HL Deb 14 July 1943 vol 128 cc483-505

LORD TEVIOT had given Notice that he would call attention to the advisability of constructing a great ship canal between the Clyde and the Firth of Forth; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am indebted to my noble friend Lord Brabazon for putting an idea in my head. If your Lordships will recollect, he produced a scheme some months ago, so to speak, out of the pigeon-hole. I refer to the harnessing of the Severn tide. It occurred to me that in these days of planning it might be just as well to have a look round and see whether there were not some concrete plans which had been, so to speak, set aside; and that brought to my mind the question of the canal from east to west, or from west to east, whichever way one likes to look at it, of that narrow bit of Scotland between the Clyde and the Forth.

There is no doubt that this is a very big subject. It is one which has received a great deal of consideration in the past, but I am bringing it before your Lordships now in view of the fact that it has not been considered since 1930. As we well know, there have been events of great importance since that date which have quite altered what might have been the ideas of those days. Another reason why I am bringing the matter forward is that the Hydro-Electric Development (Scotland) Bill, which is now before Parliament, is going to mean that an immense amount of power will be available not far from the site of this canal. I am one of those who believe that, if this canal is built, industries will spring up contiguous to it because of several things. First of all, we have a very large population quite close; there is a great deal of coal; and, if the canal is built, a great deal of oil will be stored there. There are other raw materials of importance which, in my view, should induce great industries to set themselves up, as they will then be in the position of getting their raw materials by the cheapest possible method of transport —namely, water.

I am not asking for a definite decision to-day. All I ask is that the Government shall take into consideration this debate, and whether or not this scheme, which has not been looked upon with favour in the past, may not be now carried out. I have read a great deal about this scheme. There seems to have been such violent criticism of it from some quarters that I feel that the criticism must in some way come from those who are prejudiced. It is curious, in looking up the criticism of other canals, such as the Suez Canal, the Kiel Canal, the Manchester Canal, and the Panama Canal, that there has been this very strong criticism against building them—such criticisms as the "sea bubble," "it will never pay," and, in regard to the Manchester Canal, "it will reduce to beggary 800,000 people." All these prophecies have been wrong. Some of these canals, like the Manchester one, have ended in a cul-de-sac with an outlet only at one end. For that reason alone this Forth and Clyde Canal deserves further consideration.

This is not a new idea. It was first mooted, as no doubt many of your Lordships know, in the days of Charles II. When we come to modern days, with this great competition between countries, between trade and commerce, if we can by any means lessen the cost of transport, surely it is going to be of very great benefit to the country generally. Larger cargoes mean lower freights. And there is another point. This, in my view, will be a world service. Criticism has been made, I know, that you will never get an Atlantic ship coming into Glasgow to use the canal, that she will go either north or south in order to get to Western Europe. I somehow or other cannot believe that. I know there is the question of vulnerability from the bombing point of view. The Germans were at El Alamein, a very short distance from the Suez Canal, and although they tried to bomb it—and I believe on some occasions did bomb it— it did not make the slightest difference. Traffic may have been delayed a little, but it did not stop the materials or the stores going through the Suez Canal to our troops fighting in North Africa.

I am not in a position—there are noble Lords who are in a position—to express an opinion from the naval point of view. It seems to me that, when our eastern ports are so vulnerable from the point of view of repairing our battleships, it would have been a magnificent thing if we had had this canal, in the last two years particularly and indeed in the last two wars. Owing to the anti-aircraft defences, a bomber which has to fly across land has a very difficult job if it. is going to bomb a repair works on the west coast, while this tip-and-run business on the east coast seems to me a thing we have to think about. But I will leave that question to those who know far more about it than I do. That is just a layman's opinion. Then there is the danger, particularly in war-time, to a ship wishing to get to the west or to the east, to the North Sea or to the Atlantic. Imagine the dangers at the moment for such a ship of going through the Channel or through the Pent-land Firth. There must be danger due to submarines, whereas if there were a canal in existence the ship could quietly go through it and would be quite safe while passing from west to east or in the opposite direction.

Then there is the question of the saving of time and distance. In regard to this I will give your Lordships one or two illustrations that I have received from a reliable source. For instance, a ship which in the ordinary way went from Leith to Belfast seventeen times in a year would be able, if she used the canal, to go more than twenty-three times. I will not give the fractions. Then if a ship went from Leith to Glasgow, instead of sixteen times it could go twenty-five times; from Glasgow to Amsterdam, eighteen times instead of fourteen times; from Liverpool to Hamburg, fifteen times instead of thirteen times; from Liverpool to Copenhagen, fifteen times instead of fourteen times; from the Tyne to St. Lawrence, seven times instead of six times. Nobody knows better than my noble friend who is to reply how important it is for a ship to be working as hard as she can, and it seems to me for that reason that from the mercantile point of view this canal would help very much. If one draws a line from Bergen to Antwerp, I believe there used to be a great deal of coastal shipping coming from there to these shores, and the canal would be very useful to such shipping. Our own coastal shipping and those ships coming from the west of Europe could go through the canal to the large ports on the west coast.

