these (as distinct from heavy motor-vehicles), registered in the United Kingdom at that date, and allowing as far as possible for those which had lapsed, was 124,860. Of motor-cycles there were 86,414. These figures convey some idea of the extent to which the automobile has been not only substituted for private horsed-carriages, as used for ordinary urban and social purposes, but adopted, also, for those longer journeys or tours which the improved means of locomotion have brought so much into vogue. How the country is being opened up more and more to motor traffic may be shown by some references to the work in this direction by the Royal Automobile Club and the Automobile Association and Motor Union. Founded in 1897, the Royal Automobile Club is an influential body with many-sided activities, including the provision of a club house in Pall Mall well deserving the designation of "palatial," and typical of the high standing to which automobilism has attained. More, however, to my present purpose than the social advantages offered by the club is the fact that the R.A.C. not only advises its members or associates as to the best route in regard to any tour they propose to make by motor, at home or abroad, but provides them with a complete typewritten itinerary and specially-designed maps for such tour, the information given being kept up to date by means of reports made by the members themselves. The inquirer is given, also, a guide-book for the district in question written from the point of view of the traveller by road; he receives some confidential notes concerning the hotels _en route_, and he may arrange to retain the services, for periods of an hour, a half-day, a day, or a week, of local guides--clergymen, writers, secretaries of local societies and others--who are qualified authorities on art, archæology, architecture, natural history, topography, etc., besides having an intimate knowledge of the localities visited. In the Club itself there is a well-stocked "Travel Library," from which books can be borrowed. Should the member or the associate on tour come into conflict with the law in regard to alleged offences under {479}the Motor Acts, the R.A.C. will defend him in any police court in the United Kingdom free of charge, though it reserves to itself the right to refuse such assistance in the case of those who may have been guilty of inconsiderate driving. Much has been done by the R.A.C. in the provision of road direction posts. It has, for example, put up posts or direction boards along the whole of the Great North Road from London to Berwick. It erects danger signs at especially dangerous places, though at these only, as it considers undesirable any undue multiplication of such signs by private agencies. The R.A.C. is, further, most vigilant in defending the common interests of motorists when these are endangered by Parliamentary Bills or in other ways. The Automobile Association and Motor Union also has its Touring Department, for home or foreign travel. It offers, like the R.A.C., free defence of members prosecuted for offences against the Motor Acts; it has an "hotel system" of its own, and it has shown much activity in the placing of direction posts and danger signs on important roads throughout the United Kingdom. A special feature of the A.A. and M.U.'s operations is the patrolling, by men in uniform--and provided with bicycles or motor cycles--of 14,000 miles of roads throughout England, Wales and Scotland. It is the duty of these patrols to give to members information of interest concerning the road, to warn them of any dangers on the highway, and to render them all possible assistance in case of need. They are able to undertake minor roadside repairs; they procure, in case of need, fresh petrol supplies from the nearest store; while each is qualified to give first aid in case of accident, much excellent service being rendered by them on the roadside not only to members but to the public. Agents and repairers have also been appointed by the A.A. and M.U. in all important cities and towns and in numerous hamlets at intervals of a few miles along every main road. The agents receive or deliver letters or telegrams, and are helpful in many ways to the members. In addition to these central organisations in London there are now Associated Automobile Clubs throughout the United Kingdom which show a great deal of local activity and offer many advantages to their own members. {480}It is, again, the now general use of the automobile that has given to the improvement of the roads the greatest degree of stimulus it has received since the days of McAdam and Telford. Speaking generally, excellent results have followed from the policy adopted by the State in transferring the charge of main roads from turnpike trustees to the county councils, and, also, in encouraging rural district councils to pay more attention to local highways other than main roads. In 1908-9, for example, the county councils spent on 27,749 miles of main roads a total of £2,739,591, and the rural district councils spent on the 95,144 miles of road under their own control a total of £2,160,492 on maintenance and repairs and £52,067 on improvements. Nor is there any reason for supposing that, under the conditions operating to-day, this expenditure is wasted or ill-spent, as was the case with so much of the outlay on roads in the pre-McAdam days of non-scientific road-making. While the roads were being adapted to the requirements of ordinary traffic, their shortcomings from the point of view of the traffic of motor-cars and traction engines were made apparent, and called for special attention. It was not only that the suction of the india-rubber tyres raised clouds of dust and, also, injured the macadamised roads by depriving the top layer of stones of their proper binding, but the greater speed at which the motor-cars were driven made it especially necessary that the roads should be alike wide and straight, with as few awkward, if not dangerous, turns, twists or corners as possible. The increasing use of traction engines is indicated by a report on the county roads issued by the Kent County Council. The number of traction engines licensed by that body during the year ending March 31, 1911, for use in the county, was 101, as compared with only 37 in the previous year. Action was called for all the more because cycling and automobilism have increased the use of the roads of the United Kingdom in general to an extent that probably surpasses their use even in the palmy days of the Coaching Era. At that time it was almost exclusively along the main roads between leading cities that the coaches went in such numbers; whereas cyclists and motorists in search of the picturesque may discard main roads and proceed, instead, along highways {481}and by-ways where the stage-coach was never seen. The sum total of the road traffic to-day may thus be in excess of that of the Coaching Age, though, perhaps, appearing to be less because it is better distributed. For like reasons it became necessary that not only the main roads, but the highways and by-ways, also, should receive adequate attention. Under the Development and Road Improvement Funds Act, 1909, there was constituted, in 1910, a body known as the Road Board, having for its special function the administration of a "Road Improvement Grant." The Board was to have power, with the approval of the Treasury, (a) to make advances to county councils and other highway authorities in respect to the construction of new roads or the improvement of existing roads, and (b) itself to construct and maintain any new roads, which appear to the Board to be required for facilitating road traffic. The funds available for the Road Improvement Grant arise from the motor spirit duties and the motor-car license duties, the last-mentioned being £1 for motor-bicycles and motor-tricycles, of whatever horse-power, and from £2 2s. to £42 for motor-cars, according to their horse-power. Motorists thus directly contribute towards the improvement of the roads, and the principle involved is the same as that under which road-users formerly paid tolls on turnpike roads; but the present application of this principle is obviously a great improvement on the system of turnpikes, with its excessive cost of toll-collection and other disadvantages. The amount likely to be available for grants by the Board is estimated at about £600,000 a year; but, owing to an accumulation of funds before operations were begun, the Board started with resources amounting to £1,600,000. The grants actually made to September 30, 1911, were:-- £ Improvement of road crusts 321,445 Road widenings and improvement of curves and corners 44,856 Road diversions 16,906 Construction and improvement of bridges 23,947 ------- Total 407,154 {482}Inasmuch as applications were made to the Board up to June 30, 1911, for advances amounting in the aggregate to close on £8,000,000, there would seem still to be a great deal that requires to be done to the roads of the country to adapt them to the traffic conditions of to-day. It will be seen, however, that the combined operations of the Royal Automobile Club, the Automobile Association and Motor Union, and the Road Board constitute, in effect--and more especially from the point of view of provision of facilities for through traffic under satisfactory conditions--a national road policy far in advance of anything this country has ever seen before. These road improvements appeal to the motorist, delighting in cross-country journeys, still more than they do to the urban trader, whose road transport does not, generally speaking, extend beyond a certain radius. But within the limits of such radius the substitution of commercial motors for horse-drawn vehicles is undergoing an expansion which seems to be restricted only by the extent of the motor-car manufacturers' powers of production, while already the use of so many commercial motors is accentuating certain changes in commercial conditions which--as it is one of the objects of the present work to show--have ever been powerfully influenced by the transport facilities of the day. With the large wholesale and retail houses the use of the road motor is a matter not simply of economy in transport but, to a still greater degree, of doing a larger business, in less time, and over a wider area, than if horsed vehicles were used. When urban traders send motor-vehicles a distance of over twenty or even thirty miles into the outer suburbs, and when those vehicles can cover from fifty to sixty miles in a day, distributing fresh supplies to suburban or country shopkeepers, delivering purchases to local residents, or calling on them to leave groceries, meat and other household necessaries, the possibilities of an expansion of business by the said traders are greatly increased, more especially when the local residents within the radius in question find that if they give an order to the van-man, or send it by post one day, the motor-vehicle will generally supply their wants the next day or the day following. Under this arrangement the big traders, or the big stores, in town are enabled to make their already big {483}businesses bigger still--to their own advantage, but with a corresponding disadvantage to the local shopkeepers. In another direction the commercial motor is assisting the operations of trading companies, caterers, grocers, tea-dealers, tobacconists, etc., who, instead of having a single huge block of departmental shops or stores, have numerous branches in all parts of London, furnishing them with viands, provisions or stock from a head depôt. In all such instances as these,--more especially when cooked food is distributed from a central kitchen,--the superiority of the motor-vehicle over the horsed van is self-evident; while the further advantage is gained that the branch establishments can be devoted wholly, or almost exclusively, to the serving of customers, without any need for extensive kitchen arrangements or store-rooms of their own. Alternatively, the premises used for these branches need be no larger than is necessary to meet day-by-day requirements, whereas an independent trader, having only a single establishment, would want much more accommodation, involving higher rent, rates, taxes and expenses generally. Once more the gain is on the part of the big trader as against the small one; and once more we have evidence of the increasing tendency for the former to supersede the latter. In fact, the real competition to-day is no longer between large traders and small traders. It is a competition between the commercial giants themselves. It is a contest in which the small shopkeeper is little better than an interested spectator, with nothing more to hope for than that the particular giant who wipes out his business will, at least, be so far considerate as to offer him a situation. In the recesses of Wild Wales there has been seen a commercial motor-vehicle which was virtually a shop or a general stores on wheels--something after the style of the familiar gypsies' van, though of a far superior type. There are evidently endless possibilities in this direction. The time may come when it will not be necessary for the rural resident to go to the shops in even the nearest town. The shops themselves--or equivalents thereto--will be brought to the very door. To a certain extent there will thus be a reversal to the habits of former days; but between the packhorse, or the pedlar, and the motor-shop-on-wheels there will be a distinct and a very wide difference, representing generations of both scientific {484}and economic progress. Do not such possibilities still further suggest, also, the eventual supersession of the small trader by the large one? In almost every class of trade or business the commercial motor is being steadily substituted for horsed vehicles. There are large retail houses in London which have each their "fleets" of up to fifty or sixty motor-vans or lorries.[65] The carrying companies would hardly be able to provide their extensive suburban services of to-day without road motors. Fishmongers, ice merchants and fruit salesmen, who especially require to have a speedy means of distributing their wares, favour the commercial motor no less than do the managers of evening newspapers. Laundry companies--to whose business a great impetus has been given of late years by the increasing resort to residential flats--find commercial motors of great service in the collections that have to be made on Mondays and Tuesdays and the deliveries effected on Fridays and Saturdays. Furniture-removers, by resorting either, for small removals, to motors carrying pantechnicons, or, for large removals, to traction-engines and regular road trains, can now cover distances of up to 100 or 150 miles a day, the "record" down to the autumn of 1911 being 166 miles in a day. Brewers, mineral-water manufacturers, oil companies, coal merchants, pianoforte-makers, brick-makers and scores of other traders, besides, are all taking to the new form of street or road transport. Motor-vehicles are likewise succeeding horsed vehicles for fire-engines, municipal water-carts and dust-carts, street ambulances, Post Office mail-vans,[66] char-a-bancs and estate cars, the last-mentioned being constructed so that they can be used either for passengers or for goods. Theatrical companies on tour use motor-vehicles for the conveyance of themselves, _plus_ belongings and scenery. Political propagandists, also on tour, move in their motor-van from one village to another with an ease that no other road vehicle could surpass. Religious missions are being sent out in motor-vans fitted up as {485}chapels, and duly dedicated to their special purpose. Finally, after having had, through life, the advantage of all the numerous and varied motor services here mentioned, one may now be conveyed to one's last resting-place in what a writer in "Motor Traction" for June 24, 1911, describes as "a properly-equipped motor hearse." So considerable is the expansion which the use of commercial motors has undergone, and so great and varied are the interests represented, that there is now a Commercial Motor Users' Association which, among other purposes, seeks to resist the placing of undue restrictions on users, and to extend their rights and privileges. The administration of the Association is vested in an executive committee (on which the principal industries using self-propelled vehicles for industrial purposes are represented) and various sub-committees. Of the motor-omnibus as a competitor with the electric tramway I have spoken in the previous chapter. It is a no less serious competitor with the horse omnibus which in London, at least, if not in other cities as well, it is rapidly driving off the streets altogether. The position in London is suggested by the following figures, which give the numbers of horse-omnibuses and motor-omnibuses licensed in the years stated:-- YEAR. HORSE. MOTOR. 