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Rh than have the railways. It is the opinion of well-informed Frenchmen who have made a practical study of economic problems, that the superb roads of France have been one of the most steady and potent contributions to the material development of the marvellous financial elasticity of the country. The far-reaching and splendidly maintained road system has distinctly favoured the success of the small landed proprietors, and in their prosperity, and the ensuing distribution of wealth, lies the key to the secret of the wonderful financial vitality and solid prosperity of the French nation.

I believe this to be no exaggeration. The peasant's difficulty is always in finding ready cash to use in getting his goods to market. But if the roads are really good and do not wear horse and cart unduly, it is wonderful how cheaply a peasant with even the poorest of horses and the shakiest of carts can get his goods to market. If on the other hand the roads are stony and heavy and the gradients difficult, the man who cannot afford to keep good horses and carts and renew them often, is quickly beaten out of the market. Good roads give a very large amount of that fair field and no favour which we all desire for the small agriculturist.

There is one more practical point to which I very strongly desire to draw attention. A great many eager eyes are at the present moment being cast upon the roads by the promoters of electric tramways, light railways and so forth. The keen-sighted business men who conduct these enterprises have already realised what the public has not, that all the world and his wife live on the road, and that the roads are indeed, as I have said, the nerves and sinews of the land. Very naturally then, they are striving to obtain the right to lay their lines along the roads, and so obtain the great profits that arise from place to place traffic. Now I entirely admit that, prima facie, there is no objection to these plans. They are, indeed, I believe, in themselves useful, and, carried out under proper conditions, there is io reason why they should not