This is a great national question. As I have said it has been thought of and discussed for many years. There are exhaustive reports by the most highly qualified engineers on the subject. One is bound to find that an enterprise of this sort will not suit somebody. I am not going to mention names, but it is peculiar that certain places have always been against this project, and quite obviously they are against it because they think that it is going to injure their past record of prosperity. I cannot see that anyone is justified in being influenced by any consideration such as that. We have to look at this question and all questions in the future in a national way and in an international way. There is one thing I cannot quite believe. Can your Lordships, for example, imagine a ship arriving at Leith and wanting to go west, not naturally wishing to use the canal in doing so? And, vice versa, would not a ship which had got to Glasgow and was going east prefer to use the canal rather than go round by the north or the south, and thereby greatly shorten the time she would take? That would be particularly so if the vessel wished to refuel. I can see characteristics in that part of the world being quite altered owing to the facilities which this canal would give.

There is no difficulty whatever in building it. There is no question about that, particularly in regard to the short route which would have no locks, and would have sea gates at each end. Let us visualize for a moment the question in bad weather. In winter a captain arriving in the vicinity and asking himself: "Shall we go round through the British Channel or through the Pentland Firth with the possibility of there being a thick fog at either place, or shall we just pop through the canal?" would almost certainly choose the last-named course because the inducement to use the canal would be so great. Then as regards our fishing fleet, I can see no reason why it should not use the canal, and I would suggest that special dues might be allowed the fishing fleet to do so.

I come now to what has always been in every Scotsman's mind, the question of the drift south. This project would mean the employment of a tremendous number of people at probably a very difficult time for ourselves, soon after the war. By its means large numbers of men would find permanent employment if some people are right in thinking (and I believe them to be right), that new ventures would be started on the banks of the canal. It would also have this effect, I think. At the present time we have terrible centralization. We do not want to increase the size of the big towns which in all conscience are already big enough. We want to decentralize trade and commerce throughout our island. That being so, the cutting of this canal and the development of the hydro-electric scheme might relieve very much the congestion in the big towns in the south. Here you would have, I hope and believe, a new centre of industry which would not only relieve that congestion, but also relieve the congestion of the labour market. Turning for a moment to the question of land values, there would undoubtedly be an increase in the value of land contiguous to the canal, and it is quite justified that we should take notice of that. After allowing the owners of the land a reasonable amount, the rest of the increase should go either to the Canal Corporation or, if the Government built it, to the Government, so that the increase in land values would accrue to the benefit of the whole scheme.

Some of the criticisms which I have read in the past are not applicable in any way, I think, to the present day. No doubt many of your Lordships have been surprised when going to a place which you had not visited lately to see tremendous upheavals due to mechanical diggers and other modern methods of altering the face of the earth. As I have said, criticism of this scheme has been very violent, but curiously enough the critics have never given any thought-out or real reason for their objection. I hope His Majesty's Government will take serious notice of this question and will not be influenced by people who just say things without giving good and sound fundamental reasons for them.

I come lastly to the question of cost. The canal will cost a lot of money, but looking at some of the magnificent modern machines which are working in all parts of the country on excavation, and remembering that the canal will be only roughly thirty miles long, I think that with modern machines the work can be done at far less cost than would have been the case, say, ten or fifteen years ago. That, however, is a matter for the engineers. They know far more about that than I do. The question of upkeep has to be considered, but in the light of modern machinery I think that would be much easier and less expensive than in the past. I leave the question of cost to the engineers and others who have studied the matter for so long. I have put this matter before your Lordships in a very general way. There is an immense amount of evidence on this subject and, having read all I can get hold of in the last few weeks, I have come to the conclusion that the reasons for the canal are very much stronger than the reasons against it. I make an appeal to my noble friend that this matter shall have the very serious consideration of the Government for the reasons which I have stated in a general way. I beg to move.

THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND

My Lords, I promised the noble Lord who raised this Motion that I would say a few words in support. I do not want to repeat all the very excellent arguments that he adduced, but I do think there is a very great deal in what he said. We in Scotland should take advantage of the peculiar geographical accident that Scotland has a very thin waist. We have seen canals built all over the world, in the British Empire and in America, France and Belgium and even in England, where geographical reasons were less strong than in the case of this particular canal; but I suggest that we should begin by getting canals working at home before we think of building canals in other parts of the Empire or other parts of the world. I can remember well that many years ago my father was Chairman of a Commission or Committee which sat to consider the question of cutting a canal from the Forth to the Clyde. It is a long time ago, but I remember his telling me about it. Nothing happened at that time, but I think it is very useful that the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, should revive a project which I believe would be a very fine piece of work after the war.