1902 3736 10 1903 3667 29 1904 3623 13 1905 3551 31 1906 3484 241 1907 2964 783 1908 2557 1205 1909 2155 1133 1910 1771 1180 1911[67] 863 1665 On October 25, 1911, the London General Omnibus Company, who at one time had 17,800 horses, ran their last horse-omnibuses, these being then definitely withdrawn by them in favour of motor-omnibuses. A like story is to be told of the rapid substitution of motor-cabs, popularly known as "taxis," for the horse-cabs which, succeeding the earlier hackney coaches, had helped to render so disconsolate the formerly important and influential, though now utterly vanished, body known as "Thames watermen."[68] Once more, in fact, the supplanters are being {486}supplanted. "Growlers" and "crawlers" have had their day, and the smarter-looking and quicker-moving taxis are leaving them to share the fate of the stage-coach when it came into competition with the better form of transport represented by the railway. How far the substitution of motor-cabs for horsed cabs has already gone in London will be gathered from the following table, taken from the report (issued in July, 1911) of the Home Office Departmental Committee on Taxicab Fares in the London Cab Trade:-- MOTOR-CABS HORSE-CABS LICENSED. YEAR. LICENSED. Hansom. Four-wheel. Total. 1906 96 6648 3844 10,492 1907 723 5952 3866 9818 1908 2805 4826 3649 8475 1909 3956 3299 3263 3562 1910 6397 2003 3721 4724 1911[69] 7165 1803 2583 4386 How the horse is steadily disappearing from the streets and roads is indicated by the records of a traffic census carried out by Mr. H. Hewitt Griffin on Putney Bridge, in Fleet Street, E.C., and in the Edgware Road, and published in the issues of "Motor Traction" for July 15, May 6, and October 7, 1911, respectively. Mr Griffin has taken his Putney Bridge census for seven years in succession, and, comparing 1905 with 1911, he gives net results which may be summarised as follows:-- A TWELVE HOURS' CENSUS ON Sunday, Sunday, TYPE OF VEHICLE. June 25, 1905. July 2, 1911. Horse-drawn buses 1613 33 Motor-buses _nil_ 1529 Horse cabs, carriages, etc. 715 225 Motor-cars, cabs, etc. 361 1943 The Fleet Street traffic census, taken for five successive years, yielded the following results for 1907 and 1911:-- A TWELVE HOURS' CENSUS ON {487} TYPE OF VEHICLE. April 23, 1907. April 19, 1911. Horse-drawn buses 2241 95 Motor-buses 995 2684 Horse-cabs 1902 391 Motor-cabs (taxis) 48 1616 In the Edgware Road the results for 1906 and 1911 were:-- A NINE HOURS' CENSUS ON TYPE OF VEHICLE. Sept. 20, 1906. Sept. 18, 1911. Horse-drawn buses 1776 21 Motor-buses 441 1599 Horse-cabs 1051[70] 260 Motor-cabs (taxis) 10 1131 Statistics taken on the Portsmouth Road for the Surrey County Council on seven successive days in corresponding weeks of July, 1909, 1910 and 1911 show that the numbers of motor-vehicles passing between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. were:-- YEAR. NO. OF MOTORS. 1909 5,863 1910 7,823 1911 10,635 These figures give an increase in two years of 81 per cent. During twelve hours on a Saturday in July, 1911, the number of motor-vehicles counted was 3279, or an average of 273 per hour. The greatest number passing in a single hour was 524, while during the period of the heaviest traffic 90 passed in ten minutes. All these varied and ever-extending uses to which motor-vehicles are being put would seem almost to foreshadow the time when the horse is likely to be found only at the Zoological Gardens, as a curious survival of a bygone age in traction. Definite statistics as to the extent to which automobilism, in its manifold phases, constitutes an industry in itself are not available; but the activities now employed on or in connection with motors, motoring, and motor transport are manifold and widespread. {488}For many years the crippling effect of legislative restrictions greatly checked the development of motor-car construction in this country. The Act of 1896 gave a stimulus to the building of pleasure cars, but French and German makers had the advantage until British manufacturers showed they could produce cars which would bear comparison with the foreign importations. Real expansion of the home industry came with the Heavy Motor-car Order of 1904, although even then no great degree of progress followed immediately thereon. Traders generally were reluctant to acquire commercial motors for themselves until the success of the new vehicles had been assured, and some early failures, due to faulty construction, gave commercial motors a bad name at the start. With the adoption of improved methods, their utility was fully established, and the expansion of the industry during the last four or five years has been remarkable in the extreme. British manufacturers had already gained a world-wide reputation for their steam road-vehicles (traction engines), and they readily adapted their plant, etc., to the building of the best type of commercial motors when the initial difficulties had been overcome. While, therefore, French and German makers were still sending their pleasure motors to this country, British producers of commercial motors kept this branch of the industry in their own hands, the position to-day being that practically all the public service and commercial motors used in this country are British-made. The main if not the only chance here for foreign vehicles of these types is when the British makers cannot execute orders promptly enough to meet requirements. In point of fact the orders coming to hand far exceed the present productive capacity of some of our manufacturers, who, in addition to seeking to supply the home market, are now sending British-made commercial motors to almost every country in the world. I am assured, by an authority in a position to know, that certain of the English and Scotch manufacturers specialising in commercial motors had so many orders on hand in October, 1911, that unless they increased their premises, and laid down fresh machinery, they would be unable to execute any more until the end of 1912. Much enlargement or rebuilding of works is already {489}proceeding, while manufacturers who have hitherto devoted their attention mainly or exclusively to pleasure motors are now adapting their plant, etc., to the making of commercial motors either instead or in addition. The demand for pleasure motors is limited; that for public service motors and motor-vehicles for traders is illimitable. From the great stores which keep their "fleet" of delivery cars, and from the furniture-remover who wants the equivalent almost of a traction-engine down to the draper, the grocer or the butcher who is content with a modest three-wheel auto-carrier for loads up to five or ten cwt., every class of trader is to-day finding that, to keep pace with the times, and to deliver goods as promptly and at the same distances as his competitors, he must needs have a quicker means of road transport than a horsed-vehicle. Then, while large traders having their fleets of motor-vehicles set up their own repairing shops, the needs of smaller traders with only two or three delivery vans are provided for by motor manufacturers or others who undertake "maintenance" on contract terms, thus saving such traders from all trouble in the matter of repairs and upkeep. When one adds to these considerations the fact that traders not only in the United Kingdom but in the colonies, in every European country, and even as far away as Japan, are looking to English and Scotch manufacturers to supply them with motor-traction vehicles, the impression is conveyed that the further great development of the motor industry in the United Kingdom will be far less in pleasure motors, or even in the motors used by doctors and others for professional purposes, than in commercial motors; and this impression is confirmed by a remark made by Sir Samuel Samuel at the Motor-Aviation dinner given by him at the Savoy Hotel on October 30, 1911. "The future of the motor-car industry," he said, "lay in the commercial motor traffic, the solution of the street traffic problem lay in motor-omnibuses, and in ten years time most of the tramway stock would be scrapped." Apart from figures as to the number of public service or commercial motors--chiefly, as I have shown, of home manufacture--already in use, the only available statistics indicating the growth of the British motor industry are those given in the Board of Trade Returns concerning "cars, chassis and {490}parts" exported, the total value thereof being £1,502,000 in 1909 and £2,511,000 in 1910. The imports in the same years rose from £4,218,000 to £5,065,000. It may be assumed that the latter figures relate more particularly to pleasure cars; though it should be remembered that even on these, as imported from France or Germany, additional work may often be done here--in the way of body-building or otherwise--to the extent of £200 or so per car. Many allied trades are likewise doing a good business in the supply of accessories. Allowing, next, for the employment given to drivers, repairers and others, and for the sum total (if it could only be estimated) of the amount distributed annually by motorists among hotel proprietors and town and country tradespeople, the circulation of money that is directly due to motoring and motor-traction must be prodigious. As far back as 1906 it was estimated that motor drivers alone in this country were receiving over £5,000,000 a year in wages, that the wages paid to men employed in the manufacture of cars and accessories amounted to nearly £10,000,000 a year, and that the total number of drivers and others concerned in motoring was about 230,000. But much has happened since 1906, and if these figures accurately represent the position then, they would have to be greatly increased to represent the position to-day. Thus we see that automobilism--using the word in its widest application--has not only brought about some remarkable changes in our conditions of inland transport and communication but is itself rapidly developing into still another of our national industries, even if it should not have done so already. Tube railways are an outcome of various attempts to solve a problem in urban transport that more especially applies to London. When railways were first brought to the Metropolis the prejudice against them was so strong, and the lack of foresight as to the purpose they would eventually serve was so pronounced, that in 1846 limits were set up, on what were then the outskirts of London, within which the lines were not to come. The whole of the central area was to be left free from railways, the view of a Royal Commission which considered the subject in the year stated being that, as the proportion {491}of short-distance passengers by the main lines was only small, the probable demand for the accommodation of short-distance traffic would not justify the sacrifice of property or the expenditure of money that would be involved in placing the termini in crowded centres. The same Commission recommended that if, at any future time, it should be thought necessary to admit railways within the prescribed area, this should be done in conformity with some uniform plan. Under no circumstances, they urged, should separate schemes having no reference to each other be tolerated. It was not long before the growth of London and the transport needs of its population made clear the fact that the exclusion of railways from the central area could not be maintained, though the recommendation of the 1846 Commission as regards a uniform plan was wholly disregarded. Supplementing the omnibuses originally established between Paddington and the City in 1829 by Shillibeer came, in 1863, the first line of underground railway, connecting Paddington station with Farringdon Street, and constructed in an open cutting, where possible. An earlier idea of having one central station in London for all the different main lines of railway was discarded in favour of underground railways of the type here in question; and the "inner circle," linking up most of the main-line termini, was eventually completed. The original restrictions in regard to the central area were also modified, such stations as those at Charing Cross, Cannon-Street, Holborn and Liverpool Street being allowed to be set up within the once sacred precincts. Branches were made from the inner circle of the underground system; the main-line railways began to develop their now enormous suburban business; the omnibuses were crowded in the busy hours of the day, while the tramways, though excluded from the central area still more rigidly than the railways had been, gained no lack of patronage to or from the "outer fringe." All these facilities served a most useful purpose; but they obviously required to be supplemented by lines of railway which would directly serve the central area of London, and both allow of easier movement from one part of London to another and enable City workers to travel more readily between their suburban homes and the immediate locality of their places of work or business. Neither surface nor {492}overhead railways across the centre of London were even to be thought of, while the cost of still more underground railways of the "shallow" type already constructed was looked upon as almost prohibitive, though underground any further London lines would assuredly have to be. A way was found out of the difficulty by the construction of deep-level iron tubes passing through the stratum of clay underlying London, such tubes providing for lines of railway along which trains to be worked by electricity could pass between various stations--in still larger tubes--in different parts of London and the suburbs. The first of these tube railways was projected by the City and South London Railway Company, and received the sanction of Parliament in 1884. The line was opened in 1890, and with it London acquired the pioneer of those tube railways which were to effect so revolutionary a change in her general transport conditions. The Central London Railway followed, in 1900, and since then London has been provided with a network of tube railways, offering facilities for a more or less complete interchange of traffic, north and south, and east and west, both between themselves and in conjunction with the termini of the main line steam railways. In this way movement about and across London has been greatly facilitated. Three of the new tubes, the Bakerloo, the Piccadilly and the Hampstead have been united into one system by the London Electric Railway Company, and, together with the earlier District Railway and the London United Tramways, are under the same control, with great advantage to everyone concerned, while the original underground lines--the Metropolitan and the Metropolitan District--have been electrified and vastly improved. The disadvantages of "isolated projects" on which successive Commissions--the London Traffic Commission among the number--have insisted so strongly have thus, to a certain extent, been met by the principle of combination through private enterprise. No action has yet been taken to carry out the recommendation made in June, 1905, in the Report of the Royal Commission on London Traffic, in regard to the formation of a London Traffic Board, though a useful work is being done by the London Traffic Branch appointed by the Board of Trade in August, 1907, "to continue and supplement the work of the Royal Commission {493}by keeping the statistics up to date, collecting information, and studying the problem of London traffic in all its changing aspects." In the reports issued by this Branch will be found a mine of interesting data on London traffic conditions, supplementing the abundant information