The Express.
London, England, 1856-01-29 00:00:00

IMPORTANT LEASE OF WATER COMMUNI.

CATION.

After a negotiation, which has been pending for
sous tints past, the Bridgewater trustees have entered into
as agreement to Issas the Bridgewater Canal and the Old
Quay Navigation to the North Staffordshire Railway Com-
posy for a long term. The North Staffordshire Company
are already the nwnen of the Trent and Meney Navigation;
and a glanee at the map will show that when this gnat
chairs of internal water lines is all worked together by a
wealthy and powerful railwsy company, who bare this
succeeded its getting en outlet_ for their heavy goods trifle
at the port of Liverpool, it must prove a very potent compe-
titor with the railways for that clam of traffic, and moot
offer to the public dl those economic 'dna:aegis which
wst..r communication still possesses to so large an intent
- _a.

over any other means of transit. By this arrangement the
company have secured a terminus in Liverpool, with the
dock accommodation and warehousing room ; they have
opened a direct end free comenunicatii.n betwt en the Mer-
sey and the limber ; aid, so far as regards the Liverpool
traffic, they have rendered themselves in a great messing
independent of the London and North Western Company.
The length of canal and navigation included in the lease is,
the Bridgewater Camel 40 miles, end the Old Quay Nation.
tion 30 11111 ff—is all 70 mile.. If to this be added the length
of the Trent and Mersey Navigation, 110 miles, it will be
seen that the North Staffordshire Railway Company now
assume a very formidable position as water carriers, over
180 miles of unbroken internal navigation, connecting the
Mersey, the Trent, and the Humber, and extending over
the most populous and wealthy manufacturing distrusts try
Lancashire and Cheshire, Suiffurdshire and Yorkshire.
The mining preperty and landed sewn of the Bridgewater
Trust form no part of the property leased. Of course, also,
the 40 mile. of underground canal in the Wersley collieries
of the trust are not included in the IWO. It is not • little
curious that the earliest project of Brindliey, the Bridgewater
Canal, and the principal portion of his magnificent project
of joining the tour great ports of Liverpool, Hull, Bristol,
and London, by a system of grand canals, with subsidiary
brancises—we mesa the Grand Trunk Canal to moils the Trent
and the Mersey—should, after a lapse of upwards of eighty
years (for lirindley died in 1772), come under the same control
and management. The Bridgewater Canal, from Manchester
to Worsley, Leigh, and Runcorn, was formed luring the
years 1760.1795, at a coat of 220,0001, and has an Went
of forty lineal miles. When the Duie of Bridgewater
undertook this great design, the price of carriage between
Manchester and Liverpool was 12.. for tin by the river,
and 40s. per ton land carriage. The Duke's charge on has
canal was limited to 61 end it then possessed all the speed
and regularity of land carriage. Its opening, se may be
supposed, was productive of vast advantage to the public', the
price of coal in Mencbeeter immediately Wien to half its
previous amount ; while provisions from the sgricultural
district', and various other commodities, were more cheaply
and abundantly su;•plied to the Manchester market, by the
aid of this cheap mode of conveyance. The Qld Quslf
Navigation, so celled from the place whence the vessels
started in Manchester, is the course of the rivers 'moll and
Mersey from Manchester to Liverplol—a distance of thirty
miles. The Teo t and Mersey Nevin Won (of which the
main line is the Grand Trunk Canal) proceeds from the
Bridgewater Canal at Preston Brook, near Runcorn, is
sauth.enst direction by Mii:dlewich sod Borelem, tall Heart
Lichfield, when it taros northeast, joining the Trent at
Wades Ferry, on the northwest angle of Leicestershire.
The. Grand Truth Canel has since been united—' n the one
hand by the Birmingham and Fatale, sad the Birmingham
and Worcester Canals—with the Severn at Worcester:
and, on the other hand, the Oxford, Coventry. ..ad Grand
Junction Canals have united it with the 1 Lames near
Brantford—thus connecting, by an uninterrupted chain of
water lints, the rivers Mere y, Trent, 1111r1OPT, Severn,
and Thames—and completing the internal we're comma-
. .

sieatioa between Übe for gnat posts of the kingdosi.--
Manchester Guardia*.