It shall be lawful for the company of proprietors, trustees, or the undertakers of any canal, river, or navigation, or their respective committees, directors, or managers, or their superintendents or other agents by them duly authorized, to carry as common carriers for their own profit upon their respective canals, rivers, or navigations, or upon any railways or tramways belonging thereto, and constructed under the powers of their respective Acts of Parliament, or upon any other canals, rivers, or navigations communicating therewith, either directly or by means of any intermediate canal, river, or navigation, all such goods, wares, merchandise, articles, matters, and things as may be intrusted to them for that purpose, and, for the better enabling them so to do, to purchase, hire, and construct, and to use and employ, any number of boats, barges, vessels, rafts, carts, waggons, carriages, and other conveniences, and also to establish and furnish such haulage, trackage, or other means of drawing or propelling the same, either by steam, animal, or other power, or for the purpose of collecting, carrying, conveying, warehousing, and delivering such goods, wares, merchandise, articles, matters, and things, as to any such company or undertakers shall seem fit, and to make such reasonable charges for such conveyance, warehousing, collection, and delivery as they may respectively from time to time determine upon, in addition to the several tolls or dues which any such company or undertakers are now authorized to take for the use of their said canals, navigations, or railways.