The revival movement, however, is based on the supposition that no increase in the canal tolls now charged would be necessary.[14] Canal transport, it is said, is already much higher in this country than it is on the Continent--and that may well be so, considering (1) that canals such as ours, with their numerous locks, etc., cost more to construct, operate and maintain than canals on the flat lands of Continental Europe; (2) that British canals are still supposed to maintain themselves; and (3) that canal traffic as well as railway traffic is assessed in the most merciless way for the purposes of local taxation. In the circumstances it is assumed that the canal traffic in England could not pay higher tolls and charges than those already imposed, and that the interest on the aforesaid millions, spent on purchase and improvements, would all be met out of the expanded traffic which the restored canals would attract. Again I may ask--Is there any reasonable probability of this? Bearing in mind the complete transition in trade of which I have already spoken--a transition which, on the one hand, has enormously increased the number of individual traders, and, on the other, has brought about a steady and continuous decrease in the weight of individual consignments--is there the slightest probability that the conditions of trade are going to be changed, and that merchants, manufacturers, and other traders will forego the express delivery of convenient quantities by rail, in order to effect a problematical saving (and especially problematical where extra cartage has to be done) on the tedious delivery of wholesale quantities by canal? Nothing short of a very large increase indeed in the water-borne traffic would enable the canals to meet the heavy expenditure foreshadowed, and, even if such increase were secured, the greater part of it would not be new traffic, but simply traffic diverted from the railways. More probably, however, the very large increase would not be secured, and no great diversion from the railways would take place. The paramount and ever-increasing importance attached by the vast majority of British traders to quick delivery (an importance so great that on some lines there are express goods trains capable of running from 40 to 60 miles an hour) will keep them to the greater efficiency of the railway as a carrier of goods; while, if a serious diversion of traffic were really threatened, the British railways would not be handicapped as those of France and Germany are in any resort to rates and charges which would allow of a fair competition with the waterways.