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abuse the trust reposed in them. In the case of roads, the circumstance of the funds for maintaining them being derived from tolls should make no difference, and the trustees should be equally liable with those who have the management of estates to be brought before this court. But this remedy would not be sufficiently easy and efficacious. A more direct and ready course of proceeding would be to allow complaints against trustees to be brought by petition before the judges at assizes. judges should be empowered to try, with a jury, the allegations contained in the petitions; and in case of a verdict in favour of the petitioners, the judges should be enabled to set aside the trustees, and name commissioners to take charge of the road for as long a period as they might think advisable.

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In order to afford further protection to the public against the misconduct of trustees, the House of Commons ought not to allow turnpike bills to be passed as a matter of course. A particular set of standing orders should be framed for the purpose of keeping such persons in check. No bill should be allowed to be read a first time in the House of Commons, for renewing an act, until after a select committee had been appointed to examine minutely into the state of the road, and into the accounts of it; and time should be allowed for petitions to be presented to the House against the bill, and for having the allegations contained in them fully examined.

But in addition to the measures now proposed, however well adapted they may be for putting the

trustees under more control than they now are, another should be taken, further to secure an upright and efficient discharge of duty, namely, that of placing them under a central board of commissioners, with powers of inspection and superintendence, but not with such powers as would essentially interfere with local management.

Although in principle the general policy of England is right, of leaving local affairs to local management, experience of the working of it seems to show, that, whenever the interests of the public at large are mixed up with local affairs, some degree of control, on the part of the public, ought to be established. When local affairs are of such a nature that they are confined to a vicinage of limited extent, the only persons who suffer from mismanagement are those who are guilty of the mismanagement, and no one need pity them, or try to make them manage better: their own interests will lead in time to the proper remedy. But when, under the plea of managing local affairs, things are done, or omitted to be done, by which the public is incommoded and injured, then the local authorities ought to be brought to account, and their misconduct exposed and corrected. Now, all main turnpike roads, though commonly considered as of a local character, involve to a great degree some most important public interests, because the greatest number of those who make use of them are strangers to the districts through which they pass; and therefore the public should be protected by some controlling authority possessed of powers, at least,

to ascertain and make known the proceedings of the local trustees.

The Commissioners of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenue are well suited to act as a board for this purpose. They have recently been appointed to do the business heretofore done by the Board of Works, and also to execute the powers vested in the Commissioners of the Holyhead Roads.

If the principal roads in England, Scotland, and Wales were placed under these commissioners, they should have power given to them to cause annual inspections to be made by competent civil engineers, so as to obtain accurate information concerning the proceedings of every turnpike trust. Every trust should be obliged to furnish them with an annual account of its income, expenditure, and debt, and they should also have authority to inquire into the particulars of these accounts. An annual report should be made to parliament by the commissioners, containing a summary of the information derived from their inspections and inquiries.

This board, in addition to what is here required of it as a board of control, should be enabled to assist the trustees in making alterations and improvements. It should be authorised to have surveys made of all the mail-coach roads of Great Britain. These surveys should show the ground plan of each road, its vertical longitudinal section, and the alterations and improvements that may be made in it. A copy of the survey of each road should be given to the trustees who have the ma

nagement of it, and the board should be enabled to make an arrangement with them for carrying the necessary alterations and improvements into execution.

In order that the board may be competent to make such an arrangement, powers should be given to it to issue exchequer bills similar to those possessed by the commissioners (under 57 Geo. 3. c. 54.) for issuing exchequer bills for public works. Loans should be made to the trustees, and they should be permitted to lay on additional tolls, to pay interest at the rate of three per cent., and to provide a sinking fund for repayment of at least three per cent. more.

But the money raised by these loans should not be paid over to the trustees; it should be held by the board, and expended by it in making, by its own officers, the intended alterations and improve

ments.

The board should have power to purchase land, procure materials, and do whatever is necessary for making new roads; but these, when finished, should be given over to the trustees.

This is the plan which has been acted upon by the parliamentary commissioners in making the improvements on that part of the Holyhead Road which lies between London and Shrewsbury.

When the parliamentary commissioners took in hand the improvement of this road in 1820, the road between London and Birmingham was one of the worst in England. The consequence was, that

nearly all the travelling between London and Birmingham was by Oxford, though the longest way by eight miles; but now, the travelling has since been transferred from the Oxford to the Coventry line; so that the plan now proposed, with respect to the prospect of its success, has the sanction of experience.*

If this plan for assisting trustees in improving the roads were applied in the first instance only to the principal mail-coach roads, the expense to be incurred by the central board in making surveys and inspections would be of moderate amount. These might be made by resident civil engineers, acting under a chief engineer. The salary of each resident engineer need not exceed 300l. a year. Four assistant engineers in England, and one in Scotland, would be able to do all the business necessary for making surveys and reports, until the central board should have to execute new works. The resident civil engineer, under Mr. Telford, Mr. John Easton, who conducted for several years all the works on the road between London and Shrewsbury, received but 200l. a year. He made a survey of the whole line; prepared all the plans, estimates, specifications, and drawings for the

* Mr. Huskisson, as chairman of the commissioners of Land Revenue, was, ex officio, chairman of the commissioners of the Holyhead Road. When the author proposed to him the plan of placing the trustees of this road under their control, he fully approved of it, saying that, if the plan succeeded, all the roads of the kingdom ought to be placed under a similar control.

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