The Birmingham Canal Company was able down to 1873 (except only in one year, 1868, when it required £835 from the London and North-Western Company) to pay its dividend of £4 per annum on each share, without calling on the railway company to make good a deficiency. In 1874, however, there was a substantial shortage of revenue, and since that time the London and North-Western Railway Company, under the agreement already mentioned, have had to pay considerable sums to the canal company, as the following table shows:-- Year 1874 £10,528 18 0 1875 nil. 1876 4,796 10 9 1877 361 7 9 1878 11,370 5 7 1879 20,225 0 5 1880 13,534 19 6 1881 15,028 9 3 1882 6,826 7 1 1883 8,879 4 7 1884 14,196 7 9 1885 25,460 19 10 1886 35,169 9 6 1887 31,491 14 1 1888 15,350 10 11 1889 5,341 19 3 1890 22,069 9 8 1891 17,626 2 3 1892 29,508 4 2 1893 31,618 19 4 1894 27,935 8 9 1895 39,065 15 2 1896 22,994 0 10 1897 10,186 19 7 1898 10,286 13 3 1899 18,470 18 1 1900 34,075 19 6 1901 62,644 2 8 1902 27,645 2 3 1903 34,047 4 6 1904 37,832 5 8 1905 39,860 13 0 The sum total of these figures is £685,265, 2s. 11d. It will have been seen, from the facts already narrated, that for a period of over twenty years from the date of the agreement the canal company continued to earn their own dividend without requiring any assistance from the railway company. Meantime, however, various local, in addition to general, causes had been in operation tending to affect the prosperity of the canals. The decline of the pig-iron industry in the Black Country had set in, while though the conversion of manufactured iron into plates, implements, etc., largely took its place, the raw materials came more and more from districts not served by the canals, and the finished goods were carried mainly by the railways then rapidly spreading through the district, affording facilities in the way of sidings to a considerable number of manufacturers whose works were not on the canal route. Then the local iron ore deposits were either worked out or ceased to be remunerative, in view of the competition of other districts, again facilitated by the railways; and the extension of the Bessemer process of steel-making also affected the Staffordshire iron industry.