all persons keeping draughts and occupying tenements of a certain amount, were required to send a certain number of men and horses, in proportion to the number of draughts kept and amount of rent paid, to do statute-duty for a certain number of days in the year; and each occupier, not keeping draughts, was required to work or find a labourer, for which, however, a composition might be made with the surveyor at an easy rate under the statute.

The gentry who kept carriages claimed to be included in the last class, as not keeping draughts within the meaning of the statute, and the claim was allowed by the justices. Sir Mathew Hale, however, held that coaches were included under the appellation of "draught," and such as kept them liable to do statute-duty. This was conformable with the views of Dalton, who wrote about 1619, and says, "I find that a "draught for the king's carriages heretofore hath been some"times with two horses, as it seemeth by the statute of Magna "Charta, cap. 21." But until this provision was amended by the consolidating statute of 13 George III., the gentry were, as regarded the repairs of roads, classed generally with the agricultural labourers. A great number of enactments were passed subsequent to the statute of Philip and Mary; but as all of them were based on the false principle, that the occupiers of the several parishes were bound to keep the high roads in repair for the use of the public, they were only productive of discontent and litigation. At length the greatest proportion of the roads in England were placed under the management and direction of trustees, who were empowered to erect turnpikes and take tolls for the maintenance of such roads in aid of statute-duty*. This expedient has also proved unsuccessful. The trusts are encumbered with a heavy amount of debt, and the time appears to be arrived when a new system must be adopted. The Select Committee, appointed in 1833 to take into consideration the state of Turnpike Road Trusts in England, reported "that they had not failed to ob"serve, from the evidence adduced, the great benefits which "had arisen from the consolidation of trusts round the me

*The general Turnpike act is 13 George III. c. 84, which, by 21 George III. c. 20, is extended to all acts to be made thereafter for the purpose of regulating particular turnpikes.

"tropolis," and that all the witnesses (sixteen in number) who had been examined, concurred in recommending a system of general control of the management of the roads of the kingdom, with a view to prevent an increase of debt,-to introduce one general, economical and skilful course of management as "the only means of reducing the present great amount of “debt, and of relieving the country from the burden of sta"tute labour, and the high rate of toll now levied on every "district;" and the Committee recommended the immediate adoption of measures calculated to carry that object into effect*. It appears therefore, we think, sufficiently clear, that the principle which we advocate must soon be adopted even in England; namely, that the great leading lines of communication be constructed and maintained by the state.

The system of maintaining the public roads by means of statute-labour also existed in Ireland, and produced the like result, oppression,-litigation and neglect. It became necessary therefore to change it; and instead of trustees, the roads were placed under the direction of the grand juries, who were enabled to assess the occupiers of the different baronies for their maintenance and construction. Few turnpikes were erected, and statute-labour was abolished. But in this system the original vice exists, namely, that the inhabitants within a certain district are required to make and maintain roads for the public; and when the heavy tax which this imposes is increased by the other almost endless charges thrown upon the county cess, it is not surprising that it should have occasioned the most extensive discontent, and that useful works should not be undertaken. The grand jury laws relating to roads in Ireland were only to be equalled in complication by the highway acts in England; and they equally evinced, in their operation, how fruitless are all attempts to effect, by legislation, what is opposed to the common sense and interests of mankind.

In the Report of the Select Committee on Public Works, to which we have already alluded, Mr. Barrington stated, that on a tract of land which he possessed in the county of Lime

* Parliamentary Paper, No. 24, August 21, 1833.

VOL. VII.-No XIII.

M

rick he expended £700 in the formation of a public road through a mountain, the Board of Works laying out a sum of equal amount. In consequence of that expenditure, that it had nearly doubled the value of the land through which the road went, by merely affording to the occupiers the means of drawing up the lime on cars, which was previously carried in baskets on horses' backs; and this road not only benefited his land, but the whole range of country beyond it. There is no doubt that the same results would be produced by like means through almost every part of Ireland; and when we add to the improvement in the value, the improvement in the condition of the people, the increase to the revenue resulting from improved habits and increased consumption,--the improvement in the administration of justice, by opening the country to the police and military,-the saving of expense arising from a reduction of the number of the latter, which may be safely made with the improved condition of the people, -the advantages of unity of system and control;-in every point of view, it appears to us the duty of the Government, and the interest of the public, to apply freely grants of public money to promote the construction of great leading lines of communication in Ireland, and that these should be intrusted to a Board responsible to the state.

