It is not necessary to refer in detail to the Report. Apart from the
sum necessary to buy out the existing owners of canals and waterways,
towards which L2,451,346 had been contributed from private sources, the
Commissioners contemplated a further expenditure of about L200,000 on
new works. In addition the sum of L500,000 would be required, on a
moderate estimate for drainage and the prevention of floods. The
pressing nature of the latter problem is once more emphatically
evidenced by the wholesale injury to property and the public health by
the recent flooding of the basins of the Shannon, Barrow, Bann, and
other rivers. Here, again, we have problems which it is idle to expect
an Irish Parliament to solve satisfactorily for years to come, or,
indeed, ever. Ways and means must be an effectual bar. Drainage and
navigation form only one problem out of a dozen facing a Home Rule
Government needing the raising of enormous capital. Probably the
Commissioners conducting the Canals inquiry, who were persons of all
shades of political opinion, were well aware that only under the present
system of State credit could the financial difficulties be overcome.
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