only pointing out the uncertain operation of the law; and in justification of my own course, I will merely refer to the concluding words of the Report of the Committee of 1864, where, after referring to the case of trusts out of debt, they proceed to say

turnpike trusts from all sources amounted in the year ending the 31st December, 1864, to £1,037,000. The expenditure in the same year was £1,017,000, of which £147,000 had been employed in paying off debt, and £120,000 in paying the interest. of debt.

out of debt, which number might shortly have been further reduced. From information reaching me from different parts of the country, I am induced to believe that the right hon. Gentleman opposite has materially diminished this schedule. I do not presume to blame him-he may be right "Your Committee suggest that such trusts and I may have been wrong-the utmost should be excluded from the operation of the I should be inclined to say of him is, that Continuance Act, and be obliged to come to ParI fear that in listening to the representa- liament for a renewal of their Acts." tions of trustees and of persons fearing an But, Sir, if the Home Secretary had mainincrease of rates in their parishes, he has tained last year's schedule in its integrity, evinced a tender-heartedness, admirable in there would have still remained the necesan individual, but sometimes inconvenient sity for legislation. And, no doubt, it in the management of a great public De- would be most desirable, if it were pospartment. I will not weary the House sible, that we should deal simultaneously with individual instances which have come with all turnpike trusts. But before I state to my knowledge, but I will quote one as to the House the proposals which I shall a sample of the whole. I take the case of venture to make in this direction, it is nethe Devizes trust. This trust is twenty-cessary that I should say a few words upon seven miles in length. In 1865 its debt the state of the income and expenditure was reduced from £700 to £500. The of these trusts. I find that the income of property of the trust was carefully valued at £595, sufficient of itself to have extinguished the debt, and responsible people in Devizes were ready to guarantee the trustees indemnity for any loss to be sustained by the removal of the toll-gates. The trust was inserted in the schedule of 1865; but, at the instance of the hon. Member for Devizes, it was re-inserted in the Continuance Act of that year. Having most fully considered the case, I again placed it in last year's schedule, and I believe all parties would have acquiesced in such an arrangement. Now, if the trustees had come to Parliament for a new Bill, those who desired the abolition of the trust would have had an opportunity of being heard against the Bill, and I venture to say the Bill could not have been obtained. But, instead of this being the case, I understand that the Home Secretary, listening to representations from I know not whom, has again inserted this trust in the Continuance Act. Now, Sir, I instance the case of this trust, because I venture to say that there are no arguments to be advanced in favour of its continuance further than those general arguments of persons who are the advocates of the present system and who dread the increase of rates, so that if the right hon. Gentleman has spared this trust, there is no reason why he should not equally spare the great majority of those which were scheduled last year. Again, I say that I do not presume to blame the right hon. Gentleman for acting upon a different principle from those who preceded him. I am

Now, Sir, I put plainly before the House one of the immense evils of the present system of this expenditure, to meet which the public has to endure this inconvenient tax. The amount which goes in collection and management is variously estimated at from 30 to 50 per cent on the revenue. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head; but from all the information I have been able to obtain, I believe I may safely estimate this expense at an average throughout the country of 40 per cent. You have the salaries of clerks, treasurers, and surveyors. You have the cost of maintaining, lighting, and repairing toll-gates, and keeping a staff of collectors. You have legal charges and the great periodical expense of renewals, and you have also, in the many cases in which tolls are let, that which it is impossible to estimate accurately, and which is beyond this estimatenamely, the profit of the lessee. He must have a profit, and that profit must come out of the pocket of the public. Then, Sir, I say that on the grounds of public economy alone, if I went no further, the turnpike trust system stands condemned. But apart from the expense of collection and management, the House must not suppose that the remaining expenditure is devoted to, and is sufficient for, the neces

to

sary repairs of roads and the payment of six years ending the 31st December, 1864, debt. The conditions and circumstances was about £135,000, I shall not be far of trusts vary greatly. Some trusts, no wrong if I estimate the debt on the 31st doubt, are annually paying off some por-December, 1866, to have been about tion-often a very small portion-of their £3,700,000; and as the marketable value debt. Some, without hope of doing this, of the debt, upon an average throughout have their income absorbed in the payment the country, certainly does not exceed 70 of establishment charges and interest of per cent, I take the actual marketable debt, whilst the repairs of their roads are value to be from £2,500,000 even now borne by the parishes. Some £2,600,000 at the present time. trusts, I am afraid, keep up a nominal debt for the sake of obtaining a place in the Continuance Act; and a considerable number, although in debt, actually spend in improvements money which ought to go towards the liquidation of that debt. The House will be surprised to learn that out of 187 trusts, which employed a portion of their income in improvements in the year 1864, no less than 151 were actually in debt at the time of so doing, and of this number eighty trusts, or more than half, paid off not ld. of principal debt during the year. No doubt, the application of a general principle to these trusts is not an easy task. The complications and varieties of the system, whilst they render its alteration desirable, infinitely increase the difficulty of effecting that alteration by any uniform and simultaneous act of legislation. But, Sir, supposing that we agree as I hope the House will agree that alteration is necessary, there are two great difficulties which always stare us in the face-first, the alleged hardship of throw ing upon individual parishes the repairs of roads which were originally constructed for through traffic, and not for local traffic; and secondly, the debt. With permission of the House, I will deal with the debt first. I find that the turnpike debt in England and North Wales amounted in the year 1837, in round numbers, to £7,000,000. In 1860, it was £4,688,000, and in 1864, the total amount of debt was about £4,500,000. But for floating debt, balances due to treasurers, and a large sum of unpaid interest which cannot be fairly called debt, and would infallibly be extinguished by the orders of the Secretary of State, as the Acts expired, I strike off at once £500,000, and I take the actual amount of bonded debt in the year 1864 to have been about £4,000,000. As the