Excellent reasons were advanced, as I have said, by my noble friend, and although as compared with the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal or other great canals, it is a small project, none the less it would be of tremendous advantage in proportion to the cost. I consider that the advantages of this canal are both great and solid. It would greatly reduce the distance, as your Lordships have already been told, between many ports. I do not think my noble friend actually mentioned those ports, but there would be a great shortening of the distance from Leith, the port of Edinburgh, to Montreal and New York, or to Belfast, Liverpool or Dublin. There would be a similar shortening of distance between Glasgow and Aberdeen, Glasgow and Dundee, Glasgow and Newcastle, and Glasgow and Hull. Not merely would distance be saved, but as the noble Lord pointed out the very dangerous crossing, which I know well, of the Pentland Firth—I do not suppose many of your Lordships have passed through it without being seasick unless you are very good sailors—would be eliminated as far as the vast bulk of our shipping is concerned. Ships would either go through the canal or through the English Channel, thus avoiding the dangerous tide rips and the fog and every kind of pestilential weather experienced during nine months of the year in the Pentland Firth. The construction of the canal would bring also a vast economy of time and coal for all shipping on these routes.

At this moment when we are hoping that the development of hydro-electric power in Scotland will benefit the population, I cannot help thinking that this scheme will be just as great a benefit, if not indeed a greater benefit, for the population of the Highlands in the employment it will give. That is why I think the noble Lord was right to urge the project to-day. No better scheme than this could be presented after the war at a moment when we start looking round for work that is really both useful and economic to give to the vast numbers of men who will be coming back from the front and wanting employment of that kind. Quite apart from that if these two large Firths could be connected in this way it would, to my mind, be of enormous benefit to the internal economy of Scotland as a whole. I understand the whole route has already been carefuly studied by experts and an interesting and detailed report has been prepared by them. When you think of the vast network of canals that has been profitably built throughout France—one from Paris to Marseilles has just been finished, I believe, and many others have been constructed—one realizes that here is something at our very doors that should definitely be undertaken by the Government.

In the first place, His Majesty's Government should undoubtedly have a survey, a proper and official survey, for the Mid-Scotland Ship Canal, and should have an estimate of the cost prepared. The Manchester Ship Canal, as your Lordships will remember, brought untold millions into the Bridgewater family. No doubt your Lordships have read about it in that interesting book about the Duke of Bridgewater and know what he had to do with shipping and canals in the Manchester district. The Manchester Canal was an enormously profitable undertaking, chiefly owing to the amount of coal it moved about in the clays when railways were only starting. Now that canal is thirty-five miles long. This projected Scottish canal which we are discussing to-day will be only twenty-nine miles long I cannot help thinking that there is no reason why this canal should not be just as profitable as, or even more profitable than, the Manchester Canal. Finally, I consider this a more useful scheme for Scotland than any other which we can think of at the moment. It would be fully as useful as the hydroelectric scheme about which the Secretary of State for Scotland is so enthusiastic. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will consider it and press it, and will see, if the answer which is given to-day is not satisfactory, that the matter is raised again. I believe that this scheme is something that would be of real benefit not only to Scotland as a nation but to the people of Scotland throughout the length and breadth of the land, both in the Highlands and in the Lowlands.

THE EARL OF GLASGOW

My Lords, in the year 1908 the question of the construction of a Forth and Clyde Ship Canal was very much in the forefront. The two lines of country along which the canal route would run were the same then as they are now, but the forty-mile sealevel route via Loch Lomond and Alloa was favoured then as being the least expensive. To-day opinion appears to be that the canal should run from Old Kilpatrick on the Clyde to Grangemouth on the Forth a distance of twenty-nine miles, and that it should be at sea-level, which of course will cost a very large sum, something like £50,000,000. This would be a great deal of money compared with the cost of a lock canal along this route, which was the idea in 1908, or compared with the sea-level Loch Lomond route. But if money were no object a sealevel canal by the short route would certainly be the better proposition.

I cannot understand why this project was not taken in hand many years ago. What a relief the construction of such a canal would have been to Scotland in the bad old days of unemployment, if, of course, regulations had been made to prevent an influx of Irish labourers. Certainly the experience of the last war showed that a waterway of this kind was necessary. But nothing was done. Presumably the country was lulled to sleep by the perspicuity of our politicians who told our people that wars and preparations for wars were over and that rearmament was unnecessary. The strategic necessity of the canal for the Navy is important, and it must be so obvious to the Government and to your Lordships that it is needless for me to say anything about it. But what is more important is its usefulness to the Mercantile Marine of all nations, since one hopes that the world will enjoy a long period of peace after this war is over.

