The Express.
London, England, 1865-08-17 00:00:00

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LONDON. THURSDAY. AUGUST 17.

Tams are • good many people, and rea-
sonably patriotic, who will bear with little or no
emotion that the navigation of the Thames above
Staines is seriously threatened with extinction.
Indeed, they may be inclined to think that to
speak of navigation at all in connection with those
distant waters is only to misuse the term. The
crowded reaches of the river between Greenwich
and the Tower are known, at least by repu-
tation, to all the world, and every Lon-
doner has at one time or another made
the voyage from London-bridge to Chelsea.
From thence again to Hampton Court most of us
have more or less acquaintance with those barges
which are perennially getting in the way of a
race about Mortlake, complicating the delicate
operation of shooting Richmond-bridge, or lying in
grimy quiescence at the entrance of Teddington
Lock. But who save an Etonian, • rowing man
about the time of the Henley Regatta, or a young
lady with pleasant recollections of moonlight
saunters on some river-side lawn, knows anything
of the upper Thames, or conceives of its waters as
bearing any thing more oommercial than aferry-boatf
And yet, to judge by the evidence lately given
before a committee of the Hours of Commons, the
question is of more importance than may at first
sight appear. For it is not the navigation which
is deserting the Themes, but the Thames which is
becoming unequal to the navigation. Between
Lechlade and Oxford, where some years ago the
water was deep enough to bring down vessels of
100 tons burdefi, the traffic is now practically at an
end, and in some places the bed of the river
ban so silted up that in summer a common flat-
bottomed pleasure boat cannot pass over it. Below
Oxford things have not yet come to this pass ;
they are only on the high road to it. Bat even as
far down as Maidenhead the river is sometimes so
low that a man may cross it without doing more
than wetting his feet ; and throughout this part
of its creme the locks and weirs are in so leaky a
state that they will not properly store the water,
and the lock-gates so crazy that many of them will
hardly bear being opened. Besides this, the
banks and towing-paths are constantly washed
away by the winter floods, and the earth thus
dislodged is carried down the stream until it
helps to form an additional shoal. Unfortunately
the chain of cause and effect runs in a complete
circle. Without some improvement in the works
which regulate the supply of water the barge owners
will not use the river; and unless the navigation,
which is their sole source of income, increases, the
Commissioners have no funds wherewith to repair

the works.
But, it may be asked, supposing all this to be
true, is there any reason why the disappearance of
this local traffic should be regretted t and to this,
we think, an affirmative answer may be safely
given. In the first place, it is not expedient to
dispense with any agency which can enter into
competition with the railways. The latter inte-
rest is quite powerful enough already, without our
suffering its monopoly to be increased by the
needless extinction of any other means of locomo-
tion. That water carriage may successfully com-
pete with land carriage is shown by the statistics
of the canal traffic between Oxford and Ashby-
de-la-Zouch. In the latter neighbourhood
lie the collieries which chiefly supply
Oxford with coal, and in 1864 upwards of 4,600
barges laden with, in round numbers, 117,000
tons of coal, passed into the Oxford Canal. Of
this quantity the larger proportion was consumed
at Oxford and iu the towns along the line of the
canal ; but about 17,000 tons were conveyed
along the Thames, notwithstanding the unsatisfac-
tory state of the navigation, into the district
between Oxford and Reading. The reason why
this canal traffic still holds its own is
not so much its superior cheapness, since
it is found that " directly the water
" has got hold of any particular trade the railways
" cut down their tolls," bat rather the greater
convenience which it oilers under certain circum-
stances and to certain descriptions of goods. In
the case of this particular class of coal, for example,
it is necessary for the purposes of the traders that
it should be stacked, and on this account it has to
be forwarded in large lumps. Consequently, a
quiet mode of transit becomes of great importance,
and, as a matter of fact, in the per centage of
waste there is a difference of 30 per cent.
between the railway truck and the canal
boat. Wherever there is any danger of
breakage, as in the case of crockery from
the Staffordshire Potteries, slates, tiles, and
vitriol, or other chemicals, the same rule holds
good. In addition to this, there are usually
greater facilities for stacking coal and timber in
the neighbourhood of the river•side wharves than
in that of the railway stations ; and, even after
making the necessary allowance for long frosts,
there is lees delay in the carriage of good shy water,
owing to the frequency with which the goods trains
are detained on the line in consequence of a sudden
moms of passenger traffic. In some places, too,
the eosapstition of the railway is hardly more
than indirect. Thus, between Oxford and Reading
there are five considerable towns on the Thames,