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.