Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/26

 Steam) as it would be to tax Carriages drawn by large and well-bred horses, more heavily than such as were drawn by horses in worse condition and of smaller size and power.

The roads at present have to sustain Waggons, weighing at times, with their horses, nearly ten tons; it is in evidence, that the breadth of wheels required by various Acts of Parliament, is so easily evaded, that it affords no protection to the road; there appears to the Committee no fair reason to suppose, that Steam Carriages, approaching even to this weight, will be used on any turnpike road, at least for a very considerable period, during which the increase of weight will be gradual, and will give ample warning to the Legislature when it should interfere.

To charge a Toll according to the number of passengers conveyed, is scarcely less objectionable. If a fluctuating Toll be intended, it would be as inadmissible as to propose a similar mode of charging for fast Coaches, and would be open to all the cavil and interruptions to which a fluctuating Toll on weight would be liable. If the Toll were fixed according to the number of passengers, the Carriage were capable of conveying, it would imply the necessity of a licence, limiting the number of passengers, and cramping the progress of improvement of a machine, the capabilities of which can only be ascertained slowly and by continued experiment.

It must be also recollected, that these Carriages will probably have to travel for a long period without passengers, until by their punctuality and safety they shall have induced the Public to venture in them. Nor is this probability weakened by the immense number of passengers who commenced using the Locomotive Carriages on the Manchester and Liverpool Railway, immediately after their introduction: these Engines: were established among a population accustomed to Machinery and Steam, and therefore not entertaingentertaining [sic] the same apprehensions of its danger which will require to be surmounted elsewhere The Trustees of the Liverpool and Prescot road