Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/96

 providing for their renewal without the payment of fees.

A general commutation for statute labour appears to be required, both for public advantage and private convenience. The amount of composition might be levied as a rate; and it will become a subject of consideration, whether some better principle may not be laid down for apportioning the money thus collected between the highways and turnpike roads.

The advantage of authorizing parish officers to contract with the commissioners for the repair of the roads passing through the parish by labourers belonging to it, has been strongly pressed on the attention of your Committee, but though they are disposed to admit that such a system may often afford desirable relief to the parishes, they are not equally satisfied that it will have a tendency to promote the improvement of the roads. They think it right to bring the proposition under the consideration of the House, though they are too diffident of its utility to venture to add to it their recommendation.

It seems generally admitted, that the present exemptions from toll granted to broad-wheeled waggons require to be revised, as the enormous weights which they carry render them more destructive to the materials of the roads than their