Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/28

 must again refer to Mr. Macneil's Evidence. They cannot, therefore, recommend The House to adopt a scale of Toll which shall increase in inverse proportion to the injury done to the road. It will be seen in Mr. McAdam's Evidence, that the Toll on Steam Coaches imposed by the Metropolitan Roads Act, is liable to this objection.

Some of the local Acts have placed an unvarying Toll on Steam Carriages. This, if moderate, would be unobjectionable; but the Committee could not propose any sum which would adapt itself to the necessary varieties of expence in keeping up different roads, by which the Tolls on common Carriages have been regulated. A fixed Toll has, too, this disadvantage, that light experimental Carriages, or such as are built solely for speed, would be liable to the same Toll, as Steam Carriages heavily laden.

The Committee feel that, however strong their conviction may be of the comparatively small injury, which properly constructed Steam Carriages will do to the roads, yet this conviction is founded more on theory, and perhaps what may be considered as interested evidence, than practical experience, they would therefore recommend, that The House should not make, at present, any permanent regulations in favour of Steam. The experience which will be gained in a very few years, will enable the Legislature to form a more correct judgment of the effect of Steam Carriages on roads, than can be now made. They therefore recommend that the Tolls imposed on Steam Carriages by local Acts, where they shall be unfavourable to Steam, shall be suspended during three years; and that, in lieu thereof, the Trustees shall be permitted to charge Toll according to the rate to which the Committee have agreed.

The House will have perceived, in the former part of this Report, that there are two modes of applying Steam in lieu of horses in draught; one where the Engine and passengers are on the same carriage, the other where the Engine is placed on separate wheels, and is merely used to propel or draw the Carriage. Although the difference of weight may be in favour of the