We should find out beforehand, I think, whether or not it would be largely used by these ships, especially as the greater the number of ships sailing through this expensive waterway, the less heavy would be the burden on the taxpayers. I hope to be able to throw some light on this. In 1908 I was very interested in the question of a Scottish Ship Canal, and, as a serving lieutenant, I wrote the only article which I have ever written for a magazine, which, to my surprise, was accepted. I got into considerable trouble with my captain because in those days serving officers were not allowed to write for the Press or for magazines. But he was a very kind man and he smoothed matters over for me at the Admiralty. I had a question asked in another place as to the number of ships from ports in the Baltic, Denmark and Germany, which entered the ports of Glasgow and the Clyde, Belfast, Dublin, Liverpool and Manchester in the year 1906. Unfortunately, I have not been able to look up the answer which I received, but I remember that the number of ships, many of them carrying timber, was astonishing; and after inquiries from shipowners I came to the conclusion that most of them would make use of the canal if the dues were moderate.

If one looks on the United Kingdom as a great barrier stretched across the route for ships sailing "between ports in America and Canada and the Baltic, Denmark and Germany, it is apparent that the point for it to be pierced must be the Clyde which is on the shortest route by great circle sailing. After getting the opinion of a large number of shipping lines in 1908, I was certain in my own mind that a canal constructed at one-third of the cost of the present sealevel project, and administered, as it might have been, partly by private enterprise would, in time, have been a paying proposition. Even allowing for less favourable conditions after this war than in 1908, it is probable that the burden on the taxpayers may not be as heavy as one would naturally expect from a Government-run concern, although the taxpayers would probably have to pay a great part of the interest on the £50,000,000.

I have looked up the Report of the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways of 1909. The proposition was then to construct a lock canal from Yoker on the Clyde to Grangemouth on the Forth at a total cost of £23,000,000, the cost of excavating being £17,000,000. The policy put forward was that the Government should guarantee to the Forth and Clyde National Association 3 per cent. on £20,000,000 after the canal was opened and pay interest on capital during construction. The alternative to this was for the Government to take over the undertaking themselves. The present proposal is, as I have said, very costly, but there are good reasons why it should be carried out. Apart from the strategic value of this ship canal to the Navy and its certain use by foreign ships, including a number of great passenger lines, our own coasting trade would make good use of it. There is a considerable trade between Aberdeen and Glasgow at the present time, partly by rail and partly by sea, and, if the canal was available, the shipping trade between Aberdeen and Glasgow would greatly increase. In 1908 there was a large coastwise trade between Glasgow and London, and that still continues. With a canal linking Glasgow and the Forth, ships would prefer the east coast route, because it would mean a saving of time as compared with going round Lands End, and it would pay them to use it, especially if they could get cargoes en route. In 1908 it was calculated that if a 5,000-ton coal ship going from the Forth to Glasgow could use the canal, instead of going north about, it would mean a saving of 100 tons of coal. Another witness before the Commission pointed out that after the Forth and Clyde barge canal was completed it had the effect of attracting many industries, and made the industrial belt of Scotland still more industrial. With a great ship canal, one would expect still more industries to come into that part of the world.

I am sorry to give your Lordships so many instances dating from thirty-five years ago, but, after all, the position will not be so very different after this war, and this canal, in my opinion, is even more necessary now than it was then. Even if it is not possible to start the work now, I hope that the Government will see their way to adopt the proposal immediately as a war emergency measure. By exercising their powers now they will save considerable delay, for otherwise after the war it will be necessary to introduce a Bill, which would be a long business. I hope that the noble Lord who is to reply will not give us the usual assurance that the project will be examined as part of postwar planning, but will tell your Lordships that work will be started on this important national scheme as soon as labour is available. I realize that, generally speaking, it is difficult for the Government to give an assurance of that kind, because anything might happen after the; war, but in this case I venture to think that the Government could make a promise acceptable to my noble friend Lord Teviot.

For one thing, there would be no opposition from the Party of the noble Lords on my right. This project is one after their own hearts. It will be tremendously costly, and the money will be found by the taxpayer and not by private enterprise. It will have to be run by the Government, or by a Government Corporation. Over and above that, its construction will give employment to great numbers of people. All this should be agreeable to noble Lords on my right and to the Party which they represent, and should make it easy for the noble Lord who is to reply to give us an assurance on this matter. I am glad that my noble friend has put this Motion down. I have mentioned the naval point of view, but I do not advocate this canal entirely from strategic considerations, from the point of view of preparing for another war. We must think of this matter also as a great peace-time project, which will be of service to our Mercantile Marine and carrying trade, and therefore to the country.

