Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/120



John Farey, Esq. 10 August, 1831. establishment of the invention which will render it useful to the public; such retardation by small causes is operative to a greater extent than can easily be conceived. Steam Coaches will very well bear all tolls and taxes to which other Coaches are subject, when they are able to carry passengers regularly and profitably; but they want encouragement now, instead of difficulties being thrown in their way. As to the right of tolls on turnpike roads, it should be recollected that turnpike roads are not property, like canals, but trusts, to be exercised for the benefit of the public; and if it is for the interest of the public that Steam Coaches should be brought into use, and if that bringing into use will be accelerated by suspending the tolls on them at first, the trustees of roads ought not to object to such an arrangement; the real amount of tolls they will forego, will be an exceedingly small per centage on the income of their tolls; for so long as Steam Coaches are losing concerns, they cannot be very numerous.

In the course of your examination, have you meant to confine your Evidence to Steam Coaches?—Yes, to Steam Coaches for public conveyance of passengers and parcels in the manner of Stage Coaches, and travelling at the rate of ten miles an hour on our best lines of turnpike roads, with occasional assistance of one or two post horses, where necessary to surmount unusual hills or very bad pieces of new laid road.—If it were thought admissible to begin with travelling at a less speed than that, and to carry goods only in the manner of Vans, the thing is nearer to accomplishment, because the accommodation and comfort of passengers would then be out of the question; and also the violence to which quick travelling Carriages are subjected, requires a greater strength of all the parts than would be necessary to carry the same weight at a slower speed. In other respects. Steam power will propel a Carriage as cheaply at a quick rate as at a slower rate; that fact is proved on railways, in actual business; and Steam Coaches will be the game whenever they can be made strong enough to bear quick motion without being overloaded with weight of