Under this arrangement the coal would receive much more handling--and each handling means so much additional slack and depreciation in value; a week would have to be allowed for a journey now possible in a day; the coal dealers would have to provide their own depôts and pay more for cartage, and they would have to order particular kinds of coal by the boat load instead of by the waggon load. This last necessity would alone suffice to render the scheme abortive. Some years ago when there was so much discussion as to the use of a larger size of railway waggon, efforts were made to induce the coal interests to adopt this policy. But the 8-ton truck was so convenient a unit, and suited so well the essentially retail nature of the coal trade to-day, that as a rule the coal merchants would have nothing to do with trucks even of 15 or 20 tons. Much less, therefore, would they be inclined to favour barge loads of 200 or 250 tons. Exceptions might be made in the case of gas works, or of factories already situated alongside the banks of canals which have direct communication with collieries. In the Black Country considerable quantities of coal thus go by canal from the collieries to the many local ironworks, etc., which, as I have shown, are still actively served by the Birmingham Canal system. But these exceptions can hardly be offered as an adequate reason for the nationalisation of British canals. The general conditions, and especially the nature of the coal trade transition, will be better realised from some figures mentioned by the chairman of the London and North-Western Railway Company, Lord Stalbridge, at the half-yearly meeting in February 1903. Notwithstanding the heavy coal traffic--in the aggregate--the average consignment of coal, he showed, on the London and North-Western Railway is only 17-1/2 tons, and over 80 per cent. of the total quantity carried represents consignments of less than 20 tons, the actual weights ranging from lots of 2 tons 14 cwts. to close upon 1,000 tons for shipment. "But," the reader may say, "if coal is taken in 1,000-ton lots to a port for shipment, surely canal transport could be resorted to here!" This course is adopted on the Aire and Calder Navigation, which is very favourably situated, and goes over almost perfectly level ground. The average conditions of coal shipment in the United Kingdom are, however, much better met by the special facilities which rail transport offers.