Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/121

 road-making over the whole kingdom, from Inverness in Scotland to the Land's End in Cornwall. I have obtained all the information that an unauthorized person could expect to receive. In the course of travelling through the country, I have generally found the roads in a very defective state, certainly much worse in particular parts of the country than in others; and in particular counties I have found some parts of the roads much worse than in other parts of the same county. The defects of the roads appear to me to proceed from various causes, but principally from the large use of a mixture of clay and chalk and other matters, that imbibe water, and are affected by frost. Such roads become loose in wet weather, so as to allow the wheels of carriages to displace the materials, and thereby occasion the roads to be rough and rutty. More pains, and much more expense, have been bestowed on the roads of late years, but without, in my opinion, producing any adequate effect, from want of skill in the executive department. I consider the roads in South Wales, in Monmouthshire, in Cornwall, in Devonshire, in Herefordshire, in part of Hampshire, in part of Oxfordshire, and some part of Gloucestershire, are managed with the least skill, and consequently, at the heaviest expense. The paved roads of Lancashire appear to be very unprofitable, and very expensive. I shall mention to the Committee a few roads which I think in a better condition and under a better system of management. Eastward of Bridgewater in Somersetshire, near Kendall in Westmoreland, and near North Allerton, in Yorkshire, the roads appear to be in a much better state than in other parts of the kingdom; and there is a striking difference in the moderate rate of their tolls, which I have always found most moderate where the roads are best managed. I consider the reason of the roads in those parts being in a better condition than in other places, is from greater skill and attention being paid to the preparation of the materials and the manner laying them on the roads.

Does the superiority of roads, in certain places that you have