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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 50, 18 September 1891, Page 15

At the end of week June 13, a most important event in the history of English commerce took place at the Mersey terminus of the Manchester Ship Ctnal. At the Eastham ferry— a pretty spot much frequented, especially in the summer months, by Liverpool holidaymakers—the great locks were opened and for the first time the tidal waters of the Mersey were admitted into the magnificent " ditch " which next year will turn Manchester into a seaport. The Manchester canal is one of the very finest engineering achievements of the century— finer, in Borne respects, than the most famous of them all, the Suez Canal. Just three years and tight months ago the first sod was turned on the scene of yesterday's operations. More properly speaking, there were two 83ds. One, the really historic one, was turned over by Lord Eagerton of Tatton ; and Sir Joseph Lee, not to be left out of it, drove his ceremonious spade into another. A little while longer, and the tall mast of ocean ships will overtop the factory chimneys of Salford and Manchester, and monster steamers from all parts of the world glide through the cornfields of Oheshiie There is at least one gentleman, Mr Ismay, of shipbuilding fame, who hopes to head the procession ot ships next year from the Mersey to Salford Docks in a seven-thousand-ton steamer of his own. It is strange to speak of Salford Docks, yet the docks in this stuffy, smoky inland town of cotton-spinners will contain a water area of twenty-five acres. Everything in this undertaking has been on a grand scale. Between two and three hundred miles of railway have been laid on the canal bottom. As many waggons have been employed on these lines as would, if put end to end, fill a row of twelve or thirteen miles. Some months since there were, besides an army of flesh-and-blood navvies, nearly a hundred iron navvies at work. The Liverpool people have long since got over their jealousy of the canal-builders. It appears to be acknowledged on all hands that even a fractional share of the traffic at present monopolised by Liverpool will enable the new canal to pay very satisfactory dividends. As for the Manchester men themselves, they were enthusiastic believers in the scheme from the beginning ; so much so, that mill hands earning their twenty-five or thirty shillings a week have taken large sums out of the savings banks for investment in the now undertaking.— Nation.