THE DUKE OF MONTROSE

My Lords, I hope I may be allowed to intervene to make a few remarks on this subject, perhaps not altogether in harmony with the chorus of approval in favour of this project. I have studied the question of a Forth and Clyde Canal for about thirty years, and not without reason. As your Lordships will probably have gathered, there are more routes than one which have been proposed for the canal, and one of those routes runs, for a very large proportion of its constructional area, right through the middle of my estate. I first began to take an interest in this matter about the year 1909, when the chief protagonist in favour of the canal was a very distinguished admiral, the late Admiral Sir Charles Campbell. He sponsored the formation of an association called the Forth and Clyde Canal Association. He got behind him seven other admirals almost as distinguished as himself, and in reserve he had behind the admirals seven generals, almost of the same calibre as the admirals. Behind the generals he had a great galaxy of valour and talent from the two Houses of Parliament, and not least from your Lordships' House. With the temerity of youth, I entered the lists and opposed the gallant admiral on platforms and in the Press. With the coming of mature years, I am still unrepentant, and I am ready to oppose this scheme again.

It has been put forward on several grounds. First of all, it might be a help to the Navy; secondly, it might be a good commercial investment; thirdly, it would provide work for the unemployed. I was surprised to find so much sympathy given to the Yoker route for this canal. The route generally favoured is that the canal should go via Loch Lomond. I know every mile of both routes intimately. In 1919, both these canal projects were carefully investigated on behalf of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce by the great firm of Armstrong Whitworths, and after going into all the routes—the first route via Loch Lomond and then into Loch Long, and another route into Loch Lomond and down the river to Dumbarton, as well as the Yoker route—they came to the conclusion that the Yoker valley scheme should be scrapped. It was more difficult to construct than the Loch Lomond route, and it was very much more costly. They said that it would cost half as much again, even taking into account the use of all the latest machinery. In any case they came to the conclusion that the cost of constructing a Forth and Clyde Canal would make it the second most costly canal in the world. Even at that time it would have cost £826,000 per constructional mile, and by the Yoker route it would cost 50 per cent. more. The total cost, they said, would be £33,000,000 via Loch Lomond and £49,000,000 by the Yoker route. That was in 1919; wages have advanced a great deal since then, and I think it would cost £59,000,000 or £60,000,000 to-day.

That is a prodigious sum, and that is merely for the construction of the canal. If merchandise is to be loaded along its route, it will be necessary to construct loading basins, which will add greatly to the cost of the canal. If the Yoker route is used, there will be opposition from almost all the dock authorities on the Clyde and the Forth, because they have gone to vast expense in providing railways for the transit of goods from the Yoker valley either to the Clyde or to the Forth for shipment, and, if those goods can be loaded in the ships along the course of the canal, these new docks will lose an enormous amount of revenue. I think there is no doubt that the Yoker route will prove far and away the most costly and unsuitable.

From the point of view of the Navy, when Admiral Campbell and his association started their campaign they had the idea that this canal might be of strategic value to the Navy; it might so happen that you would find the British Navy on one side of Great Britain and the enemy's Navy on the other. That presupposes very grave faults in our naval intelligence. Such a thing might have happened in the days of Nelson when the Navy was under sail. But that was before the days of wireless and before the days of aerial reconnaisance. Such a thing would be impossible to-day, and we have the evidence of the last war and the present when the enemy fleet was bottled up in harbour by our Fleet from the first day of the war. I still believe in the old Masonic motto that the frontier of England is on the enemy's coastline. If that is the case, then this canal, from the point of view of the Navy, is useless. Admiral Campbell and the powerful body supporting him pressed so hard that the Admiralty actually appointed a Committee to investigate it. Mr. Haldane, or the late Lord Haldane as we would know him, one of the most able men who ever adorned your Lordships' House, was the Chairman of that Committee.

He went into this question, and he was asked in another place what was the report of the expert committee on this canal from the point of view of the Navy. This is what he said in reply: The expenditure necessary to make this canal of any use would be enormously out of proportion to the value to be got from it. There was no prospect whatever of its paying as a commercial concern more than would provide for its upkeep. They were not anywhere near providing for interest on the capital. The conclusion was clear that the money would be enormously better spent in other directions, and this is the conclusion come to by the most distinguished Admiralty experts who examined the matter. What can be said about this canal from the naval point of view when you get the most distinguished experts condemning it like that, and saying that the money would be enormously better spent in other directions? I believe it would. Then what advantage would the canal be to our commerce? The vast majority of our commerce to-day sails from the southern and western ports of Great Britain—from the Thames, from Southampton, from Plymouth, from Bristol, from Liverpool and from the Clyde. But ships leaving those ports would never use the canal. As for the east coast trade, that is mostly timber, coal and corn—trade with the Scandinavian ports and the Baltic. The ships leaving our east coast and trading with ports on the Continent, in the Baltic and in Scandinavia would never use the canal at all; so we may take it that a very large proportion of British shipping would never make any use of the canal, by whichever route it went.

