Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/126

 the Christmas following I was able to report that it was one of the best roads in England for a distance of eleven miles, at the expense of first outlay only of 600l. and it has continued so until the present.

Please to inform the Committee, what are the means, in your opinion, the most eligible to be adopted for the amelioration of the roads throughout the kingdom?—That question, I think, divides itself into two branches: The operative part, in making the roads, and the care of the finances, and the mode of their expenditure. I should imagine the operative part of preparing roads cannot be effected without procuring a more skilful set of sub-surveyors; young men, brought up to agriculture and labour must be sought, and regularly instructed. It is a business that cannot be taught from books, but can only be acquired by a laborious practice of several months, and actual work upon roads, under skilful road-makers. Young men who have been accustomed to agricultural labour are fittest to be made road-surveyors, as their occupations have given them opportunities of being acquainted with the value of labour both of men and horses. But I should greatly mislead the Committee if I did not inform them, that skill in the operative part of road-making cannot alone produce a reformation of the multitude of abuses that are practised in almost every part of the country, in the management of roads and road funds. These abuses can only be put down by officers in the situation of gentlemen, who must enjoy the confidence, and have the support of commissioners, and who must exercise a constant and vigilant inspection over the expenditure made by the sub-surveyors. They must be enabled to certify to the commissioners that the public money is judiciously and usefully, as well as honestly expended; without this control and superintendence an end cannot be put to the waste of the public money, and all the various modes that are injurious to the public interest, the amount of which would appear incredible, could it be ascertained; but which, I conscientiously