A FEW WORDS ON TURNPIKES.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 411, 11 July 1849, Page 3

A FEW WORDS ON TURNPIKES.

We have extracted from Chambers' Edinburgh Journal the following paper, which, in examining a plan for the abolition of turnpike trusts, by Mr. Pagan, a Scottish solicitor, adduces many important facts to prove the inadequacy and expensiveness of the system of turnpikes in providing funds for the repair of roads. As an attempt is about to be made to introduce turnpikes in this settlement ; it may be useful to show that the system is considered by many to be a failure in the mother country :—: — The present method of maintaiuing the principal roads by means of exactions at tollbars is universally agreed to be most object tionable. It is interruptive of intercourse, annoying to travellers, distracts traffic into wrong channels, is a severe and clumsilylevied tax, and, worst of all, not more than from 50 to 60 per cent., on an average, ot the money so levied, goes to the support of the roads— the remainder being swallowed up in the erection and maintenance of toll-bars, the paying of turnpike-men, legislation, and robbery. To keep the principal roads of England in repair, nearly five thousand toll-bars are put in operation, and the expense of the acts of parliament to sustain the system in vigour, has been stated to be £100 per mile. The post of collection alone is said to amount

to £800,000<per annum, Besides the charge for maintaining the principal roads, large expenses are incurred for cross or parish roads, which are usually supported by rates. Mr. Pagan's plan points to the entire abolition of toll-bars, the consolidation of trusts, and the levying of an annual rate on horses, as the sole means of supporting the roads and liqui- , dating the debts which the trusts have generally incurred. In the first edition of the work in which this projected reform is explained* the writer presents tabular statements showing the extent of saving that might thus be effected within two counties — Fife and Kinross. Rating all the horses in the district at 30s. each per annum, £18,000 would be raised — a sum which, compared with that levied by the existing methods of exaction by toll-bars and others, would effect a saving of £15,000. The second edition of Mr. Pagan's work, and some other tracts he has issued on the same subject, make several revelations equally worthy of remark. .It appears from a statement respecting the above district, that an annual rate of 275. 6d. per horse would be sufficient. Of this -rate 19s. 6d. per horse would maintain the roads, ss. 6d. would go to the payment of interest and redemption of the debt, and 2s. 6d. be taken for management. In this way the management would cost only a twelfth part, or 8| per cent., instead of 44 per cent., as at present ! The debt, he calculates, would be paid off in thirty years ; and accordingly, the rate per horse would ultimately sink to 225. From some investigations that have been made, it appears that farmers, the class most opposed to the change, would generally save by the adoption of this plan. Among twenty-nine of the leading agriculturists in Fife, there would be a gross saving of £186, 45., or about 27 per cent, per annum. A farmer in one of the southern counties of Scotland lately mentioned to us that the lime he laid upon his land cost him at the rate of sixteen shillings per acre for toll-bars ! Having been invited to state his plans at a meeting of the" county of Forfar, Mr. Pagan showed, by a statement before us, that he could' effect an annual saving of nearly £4000 on the road system of the county. The aggregate sums levied from the public annaally by toll-bars, and statute-labour, and bridge-rates, amounted to £18,232. This he pioposel to reduce to £14,500, raised by a rate of 295. per horse — of which there would be applicable to road repair, 18s» 6d» ; to expense of management, 2s. 6d. ; and to payment of interest and redemption of debt, 8s» By the extinction of the debt in thirty-one years, the rate would ultimately fall to 225. But there was a likelihood that,- by the diminished tear and wear of roads, arising from absorption of traffic by railways, as well as from an increase in the number of horses, the rate might be lowered much sooner. In all probability, the rate would ultimately be only 14s. 6d. per horse ! From statements brought forward at meetings in Haddiugtonshire and other places, similar inferences are drawn. Scarcely a voice is lifted iv defence of what is now admitted to be a great abuse. The only parties who attempt a vindication of the toll-bar and statutelabour exactions, are the functionaries whom a change would dispossess — lessees of bars, turnpike-men, and a host of clerks and collectors. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that there is as yet any overt attempt at reform. The trusts,- composed exclusively of the landed gentry, who are unfortunately not men of business, seem to be in a sense paralysed. They almost everywhere acknowledge their existing condition to be bad, but they hesitate as to the means of improvement. It would be well that they proceeded, to fix on some determinate pol-cy. In all the central and populous districts of the kingdom, the roads are already deprived of their through traffic by railways, and nothing is left them butlocal intercourse; in other words, the roads now depend for support chiefly on the rural population, the tolls upon many of them are scarcely worth collecting, and the trusts, burdened with heavy debts, cannot meet their obligations. In this state of things, toll-bars are increased in number, to the grievance of rural tenants and villagers; but all wiU not do; and from fortyfour per cent, for collection, the ratio of expenditure rises to sixty, eighty, and even a hundred per cent. We happen to know the case of a toll-bar in a rural district which yields only £4 annually. To gather this sum, £2 and a free house are given to a female keeper. As the house and bar undoubtedly cost £120, the annual interest of which sum is £6, it is evident that the roadtrust loses £4 by the transaction. This deficiency, however, really falls on the public, which incurs an expenditure altogether of£lo, no more than £2 of which actually goes to the maintenance of the road. The cost of collection in tbis instance is five hundred per cent. ! Ere long, in many quarters, turnpikes will not draw sufficient to pay their keepers. Then will begin the end of toll-bar exaction. Except in remote localities, and in the dose

' vicinity of towns, it will perish from mere natural decay, and no one will pity its fall. Foreseeing- these consequences, the apathy • of 'turnpike trusts seems like an infatuation. It surely cannot escape their notice that the loss, falling first on the rural population, will come ultimately on land. The question, -therefore, as to toll-bars and no toll-bars, is •one which greatly more concerns landlords and their tenants than the people of towns ; and on this account, except from a wish to see an end put to a social barbarism, the subject is not likely to excite much popular commotion. We are sorry to observe that, in some districts where the question has been agitated, the tenant farmers, while not objecting to the removal of toll-bars, have opposed Mr. Pagan's plan of reform, on the score that the proposed rate levied on horses would i ear unduly on them, in relation to others who make use of the roads. Although it is our belief that farmers generally would be relieved by the principle of a uniform rating of horses, as compared with their present condition, it may be admitted that the reverse would possibly be the case in a number of •instances. The degree of rating, however, is a matter of detail ; and Mr. Pagan does not press for an exact uniformity in all circumstances. The horses, for example, which are .employed pretty continuously in stage coaches, and omnibuses, and in carriers' waggons, might properly enough be subject to a higher rate than horses engaged almost exclusively in agricultural operations, or in carting rural produce. Some parties, we know, incline to government management and taxation for the roads ; but this we hope never to see. Local managements, though sometimes defective in their operation, are of the highest value in cultivating a practical knowledge of affairs, and preserving constitutional freedom. Let local trusts and taxations, therefore, continue, but organised on better models, ai'id in most instances consolidated over districts irrespective of county division.