The argument that works of this kind should not be undertaken because they are not likely to prove profitable, is most fallacious. It is those works which are least likely to prove immediately productive to a private undertaker that always prove most productive to the public*,-the opening lines of communication through extensive uncultivated districts. These would add to the empire, as Colonel Burgoyne forcibly expressed it in his evidence before the Select Committee to which we have referred, "profitable and excellent ❝land to the amount of hundreds and thousands of acres, as "much as if they had arisen out of the bottom of the sea;" but, he adds, "no party is sufficiently interested to come for

* Middleton, who brought the New River to London, died in prison, from inability to meet engagements undertaken to effect that great work The original one hundred pound shares in that undertaking now sell for upwards of £5000 each,-paying an interest of £300 each.

"ward; the interests are so blended and so limited, that no person sees the particular advantage he would gain, and it " is only by Government that this can possibly be done."*

We have already mentioned that the Board of Public Works was enabled to make small grants for the formation of roads in Ireland. A portion of this fund was expended by Mr. Griffith in the counties of Limerick, Cork and Kerry. Before the commencement of the works Mr. Griffith thus describes that part of the country.

"The fertile plains of Limerick, Cork and Kerry are separated from each other by a deserted country, hitherto nearly an impassable barrier. This large district comprehends upwards of 900 square miles in many places it is very populous. As might be expected under such circumstances, the people are turbulent; and their houses being inaccessible for want of roads, it is not surprising, that during the disturbances of 1821 and 1822, this district was the asylum for Whiteboys, smugglers and robbers, and that stolen cattle were drawn into it as to a safe and impenetrable retreat. Notwithstanding its present desolate state, this country contains within it the seeds of future improvement and industry."+

The following is Mr. Griffith's report on the same district, after the execution of the works in 1829.

"A very considerable improvement has already taken place in the vicinity of the roads, both in the industry of the inhabitants, and the appearance of the country: upwards of 60 new lime kilns have been built; carts, ploughs, harrows and improved implements have become common; new houses of a better class have been built, new inclosures made, and the country has become perfectly tranquil, and exhibits a scene of industry and exertion at once pleasing and remarkable. A large portion of the money received for labour has been husbanded with care, laid out in the building of substantial houses, and in the purchase of stock and agricultural implements; and numerous examples might be shown of poor labourers, possessing neither money, houses nor land when first employed, who, in the past year, have been enabled to take farms, build houses, and stock their land."

Mr. Williams states, in his evidence before the Committee on Public Works in 1835:

"In consequence of the expenditure of £160,000 in Public Works in Connaught in seven years, the increase of the annual revenue has been equal to the whole of that expenditure. I find also," he adds, "a corresponding increase in the revenue of the Cork district, where Mr. Griffith expended £60,000 in seven years, and the increase of customs and excise has

* Report of Select Committee on Public Works, p. 94, 1835.
† Mr. Griffith in 1822.

been £50,000 a year, attributable mainly to the facilities of communication by which whole districts have been rendered available for productive purposes, and a miserable pauper population converted into a class of con

In the Report of the Commissioners of Public Works in 1834, they state:

It is not for this Board to give an opinion on the degree of support which the legislature should bestow on public works of primary utility. We are, however, fully persuaded, not only of the great political advantage of such an expenditure of public money, but that it would be to a considerable extent repaid by the indirect returns made to the revenue, arising from an increased general prosperity. In England abundant sources of industry are struggling for vent, requiring only the stimulus of such additional facilities of intercourse to enable them to come into full and immediate operation. They are therefore, in themselves, fair sources of speculation for private capital. In Ireland, on the contrary, they are required to foster and encourage sources of industry which are yet latent; and though the consequences and advantages are not so immediately apparent, nor (except in a few instances) do they afford direct profits to induce the expenditure of private capital, they are not the less great objects of national interest."

In their Report of 1835 they state:

"These roads (constructed by Government aid) have been the means of fertilizing the deserts, and of depriving the lawless disturbers of the public peace of their place of refuge, affording them, at the same time, resources for an active honest industry, of which we must do them the justice to observe, they have not shown any indisposition to avail themselves. We cannot lose the opportunity of repeating the declaration of our firm conviction of the good policy of promoting these eminently useful works by the most liberal and extensive support."

We have only room for one quotation from their Report of 1837, in which they bear witness to the industry of the Irish peasantry.

"When roused by fair opportunities being laid before them and explained, we find that those who can profit by them are perfectly willing to do so, the earnings of labourers at low prices of task-work frequently being double those of the day labourer at the usual wages."

The Select Committee on Public Works, to which we have referred, reported that,

Among the remedial measures proposed for the improvement of Ireland, none can create less difference of opinion, or has been more universally urged by all parties and persons who have considered the subject,

* Report of Select Committee on Public Works, Ireland, 1835.