Now, what is the condition of the mortgagees and bondholders? I speak the more feelingly, but also the more freely, as being myself one of that honourable fraternity. I am sure that this House would always wish to deal tenderly with persons who had invested their money upon anything like the faith of Parliamentary security. But what is our position? Somc of us, no doubt, have advanced our money because we thought it a good investment, and had faith in the continuance of the system. Many of us, or our fathers before us, advanced money in order that our own estates and neighbourhoods might be improved by the making of good roads, and from such roads we have received a very considerable benefit. But all, wisely or unwisely, invested their money in that which they knew clearly at the time to be in law a terminable security-all have had fair warning for the last thirty years of the spirit in which Parliament was likely to regard this question, and I say that we should do wrong if by our legislation we attempted to give an increased or fictitious value to a debt which in very many instances is of exceedingly small value. You might almost as well propose to compensate those who have invested their money in coaches and roadside inns, the value of whose property has been so much deteriorated by the introduction of railroads. Besides, Sir, we are bound to consider what would be the position of the bondholders, and what their prospect of payment, if we were not to legislate at all upon the subject. Comparatively few of them could ever hope to receive any considerable portion of their principal; as the Acts expire, their trusts would come under the control of the Secretary of State, their interest would inevitably be reduced, their arrears of interest extinguished, and their fate

House and the country might have clearly before them the varying, different, and uncertain value of this debt with which we have to deal.

part, I do not scruple to say that I think the best and simplest solution of the question would be to make the Highway Act of 1862 compulsory, and to put the repairs of all roads, highway and turnpike, upon the district fund of the highway dis

I find that in 2 counties the average rate of interest is 5 per cent. In 10 counties it is 4, but less than 5. In 25 coun-trict to which they belong. The whole ties 3 per cent up to 3 per cent, and in 9 counties it is less than 3 per cent. This exhausts the 46 counties of England and North Wales. I find that out of 873 trusts which were in debt in the year 1864, only 431 paid off any portion, and some a very small portion, of the principal of their debt during that year; 442 paid off no principal at all. Of these 873 trusts, representing £4,000,000 of bonded debt, I find that 316 trusts, representing £1,616,000, paid 3 per cent, or less than 3 per cent interest; of which 143 trusts, representing £768,000, paid 2 per cent, and less than 2 per cent; of the remaining trusts, representing something less than £2,400,000, as many as 229, representing upwards of £900,000, paid 5 per cent; and, at first sight, this would, of course, appear to be good property. But when you look closely into their condition, you will find that only 67 of these trusts, representing £260,000 (and this includes a Middlesex trust representing a debt of above £57,000), paid off any principal either in 1863 or 1864; the remaining 162, representing debt of £650,000, paid off, and were likely to pay off, no principal whatever. Their high interest, therefore, affords little criterion of their real marketable value, and when their trusts expire it would at once be reduced by order of the Secretary of State. The question seriously arises whether, if the present system is admitted to be inconvenient and vexatious, Parliament will for ever maintain that system in order to secure the interest of their money to persons who have invested that money in a terminable security, and can never hope to receive their principal. It is very well to deal tenderly with individuals; but, after all, it is justice to the public which should guide our legislation.

And now, Sir, I come to the second difficulty-namely, the hardship to individual parishes if the repairs of the turnpike roads within them were to fall upon them. Sir, it was the opinion of the Committee of 1864 that, to obviate this hardship, there should be an extension of the area of rating. But that Committee, whilst unanimous in this recommendation, failed to agree upon any specific area. For my own

