iv
Apart from these two main causes of waterways, and of the absence of strategic necessity causing the diversion of the English Road, and apart from all other causes of local government which have led to such extraordinary diversity, lack of regular gradient, lack of regular gauge, etc. (as distinguished from the road system under the monarchical and centralized governments of the Continent, and especially of France), we have certain other elements which have stamped the English Road with its particular character.
They may be briefly recapitulated without developing any one of them. We shall meet most of them again in the historical sketch of the English Road.
There is the dampness of the climate; there is the extraordinary diversity of soil within a comparatively small area, so that road-making material continually differs within a few miles—for England is, of all European countries, that in which there is crowded upon a small space the greatest, sharpest, and most frequent diversity of soil and landscape; there is the increasing density of population in modern times, which has had a profound effect upon our road system. There is the political factor of Parliament; for since the defeat of the monarchy in the seventeenth century no direct order could be immediately obeyed until there quite recently grew up the new powers of administration. Between, say, 1660 and the Premiership of the late Lord Salisbury we may say that any important public right, including the making of a new way and expropriation of land for it, fell under no immediate authority but had to be referred to the lengthy and expensive process of a Committee, called Parliamentary, through which the oligarchy of Great Britain worked.
All these things have affected the development of the English Road, but most of all, let it always be remembered, these two main causes, which have been, in my opinion, far too little recognized—the waterways, peculiar to this island, and the absence of modern strategic necessity, also peculiar to this island.
CHAPTER IX
FIVE STAGES
The “Potential” in Political Geography Examples: The Primitive Trackways: The Roman Road System: The Earlier Mediaeval Period: The Later Mediaeval Period: The Turnpike Era.