There were canals as well as roads between the two places, but all routes were alike tedious and costly, especially as regarded the transit of heavy goods. The route by turnpike road was thirty-six miles, by the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal fifty miles, by the Mersey and Irwell navigation the same, and by the Leeds and Liverpool Canal fifty-six miles. These were all overburdened with traffic. The roads were bad, the tolls heavy, and the haulage expensive. The journey by coach occupied from five to six hours, and by wagon nearly a day. But very few heavy goods went by road. The canals nearly monopolized this traffic, and, having contrived to keep up the rates, the canal companies charged what they liked. They conducted their business in a drowsy, sleepy, stupid manner. If the merchant complained of delay, he was told to do better if he could. If he objected to the rates, he was warned that if he did not pay them promptly his goods might not be carried at all. The canal companies were in a position to dictate their own terms, and they did this in such a way as to disgust alike the senders and the receivers of goods, so that both Liverpool and Manchester were up in arms against them. Worse even than the heavy charges for goods was the occasional entire stoppage of the canals. Sometimes they were frozen up; sometimes they were blocked by the press of traffic, so that goods lay on the wharves unmoved for weeks together; and at some seasons it occupied a longer time to bring cotton from Liverpool to Manchester by canal-boat than it had done to bring it from New York to Liverpool by sailing ship. Was there no way of remedying these great and admitted evils? Were the commercial public to continue to be bound hand and foot, and left at the mercy of the canal proprietors? Immense interests at Liverpool and Manchester were at stake. The Liverpool merchants wanted new facilities for sending raw material inland, and the Manchester manufacturers for sending the manufactured products back to Liverpool for shipment. Vast populations had become settled in the towns of South Lancashire, to whom it was of vital importance that the communication with the sea should be regular, constant, and economical.