And I must say that when you come to consider the cost of this canal, you find it is enormous. The Suez Canal is the cheapest canal that has ever been made. It cost £290,000 per mile. That was a canal made through an open desert area. There were no great industrial places to bypass, or factories to destroy, no telegraph lines or railway lines to interfere with; it was a straight operation through the desert, made with the cheapest labour, and it cost £290,000 per mile. Twenty-four years later we built the Manchester Canal, and that cost £428,000 per mile. Later there came the Panama Canal, which cost £1,500,000 per mile. Each time, as the years went by, canal construction became more costly, and there is no shadow of doubt that this canal that we are now considering would be the most costly of all, except the Panama Canal.

And now what about the canal as a source of employment for the unemployed? But are we going to have any unemployed after the war? I thought we had been talking about the Beveridge Plan as a guarantee or security against unemployment. We are to have £107,000,000 spent to provide subsistence for men attending training centres to train for industry. Are we going to have another £50,000,000 or £60,000,000 spent on digging a canal as an alternative training for industry with pick and shovel? If so, I do not think the Beveridge Plan will be so popular. I cannot conceive that it is right to make this canal solely from the point of view of providing employment. Of all labour in the world, unemployed labour is the most expensive, the most inefficient and the most wasteful. We had an idea in Glasgow of employing the unemployed on a public undertaking at a place called Palace Rigg, and it was not very long before Palace Rigg became a byword for discontent, waste and inefficiency. In London we had the same idea of employing the unemployed on public work, and they were employed in the parks, on open spaces and in gardens. At the end of the year the L.C.C. had spent £59,000 in wages, and the assessed value of the work was £7,800. You can imagine the appalling waste and inefficiency there would be when you had 24,000 men supposed to be working on this canal simply for the sake of unemployment. I think I can say that the prospects are exceedingly unpromising for this canal, by whatever route it goes, and the Yoker route is by a long way the most expensive; while from the point of view of the Navy, as a commercial undertaking, and from the point of view of unemployment I oppose it.

THE EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE

My Lords, I shall not stand long between your Lordships and the noble Lord who will reply for the Government, but as the eastern entrance of this proposed canal would be visible from my own bedroom window, it is probably appropriate that I should say something about it. Hitherto my energies have been devoted mainly to bridging and getting across watercourses in order to provide transport facilities for getting north and south in Scotland, and I must confess to having given more individual attention to those schemes than to this particular scheme which will create a new obstacle to such traffic. But undoubtedly there is in this project something which deserves very careful attention, and for that reason I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, thought fit to place it on the Order Paper. I confess I had some anxiety when the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, carried the thing rather further and pressed for this to be undertaken immediately, because the Government could undertake it during the war with greater facility than if we waited till peace-time.

THE EARL OF GLASGOW

I did not say it should be undertaken immediately. I said it should be put on the Statute Book, that legislation under war-time emergency powers should be passed so that there would not be any delay after the war in getting a Bill through.

THE EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE

That is the whole argument. The argument is to make use of the emergency powers given to the Government during the war to force through certain projects, whether they are digested or not. As most of your Lordships will have realized, particularly from the vigorous speech made by the noble Duke (the Duke of Montrose), this project has not been fully digested, and certainly could not be accepted unanimously as the verdict of Scotland. We have been talking of different routes. There is no cohesion of opinion as to which of these routes should be adopted. On principle, there is a great deal to be said for asking the Government to take the matter into careful consideration rather on the lines of Lord Nathan's Motion which appears later on the Order Paper—that the Government should consider these projects of postwar reconstruction and give them the proper priorities. That seems to me the place which this particular scheme should have now.

We have had various points brought before us which emphasize this. The noble Duke, the Duke of Sutherland, pressed for the scheme because it would be a great help to the interior economy of Scotland. Personally I cannot think of anything that could upset the interior economy of Scotland more than driving a great ship canal right through the heart of its industrial belt, involving the necessity of a bridge across the Forth as well as a number of bridges across the canal if the road and rail transport of the country was to be allowed to continue. It therefore involves very large problems in addition to the problem of its construction. For all that, I again say that it is a scheme which should receive careful consideration from the point of view that a canal so situated, driving through the centre of Scotland, would not only provide a seaway from one coast to the other, but would provide on the banks of that canal the possibility of trading estates which might be of tremendous value not only to Scotland but to the country in general.

