Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/151

 *ple would come to the parish if they were not sent to the roads.

Is the pay of those men proportionably low with their abilities to work?—I have not found that to be the case. I have found that those poor, miserable men, who can do very little, have been getting considerable wages, and in that way a considerable sum has been wasted.

In point of practice, then, the road revenue is made to act as a poor fund?—Precisely so; I think the road revenue has gone to the assistance of the poor in that way.

In your experience have you found that the common mode of employing paupers by day-work, is inefficient both to the improvement of the roads and to the object of relieving the parishes?—It may have the effect of relieving the parishes, but I should think it a very bad mode of mending the roads; inasmuch as these men, when they have got day-wages, will do very little, and for that reason I employ all our men on piece-work; we have two hundred and eighty labourers in the district of Bristol, and they are almost all on piece-work; it is very seldom we employ men by the day. I was directed by the Committee, at their last meeting, to produce some more detailed accounts respecting the Bristol district: in obedience to that order, I have obtained the report made by me at the end of the first and second year of my administration, which I beg to submit to the Committee, to-*gether with the resolution of the commissioners thereon.

[The following Papers were delivered in, and read:]

on the.

In the year 1815, previous to the alteration of management, there was paid              £. 14,285 2 1 An unpaid floating debt of                       1,400 0 0 -       Total expense of 1815, to 25th March 1816          £. 15,685 2 1                                                          =============