ii
The effect of the second point, legal restraint in modifying the line of least resistance, will be found under two forms: the first is negative; the lack of public powers of coercion for the acquirement of land by which a road should pass. The second is positive; legal restraint against the road through ownership or privilege.
This political factor in the modification of roads, the negative and positive effect of legal restraint, works in an opposite fashion to that we have just examined. The older, the wealthier, the more complex a civilization the less this modifying factor is present. Thus in England for many centuries we had no compulsory power in the hands of public authority for the making of a new road. Such powers are, as we shall see when we come to the story of the English Road, a comparatively modern development. On this account the Road was, until modern legislation brought in a new system, compelled to follow existing established ways. It could not even be broadened, let alone a new trajectory enforced; and the only compulsory powers in the hands of the authorities were those permitting the levying of labour, and later of money, for repair.
The same is true of the second form of legal restraint, though in lesser degree. Privilege (such as the deflection of an old line of road by Act of Parliament in order, for instance, to add to the privacy of a park—there were not a few examples of this some generations ago) and the positive legal restraint imposed by existing right of ownership obviously decay pari passu with the development of public powers for driving new roads or broadening existing ones.
The third political factor modifying the trajectory of roads is that of a variety of objects imposed upon communications by varied social uses. As society grows more complex and at the same time wealthier, as new centres of population arise, new forms of travel and new needs to be satisfied by travel, the simple formula of the line of least effort from one point to another suffers increasing modification. You have to consider not only the line of least effort between two terminals, but the due weight to be given to intervening points which do not lie precisely upon that line. As a rule, of course, these new centres exercise their pressure or attraction automatically, and you get a deflection arising not from plan but from gradual necessity. The same thing happens with new needs (as, commerce replacing arms), but it is curious to note how slowly the modification takes place.
We have a good example of this along the south-eastern coast of England. Our ancestors felt no attraction for living in the neighbourhood of the sea. To use the shore as a recreation and the sea air as a remedy is quite a modern idea. The result is that all the old roads connected with the sea as a terminal ran perpendicularly to the coast, uniting a port to the inland country. There is not a main road in England over one hundred years old and leading from the sea which does not start from a port. For good communication connecting up a line of ports laterally there was little need. The result is that to this day, when the south coast has become one long line of great watering-places, many of which are fully developed modern towns on a very large scale, there is still no complete lateral communication. Many of the port bridges, as I point out elsewhere in this essay, are but recently established, many sections of the line are served by imperfect, ill-kept pieces of road; in one or two places it fails altogether (as round Selsey), while in others it is built up (as at Romney Marsh) of patchwork—old lanes running criss-cross to each other haphazard to make the modern line.
CHAPTER VI
THE REACTION OF THE ROAD
The Physical Effects of Roads: The Way in which the Road Compels Communication to follow it: The Formation of Urban Centres and the Urban Habit: The Spread of Ideas by Means of Roads: History Deflected by the Deflection of the Road: The Example of Shrewsbury and Chester: Towns which are Maintained by Roads: The Road in Military History: Results of the Decay of Roads: The Road as a Boundary.