The Pinchbeck Peer: Book 6 by Wareham Andrew

Author:Wareham, Andrew
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublishNation
Published: 2023-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

“How does one go about promoting a canal, Quimby?”

“With extreme caution, my lord! Since the Great Crash investors have shown very chary of canals.”

“That I know, Quimby. I believe I mentioned the antics of Mr Higgs of St Helens?”

“You did, my lord. I am much of the opinion you should have had him taken up for fraud.”

“I considered that course but was persuaded that he is a known local businessman and will be profitable to me in future. The local millowners know him and might be upset with me that I caused one of their own to be hanged. As it stands, he is aware that his behaviour verged on the criminal, though I think him more foolish than malicious in intent, and he will be far more careful in future. I may use his name to front the canal I am considering, in fact.”

“In part wise, my lord. I would advise making your presence in the venture known. There is nothing like a lord in a prospectus for bringing in the money!”

Fabius did not entirely like the sound of ‘bringing in the money’. It smacked of sharp practice.

“Your intention, my lord, is to build a canal – presumably for the benefit of your cotton mill in the Duchy of Lancashire?”

Fabius corrected him and pointed out the general location of his potential mines and foundry in Yorkshire.

“In the middle of nowhere, one might say, my lord.”

“Precisely so, Quimby. It is my intention to make it ‘somewhere’. Do you not see how great a profit there might be?”

“Coal for the foundry, to produce pig iron to send off to other places that will use it, my lord?”

“No. You miss the point of the exercise, Quimby! Mines and foundries need workers, and they must live somewhere. The barren moorside opposite to the coal mines and close to the ironworks must be made into a town, with roads and rows of little houses and shops and public houses and a bathhouse and water pumps and sewerage and perhaps a music hall and a library and even, just possibly, a school, all built by me! There will be premises to let for builders and other tradesmen who will inevitably gravitate to a new town. The town will also be served by the canal, a marketplace down by the wharf.”

Quimby could see a great deal of expenditure there, and the possibility of a large income in rents.

“On the other side of the canal, Quimby, large manufacturies, to use our own iron. Why send it off to others to make the profit? Add to that, I am told that coal tar, produced when coal is burned to coke, can be used to make soap, and possibly other valuable substances. Over another thirty or forty years – not all done at once – and we can make our own little empire! But the canal must come first. Nothing without the means of transport into the empty wilds, and it will not come cheap! There will be locks, inevitably, and possibly a tunnel or two through the hills.

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