in the reports of the Royal Commission itself. It is to be hoped that the sequel to these continued investigations will be the eventual creation of some such central authority as the London Traffic Board recommended. Whether this should be done by calling into existence for London an entirely new body, such as the Public Service Commission which controls all transportation questions and facilities in New York City, or whether the simpler method of enlarging the powers of the present Railway and Canal Commission should be adopted, by preference, are matters of detail which the future must be left to decide; but the advantages that would result from a greater degree of co-ordination in the organising and regulating of London transport conditions are incontestable. As showing the extent of the patronage which the electric railways of London, whether tube railways or otherwise, are now receiving, I might quote from the Board of Trade "Railway Returns" the following figures, giving the number of passengers (exclusive of holders of season and periodical tickets) carried in 1910:-- COMPANY OR LINE. NUMBER OF PASSENGERS. Central London 40,660,856 City and South London 23,501,947 Great Northern and City 9,380,378 Waterloo and City 3,724,277 London Electric 95,647,197 Metropolitan 82,728,776 Metropolitan District 64,627,829 Whitechapel and Bow 19,886,273 {494}CHAPTER XXXI THE OUTLOOK Having now traced the important part that improvements in the conditions of inland transport and communication have played in the economic and social development of this country, and having seen, also, the action taken therein, on the one hand by so-called "private enterprise" (defined by Samuel Smiles as "the liberality, public spirit and commercial enterprise of merchants, traders and manufacturers"), and on the other hand by State and local authorities, we have now to consider, in this final chapter, what are the prospects of further changes and developments in those transport conditions to which, judging from past experience, it would not be wise to fix finality in the matter of progress. Thus far the railway certainly represents the survival of the fittest; and, curiously enough, although great improvements have been made in locomotive construction, in rails, in signalling, in carriage-building and in the various departments of railway working, no absolutely new principle has been developed since the Liverpool and Manchester Railway definitely established the last of the three fundamental principles on which railway construction and operation are really based: (1) that a greater load can be moved, by an equivalent power, in a wheeled vehicle on a pair of rails than in a similar vehicle on an ordinary road; (2) that flanged wheels and flat rails are preferable for fast traffic to flat wheels and flanged rails; and (3) that a railway train should be operated by a locomotive rather than by either animal power or a stationary engine. It is true that, in regard to the last-mentioned of these three main principles, material changes have been brought about by the resort to electricity as a motive power; but this, after all, is an improvement in the means of rail transport rather than a complete change in the principle of transport {495}itself; and, though electricity may supersede steam to a considerable extent, especially for suburban traffic, the resort to it is a reversal, in another form, to the earlier idea of motive power distributed from a fixed point, as originally represented by stationary engines, before the locomotive had established its superiority thereto. In any case, the railway is still the railway, whatever the form of traction employed, and there is, after all, no such fundamental difference between an electric railway and a steam railway as there was between the railway and the canal, or between either railway waggon or canal barge and the carrier's cart travelling on ordinary roads. The question that really arises here is, not whether electricity is likely to supersede steam for long-distance as well as for short-distance rail traffic, but whether the railways themselves are likely to be superseded, sharing the same fate as that which they caused to fall on the stage-coach and, more or less, on the canal barge. For the physical, economic and other considerations already presented, there is no reasonable ground for expecting much from the projected scheme of canal revival. When the country comes fully to realise (1) the natural unsuitability of England's undulatory surfaces for transport by artificial waterways; (2) the enormous cost which the carrying out of any general scheme of canal revival would involve; (3) the practical impossibility of canal-widening in the Birmingham and Black Country districts; and (4) the comparatively small proportion of traders in the United Kingdom who could hope to benefit from a scheme for which all alike might have to pay;--it is hardly probable that public opinion will sanction the carrying out of a project at once so costly and so unsatisfactory in its prospective results. Still less than in the case of canals would any attempt to improve the conditions of transport on rivers--serving even more limited districts, and having so many natural drawbacks and disadvantages--be likely to meet any general advantage or to foster any material competition with the railways. Developments in regard to road transport are much more promising--or, from the point of view of the railways, much more to be feared--than any really practical revival of inland navigation. {496}Dealing, in this connection, first with personal travel, we find that the main competition with the railways proceeds from (1) omnibuses, motor or otherwise; (2) electric tramways, and (3) private motor-cars. An omnibus, whether of the horse or of the motor type, is the equivalent of the carrier's van or of the old stage-coach in so far as it has the complete freedom of the roads. The electric tramway, while having to keep to a certain route, and involved in greater capital expenditure by reason of its need for rails, overhead wires and power stations, may, if owned by a local authority, still be materially aided, directly or indirectly, out of the local rates. Thus the omnibus and the electric tramway may both be able to transport passengers at lower fares than the railways, which, as regards the municipal tramways, may even be called on to pay, through increased taxation, towards the maintenance of their rivals. In London itself the motor-omnibuses have undoubtedly abstracted a considerable amount of short-distance traffic from the Central London Railway, which, however, still has the advantage in regard to longer distance journeys. That electric tramways and motor-omnibuses have also diverted a great deal of suburban passenger traffic from the trunk railways is beyond dispute. But here the companies are seeking to meet the position (1) by operating their own suburban lines by electricity, giving their passengers a quicker transport than they would get with tramways or motor-cars stopping frequently, or held up by traffic repeatedly, on the roads or streets; or (2) by offering to town workers greater facilities for removing from homes in the inner to homes in the outer suburbs, if not in the country proper or even on the coast itself--in other words, to such a distance that they would naturally be dependent on the railway and the business trains that are now run thereon from the places in question to meet their special convenience.[71] {497}Of these two developments the former has not yet been generally adopted, whereas the latter is in full activity, and, in combination with the heavier local taxation which is steadily driving people away from London boroughs, is helping to produce results of much interest and importance. The population, not only of London, but of great towns in general, is undergoing a considerable redistribution. Land at greater distances from urban centres, and hitherto devoted only to agriculture or market gardens, is being utilised more and more for building purposes; the increasing values of land within the radius of these outer suburbs improves the position on urban markets of producers in rural centres whose lower rents may more than compensate for their slightly heavier cost of transport as compared with the suburban growers; the health of town workers taking to what are not merely suburban but country homes should improve. Social and domestic conditions generally are, to a certain extent, in a state of transition; while the trunk railways are getting back from their long-distance suburban traffic some--though not yet, perhaps, actually the whole--of the revenue they have lost on their short-distance traffic. On the other hand, results are being brought about in the inner suburbs which are viewed with much uneasiness by the local authorities. The removal from the inner suburbs of considerable numbers of those who can afford to live further away from their business means (1) that population in the inner suburban circle is decreasing, or, alternatively, that a better-class population is giving place to a poorer-class one; (2) that much of the house property there is either standing empty or is fetching considerably lower rents; and (3) that the taxable capacity of the areas in question is declining, although the need for raising more by local taxation is to-day greater than ever. Where the local authorities who are experiencing all these consequences of an interesting social change have themselves helped to bring them about by setting up municipal tramways to compete with the railways, thus, among other consequences, driving the latter to resort to measures of self-defence, they may find that attempts to change, if not to control, the operation of economic forces have their risks and perils; while the position for the authorities concerned will be even worse {498}if their municipal tramway, in turn, should suffer materially from the competition of the motor-omnibus. Private motor-cars may appear to have deprived the railways of a good deal of their passenger traffic, and they certainly constitute a most material and much-appreciated increase in the facilities now available for getting about the country. It must, however, be remembered that a very large proportion of the journeys taken in them would probably not be made at all if the motor-car did not exist, and if such journeys had to be made by train instead. The actual diversion of traffic from the railway only occurs when journeys which would otherwise be made by rail are made by motor, in preference. Here the railway certainly does lose. Against the loss in the one direction in railway revenue, owing to the greater use of motor-cars, there can at least be set the constant growth in the taste for travel which the railway companies (partly, again, to make up for the competition in suburban traffic) have done their best to cultivate by means of abnormally low excursion or week-end fares based, as one leading railway officer put it to me, "not on any idea of distance, but on the amount that the class of people catered for might be assumed to be willing to pay." The travel habit has thus undergone a greater expansion of late years than has ever before been known, so that a falling-off of railway traffic in some directions ought, sooner or later, to be compensated for by increases in others, if, indeed, that result has not already been attained. The actual position in regard to passenger travel on the railways of the United Kingdom during the years 1901-10 is shown by the following figures, taken from the Board of Trade Railway Returns:-- PASSENGER RECEIPTS FROM YEAR. JOURNEYS.[72] PASSENGERS. £ 1901 1,172,395,900 39,096,053 1902 1,188,219,269 39,622,725 1903 1,195,265,195 39,985,003 1904 1,198,773,720 40,065,746 1905 1,199,022,102 40,256,930 1906 1,240,347,132 41,204,982 1907 1,259,481,315 42,102,007 1908 1,278,115,488 42,615,812 1909 1,265,080,761 41,950,188 1910 1,306,728,583 43,247,345 {499}These figures give evidence of, on the whole, a substantial advance in railway passenger journeys and receipts, notwithstanding all the competition of alternative facilities, and we may assume that although tramways, motor-cars, motor-omnibuses and even the latest new-comer, railless electric traction, may supplement and more or less compete with the railways, there is no suggestion that they are likely entirely to supplant them for passenger travel. In the matter of goods transport in general, it is the fact that during the last ten or fifteen years, more especially, there has been an increasing tendency for the delivery of domestic supplies to suburban districts or towns within an ever-expanding radius of London and other leading cities to be effected by road, instead of by rail. The same has been the case in the distribution by wholesale houses of goods to suburban shopkeepers, and, also, in the reverse direction, in the sending of market-garden or other produce to central markets. Where the railway companies have really created new suburban districts through the running of specially cheap workmen's trains, it may seem hard upon them that they should be deprived of the goods transport to which such districts give rise. The fact must be recognised, however, that when the distances are within, say, a ten-, a fifteen- or even a twenty-mile radius, and when only small or comparatively small parcels or consignments are to be carried, the advantages in economical transport may well be in favour of the road vehicle rather than of the railway. The road vehicle can load up in the streets as it stands opposite the wholesale trader's warehouse; it pays nothing for the use of the road; it does not make any special contribution to the police funds in recognition of services rendered in the regulation of the traffic; nor is it taxed by the local authorities on the basis of the quantity of {500}goods carried and the extent of the presumptive profits made; whereas the railway company must have a costly goods depôt, acquire land for their track, lay lines of rails, maintain an elaborate organisation to ensure safe working of the traffic, and submit to taxation by every local authority through whose district the goods carried may require to pass. There is, also, the further consideration, of which I have previously spoken, that in the case of short-distance journeys the cost of terminal services makes the rate per ton per mile appear much higher, in proportion, than when, while remaining at the same figure, it is spread over a substantially greater mileage. While, with the increasing facilities for road transport, the railways must expect to lose more of their short-distance traffic, they should be able to retain their long-distance traffic, and more especially their long-distance traffic in bulk, commercial motors notwithstanding. Where commodities are carried either in considerable quantities or for considerable distances, and more particularly when both of these conditions prevail, transport by a locomotive, operating on rails, and conveying a heavy load with no very material increase in working expenses over the carrying of a light load, must needs be more economical than the distribution of a corresponding tonnage of goods among a collection of commercial motors, for conveyance by road under such conditions that each motor is operated as a separate and distinct unit. The results, too, already brought about in the case of the suburban passenger traffic may, possibly, be so far repeated that railway companies deprived, also, of suburban goods traffic by the increasing competition of road conveyances, will show further enterprise in encouraging long-distance goods traffic to the same markets, or to the same towns. In this way they might seek to avoid, as far as practicable, any falling-off in their revenue at a time when taxation, wages, cost of materials and other working expenses all show a continuous upward tendency. Should the policy here in question be adopted, market-gardeners, more especially, may find that, while they have effected a slight saving on their cost of transport by resorting to road conveyance, they will have to face increased competition from produce coming in larger quantities from long-distance growers who, with a lower cost of production, and, {501}also, with increased