It is worthy of remark that though two Select Committees declined to take the responsibility of passing the Bill absolutely in the form in which it was presented to them, all the six Committees were satisfied as regards the necessity of the undertaking. The Manchester Ship Canal Company is incorporated by 48 and 49 Vict. cap. 118, for the following amongst other purposes:— To construct a ship canal from the river Mersey at Eastham, near Liverpool, past Ellesmere Port, Weston Point, and Runcorn, to Warrington, Salford, and Manchester, available for the largest class of ocean steamers, with docks at Manchester, Salford, and Warrington, and other incidental works. To purchase the entire undertakings of the then existing Bridgwater Navigation Company (Limited), including not only the Bridgwater canals and the Runcorn and Weston canal, but the Mersey and Irwell Navigation, the Runcorn docks, the Duke’s dock in Liverpool, and all that company’s warehouses, wharves, buildings, lands, rents, rights, and privileges, as a going concern. A further Bill, authorising the payment by the Manchester Ship Canal Company of interest at the rate of 4 per cent. per annum to shareholders during the construction of the works, became law and received the Royal Assent as an Act of Parliament on 26th June, 1886. During the progress of this Bill, on a division in the House of Commons on a motion by a Liverpool member for reference to Committee and _locus_ for opponents, the motion was negatived by 375 votes as against 61 votes. The authorised share capital of the Manchester Ship Canal Company is 8,000,000_l._, with borrowing powers to the extent of 1,812,000_l._, making the total authorised capital 9,812,000_l._, a sum sufficient to enable the company to complete the construction of the works, to pay interest during their construction, and to carry into effect all the objects of the Act and leave an ample surplus. The Act provides that the Bridgwater Navigation Company shall sell the whole of the Bridgwater undertakings for the sum of 1,710,000_l._ These undertakings earn a net revenue of nearly 60,000_l._ per annum. Under the auspices of the Manchester Ship Canal Company, a considerable development of the traffic on the Bridgwater canal system is expected to result from the abolition of the bar tolls, which obstruct traffic, and from throwing open the canal to general carriers. DESCRIPTION OF THE CANAL WORKS. A brief description of the canal works may here be introduced. The engineering journals, from which we have mainly borrowed our facts, have dealt with them so fully as to render a detailed statement quite unnecessary.