“What Lancashire thinks to-day, England will think to-morrow.” That is a political byword, not always supported by events; but if we enlarge the scope into a plenary comprehension of affairs, the truth of it becomes much more evident. Railways, in the opening of the Manchester and Liverpool Railway, August 26th, 1830, the first in England, originated in Lancashire, and spread from it; and canals, although the first was made elsewhere, at Manchester first became of importance. The opening of the Duke of Bridgewater’s canal in 1761, and that of the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894, mark the beginnings of two different eras: the second of the two freighted with no one yet knows what tremendous possibilities. Manchester is a port, and has become so by an exertion of local patriotism not equalled elsewhere. When shares in the proposed Ship Canal were offered in the financial world and no one would find the capital, the future of the project looked hopeless. The powers for its construction, granted by Act of Parliament, were nearly lapsing, and the promoters were reduced to stumping the surrounding country and holding meetings to advertise the scheme. In that dark hour many working-men of Manchester put their savings into the Company, and the Corporation itself became very largely concerned in it. When the success of the issue appeared assured, the giants of finance plucked up a little courage, the situation was saved at the eleventh hour, and the Canal became at last, after an expenditure of fifteen millions and a quarter sterling, an accomplished fact. It has only recently yielded any return upon that huge expenditure, but the direct access to the sea it gives has enormously increased Manchester’s wealth and importance. The useful and the beautiful, we are told, are one, but the Manchester Ship Canal is not a beautiful object. Its waters are black and smell to Heaven on hot days, and the great locks, swing-bridges, and the like, although wonderful engineering feats, are not improvements upon the landscape. But they have a majesty of their own, and if you voyage down the Ship Canal, duly holding your nose, you will be much impressed. You will be even more impressed if you don’t hold it. A succession of docks, lairages, grain elevators and coal-shoots lines this Acherontean tideway: everything equipped with machinery that performs marvels in a quiet, unostentatious, matter-of-fact manner. And the great ocean-going steamers come surging slowly up to Manchester, bellowing for the swing bridges to swing open, and crowds of interested idlers, and the impatient traffic, held up at the flung-up bridges, look upon the sight with never-satiated gaze. It is a perennial wonder, a sensation that never stales.