encouragement from the railways, might have advantages on urban markets fully equal to those of the short-distance grower located in the suburbs. The whole question of the steadily increasing competition between road and rail has thus become one of special interest, at the present moment, alike for the trading, the motor and the railway interests. That the use of motor-vehicles is destined to make even greater advance in the immediate future has already here been shown. Yet there are distinct limitations to its possibilities, although this fact is apt to be overlooked by motor enthusiasts, some of whom are, indeed, over-sanguine. One of them proclaims that "the new locomotion" is "designed to be the chief means of transit to be used by humanity at large," and "eventually will probably to a large extent supersede all others." He further writes: "Many of us will live to see railway companies in places pulling up their rails and making their tracks suitable for motor-car traffic, charging a toll for private vehicles and carrying the bulk of the traffic in their own motor-cars." Granting that motor-vehicles are likely to supersede both tramways and horse-vehicles, what are really the prospects of their superseding railways, as well? Should railway shareholders at once sell out and put their money, preferably, in motor-omnibus and commercial motor companies? In regard to goods we have the fact that the quantities thereof carried by the railways of the United Kingdom in 1910 were:-- Minerals 405,087,175 tons. General merchandise 109,341,631 " ----------- Total 514,428,806 tons. Motor transport could obviously not be adapted to the transport of 400,000,000 tons of minerals, and for these, at least, the railways would still be wanted. But the number of motor-vehicles necessary to deal with 109,000,000 tons of general merchandise would still be prodigious, apart from considerations of distance, time taken in transport, wear and tear of roads, and, also, of the question whether a locomotive, doing the work of many motors, would not be the {502}cheaper unit in the conveyance of commodities carried in bulk on long or comparatively long hauls. The suburban delivery of parcels is one thing; the distribution, for example (as mentioned in a footnote on page 399), of 1000 railway waggons of broccoli from Penzance, all over Great Britain, in a single week, is another. In the matter of passenger traffic, while people of means may prefer to make such journeys as that from London to Scotland in their own motor-car, the railway will continue to form both the cheaper and the quicker means of travel for the great bulk of the population as distinct from private car-owners, whose number must needs be comparatively small. It is in respect to urban and suburban traffic that motor-vehicles have their best chance of competing with the railways on any extensive scale; yet even here, and notwithstanding all that they are already doing, their limitations are no less evident. Taking only one of the many railway termini in London, the average number of suburban passengers who arrive at the Liverpool Street station of the Great Eastern Railway Company every week-day (exclusive of 12,000 from places beyond the suburban district) is 81,000, and of these about 66,000 come by trains arriving, in rapid succession, up to 10 a.m. To convey 81,000 suburban dwellers by motor-omnibus instead of by train would necessitate 2382 journeys, assuming that every seat was occupied. On the basis of the average number of persons actually travelling in a motor-bus at one time, it would probably require 4000 motor-bus journeys to bring even the Great Eastern suburban passengers to town each day if they discarded train for bus, and the same number to take them back in the evening. So long, too, as a single locomotive on the Great Eastern suffices for a suburban train accommodating between 800 and 1000 passengers, the company are not likely to pull up their rails and provide tracks in their place for a vast "fleet" of motor-cars or motor-omnibuses. In some instances tramways and motor-omnibuses have, undoubtedly, deprived the railways of considerable traffic, and certain local stations around London have even been closed in consequence. In other instances tramways and buses have been of advantage to the railways by relieving {503}them of an amount of suburban traffic for which it might have been difficult for them fully to provide. But any _general_ supplanting of railways by motor-vehicles is as improbable in the case of passenger travel as it is in that of goods transport. Motor-vehicles are certain to become still more serious rivals of the railways than they are already, but they are not likely to render them obsolete; and, taking the country as a whole, the "bulk of the traffic" may be expected still to go by rail, motor-vehicles notwithstanding. Although, at the outset, some of the railway companies were disposed to regard the motor as a rather dangerous rival, the most enterprising have themselves adopted various forms of motor-vehicles, alike for establishing direct communication between country stations and outlying districts unprovided with branch lines, for enabling passengers arriving in London to pass readily from the terminus of one company to that of another, and for the collection and delivery of goods. In regard, again, to the outlook for the future, important possibilities were foreshadowed by a letter addressed to "The Times" of August 23, 1911, by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, concerning "Road Transport during Strikes." The hope of the leaders of the then recent railway strike had, of course, been to produce such a paralysis in the transport arrangements of the country that the railway companies would have been forced, owing to the resultant loss, dislocation of traffic, and, possibly, actual famine conditions, to surrender to all the demands made upon them. While the attempt failed on that occasion--thanks to the loyalty of the majority of the workers, the almost complete lack of public sympathy with the strikers, and, also, the employment of troops for the protection of the railways--there will always be the possibility of a renewal of the attempt. Pointing, therefore, to the large number of motorists in the United Kingdom, and mentioning, also, that there are, in addition, at least 10,000 commercial motor-vehicles as well, mostly running in or near the larger industrial centres, Lord Montagu wrote that, if supported by the Royal Automobile Club and the Automobile Association and Motor Union and assisted by his brother motorists in general, he would undertake in the case of a national emergency to carry out the following operations: (1) The carriage of all mails where railways are now used. {504}(2) The supply of milk, ice and necessaries to all hospitals and nursing homes. (3) The supply of milk, fish and perishable produce to London and other large towns. (4) The supply to country villages of stores not produced in or near their area, such as sugar, tea, etc. (5) The carriage of troops or police. (6) The conveyance of passengers if on urgent business in connection with family matters or trade. Lord Montagu added that "the Government would, of course, have to guarantee open roads and protection for loading and unloading vehicles, and provide for the swearing-in of motorists as special constables, who would be thus engaged in saving the community from starvation and chaos." He further thought that the compilation of a national register of motorists willing to lend their cars should be proceeded with at once. The existence of such an organisation as this, with the inclusion, also, in the proposed registry, of horsed waggons, waggonettes and other vehicles owned by the country gentry and others, might be of incalculable service both in enabling the railway companies to stand against the coercion of a really general strike, and in saving the transport of the country from any approach to a complete dislocation, pending the time when the full railway services could be resumed. A further example of the possible usefulness of motor-vehicles was shown by a War Office memorandum, issued on September 26, 1911, giving particulars of a provisional scheme for the subsidising of petrol motor-lorries already manufactured and owned by civilians, complying with certain specified conditions, the War Office thus acquiring the right to purchase such lorries from the owners for military service, in the case of need. Measures of the kind here in question would, of course, be temporary expedients only, there being, as shown above, no probability that motor transport by road would ever take the place altogether of transport by rail. Nor is aerial locomotion likely to be a more formidable rival of the railways than either inland navigation or motor transport by road. One may safely anticipate that further great advances are yet to be made in the art of flying; yet {505}one may, also, assume there is no prospect of aerial locomotion becoming a serious competitor with the railway. It is extremely interesting to know that the journey from London to Scotland has now been made in quicker time by aeroplane than by the fastest express, and that a 1000-mile flight round England has been accomplished with perfect control of the machinery employed. Yet, even allowing for the greatest possible improvements in the construction of the aeroplane, the number of passengers who could be carried is so limited, and the fares charged to cover capital outlay must needs be so high, that there could be no idea of rivalry between the aeroplane and the railway in regard to passenger traffic. Like considerations should apply in the case of goods traffic. In theory the idea of an aerial express goods service looks very promising. Yet, as a business proposition, one must needs again consider: (1) the capital cost of the aeroplane; (2) the comparatively small quantity of goods that could be carried on a single journey; and (3) the high rates that would necessarily have to be paid for their transport on commercial lines. A "record" in the aerial carriage of a 38-lb. consignment of electric lamps from Shoreham to Hove (Brighton) was established on July 4, 1911, by Mr H. C. Barber, of the Hendon Aviation Grounds; but this particular exploit was suggestive mainly of an advertisement for the lamps in question. I ventured, therefore, to put the following proposition to Mr Barber:-- "Assume that, owing to a railway strike, no goods trains could pass between London and Liverpool, and that a London merchant had a consignment of goods which it was of the utmost importance should be taken to Liverpool for despatch by a steamer on the point of sailing. Then: (1) What would be the maximum weight, and, also, the maximum bulk, of such consignment as an aeroplane could carry? (2) In what time, approximately, could the journey from Hendon to Liverpool be made? (3) What sum would the London trader have to pay for the transport?" Mr Barber informs me that the maximum weight of such consignment as could be carried would be about ten stone (1 cwt. 1 qr.); that the maximum bulk would be about 30 cubic feet; that the journey would take about four hours; {506}and that the charge for transport would be ten shillings per mile. The distance "as the crow--or the aeroplane--flies" between Hendon and Liverpool being about 200 miles, the charge would come to £100. Mr. Barber adds: "There is no doubt that within the very near future it will be possible to make much smaller charges; also charges could be very much reduced if there were sufficient business to make it worth while." This is what one would expect to hear. Yet, assuming that the aeroplane rate were reduced even by fifty per cent, it could not, even then, compete with the railway rate under normal conditions; while to convey through the air the 150 tons of general merchandise which a single locomotive attached to one of the many goods trains passing between London and Liverpool will haul would, on the basis of 1 cwt. 1 qr. per machine, require the use of 2400 aeroplanes. This calculation leaves out of account, too, the much greater weights of grain, timber and other heavy traffic in full truck-loads which pass from Liverpool to various inland places, and could not, of course, be dealt with by aeroplane at all. After surveying all these possible competitors or alternatives we are left to conclude that, as far as foresight can suggest, the railways are likely still to constitute at least the chief means of carrying on internal transport and communication in this country. If this be so, then the main proposition as to the outlook for inland transport in general relates to the outlook for the railways in particular. Here the first consideration which presents itself is that, as regards main lines, our railway system to-day may be regarded as approximately complete.[73] There may still be good scope for the construction of extensions, new links or of short cuts; but these should count as improvements rather than as fresh lines of communication. In London there are to be extensions of some of the existing tubes with a view to affording to the public increased facilities both for reaching the termini of the great trunk lines and for {507}a still easier interchange of traffic between the different tube or underground railways themselves. An exceptionally important scheme of improved transport was announced, on November 18, 1911, by the London and North-Western Railway Company, such scheme comprising (1) the electrification of 40 miles of suburban railway, including a material portion of the North London Railway; (2) the construction by the London Electric Railway Company of a new tube, extending their Bakerloo line from Paddington to the L. & N. W. system at Queens' Park; and (3) the running, for the first time, and by means of specially-constructed carriages, of through services between a trunk line and a tube. While the existing tube companies may thus extend their lines, and while the trunk companies may seek to co-operate more with them in providing for suburban traffic, the outlook for any new tube companies in London would not seem to be very promising in view of the fact that the holders of £9,300,000 of ordinary stock in the London Electric Railway (controlling the Bakerloo, Piccadilly and Hampstead lines), out of a total capitalisation of £16,200,000, received in 1911 a dividend equal to only one per cent. In the country what is most wanted is an increase in transport facilities between existing railways and outlying districts, the traffic from which would not be sufficient to justify the construction of branch lines of ordinary railway. There are fishing villages, agricultural districts, market gardening areas, and innumerable small communities which would gain a material advantage by being provided with better means of communication with the nearest railway. Whether or not such facilities should be provided by (1) road motors, (2) railless electric traction, or (3) light railways, is a question that must depend on the conditions, circumstances or prospects of the locality concerned; but if more people are to be sent "back to the land," and if colonies of small holders are to be established thereon with any hope of success, then it is desirable, if not essential: (1) that each colony of such settlers should form an agricultural co-operative society; (2) that each society should set up its depôt to facilitate the combination of purchases or consignments into grouped lots; and (3) that between the depôt and a convenient railway station there should be provided some means {508}of collective transport under the most effective and economical conditions. It is thus mainly in the direction of railway feeders that the need for increased transport facilities exists to-day. In this absence of any general necessity for additional railways, the policy of the railway companies of late years has been directed more to the consolidation and economical working of the existing system of lines. This policy has especially aimed at the furtherance of those mutual agreements and amalgamations which, as we have seen, have constituted a prominent phase in the development of railways from a very early period in their history. Present-day tendencies in this direction are especially due to