Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/89

 of road-making, than that the first effectual step towards general improvement must be the employment of persons of superior ability and experience as superintending surveyors.

Your Committee, fully concurring in this opinion, have anxiously considered in what manner this object can be attained with the least expense to the country, and the least injurious or offensive interference with existing customs and authorities.

Various are the plans which have been brought under their consideration for altering the general constitution of the laws affecting the management of Turnpike Roads, proposing either to annex the superintendence and patronage to some of the existing departments of Government, or to constitute a new Board of Commissioners expressly for this object.

Your Committee forbear to detail the reasons which induce them to withhold their recommendation from any of these plans, whatever advantages they might afford in unity or vigour of management.

They are of opinion, that many important reasons exist for leaving generally the direction of the affairs of the different turnpike trusts in the hands of their respective Commissioners, whose experience, character and interest, afford