As to the usefulness in a small way of having a canal through central Scotland, I may give your Lordships an illustration; the fact that the two ferry boats constructed for the Queensferry passage, in 1928 or 1930, had to proceed from Dumbarton to Queensferry via the Pentland Firth, and one of them had a very rough passage. Again, when we are talking of a canal through central Scotland we are discussing, as I see it—certainly if it is to be of use to the Navy—a canal which will take the biggest ocean-going ships. That is a very different thing from the canal instanced by the noble Duke, the Duke of Sutherland, when speaking of the waterways of France and Belgium. If your Lordships agree that this is a matter of importance and that the Government's attention should be drawn to it, then on the lines of Lord Nathan's Motion it should be put in its proper priority.

THE EARL OF MANSFIELD

My Lords, very briefly I desire to support this Motion and to ask your Lordships to consider particularly the temperate and measured speech of the noble Earl who has just spoken. Whether the great cost this great project would entail would really be justified is a matter to be investigated, but surely the best thing is that the whole project should receive thorough investigation by proper experts so that it may be realized whether it is feasible or not. Whether the canal might or might not be the most expensive the world has ever known does not really matter. It might be the most expensive and equally the most worth-while. Surely the great thing is that it should be investigated, particularly as there is, here at least, no danger of diminishing the amenity of Scotland. The area through which the canal would pass is one which is not of any particular scenic value and which is already largely industrialized. I hope, therefore, while deprecating that the Government should undertake anything definite in the way even of legislation during the war, they will at least assure your Lordships' House that due consideration will be given to this project in all its aspects.

LORD CHATFIELD

My Lords, I have only a few remarks to make, and speak as an Englishman with some temerity on what is really mainly a Scottish question. We have had a very bright debate, and it seems rather to have followed the lines of downright assertion and flat contradiction. It is very difficult for noble Lords to get a balanced view, but that will no doubt be given by the Minister who is going to reply. If I speak at all it is purely because the naval side of the question has been mentioned. It is a side of the case, and it would be wrong if no sailor other than the Earl of Glasgow, who has already given some very good advice, spoke on a matter on which he has some knowledge.

I was at the Admiralty during the years of peace when this subject came up. As your Lordships have been told, it is a very old subject which has been often thought of. It always appeals to men of imagination and enterpirse, whom we do not always have as our rulers in this country. In these two investigations, although I was at the Admiralty, I took no part myself. They were held in 1922 and 1929 by a small Committee mainly representing the Board of Trade, the Admiralty, and merchant shipping. They were held at a time, it must be remembered, when the conditions were very unfavourable to any consideration of the problem— that is to say, they were held shortly after the last war when we had been told there was never to be another. They were also held at a time when nobody was thinking of spending money but rather of saving it, at a time when we were dealing with international disarmament, and when the idea of spending £50,000,000 on building a canal when we could not get even £5,000,000 for a ship, seemed ridiculous to the Admiralty.

Therefore, in those days, our view was that the expenditure of so much money for a combined commercial and strategic purpose was not justified. We would rather have spent the money in other ways if we could have got it at all, which we did not. That being the case, what we have really got to consider is, have the bases on which this Committee advised the Government fifteen to twenty years ago changed? Are they the same, or have new conditions arisen due to the lessons of this war or to the prospect of future commercial practice, the future of our Merchant Navy, and the types, size, and speed of ships? None of us know, or very few of us here know, what are the lessons of this war as regards the sea, whether if we had this canal from the Firth of Forth to the Firth of Clyde it would have made any real difference to us in this war. Not that that alone would be a satisfactory guide, because the conditions of this war and the German occupation of Norway have entirely altered the value of our eastern coast bases, quite apart from the menace of air attack. I very much doubt in reality whether the Clyde canal if it had existed would have been of very great advantage, but it may have been. I do not know, but I think it is a circumstance which should be inquired into.

Then it seems to me that we ought to satisfy public opinion in this matter—and there is considerable interest in it—by having an up-to-date investigation of the question. It is not a difficult thing to do and it would not take very long, and if it was hold I think it would satisfy public opinion that the Government had not just turned it down out of hand because of old ideas. But it must be recognized that the value of the canal must stand on the commercial basis alone. The naval basis must not be an overriding factor. It is a factor but it is not an important factor. As has been suggested we are not likely, if we are going to have a better peace than we had before, to have another war for some years, though it will come one day no doubt. Therefore there will be no necessity from the purely strategic point of view to build a canal.

But the commercial side is very important. I personally doubt whether the saving of mileage is really sufficient in these days of fast ships and of long periods of ships at sea to make them use the canal, unless it can be so cheaply built that the canal dues will be far less than anything that has been anticipated in the past. When Kiel Canal was built the German Government did all they could to make merchant ships going from the Baltic and the east coast to England and the Channel use the canal. They failed. The Kiel Canal has never been really a commercial success because it was not worth the while of the merchant ship, just to avoid the journey round the Skagerrak, to go through the canal with its disturbances of locks, etc., just to save four hours in the time of its arrival in England. It does not make much difference, if you arrive at sunset, whether you arrive then or at midnight. The saving was not worth while, so the canal has never been a commercial success. Whether this canal, if built, would be a commercial success is a matter on which modern conditions justify an inquiry, but I would not myself put it higher than that. I very much hope that the noble Lord who replies for the Government will be able to say that the matter will be inquired into on the basis of up-to-date figures due to war experience and the prospects of the future as regards commercial practice.

THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT (LORD LEATHERS)

My Lords, I should first like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, for once more having raised this most interesting subject. I think we shall all agree that we have had a very helpful contribution from all round the House. The fact that the Firths of Forth and Clyde are only separated by some thirty miles of land has always lent attraction to the consideration of schemes for cutting a canal between them. As one noble Lord said, King Charles II toyed with the idea but, as with all subsequent schemes, it fell to the ground because of the cost. Schemes of this kind had a very able advocate in Daniel Defoe. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many schemes were put forward for this canal but, broadly speaking, I think they reduced to two—one the direct route from Grangemouth to Clydebank, which would be about thirty miles long, and the other a route via Stirling to Loch Lomond, which would be about forty miles long. The first and obvious advantage urged in favour of such a canal is the shortening of the distance by sea that would be effected. Although the shortening of sea routes would be by no means negligible we must remember that in order to make the use of the canal commercially attractive it would have to be cheaper as well as shorter than the alternative route through the Pentland Firth. Canal dues therefore would have to be very low if the canal were to be used. It was estimated about a dozen years ago that to construct such a canal would cost £50,000,000 sterling or more; in spite of subsequent development in engineering plant the cost to-day would probably be higher. Unless therefore it could be shown that the traffic using the canal would be very large and that the benefits to industry, the improvements in site values, etc., were also very great, there could be no question of the canal being an economic proposition.

There remains however the strategic ground. Up to now it has been held that the strategic advantages were not sufficient to justify the expense of making a detailed survey. Such a detailed survey was estimated to cost about £35,000 twelve years ago and it probably would be a little more to-day. The canal has sometimes been urged on the ground of avoiding the navigational dangers due to frequent fogs in the English Channel. Statistics show that this argument is not well founded. Fog dangers in the English Channel are comparable with those in the Clyde from Ailsa Craig to Glasgow. Furthermore fog is more prevalent in the Clyde than it is in the Pentland Firth where in any case there is ample sea room and the fairway is by no means crowded. A Committee was appointed to consider this project by the then Minister of Transport in 1929 under the Chairmanship of the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government. There were also on the Committee representatives of the Admiralty, the Scottish Office, the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Transport. This Committee reported against the proposal. They came to the conclusion that the whole of the capital would have to be provided by the Exchequer and that the revenue to be derived would be conjectural. Even if it were sufficient to cover maintenance and working expenses the return, if any, on capital would be negligible. The Committee furthermore saw no prospect that the development of the canal area would justify the expenditure.

In weighing the Report of this Committee it should be remembered that there was at that time considerable pressure to find suitable public works for providing employment. This need does not exist at present, and is unlikely to arise in the course of the next few years. Nevertheless we should keep this consideration before our minds. On the other hand, it may be that new circumstances have arisen which would greatly intensify the demand for transport between the east and west coast of Scotland. The whole question of post-war economic development in Scotland is very relevant to this canal project, and we must remember that views which were right twelve years ago will not necessarily be right after the war. There can obviously be no question of undertaking the construction of such a canal now, nor can I hold out any likelihood that it will be undertaken in the immediate post-war years. Even if it were unanimously held that the canal was desirable on general grounds, there will be many reconstruction projects of much greater urgency to be fulfilled after the war which would necessarily take priority over the building of this canal.

The problem will be, not to find a useful way of investing £50,000,000, but to ensure that available energy, labour and resources are expended in ways giving the maximum return. I very much doubt if this canal project will take a high priority on this scale. Nevertheless it is always well to be prepared, and far from ruling out the possibility of the building of the proposed canal, I have set up a small group to review this matter department-ally and to make a confidential report to me on the advantages and drawbacks. I have asked a representative of the Admiralty to join this group in order that the strategic considerations may be considered in the light of the latest developments. I am also, of course, consulting the Secretary of State for Scotland, who is the planning Minister concerned. Although I am taking this action, I do not wish to hold out to the noble Lord any hope that the result will be any different from the decisions hitherto reached on many occasions. I can say no more than that the possibility is in our minds and we are considering the matter afresh in the way indicated.

LORD TEVIOT

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord. He has really told me exactly what I wanted to know, and realty has complied with ray request, perhaps anticipating this debate. No doubt this subject was so important in his mind that he thought that an investigation was necessary. I thank him for what he is going to do, and shall look forward to having the opportunity of asking him, if the report is not too secret, what conclusions are arrived at. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.