the fact that working expenses have greatly increased while the powers of the companies to increase their charges are still subject to the restrictions of the Act of 1894, under which they may be required to justify before the Railway and Canal Commission any increase in a rate since the 31st of December, 1892. Increase of expenditure is found in the higher wages bills, in the ever-expanding items of rates and taxes, in the heavier cost of raw materials, in the greater amount of clerical and other work resulting from the sending of frequent small consignments in place of consignments in bulk, and in the provision of greater conveniences and luxuries in travel. An increased volume of traffic has, to a certain extent, compensated for these heavier expenses; but it has not done so sufficiently, and the ideal remedy has appeared to lie in the direction of effecting economies in operation and management, either by individual companies or through arrangements between two or more, to their mutual advantage, and without, as the companies have claimed, any disadvantage to the public. In some instances companies have had to grant such concessions to local communities as a means of overcoming threatened opposition to their proposed arrangements that the value of the advantages eventually obtained has been represented almost by a negative quantity. In other instances the opposition has been so keen, and the "prices of assent" have been so exacting, that the companies concerned have preferred to abandon their schemes rather than go on with them. In still other instances companies have refrained from attempting to carry out amalgamations requiring {509}Parliamentary sanction, and thus likely to provoke opposition, and have made such arrangements between themselves as were within their powers and were likely to give them some of the advantages they wanted, though not, perhaps, all. Following on certain developments in these various directions, a Departmental Committee was appointed, in June, 1909, by the Board of Trade to consider and report "what changes, if any, are expedient in the law relating to agreements among railway companies, and what, if any, general provisions ought to be embodied for the purpose of safeguarding the various interests affected in future Acts of Parliament authorising railway amalgamations or working unions." The report of this Committee [Cd. 5631] was issued in May, 1911. In so far as they deal with the principle that even Parliament itself is powerless to prevent the tendency to co-operation between railway companies originally designed to compete with one another, the Committee do little more than re-echo what was said, not only by the Joint Committee of 1872, but even by Morrison in the speech he made in the House of Commons on May 17, 1836. There is, also, a close resemblance between what I have stated concerning the position in 1836 and at subsequent dates--namely, that there was no allegation that the railway companies _had_ abused their powers, only fear that they _might_ do so--and the following extract from the report made by the Departmental Committee in 1911:-- "It is, of course, to the interest of the railway companies not to raise rates or stint accommodation to an extent that will reduce traffic unduly, but, subject to this, a policy of self-interest might frequently lead the companies to charge rates which, judged by any existing standard, would be unreasonable." So, in 1911, no less than in 1836, and at any time between those dates, the policy of the State towards the railways, as far as it can be summed up in a single word, is represented by this word "might." The attitude of distrust and suspicion originally engendered towards the railways by the canal companies evidently still survives, and is expected to form, even to-day, the approved basis of State action. The principle of railway co-operation is, indeed, frankly and fully accepted by the Departmental Committee, who declare they have come to the unanimous conclusion "that the natural lines of {510}development of an improved and more economical railway system lie in the direction of more perfect understandings and co-operation between the various railway companies which must frequently, although not always, be secured by formal agreements of varying scope and completeness, amounting in some cases to working unions and amalgamations." But, although they admit that mutual competition between railway companies exists to-day in only a "limited degree," and although they do not show that the agreements and amalgamations thus far carried out have been in any way really detrimental to the public interests, they are still influenced, as Parliaments, Select Committees and Departmental Committees before them have been for the last three-quarters of a century, by that one word "might." Railway companies may be allowed to co-operate--more especially because they cannot be prevented from doing so; but fresh restrictions and further obligations must be imposed lest they _might_ abuse the facilities granted to them, in seeking to cover increased taxation and other items of heavier working expenses. Thus among the recommendations of the Departmental Committee are the following:-- "That it should be provided that when a facility or service is diminished or withdrawn, it should lie upon the railway company to show that the reduction or withdrawal is reasonable. "That it should lie upon the railway company to justify a charge made for a service hitherto rendered gratuitously. "That it should be declared that the law with regard to increased charges applies to passenger fares and other charges made for the conveyance of traffic by passenger trains." These proposals are, no doubt, inspired by a genuine desire to protect the public interests; yet the effect of carrying them out would be effectually to destroy the small amount of elasticity that is still left in the relations between the railway companies and the public. If, in addition to having to "justify" the increase of any rate for goods or minerals, the companies were required to run the risk of having to "justify" the taking off of any train they found no longer necessary, or even the slightest increase in any of the now often extremely low railway fares, the result would be to tie their hands still further in the making of experimental concessions, {511}and, in the result, the travelling public, as is the case already with the traders, would stand to lose through a policy nominally designed to protect their interests. Whatever course may be actually taken in regard to these particular aspects of the question, the trend of events in the railway world will probably be more and more in the direction of continuing the policy of agreements and amalgamations on lines which, while giving the fullest transport facilities to the public, should check wasteful competition and ensure all practicable economy in the matter of working expenses. That the trade of the country would suffer, in consequence, is hardly to be anticipated. Assuming that three railway companies, who had already agreed as to the rates they would charge, had each been conveying goods between A and B, and that they arranged for the consignments entrusted to all three to be taken in one train by one route, instead of in three trains by separate routes, a clear economy would be effected without any detriment to the traders, since the goods would reach B all the same, while savings in the working expenses should render the companies better able to meet the wishes of traders in other directions. In regard to the possibility (as already told on page 448) of an increase in railway rates to enable the companies to meet increases of wages or other betterment of the positions of their staffs, any general increase might well occasion uneasiness, and even alarm, to traders who already find it difficult enough to meet foreign competition, and to whom greater cost of transport might be a matter of no little concern. On the other hand there is an undoubted anomaly in the fact that whilst the burdens on railway companies have greatly, if not enormously, increased of late years, and whilst other commercial companies are free to pass on to the consumer increased costs of production or heavier working expenses, including, especially, a much heavier taxation, the statutory standard for railway companies' rates and charges should still be that of the last day of December, 1892. A further result of the railway strikes in the autumn of 1911 was to revive the agitation in favour of railway nationalisation. In some quarters it was argued that an effective guarantee against the recurrence of railway strikes would be found in State ownership; but this theory is certainly not {512}confirmed by the actual experiences of Holland, Hungary, Victoria, Italy and France. There is no suggestion that, if the railways were owned by the State, the railwaymen would voluntarily abandon the right to strike; but State ownership is favoured by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (which passed a resolution approving thereof at the annual conference at Carlisle on October 4, 1911), in the expectation (1) that, under these conditions, the unions would be certain to get "recognition"; (2) that they would then be able to bring such pressure to bear on the Government that they would be sure to get what they wanted without having to strike; and (3) that, owing to the economies to which State operation would lead, the Government would be in a position to give the railway workers higher pay and shorter hours. Here, however, the questions arise whether the country would be willing to allow the railway unions practically to control alike the Government and the economic situation; whether the assumed "economies" under State ownership and operation of the railways would really be effected; and whether any such changes in railway service conditions as those that were demanded in the National All-Grades Programme could be conceded even under a nationalisation system without imposing on the railway users greater burdens in the way of higher rates and fares than they might be disposed to tolerate. On the other hand there is the consideration that if the working expenses of the railway companies are to be swollen to still greater proportions by heavier wages bills, abnormal taxation, public demands for greater facilities, and State requirements in equipment or operation; if, at the same time, the companies are to be subjected to statutory restrictions in regard to the charges they may impose for the services they render; and if, also, the danger of strikes and of outside control or interference is to be increased, the day may conceivably come when transfer of the railways to the State, under, presumably, fair and equitable conditions, would be the only effectual means of relieving the railways themselves from what might then be an otherwise hopeless position. While the outlook for the future has various elements of uncertainty, and, in regard to matters of detail, gives rise to some degree of concern, a review of the conditions {513}under which trade, industry and communication have been developed throughout the ages leads to the conclusion that the country may, at least, regard with feelings of profound thankfulness and generous appreciation the efforts of that long succession of individual pioneers, patriots and public-spirited men to whose zeal, foresight and enterprise we are so materially indebted for the advantages we now enjoy. {514}AUTHORITIES The following books, pamphlets, and reports have, among others, been consulted in the preparation of the present work: "A Cursory View of the Advantages of an Intended Canal from Chesterfield to Gainsborough" (1769). Adams, William Bridges: "Practical Remarks on Railways" (1854). "A History of Ten Years of Automobilism, 1896-1906," edited by Lord Montagu (1906). 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Mathew, Francis: "Of the Opening of Rivers for {518}Navigation: The Benefit exemplified by the two Avons of Salisbury and Bristol, with a Mediterranean Passage by Water for Billanders of Thirty Tun, between Bristol and London" (1655); "A Mediterranean Passage by Water from London to Bristol and from Lynne to Yarmouth, and so consequently to the City of York, for the great Advancement of Trade and Traffique" (1670). Maxwell, William H.: "The Construction of Roads and Streets" (1899). May, George: "Descriptive History of Evesham" (1845). Mayo-Smith, Richmond: "Statistics and Economics" (1895-99). Midleton, Viscount: Article on "Our Highways," in "The Nineteenth Century" for Oct., 1881. Moore, H. C.: "Omnibuses and Cabs: their Origin and History" (1902). Morrison, James, M.P.: "Rail Roads: A Speech Delivered in the House of Commons, 17th May, 1836"; "Influence of Railway Legislation on Trade and Industry" (1848). Nash, T.: "The History and Antiquities of Worcestershire" (1781). Nicholson, J. Shield: "Principles of Political Economy" (1893). Ogilby, John: "Britannia: A Geographical and Historical Description of the Roads of England and Wales" (1675). "On the Country Manners of the Present Age." Annual Register (1761). Palgrave, R. H. I.: "Dictionary of Political Economy" (1900). Parliamentary Reports and Papers:-- Census of Production (1907). [Cd. 5254.] Departmental Committee on Railway Agreements and Amalgamations (1911). [Cd. 5631.] Joint Committee on the Amalgamation of Railway Companies (1872). [364.] Local Taxation, by H. H. Fowler (Lord Wolverhampton) (1893). [168.] Railway Returns for 1910 (1911). [Cd. 5796.] Road Board, First Report of (1911). [292.] Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways: Fourth and Final Report (1909). [Cd. 4979.] {519}Royal Commission on the Railway Conciliation Scheme of 1907 (1911). [Cd. 5922.] Select Committee on the Expediency of Abolishing Turnpike Trusts (1864). [383.] Select Committee on the Highways of the Kingdom (1819). [509.] Select Committee on Turnpike Trusts and Tolls (1836). [547.] Parnell, Sir Henry: "A Treatise on Roads" (1st ed., 1833; 2nd, 1838). Pearson, Charles H.: "Historical Maps of England during the first thirteen centuries, with Explanatory Essays and Indices" (1870). Penny Cyclopædia: Articles on "Railways," "Rivers" and "Roads" (1841). Phillips, J.: "A General History of Inland Navigation" (4th ed., 1803). Plymley, Joseph, Archdeacon of Salop: "General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire" (1803). Porter, G. R.: "The Progress of the Nation" (1846). Porter, Robert P.: "The Dangers of Municipal Trading" (1907). Postlethwayt, Malachy: Article on "Roads" in "Universal Dictionary of Trade" (1751). Potter, F.: "The Government in Relation to the Railways," a Paper read before the Great Western Railway (London) Lecture and Debating Society (1909). Pratt and Mackenzie: "Law of Highways" (15th ed.). Priestley, Joseph: "Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals and Railways of Great Britain" (1831). Rees' Cyclopædia: Articles, "Canal" and "Road" (1819). "Reprints of Rare Tracts: Letters of William Scott" (1847). Rogers, J. E. Thorold: "History of Agriculture and Prices in England." Sandars, Joseph: "A Letter on the Subject of the Proposed Rail Road between Liverpool and Manchester, pointing out the necessity for its adoption and the manifest advantages it offers to the Public, with an Exposure of the exorbitant and unjust charges of the Water Carriers" (1824). Smiles, Samuel: "Lives of the Engineers" (1861). {520}Smith, Adam: "The Wealth of Nations" (1776). Stretton, Clement E.: "Early Tramroads and Railways in Leicestershire"; "History of the Loughborough and Nanpantan Edge-rail-way"; "The Leicester and Swannington Railway," etc. Stukeley, William, M.D.: "Itinerarium Curiosum" (2nd ed., 1776). "Survey of London"; edited by Walter Besant. Sydney, William Connor: "England and the English in the Eighteenth Century" (1891). Tatham, William: "The Political Economy of Inland Navigation" (1799). "The Motor Car in the First Decade of the 20th Century," compiled by W. Eden Hooper (1908). "The Rating of Railways," Great Western Railway Magazine Booklet (1908). "The Tourists' Guide to Bridgnorth" (1875). Thoresby, Ralph, F.R.S.: "Ducatus Leodiensis; or the Topography of Leedes" (1715). Thrupp, George A.: "The History of Coaches" (1877). Tredgold, Thomas: "A Practical Treatise on Rail-roads and Carriages" (1825). Tristram, W. Outram: "Coaching Days and Coaching Ways" (1888). Tylor, Alfred: "New Points in the History of Roman Britain," in "Archæologia," Vol. XLVIII. Vernon-Harcourt, L. F.: "Rivers and Canals" (1896). Walford, Cornelius: "Fairs Past and Present" (1883). Walker, Thomas: "Change in Commerce," in "The Original," No. XI (1835). Wheeler, W. H.: "Tidal Rivers" (1893). Whitaker, T. D.: "Loidis and Elmete" (1846). Whitworth, Richard: "The Advantages of Inland Navigation; or Some Observations offered to the Public to show that an Inland Navigation may be easily effected between the three great ports of Bristol, Liverpool and Hull" (1766). Whyte, A. G.: "Electricity in Locomotion" (1911). Williams, F. S.: "Our Iron Roads" (7th ed., 1888); "The Midland Railway" (5th ed., 1888). Wilson, T.: "The Railway System and its Author" (1845). {521}Wood, Nicholas: "A Practical Treatise on Rail-roads" (1st ed., 1825; 3rd, 1838). Wright and Hobhouse: "An Outline of Local Government and Local Taxation in England and Wales." Yarranton, Andrew: "England's Improvement by Sea and Land.... With the Advantages of making the Great Rivers of England Navigable" (1672). Young, Arthur: "A Six Weeks' Tour through the Southern Counties" (1769); "A Six Months' Tour through the North of England" (1770). {522}INDEX Accidents on railways: 442-3 Acworth, W. M.: 425, 426 Aeroplanes: 504-6 Agricultural Organisation Society: 355 Agriculture: 16, 74, 85, 89, 164, 179, 192, 353, 355, 497, 507 Aikin, Dr.: 49, 91, 142, 169, 185 Ale, Burton: 178 Alldridge, T. J.: 403 Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants: 446, 447, 512 Amber: 6-7, 26 Ambulance corps on railways: 444 Anderson, Dr James: 229 Andred-Weald, The: 4, 8 Aqueducts on Canals: 304 Arkwright, Sir Richard: 187, 188 Armstrong (Newcastle) University: 427 Ashley, W. J.: 18, 19 Askwith, Sir George: 452 Assizes of ale, bread and cloth: 19 Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen: 447 Association of Railway Companies' Signal Superintendents: 429 Association of Railway Locomotive Engineers: 429 Australia, Railways in: 402 Automobile Association and Motor Union: 479, 503 Automobilism: See "Motor-vehicles." Badeslade, Thomas: 119-20 Bagmen: 16 Bailey, John: 207, 208 Baines, Thomas: 136, 138, 141, 157, 165, 178, 180, 184, 236 Balfour of Burleigh, Lord: 338 Barber, H. C.: 505-6 Bartholomew Fair: 27 Bawtry: Classed as a seaport, 111; {523} port of consignment for Sheffield goods, 123-4, 148-9 Beal, C. G.: 448 Beasley, A.: 261 _n._, 290 _n._ Bedford, The Duke of: 254 Benevolent contributions, Railway companies': 440-1 Bequests for road repairs: 12 Birkenshaw, John: 206 Birmingham: Coach communication, 54-5; trade conditions, 90-1; cost of road transport to London, 160; Birmingham Canal, 184, 236-7, 298-9, 301, 302, 307, 495; London and Birmingham Rly., 249-52 Bishopsgate Goods Station: 392-4 Board of Trade and Railways: 259, 268, 269, 271, 275, 277, 279, 282, 338, 353, 356, 440, 443, 446, 448, 450, 492, 509 Boonen, Guylliam: 37 Bourn, Daniel: 45-7, 66 Boyle, Courtenay, Sir: 338 Bradfield, J. E.: 316, 333-4 Brereton, R. M.: 317 Bridge friars: 12, 13 Bridges: 11, 13 Bridgewater, Francis, Duke of: 139, 167-72, 173, 221, 231, 295 Bridgnorth: Transit port on the Severn, 115; route for pottery goods, 159; Manchester goods, 161 Brindley, James: 130, 167-8, 171, 173, 174, 295 Bristol: Early prosperity of, 112; trade done by Bristol merchants, 116; Lancashire goods exported viâ the Severn and Bristol, 161 Brome, The Rev. J.: 74-5 {524} Bronze Age, The: 6 Brunlees, J.: 206 Buddle, John: 200-1, 404 Burnett, John: 448 Burton-on-Trent: 122 Bute, The Marquis of: 304 Butterworth, A. Kaye: 343 Buxton, Mr.: 452 Cab, introduction of the: 63; taxi-cabs, 485-7 Caledonian Railway: 289, 367, 451 Cambridge: Located on river, 111; importance to of river transport, 119, 120, 125 Canada, Railways in: 254, 402 Canals: Advocated, 162, 164; a transition from rivers, 165; the pioneer British canal, 166-7; opposition, 170-1; effect of canals on trade and industries, 175-8, 180, 192-4, 295; engineering difficulties, 171, 174, 179-80; passenger traffic, 172, 265; public prejudice, 181-2; "canal mania," 183, 185; value of shares, 183, 236-8; number of canal Acts, 183; expenditure on canals, 183, 234; length of canals, 183; canal companies adopt railways, 212, 220; excessive charges, 231; attitude towards traders, 231-3, 243-4, 296; opposition to independent railways, 234-9, 296; canal extortions inspire railway restrictions, 258; Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways, 294, 295, 304; construction on no general scheme, 295; reduction of rates, 296; neglect of improvements, 296-7; canals acquired by railways, 297-9, 306; increased powers, 299, 300; amalgamation of canals, 301; physical conditions, 301-4; locks, 302, 303; railway competition, 304; aqueducts, 304-5; tunnels, 305; colliery operations, 306; canal and rail transport compared, 307-9; canal resuscitation impracticable, 309-11, 495 {525} Aberdare C.: 213 Aire and Calder Nav.: 141, 143, 147, 307 Ashby C.: 219 Barnsley C.: 184, 238 Birmingham C.: 184, 236-7, 298-9, 301, 302, 307 Charnwood Forest C.: 220 Coventry C.: 183, 237, 302 Dudley C.: 301 Ellesmere C.: 184 Erewash C.: 183, 237 Fossdyke: 121, 154 Glamorganshire C.: 184, 214-8, 238-9, 304 Grand Junction C.: 183, 184 Herefordshire and Gloucestershire C.: 193 Huddersfield C.: 180 Kennet and Avon C.: 184 Lancashire C.: 219 Leeds and Liverpool C.: 179-80, 237 Leicester C.: 183, 238 Loughborough C.: 237, 261 Manchester, Bolton and Bury C.: 184 Mersey and Irwell Nav.: 238 Peak Forest C.: 193-4 Rochdale C.: 180, 183, 193, 303 Sankey Brook C.: 165-6 Stratford-on-Avon C.: 298 Swansea C.: 304 Thames and Severn C.: 184 Trent and Mersey (Grand Trunk) C.: 172-5, 210, 237, 238, 261, 307 Trent Nav.: 183 Cardwell's Committee: 285 Carriages, Private: 37-8 Castlereagh, Viscount: 439 Central London Rly.: 492 City and South London Rly.: 492 Chamberlayne, Dr: 38 Chaplin, William: 325 Chaplin, Mr: 459 Chapmen: 17, 21, 24, 91 Charles I.: Proclamation concerning roads, 43 Charles II. and roads: 33-4, 132 Cheap Trains Act, 1883: 263 _n._ Cheese industry: 122, 163, 179 {526} Chester: Roman road to, 8; fair, 27; coaches, 40, 51, 54; decay of port, 137 Church and roads: 11-14; fairs, 21 Claughton, G. H.: 448 Clifford, Frederick: 128, 170, 223, 272, 273, 277, 295, 303, 324 Cloth-makers and transport: 143-4, 146-7 Coaches and coaching: The "long waggon," 35-6, 38, 53, 325; stage-coaches, 38-42, 51-3, 325; "flying" coaches, 53-5, 327; mail-coaches, 55-7, 325; Thames watermen and coaches, 58-63; hackney coaches, 60-3; the "palmy" days of coaching, 325; tolls paid by coaches, 316; coach-owners join railways, 326; speed accelerated, 327; effect on horses, 327-8; cost of coach-horses, 328; accidents and discomforts, 328; decline of coaching, 329; taxation, 329-34 Coal industry: 36, 117, 140, 165, 167, 179, 188, 195-7 Commercial Motor Users' Association: 477, 485 Continental railway rates: 357 Copper industry: 9 Corporations, Rise of Municipal: 19 Cort, Henry: 190 Cotton industry: 138, 187-8 County towns, Influence of transport conditions on: 94-7 Court of Pie Powder: 22-3 Cressett, John: 39-42, 51 Crewe Mechanics' Institution: 417 Cromwell, Oliver: 131, 132 Cumming, T. G.: 213 Cunningham, W.: 23 Curr, John: 204 Cutlery, Sheffield: 124, 142, 148-9, 191 Cycles and Cycling, 472-3, 480 Dalhousie, Lord: 269, 276 Darby, Abraham: 190 Day, Frank B.: 394 _n._ Defoe, Daniel: On Sturbridge Fair, 24-6; roads at Lewes, 68; {527} turnpikes, 78, 87-90; country towns, 95-6, 121, 126; Bristol traders, 116; port of Lynn, 119; trade on the Trent, 122; River Idle, 123-4; River Wey, 126; Devonshire serges, 127; Yorkshire trade conditions, 144, 145-7; cheese industry, 163 Dehany, W. K.: 28, 49, 81 Denmark, Prince George of: 67 Denton, The Rev. W.: 5, 14, 58 De Salis, Rodolph: 152 Domesday Survey: 4 Dover, Early communication with: 35 _n._, 53 Dublin Society, The: 72 Dugdale, Sir William: 51 Duncombe, Sir Sandars: 60 Easingwold Rly.: 290-1 Eastern Counties Rly.: 253 Eaton, J. Shirley: 415, 416 Edgeworth, R. L.: 72, 229 Edinburgh, Coaches to: 36, 37, 51-2, 56; cost of posting to, 57 Edington, Robert: 197 Education of railwaymen, The: 413-27 Elizabeth, Queen: 37, 57, 196 Enclosure Acts: 192 Engineer and Railway Staff Corps: 401 Evelyn, John: 63 Factory System: 385 Fairs: 20-7, 91, 95 Farrer, Sir Thomas: 276 Fay, Sam: 506 _n_ Fen-lands: 5 Festivals, Religious: 21 Findlay, Sir George: 345, 376 Finger-posts: 65 _n._ Fish industry: 89-90 Flannels, Trade in: 114-5 Fowler, H. H. (Lord Wolverhampton): 323 Fowler, J. Kearsley: 315, 316 France, Roads in: 67, 320 Francis, John: 210, 222, 251, 252, 255, 256, 272 Franks, W. Temple: 339 Freeman, James E.: 371 {528} Fulton, R.: 181, 211 Galloway, Robert L.: 196, 198 Garcke, Emile: 458 General Railway Workers' Union: 447 Gibb, Sir George: 343 Gladstone, W. E.: 268, 269, 270, 273, 275-6, 278, 279, 282, 322 Glasgow and South-Western Railway: 436 Glynn, G. C.: 264, 279 Goschen, Mr: 323 Gordon, Alexander: 474 Gower, Earl: 173 Graham, Sir James: 265 Granet, Sir Guy: 448 Gray, Robert: 332 Gray, Thomas: 207, 221, 229-230, 328 Great Central Rly.: 289, 367, 423, 451 Great Eastern Rly.: 253, 277, 287, 288, 289, 367, 392-4, 401, 418-20, 437 Great Eastern Rly. Mechanics' Institution: 418-20 Greater London, Beginnings of: 97 Great Northern Rly.: 277, 289, 339, 367, 391-2 Great Northern of Ireland Rly.: 289 Great North Road: 32, 65, 75, 123 Great Southern and Western Rly.: 289 Great Western Rly.: 252, 254, 273-4, 277, 288, 289, 297-8, 326, 366, 421-2, 427-8, 451 Great Western Rly. Literary Society: 427-8 Griffin, H. Hewitt: 486 Guilds, Craft: 19 Guilds, Merchant: 18-19 Gurney, Sir Goldsworthy: 474-5 Hackney carriages: 59-63 Hackworth, J. W.: 227 Hackworth, T.: 227 Hadley, Prof.: 226 _n._, 347 Hall, Sir John: 282 Hamilton, Lord Claud: 437, 439 Hardware trades: 191 {529} Harper, C. G.: 56, 57 Harrel, Sir David: 448 Harrison, William: 114 Hawkshaw, Sir John: 396 Henderson, M.P., Arthur: 448 Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Rly.: 131 Herepath, John: 262-3, 275, 278 Hermits and road repairs: 13 Highwaymen: 95 Historical Manuscripts Commission Reports: 12, 13 _n._ Holinshed: 31 Homer, Henry: 73 Hops: 25 Horne, Benjamin: 325, 327 Horseback, travelling on: 16, 36 Horses: Number used for long waggons, 35, 37; restrictions in regard to, 43-5; horses used for coaches, 325; mortality on roads, 327-8 Horwich Mechanics' Institute: 420-1 Hours of labour, Railwaymen's: 441-2 Howells, Clarence S.: 306 Hull, Trade of: 122, 123, 147 Humpherus, Henry: 37, 63 Hunter, The Rev. J.: 123, 124, 148, 149 Hutchinson, William: 198, 199 Hutton, William: 54, 90, 176 Hyde, W. H.: 401 Inglis, Sir James C.: 421 Insurance Bill, National: 375 Ireland: Control of roads, 319; cheap conveyances, 333 Iron industry: 4, 7, 9, 26, 117, 134, 161-2, 178, 188-91 Jacob, Giles: 21-3 James I.: 196 James, William: 234 Jeans, J. S.: 226, 227, 306, 308 Jersey, Lord: 353 Jessop, William: 49, 122, 206 Jusserand, J. J.: 11, 12, 13 Kellawe, Richard de: 11 Kendal as a packhorse station: 36 Kinderley, Nathaniel: 119, 154 {530} Knoop, Douglas: 427 Lancashire and Yorkshire Rly.: 289, 367, 420-1, 423, 426-7 Land-beacons: 65 Lead industry: 6, 9, 26 Leeds cloth market: 145-7 Lees, Sir Edward: 333 Lefevre, Shaw: 456 _n._ Leicester and Swannington Rly.: 242-4 Leigh, Charles: 36 Levy, Lewis: 318 Light railways: 457, 463, 507 Linen industry: 115, 134, 138 Litters, Use of: 16 Liverpool: Early waggons and coaches, 36, 54, 56; isolation, 135-7; improvement of Mersey, 137; river communication with Manchester, 139; effect on Liverpool trade of navigation facilities on the Weaver and the Douglas, 139-41; Sankey Brook Canal, 165-6; Bridgewater Canals, 167-72; Leeds and Liverpool Canal, 179; Liverpool and Manchester Rly., 230-41, 494 Loads, Restrictions on: 43-5 Locks on canals: 302-4 London and Birmingham Rly.: 249-52, 254, 256, 326, 417 London and North-Western Rly.: 252, 276, 285, 289, 298-9, 339, 366, 367, 370, 376-84, 391, 417-8, 422-3, 432, 438, 440, 451, 507 London and South-Western Rly.: 254, 256, 289, 326, 353, 367, 440 London, Brighton and South Coast Rly.: 254, 256, 275, 289, 367 London Electric Railway Coy.: 492, 493, 507 London General Omnibus Coy.: 485 London Railways Athletic Association: 431 London School of Economics: 425-6, 506 _n_ London, Tilbury and Southend Rly.: 496 _n._ London traffic problem: 490-3, 497, 499, 507 {531} London Traffic, Royal Commission on: 462, 493 London United Tramways: 492 Long service on railways: 445 Lord Mayor's coach, The: 58 Lowther, M.P., J. W.: 459 _n._ Lynn, Early importance of: 24, 26, 119-20 Macaulay, Lord: 94, 95 Mackay, Dr Charles: 93 Mackworth, Sir Humphry: 202 Macpherson, David: 29, 30, 32, 42, 72 Manby, Charles: 401 Manchester: Coaches, 53-4; early trading conditions, 91; goods despatched viâ Bewdley and Bridgnorth, 161, 172; Mersey and Irwell Navigation, 138-9, 168-9, 171; Worsley-Manchester Canal, 168, 171; cost of transport, 169; privations due to defective transport, 170; Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 230-40 Manorial courts: 19 Manor, Lord of, and transport: 18 Markets: 20 Marriott, H.: 350, 427 Mathew, Francis: 131-3, 158 McAdam, J. L.: 50, 99, 101-7, 192, 318, 325, 480 McAdam, Sir James: 314, 318 Metcalf, John: 99-100 Midland Rly.: 244, 277, 289, 366, 367, 376, 420, 427, 432, 451 Midland Railway Institute: 420 Monasteries: 11, 12, 14, 15 Montagu of Beaulieu, Lord: 503 Moon, Sir Richard: 339 Morrison, James: 260-1, 265, 271, 509 Moryson, Fynes: 38, 57 Motor-vehicles: Competition of motor-omnibuses with electric tramways, 466-7, 497-8, with horse-omnibuses, 485-7, with railways, 496, 498-503; comparison of motor-omnibus and railless electric traction, 467-8; early days of steam-coaches, 473-4; {532} traction engines, 475; hostile legislation, 475-6; the Magna Charta of automobilism, 476; Motor-Car Act of 1903, 477; Heavy Motor-Car Order of 1904, 477-8; pleasure cars in use, 478; Royal Automobile Club, 478-9; Automobile Association and Motor Union, 479; road improvements, 480-2; commercial motors, 482-5; motor-cabs, 485-7; motor industry, 487-90; imports and exports, 489-90; motors and railway strikes, 503 Municipal Tramways Association: 469 Nails, Cart-wheel: 44, 49-50 Nash, T.: 114 Newcastle-on-Tyne: Coaches, 53; salt trade, 140 Nicholson, J. Shield: 2 "Nimrod": 107 North British Rly.: 289, 367 North-Eastern Rly.: 287, 289, 290, 367, 371, 424-5 North Staffordshire Rly.: 210-11, 307 Nottingham, Early importance of: 121, 122, 137 Oakley, Sir Henry: 339, 340, 341 Ogilby, John: 33-4 Omnibuses: Introduction of, 63; motor-omnibuses: competition with tramways, 466-7, 497-8, with railways, 496, 499, 501-3; succeed horse-omnibuses, 485-7 Outram, Benjamin: 204 Overton, George: 225, 240 Owner's risk rates on railways: 351-2 Oxford: Coaches to, 53; University and river transport, 125 Packhorse, Transport by: 15, 16, 32, 36, 90, 91, 127, 138, 139, 140, 146, 161 Paley, W. P.: 224 _n._ Palmer, John: 55 Parnell, Sir Henry: 326 {533} Passengers: In packhorse panniers, 16; by long waggon, 38, 42; stage-coach, 38-42; canals, 172, 265; rail, 498-9 Patten, Thomas: 138 Paving, Early Britons and: 6 Pearson, Charles: 5, 8, 108, 111 Pedlars: 17, 21, 93 Peel, Sir Frederick: 353 Peel, Sir Robert: 259, 262, 263, 271, 281 Pension funds, Railway: 438 Permanent Way Institution: 428 Perry, G.: 117 Philippe, William: 13 Phillipps, W. D.: 210-11 Phillips, J.: 183, 184, 193, 214 Pilgrims: 16 Plymley, Joseph: 44, 114, 117, 152, 153, 164, 220, 312 Polyhistor, T. S.: 202 Porter, G. R.: 74, 106, 255-6, 266-7 Porter, Robert P.: 458, 464 _n._ Posting: 57 Post Office and Railways: 264-5 Potter, F.: 351-2, 428 Pottery industry: 159-61, 175, 176, 307 Powell, E. T.: 402 Preferential railway rates: 352 Priestley, Joseph: 120 Private Owners of Railway Rolling Stock, Association of: 361 _n._ Prussian State Railways: 255, 291, 292, 357, 359, 365 Public Service Commission of New York City: 493 Railless electric traction: 467-70, 507 Railway agreements and amalgamations: 278, 283-91, 433, 508-11 Railway and Canal Commission: 278 _n._, 355, 508 Railway Benevolent Institution: 439 Railway Classification: 337-40, 345-6 Railway Clearing House: 284, 337, 338, 359 Railway Club, The: 430 {534} Railway