district benefits by good roads, and, to my
mind, the system of parochial management
of roads is the system of a bygone age.
Sir, when the Highway Act of 1862 was
passed, I was strongly of opinion that
the proper course to pursue was to make
the new highway districts coterminous with
the union districts, with a power of sub-
division where necessary. You had a staff
of officers already at work-you had a
place of meeting ready to your hand-
you had a combination to which parishes
had become accustomed and I believe
this course would have increased the popu-
larity as well as the efficiency of the
measure. But the right hon. Baronet the
Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey)
was of a different opinion; Parliament
decided otherwise, and we have to deal with
things as they are. I know that the pro-
posal to make the Highway Act compulsory
under existing circumstances would create
much opposition. I scarcely venture to pro-
pose it upon my own responsibility; but
if the Government should give their sanc-
tion, and if I perceived an indication of the
opinion of the House in this direction, I
should be perfectly ready to engraft it
upon the Bill, which I think it would
simplify and render more efficacious.
may mention that the Highway Act, ac-
cording to the Return of 1865, was then in
force in 35 counties, or parts of counties,
in England, and one in Wales, comprising
upwards of 300 districts, and a very large
mileage of road. Sir, I do propose that,
wherever the Highway Act is in force,
the repairs of these roads should be placed
upon the common fund of each district.
And where the Highway Act is not in
force, if it is right that the parishes
should any longer escape their common
law liability to repair the roads within
them, I do not think it ought to be by
means of the wasteful and inconvenient
system of turnpike tolls. Let us look the
matter fairly in the face. The evidence
taken before your Select Committee goes
to prove that, in the vast majority of
cases, the through traffic upon these roads
has sunk into comparative insignificance
since the introduction and multiplication of
railroads. These roads now practically ex-

I

ist for the purposes of local traffic, and those' turing establishments, whose heavy traffic who pay the tolls are the same persons as will tear up the roads which country those who pay the rates-namely, the parishes will have to repair. It must not, owners and occupiers of the district. Then, however, be forgotten that the very existif I have shown you that the expense of ence of such places is of enormous advanturnpike toll collection and management tage to the neighbouring parishes-supplyis enormous, is it worth while to continue ing their local wants, employing their surthis expense for the sake of the very small plus labour, and immensely improving the benefit which is derived from through value of their property. In many instances, traffic, that is to say, from the payment too, the increase of railway accommodation of tolls by persons who are strangers and has removed or lessened the heavy traffic not ratepayers in the parishes? Is it worth complained of; and, acknowledging as I do while to keep up, side by side in the same that there may be some cases of hardship, locality, a double set of officials-a double where through traffic from town to town expense for practically the same object, really exists, or from other particular cirand an irresponsible instead of a represen- cumstances, I propose to give power to the tative management? For bear in mind, justices in quarter sessions to grant contrithat as soon as you shift this burden from butions from the county rate in aid of the the tolls to the rates, you apply the prin- rates of any parish or parishes which shall ciple of representation following taxation, appear to them to be unduly enhanced by and you give to the parishes a power and the operation of this Act. an interest in the control of expenditure which they do not now possess. But, Sir, it is frequently urged, as an argument in favour of the present system, that those who use the roads should pay for them. I respectfully submit that this is a result which is not obtained under the system of toll-gates. I say nothing of the fact that all those who walk equally use the roads and pay nothing; but a very large percentage of the riding and driving public constantly evade tolls by means of lanes and byways, and whilst the expenses of parishes which have to repair such lanes and byways is thereby increased, you cannot, by possibility, place your toll-gates in such a position as to render the incidence of this tax just and equal. Besides, if the argument is worth anything, that those who use the roads should pay for their maintenance, it is equally applicable to the case of highways; and yet every person who rides or drives is using highways, to the repairs of which he contributes nothing, the very moment that he passes the boundary of the parish in which he happens to live and to be rated. It must also be borne in mind that the existence of a good road must, more or less, benefit a parish and improve the value of its property. In many instances, too, these turnpike roads were originally highways, and in all such cases the parishes would only be reverting to that common law liability from which they have for many years been relieved at the expense of the public. But, Sir, it is said that great injustice will arise in the case of roads in the vicinity of large towns-of coal-mines, of ironworks, and of manufac

Sir, I have prepared a summary of the Bill which I propose to introduce, and perhaps it will be a convenient course that I should now read it to the House. First, I propose that all trusts out of debt, excepting those which are scheduled to expire on the 1st November in the present year, shall expire on the 1st November, 1868. propose that, where the Highway Act is in force, the repairs of the roads within the district, and the debt, where debt exists, shall be charged upon the district fund, with power given to maintain toll-gates during the continuance of the trust, the proceeds being firstly applicable to the expenses of such gates, and the liquidation of debt as hereinafter provided. Where the Highway Act is not in force, I propose that the repairs shall be borne by the parishes, as is the case under the existing law, according to the mileage of road in each parish, with power to justices in quarter sessions to contribute from the county rate in aid of the rates of any parish which shall appear to them to be unduly enhanced by the operation of this Act. Then, with respect to the termination of trusts now in debt. The trustees of trusts whose Acts have expired, and of other trusts when their Acts expire, shall endeavour at once to make an arrangement with the creditors of the trust, and communicate the result to the Home Secretary on or before the 1st March, 1868, in the first case, and in other cases, on or before the 1st March in the year following the expiration of the trust-notice of the proposed arrangement to be advertised in at least one newspaper circulating in the district, prior to