As bearing on the facts here narrated, I might mention that, in the course of a discussion at the Institution of Civil Engineers, in November 1905, on a paper read by Mr John Arthur Saner, "Waterways in Great Britain" (reported in the official "Proceedings" of the Institution), Mr James Inglis, General Manager of the Great Western Railway Company, said that "his company owned about 216 miles of canal, not a mile of which had been acquired voluntarily. Many of those canals had been forced on the railway as the price of securing Acts, and some had been obtained by negotiations with the canal companies. The others had been acquired in incidental ways, arising from the fact that the traffic had absolutely disappeared." Mr Inglis further told the story of the Kennet and Avon Canal, which his company maintain at a loss of about £4,000 per annum. The canal, it seems, was constructed in 1794 at a cost of £1,000,000, and at one time paid 5 per cent. The traffic fell off steadily with the extension of the railway system, and in 1846 the canal company, seeing their position was hopeless, applied to Parliament for powers to construct a railway parallel with the canal. Sanction was refused, though the company were authorised to act as common carriers. In 1851 the canal owners approached the Great Western Railway Company, and told them of their intention to seek again for powers to build an opposition railway. The upshot of the matter was that the railway company took over the canal, and agreed to pay the canal company £7,773 a year. This they have done, with a loss to themselves ever since. The rates charged on the canal were successively reduced by the Board of Trade (on appeal being made to that body) to 1-1/4d., then to 1d., and finally 1/2d. per ton-mile; but there had never been a sign, Mr Inglis added, that the reduction had any effect in attracting additional traffic.[5] To ascertain for myself some further details as to the past and present of the Kennet and Avon Navigation, I paid a visit of inspection to the canal in the neighbourhood of Bath, where it enters the River Avon, and also at Devizes, where I saw the remarkable series of locks by means of which the canal reaches the town of Devizes, at an elevation of 425 feet above sea level. In conversation, too, with various authorities, including Mr H. J. Saunders, the Canals Engineer of the Great Western Railway Company, I obtained some interesting facts which throw light on the reasons for the falling off of the traffic along the canal.