directors, Functions of: 378 Railway electrification: 492, 494-5, 507 Railway Guards' Universal Friendly Society: 438 Railway mania, 1845-6: 271-5 Railway nationalisation: 279-81, 511-2 Railway rates: Early proposals for revision, 260-1, 279-80; canals and railway rates, 310; basis on which early rates fixed, 335-7; early classification, 337-40; revision of rates by Board of Trade commissioners, 338-40; Confirmation Acts of 1891-2, 340-1; Act of 1894, 342; restrictions on companies, 342-3; equal mileage rates, 344; "cost of service," 344-5; "what the traffic will bear," 345, 347; present classification, 345-6; sea competition, 347-8; "anomalies," 348; sliding scale principle, 349; American railway rates, 349-50, 357; exceptional rates, 350-1; owner's risk rates, 351-2; preferential rates, 353-4; agricultural interests, 353-4, 355; machinery for dealing with traders' grievances, 355-6; comparisons with Continental rates, 357-8; Government promise of legislation in respect to increases, 448, 511; survival of fittest, 494-5; competition of omnibuses and electric tramways, 496; effect on suburban traffic, 496-7; competition of private motors, 498; passenger journeys, 498-9; suburban goods transport, 499-500; road _v._ rail, 501-3; railway system complete, 506; needs of to-day, 507; railway agreements, 508-9; Departmental Committee, 509-10; railway nationalisation, 511-12 Railway Savings Banks: 432 Railway shareholders: 263-4, 377 {535} Railway Signalling, Schools of: 421-3 Railway strikes: 447, 450, 503, 512 Railway system: Length of line, 359; single track, 359; length of track, 360; rolling stock, 360; traffic statistics, 361; railway capital, 361; gross receipts and expenditure, 361; dividends, 362-3; share-holders and their holdings, 363-4; taxation, 364-75 Railway Temperance Unions: 432 Railway warehouses: 390-4 Railways: Rise of the coal trade, 195-7; wooden rails adopted at collieries, 198-200; introduction of cast-iron wheels, 201; double rails, 203; iron "plates," 203; cast-iron rails, 203; flanged rails, 205; edge rails, 206; wrought-iron rails, 206; significance of expression "iron" railway, 207; inclined planes and gravity, 208; stationary engines, 208; length and character of colliery lines, 209; railways adopted by canal companies, 210-13; position in South Wales, 213-4; canal interests overcome the first proposed competing railway, 214-9; railways supplement canals, 219-21; their superiority recognised, 220-1; railways before 1825, 222; Surrey Iron Rail-way, 223-5; Stockton and Darlington, 225-8; advocates of general railways, 229-30; Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 230-40; opposition of canal companies, 234-8; Leicester and Swannington Railway, 242-4; hostility to railways, 245-9; London and Birmingham Railway, 249-52; landowners and railways, 250-1, 252-5; cost of Parliamentary proceedings, 255-7; canal precedents inspire State policy, 258; competition between carriers, 359-60; Morrison's proposal, 260-1; {536} Duke of Wellington's motion, 262-3; early taxation, 263-4; attitude of Post Office, 264-5; competition between companies, 265; lack of national policy, 266-8; proposals by Mr Gladstone's Committee, 269; special department of Board of Trade created, 269; set aside, 270; "railway mania" of 1845-6, 271-5; Private Bill Committees and the special department, 276; Board of Railway Commissioners, 277; Committee of 1844, 279-81; State purchase, 280; competing lines, 281-3; railway amalgamations, 283-91; Railway Clearing House established, 284; Mr Cardwell's Committee, 285; cost of construction, 291-3; railway companies and canals, 297-9, 306-7; rail and canal transport compared, 307, 309; railways and coaches, 326, 329, 332; results of railway operation on industries, 386, on towns, 387, on general trade, 387-96, on political and social conditions, 397, on national life, 398-402, on colonial expansion, 402-4 Railways a National Industry: Number of railway servants, 405-6; employees in locomotive works, etc., 407-10; independent concerns, 411; characteristics of the railway service, 412-3; training, 413-4; education for efficiency in U.S.A., 415-6; railwaymen's education movement: mechanics' institutes, 416-21, railway companies' classes, 421-5, London School of Economics, 425-6, arrangements with Universities, 426-7, literary societies, 427-8; railway organisations, 428-9; Railway Club, 430; recreation and physical culture, 431; {537} railwaymen's societies, 431-2; Temperance Unions, 432; regularity of employment, 433; wages, 434-5; subsidiary advantages, 435-7; superannuation and pension funds, 438; railway charities, 439-41; hours of labour, 441-2; accidents, 442-3; ambulance, 444; railway work a "service," 444; family records, 445; the agitation in 1907, 446; strike in 1911, 447; Royal Commission of Inquiry, 448-51; increases in wages, 451; railway unions to ballot on question of general strike, 452 "Rebecca" riots in Wales: 320-1 "Recognition," Question of, on railways: 446-52, 512 "Red Flag Act": 475 Rendell, T. H.: 298, 422 Renner, P. A.: 404 Retired Railway Officers' Society: 431 Rivers, Location of towns, etc., on: 15, 108-9, 110; influence of, on social and economic conditions, 108-10; ports on rivers, 110-11; causes of decline of rivers, 111, 150-8; river improvements, 111-2, 128-41; navigable rivers as public highways, 112-4; toll collection on rivers, 128; influence on trade and industries, 114-27, 129, 132, 153, 154, 159-64; floods, 150-1, 161; high tides, 151-2; water shortage, 152-3; silting-up, 154; present condition, 155-6; pilfering on, 162-3; side-cuts precede canals, 165 Aire: 121, 123, 141, 143, 147, 179, 303, 307 Avon (Bristol): 131 Avon (Warwickshire): 112, 115-6, 155 Avon (Wiltshire): 110, 131 Brandon: 120 Calder: 141, 143, 147, 303, 307 Cam: 15, 24 {538} Croal: 184 Cuckmere: 111 Dee: 135, 137 Derwent: 121, 122 Don: 121, 123, 143, 147-9 Douglas: 140-1, 166 Exe: 127 Humber: 24, 121, 141, 147, 151 Idle: 111, 123 Irwell: 138, 168, 184 Lea: 125-6, 128-9 Lug: 116, 130, 131, 165 Medway: 126, 130 Mersey: 5, 135-9, 151, 165, 168 Mildenhall: 120 Nen: 151, 154, 156 Ouse (Norfolk): 5, 24, 111, 118-20, 151, 156 Ouse (Sussex): 111 Ouse (York): 121, 122, 141, 147, 151, 153, 156 Parrett: 127 Ribble: 5, 15, 140, 166 Severn: 112-8, 135, 151, 153-4, 155, 159-62, 298 Sheaf: 143 Stour (Worcestershire): 135 Teme: 130 Thames: 4, 7, 15, 58-61, 122, 125, 130, 151, 155 Trent: 111, 121-2, 124, 147, 148, 151, 152, 154, 155-6, 159 Tyne: 24, 151, 166 Weaver: 139-40, 159, 166 Welland: 111 Wey: 126 Wharfe: 121 Witham: 111, 120-1, 151 Wye: 112, 116, 117, 130-1, 151, 165 Road Boards in Scotland: 319 Road Board, The: 481-2 Roads: British, 4-8; Roman, 8-10, 11, 28; action of Church, 11-14, 28; road conditions, 14, 28-30, 31, 32-3, 49, 54, 64-73, 75, 87, 98-99; legislation, 28-33, 43-5; Statute labour, 30-1, 312-3; road-making and repairing, 98-107, 314; parish roads, 77; highway rates and road repairs, 319; county councils and roads, 323, 480; {539} Road Board and Road Improvement Grant, 481-2. See, also, "Turnpikes" Robinson, Sir Clifton: 454, 459-61 Roebuck, Dr: 190 Romans: 6-10, 28, 111 Royal Automobile Club: 477, 478-9, 482, 503 Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways: 294, 295, 301, 304, 310 Royal Commission on Local Taxation: 373 Royal Commission of Inquiry (Conciliation Scheme of 1907): 448-51 Royal Commission on London Traffic: 465, 492-3 Russell, M.P., C.: 273 Salt industry: 26, 139-40, 161, 166, 178 Samuel, Sir Samuel: 489 Sandars, Joseph: 231, 233 Sandon, Lord: 265 Sandys, Sir William: 130-1, 158, 165 Sclater-Booth, G. (Lord Basing): 321, 322 Scotland, Roads in: 75, 104-5, 319, 333 Scott, William: 199-200 Sea-ports, Thirteenth century: 157-8 Sedan chair, The: 60-1 Sheffield: Coaches, 55; route for despatch of goods, 123-4, 148-9; reason for settlement of cutlery industry on the Sheaf, 142-3 Shelford, Frederick: 403 Sherman, E.: 326, 329 Sherwood Forest: 121 Shillibeer, Mr: 63, 330, 491 Shirley, Sir Richard: 68 Shrewsbury: Important centre for Severn trade, 114; social life, 115; a metropolis for North Wales, 115; river traffic, 118 Smeaton, John: 152 Smiles, Samuel: 93, 170, 175 Smith, Adam: 36, 90, 109, 187 Smith, Sydney: 67 {540} Social conditions: See under "Transport, Influence of" Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders: 477 Soil, Nature of, in England: 5 South Africa, Railways in: 402 "Southampton case," The: 353 South-Eastern and Chatham Rly.: 289, 367 Spencer, C. J.: 469 Stamford, The Earl of: 173 Staple: 29 Starley, J. K.: 472 State policy: Roads, 9-10, 11, 33-4, 43-50, 481-2; railways, 258-93, 336-43, 364-75, 509-11; canals, 295-6, 299-300, 303, 311; coaches, 329-34; tramways, 454-6, 459, 461-2; self-propelled road vehicles, 475-7 State purchase of railways, Enactments respecting: 280-1 Statute labour on roads: 30-1, 312-3 Steam-coaches: Introduction of, 473; anticipations in regard to, 474; opposition to, 474; withdrawal from roads, 475 Stephenson, George: 225, 226 _n_ Stephenson, Robert: 251 Stockton and Darlington Rly.: 225-8, 290 Stow, John: 38 Stratford-on-Avon: Repair of bridge, 13 _n._; river transport, 115 Stukeley, Dr William: 143 _n._, 209 Sturbridge Fair: 23-6 Suburban passenger traffic: 496-7, 502, 507 Superannuation funds, Railway: 438 Surrey Iron Rail-way: 223-5 Surveyors, Road: 30, 31, 83-4, 105 Sutherland, The Duke of: 173 Taff Vale Rly.: 261 Taunton, Lord: 254 Taxation, Railway, 263-4, 311, 364-75, 508 Taylor, John ("The Water Poet"): 58-61 {541} Telford, Thomas: 50, 99, 100-1, 106, 174 _n._, 192, 220, 318, 325 Terminal charges on railways: 336, 340, 349-50 Textile industries: Reasons for location of in the north, 141-2; influence of canals on their development, 180 Thames watermen: 57-63 Thoresby, Ralph: 145 Thorne, W. B.: 332 Tin industry: 6, 7, 9, 26 Traction engines: 475, 480 Train, George Francis: 453 "Tram," Derivation of word: 204 Tramways, Street: Introduction of, 453; early lines, 454; State policy, 454; Tramways Act, 1870, 454-5; local authorities' veto, 455; electric traction, 455-6; Light Railways Act, 1896, 457; "price of assents," 457, 459-61; municipal tramways, 461-5; competition of motor-omnibuses, 466-7; railless electric traction, 467-70; tramway competition with railways, 496, 497-8, 502 Transport, Influence of on social conditions: Isolation of communities, 16-18, 92-4, 108, 170, 175; effect of coaching facilities, 41; country gentry, 94; county towns, 95-6; coaches and "country manners," 96-7; beginnings of "Greater London," 97; civilising effects of improved communication, 175-7; political results of rail communication, 397; social results, 397-8; a factor in national life, 398-400; country homes for town workers, 496-8 Transport, Influence of on trade and industries: general, 1-3, 16-19, 27, 31, 73, 102 _n._, 109, 192; roads, 4, 6-9, 85-7, 88-92, 104, 129-30, 139, 160, 162, 169, 249-50; rivers, 108, 109-10, 112, 114-6, 119-27, 129, 137-49, 153-4, 159-64, 169; canals, 166, 174-80, 193-4, 230-4, 249-50, 294, 301, 307-9; {542} turnpikes, 316, 320; railways, 198, 217, 225, 245, 308-10, 349, 350, 354, 385-96; motor-vehicles, 482-4 Tube railways: 490, 492-3, 496, 507 Turnpikes: Principle of tolls, 13, 29; turnpikes introduced, 32-3; turnpike Acts, 75-6, 104; turnpike system, 77; opposition to toll-bars, 78-80, 320-1; defects of system, 80-4; stimulus to trade, 85-90; turnpike roads, 98-9, 104-5; number of turnpike Acts and trusts, 312; statute labour, 312-3; cost of road repairs, 314; turnpike debt, 314, 323-4; tolls, 314-6, 318, 320, 331; cost of management, 317, 320; consolidation of trusts, 319; highway rates and road repairs, 319; "Rebecca riots" in Wales, 320-1; House of Commons Turnpike Committee, 321; reduction in number of trusts, 321-4; burden on ratepayers, 321-2; Government grants, 323; rapid decline of trusts, 324; attitude of trustees to steam coaches, 474-5 Tylor, Alfred: 6-7 Underground railways: 491-2 United Kingdom Railway Officers and Servants' Association: 439 United Pointsmen and Signalmen's Society: 447 United States: Land grants to railways, 254; railway rates, 349-50, 357, 377; education for railway efficiency, 415-6 University of Leeds: 427 University of London: 425 University of Manchester: 426, 427 Vernon-Harcourt, L. V.: 156-7, 158 {543} Wade, General: 75 Wages, Railwaymen's: 433-5, 451, 511, 512 Waggons: 15, 31, 32, 35-7, 38, 43-8, 91 War Office and motor-lorries: 504 Warrington: Position in Coaching Age, 36, 54; Mersey navigation, 137, 138 Watermen, Thames: 57-63 Water power and industries: 141-2, 143 Watt, James: 142, 187, 188, 190 Webb, F. W.: 440 Wedgwood, Josiah: 159, 160, 161, 173, 176 Weight of loads: 44-5 Wellington, The Duke of: 262, 265 Welshpool: Severn navigable to, 112; market for Welsh flannels, 114 Wesley, John: 177 West Coast of Africa, Railways on: 402-4 Wheels, Broad: 35, 45-9, 102, 103 Whitaker, T. D.: 73, 78 Whitworth, Richard: 160, 161, 164, 177, 182 Williams, E. L.: 151 Williams, F. S.: 274, 275 Wimberley, W. C.: 331 Wine trade: 92 Wood, Nicholas: 197, 198, 201, 203, 296, 395 Woods and Forests: 4-5, 8 Woollen industry: 15, 16, 23, 24, 25, 26, 115, 118, 138, 141-3, 145-7, 179, 186 Yarranton, Andrew: 133-5, 158 York: Roman military post, 8; coaches, 40, 51, 52; road conditions, 64; river control, 121; trading position, 121 Young, Arthur: 68-71, 85, 168, 209 WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH Notes [1] Mr Tylor argues that Brading, in the Isle of Wight, was the favoured point of shipment. [2] In the Ninth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, page 290, mention is made of a charter, granted by Edward VI., giving a new municipal constitution to the "ancient borough" of Stratford-on-Avon in lieu of the franchise and local government taken away by the suppression of the guild previously existing there; and in this charter the guild in question is spoken of as having been, in former times, "founded and endowed with divers lands tenements and possessions," the rents, revenues and profits from which were to be devoted to the maintenance of a grammar school, an almshouse, and "a certain great stone bridge, called Stratford Bridge, placed and built over the water and river of the Avon beside the said borough." [3] The subject of rivers and river transport will be fully dealt with in later chapters. [4] The fair has, also, been widely described as the "Stourbridge" fair, a name which seems to associate it, quite wrongly, with the town of Stourbridge, in Worcestershire. I have preferred to follow here the spelling favoured by Defoe and other contemporary writers. [5] "Staple" was a term applied, in the Middle Ages (1) to a town to which traders were encouraged to send their supplies of some particular commodity--wool, for example--such town becoming the recognised headquarters of the trade concerned, while the arrangement was one that facilitated the collection of the taxes imposed by the King on the traders; and (2) to the commodity sold under these conditions. [6] The earlier Continental route was by river to Gravesend and thence by road to Dover. [7] This Act also provided that when the wheels of a waggon were so arranged that those at the back followed in a line with those in front, the two pairs thus running in one and the same groove, only half the usual tolls should be charged. [8] Passengers are to-day regularly conveyed between London and Edinburgh by train in eight and a quarter hours. [9] The journey between Birmingham and London can now be done by train in two hours. [10] The fares by the stage coaches generally worked out at 2½d. to 3d. a mile outside, and 4d. to 5d. a mile inside; and those by mail-coach at 4d. to 5d. a mile outside, and 8d. to 10d. a mile inside. An outside place on the Edinburgh mail-coach cost about 7½ guineas, and an inside place 11½ guineas, exclusive of tips to coachmen and guards at every stage, and meals and refreshments _en route_. C. G. Harper, in "The Great North Road," estimates that the total cost of a journey from London to Edinburgh by mail-coach was, for an outside traveller, 11 guineas, and for an inside traveller 15 guineas. [11] By an Act of Parliament passed in 1710 the number of sedan chairs allowed to ply for hire in London was fixed at 200, but the limit was raised in the following year to 300. This was, of course, independent of the private sedan chairs, of which every mansion had