The Sun.
London, England, 1829-12-28 00:00:00

ral of every kind ; but with reference to internal
navigation it may be said to be absolutely
eccentric, if I may venture to use the word is
that sense, bei►'g a third rate town in connection
with the coasting trade, and still lower in the
scale of population.
" Paris, however, is the point which is re•
garded with mingled feelings of sanguine hope
and emulous anxiety as the future focus of the
internal commerce of France and even of central
Europe. It is held to be already next to Lon-
don in point of capital and industry as well as
in population ; and it is contended that, if a
market could be established in any part of
Europe to compete with that of London, it
must be the result of a system of internal navi-
gation, of which Paris would be the centre, so
as not merely to open up the basin of the Seine
and other districts of France, but so as to ra-
mify into Germany, and thus make the capital
of France a great enirepot for the exchange of
commodities throughout the centre of Europe.
The idea, like every thing French, is certainly
magnificent, and I have no doubt the projector
in the splendid vista of futurity, which his ima-
gination has created, sees London an insigni-
ficant out-port, hiding its diminished head, and
bowing the knee to Paris as the great commer•
cial capital of Europe. The chief instrument in
producing these advantages is to be the great
maritime canal, which is at present in contem-
plation between Rouen and Paris, the advan-
tages to result from which are regarded, and to a
certain extent I have no doubt with reason, as
of very great importance. At present, for in-
stance, it is said that to go from Antwerp or
Amsterdam to the Grand Duchy of Baden,
which is opposite Strasburg, it takes an average
voyage of six weeks, and an expellee of six
pounds a ton, whereas it is calculated that the
same distance could be accomplished by means
of the proposed maritime canal from Rouen to
Paris, in co with the canal from Paris to
Strasburg, in Teen days, at an expence of
four pounds a ton.
" Hitherto it appears to me that some
radical error has constantly presided over every
great enterprise of this nature in France. There
are, indeed, several useful canals in this country,
such as those of the Briare and the Centre, and
the canal of Burgundy, but these are only in-
tended for local purposes, and the promotion of
local interests. The object at present in view
is of a very different nature, being nothing less
than the establishment of a navigable connection
between the great hydrographical divisions or
basins into which France is divided with each
other, so as to unite them into one general sys-
tem. In France, however, it is too often for-
gotten that the best canals and the best roads in
the world can never create commercial enterprise
and activity where they do not previously exist.
They are, if I may be pardoned the metaphor,
what a knowledge of language is in education.
They are only the accessories of commerce, as
language is of information, affording the means
of facilitating its operations and improving its
modes of communication. Canals should only
be formed to supply a demand already in exist-
ence, and not as hitherto has been generally the
case in France, for the purpoSe of creating it
This is probably the reason why such uudertak•
ings have always been most successful when con•

ducted by individuals or by companies of private
speculators, an illustration of which may be
readily had by comparing the returns from such
works as the Duke of Bridgewater's canal with
the splendid failure in the north of Scotland,
where a million of public money has been sunk

without the remotest chance of any correspond-
ing advantage. It is now perfectly understood
in England that it would be in vain to attempt
the formation of a canal or a rail-road in any
situation where there was not a considerable

amount of traffic already existing. This is a
lesson which the good people of France have yet
to learn, and it seems to me that a careful ex-
amination of the map ought to lead them
directly to that conclusion. Bordeaux,

Nantes, and Marseilles were undoubtedly

indebted to their maritime situations for
the origin of their past preponderance, but
it may be seen from the map that each of these
towns has become the centre of a separate sys-
tem of its own, and the capital of the natural
basin in which it is situated, as will readily be
perceived on glancing at the general course of
the Gironde, the Loire, and the Rhone, respec-
tively. But the canals and other means of com-
munication which have been formed, or are in

contemplation, as dependancies on those provin-
. . . .

cial capitals, would never have existed but for

the previous accumulation of wealth, the surplus
of which thus taught the means of extending
and enlarging itself.
"Although private individuals,or associations of
individuals, who risk their own property on the

ultimate success of a canal or a rail-road, as a
matter of speculation, are more likely to be
cautious in their arrangements, equal in their

calculations, and economical in their manage.

ment, than officers of state, whose emoluments

arise from their mere employment and not from
the results of its beneficial exercise, yet I have
had occasion to observe a remarkable instance

of the construction of a canal at an expence of
upwards of 100,000/., where it can be demon-

strated that the town to which it leads has an-

nually been benefitted to an amount considerably
exceeding the whole capital embarked in the
undertaking, while the shareholders have never

been able to realize even a moderate dividend.

I allude to the Union Canal at Edinburgh.
Before its formation, in consequence of an

understanding- among the coal proprietors in the

neighbourhood, the price of fuel was kept up at
the rate of twenty odd shillings a ton, but although
the canal has reduced the price one-half, by in-
troducing the coal of the Duke of Hamilton

and other distant proprietors, yet those
who have the advantage of proximity are still able
to maintain a competition at the diminished rate ;

so as, in f►ct, to deprive the projectors and

shareholders of the canal of a fair return for

heir capital, although such of them as are in ha-