at least one. [12] So numerous were--or had been--the Thames watermen and lightermen that, according to Stow, they could at any time have furnished 20,000 men for the fleet. [13] Incidentally, this fact may explain why country roads to-day, still following old tracks, often have so many twists and turns when, one might think, they could just as well have been made straight. [14] A writer in the "Westminster Review" for October, 1825, referring to the lack of finger-posts, says: "There is scarcely a parish in the country, and not one in the remoter parts, where a stranger can possibly find his way, for want of this obvious remedy. South Wales is an inextricable labyrinth; it is a chance if there is a finger-post in the whole principality. Cornwall and Devonshire are as bad. If by chance they are once erected they are never repaired or replaced. The justices know their own roads and care nothing for the traveller." [15] Cross = cross road. [16] Similar Committees were, also, appointed in 1819, 1820, and 1821. In the report it eventually issued, the Committee of 1811 said: "By the improvement of our roads, every branch of our agricultural, commercial and manufacturing industry would be materially benefitted. Every article brought to market would be diminished in price; the number of horses would be so much reduced, that by these and other retrenchments, the expense of five millions would be annually saved to the public." [17] It was shown in evidence before the Select Committee of 1819 that the "surveyors" in a certain district included a miller, an undertaker, a carpenter, a coal merchant, a publican, a baker, "an infirm old man," and "a bedridden old man who had not been out of his house for several months." Nineteen times out of twenty, it was declared, the appointment was "a perfect job." [18] McAdam had found the roads at Bristol loaded with an accumulation two or three feet deep of stones, which had been thrown down during a series of years with the idea of "repairing" the roads. Such roads became his quarries for stones to be broken by hand. [19] Salisbury. [20] "Wines and groceries," says Archdeacon Plymley, "are brought up the Severn from Bristol and Gloucester to Shrewsbury, and so on to Montgomeryshire." [21] Eighteenth. [22] The Douglas navigation was afterwards purchased by the proprietors of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, who substituted an artificial cut for part of the natural channel of the river. [23] In giving an account of a visit he paid to Derbyshire in 1713, Dr. William Stukeley says in his "Itinerarium Curiosum" (2nd ed., 1776): "At the smelting works they melt down the lead ore, and run it into a mould, whence it becomes pigs, as they call it; the bellows continually are kept in motion by running water." [24] Barges were towed up-stream on the Severn by men. Writing in 1803, Archdeacon Plymley said: "A horse towing-path is now established from Bewdley to Coalbrookdale, which is more and more used, and it is hoped will soon be extended, the office of towing barges by men being looked upon as very injurious to their manners." [25] Subsequently supplemented by a tunnel of larger dimensions alongside, constructed by Telford. [26] The imports of raw cotton into the United Kingdom in 1910 were 17,614,860 cwts., or nearly 1973 million lbs., valued at £71,716,808. [27] Not only was it a case of the cart going before the horse, on a descending road, but in some instances there was attached to the waggon a sort of horse-trolley on which the animal itself could ride down-hill, and thus reserve its strength for taking back the empty waggon on a second pair of rails alongside. [28] In the first instance projections were cast on the rails to allow of their being attached to the wooden sleepers; but, as these projections were found to break easily, they were cast separately in the form of "pedestals," or "chairs," into which, after they had been fastened to the sleepers, the rails could be fixed with pieces of wood. [29] Mr Brunlees is of opinion that the plating of rails with a steel surface was probably begun about 1854, and that it was not until eight or ten years later they were made entirely of steel. "Now," he said in his address, "owing to the improvements in the manufacture of steel rails, they can be produced as easily and as cheaply as iron rails." [30] The adoption of the designation "Iron," as applied to the railway systems abroad, was probably influenced to some extent by Thomas Gray's "Observations on a General Iron Rail-way." First published in 1820, the work had gone through five editions by 1825, and in a letter addressed, in 1845, to Sir Robert Peel, urging the claims of Gray to generous treatment by the State, on the ground of his being the "author" (_sic_) of the railway system, Thomas Wilson wrote: "His name and his fame were spreading in other lands; his work was translated into all the European languages, and to the impression produced by it may be attributes the popular feeling throughout Germany and France in favour of rail-road which has terminated in the adoption of his railway system in Germany and Belgium especially." [31] The stone bridge here referred to allowed of an easy transport across the valley from the collieries to the Tyne. Constructed by a local mason, the bridge soon fell down, and was rebuilt in 1727, the architect thereupon committing suicide to spare himself the anxiety of any possible further collapse of his work. In Brand's "History and Antiquities of Newcastle" (1789) it is stated that the span of the bridge was 103 feet, that the height was 63 feet, and that the cost of the structure was £1200. [32] In the Company's further Acts of 1783 and 1785 this line was still spoken of as a "rail-way," with the hyphen; but in their Act of 1797 it had become a railway--without the hyphen. [33] Stationary engines. [34] The length of the main line from Carno Mill to Cardiff was to be 26 miles, the branches increasing the total to 44 miles. The estimates of expenditure put the cost of land and construction at £31,105, exclusive of £894 10s., for "obtaining the Act, etc." The items in respect to the main line were as follows:-- £ s. d. Forming the road and laying the dram rails, making the fences, etc., £220 per mile 5720 0 0 Iron dram rails, 44 tons per mile, at £6 per ton 6864 0 0 Sleepers, £40 per mile 1040 0 0 Purchase of land, 26 miles at £75 per mile 1950 0 0 Extra allowance, £100 per mile 2600 0 0 --------------- £18,174 0 0 [35] In regard to this particular plea, see further references to the Glamorganshire Canal Company on pages 238-9. [36] Amalgamated by the Midland Railway Company. [37] My authority for this statement is a newspaper article, headed "Centenary of the First Railway Act," written in 1901 by W. P. Paley, and to be found in a collection of railway pamphlets in the British Museum (08235 i 36). The name of the journal is not stated; but the writer of the article gives such precise details concerning the line in question that his information is evidently authentic. [38] In succeeding engines a double tube, bent in the form of the letter U, was fixed. Stephenson provided his "Rocket" with 25 tubes, thus giving a further substantial increase in the heating surface. [39] That this attitude of organised hostility on the part of the canal companies was well maintained is shown by the following extract from the "Manchester Advertiser" of January 30, 1836: "The proprietors of the Ayre and Calder navigation and of the Canals, have resolved to organise an opposition to all railways whatever in Parliament. The canal proprietors are thus openly setting themselves in opposition to one of the greatest improvements of the age." [40] See page 237. [41] In the Taff Vale Railway Act of 1836 (the same year as that in which Morrison made his proposals) the company were prohibited from paying a dividend of more than seven per cent when the full tolls were charged, or of more than nine per cent after the tolls had been reduced by twenty-five per cent; and the shareholders were required, at any meeting at which these maximum dividends were declared, to make such reasonable reductions in the amount of the rates to be paid during the following year as would, in their opinion, reduce the profits to the seven or nine per cent level. It was further provided that, for the purpose of "better ascertaining the amount of the clear profits upon the said railway," the company should submit their accounts to the Justices in Quarter Sessions, who were to make such reductions in the rates to be collected during the year next ensuing as would, in their judgment, reduce the profits to the prescribed minima. Mr A. Beasley, general manager of the Taff Vale Railway, who gives this information in an article on "How Parliament Harassed Early Railways," published in "The Railway Magazine" for November, 1908, adds: "The gentlemen of Quarter Sessions were never called upon to undertake this formidable task as the clauses were repealed by the Company's Act of 1840." [42] Under the Cheap Trains Act of 1883 the duty was remitted in the case of all fares not exceeding the rate of one penny a mile, and was reduced to two per cent on fares exceeding that rate for conveyance between urban stations within one urban district. [43] Professor Hadley states, in "Railroad Transportation," that in 1844 the average length of English railroads was fifteen miles. [44] The present Railway and Canal Commission, which, however, has no functions in regard to advising on railway Bills, was created in 1873 for a period of years, and was made permanent in 1888. [45] The figures in this column are taken from the Board of Trade Railway Returns for 1910. [46] When giving evidence before the Departmental Committee on Railway Agreements and Amalgamations, on June 21, 1910, Mr A. Beasley, general manager of the Taff Vale Railway Company, called attention to the fact that in "Bradshaw's Railway Manual" for 1909 there was published a special index of all the railways of which notices had appeared in that publication during sixty years (practically covering the whole position), the total of such railways, including light railways, being 1129. Of this number 86 were recorded as having been abandoned, closed or wound up, leaving a balance of 1043. In "Bradshaw's Railway Guide" for March, 1910, only 110 railways--including light railways, railways operated by joint committees, as well as railways in the Isle of Man, the Isle of Wight, and Jersey--were given as being in actual operation. "That shows," continued Mr Beasley, "that there must have been 933 railways, all separately authorised, most of them separately constructed, and many of them, for a time, separately worked, which have been purchased, amalgamated, leased or otherwise absorbed or taken over by other undertakings." [47] 1825. [48] 1832. [49] "The Law Relating to Railway and Canal Traffic"; Boyle and Waghorn. Vol. I, page 296. [50] "Publications of the Department of Economics and Political Science of the University of South Wales and Monmouthshire," No. 2 (1911). [51] The turnpike trust loans still outstanding on the 25th of March, 1887, amounted to £92,000. [52] See p. 63. [53] Lectures on the "History of Traffic Legislation and Parliamentary Action in Connection with Railways," delivered at the London School of Economics. See "The Railway News," November 30, 1907. [54] The existence of this large number of privately owned railway waggons--the greater proportion of which are in use in the coal trade--recalls the days when it was assumed that traders would provide their own rolling stock on the railways. It shows that they still do so to a considerable extent, although, of course, relying on the railway companies to supply the locomotives. It will also be seen how the questions which have arisen from time to time as to the use of a larger type of railway waggon and, also, of automatic couplers on waggons, may be complicated by the variety of ownership. There is an Association of Private Owners of Railway Rolling Stock, the objects of which are "to maintain and defend the rights and promote the interests of private owners and hirers of railway rolling stock." The receipts under this head were as follows:-- £ Steamboats, canals, harbours and docks 5,145,640 Rents, tolls, hotels, etc. 4,542,793 --------- 9,688,433 [56] An excellent summary of the general position to-day will be found in "The Rating of Railways," a booklet issued by the Editor of the "Great Western Railway Magazine." [57] In "Insurance Legislation in Germany; Copy of Memorandum containing the Opinions of various Authorities in Germany" [Cd. 5679], Herr E. Schmidt, Member of the Imperial Diet, and President of the German Tobacco Manufacturers' Association, is quoted as saying: "I am convinced that when the social legislation was introduced, and for the first time the large contributions for sickness insurance and later for old age and infirmity insurance had to be paid, many of us groaned. To-day, however, these contributions, which occur every year, are booked either to the general expenses account or the wages account--for they are, in fact, a part of wages--and they are naturally calculated as part of the cost of production, and eventually appear in the price of the goods, though perhaps not to the full extent in times of bad trade." [58] See an article on "Bishopsgate Goods Station," by Frank B. Day, in the "Great Eastern Railway Magazine" for July, 1911. [59] In the week ending April 17, 1909, the broccoli sent from the Penzance district to various destinations throughout the country filled 1012 railway waggons, and necessitated the running of 34 special trains. [60] See speech by Mr Frederick Shelford at a meeting of the Royal Colonial Institute, May 24, 1910, reported in "United Empire; the Royal Colonial Institute Journal," for August, 1910. [61] When the Tramways Bill of 1870 was introduced, Mr Shaw Lefevre stated that its underlying principle was to empower local authorities "to construct tramways, but not, of course, work them." [62] Another of the witnesses was the Right Hon. J. W. Lowther, M.P., at that time Chairman of Committees, and now Speaker of the House of Commons. He assured the Commission that the power of "vetoing" tramways had worked a great deal of mischief. He further declared that the Standing Order had been most improperly used for the purpose of extorting all sorts of terms and conditions from tramway companies, and had subjected them to liabilities and disabilities which were never contemplated by Parliament. [63] See R. P. Porter's "Dangers of Municipal Trading," pp. 174-5, where it is stated that of over £4,000,000 spent by the London County Council on street widenings for tramway extensions only £377,000 was debited to the tramway undertaking. [64] "Electricity in Locomotion," by A. G. Whyte, 1911. [65] The total number of commercial motor-vehicles working in the London district in August, 1911, was, according to statistics compiled by "Commercial Motor," 3500. [66] Mails are now being sent out from London every night by motor-vans for distances of up to 100 miles. [67] July 31, 1911. [68] See pp. 58-63. [69] Figures for March 31. On September 30, 1911, the number of taxicabs in London was 7360. [70] Figure for Sept. 24, 1907. [71] A good example of these tendencies is offered by the Southend district, situate at the mouth of the Thames, a distance of 35 miles from London. Season tickets between London and Southend are issued by the railways at a low rate, and on the London, Tilbury and Southend line there are 6000 holders of these tickets. In the special interests of wives and daughters cheap tickets to London by an express train are issued on Wednesdays to allow of shopping in town, visits to the theatre, etc., and by this train there is an average of from 600 to 700 passengers, consisting almost exclusively of ladies. [72] Exclusive of those by season-ticket holders. [73] In an address delivered by him as president of the Railway Students' Union at the London School of Economics on October 24, 1911, Mr Sam Fay, general manager of the Great Central Railway, said: "There is little prospect of any extensive opening out of new competitive routes in this country, and, but for a few comparatively short lines here and there, the railway system may be considered complete."