Remarks on the Present System of Road Making / With Observations, Deduced from Practice and Experience, With a View to a Revision of the Existing Laws, and the Introduction of Improvement in the Method of Making, Repairing, and Preserving Roads, and Defending the Road Funds from Misapplication. Seventh Edition, Carefully Revised, With an Appendix, and Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons, June 1823, with Extracts from the Evidence

by John Loudon McAdam

Has your attention been directed to the roads in the neighbourhood of London; and can you state to the Committee whether any corresponding improvement has taken place in this district?—I think less improvement has taken place round London than in the country. On the new Surrey roads the example set by the pieces of road made at Blackfriars and Westminster bridges has induced a little amendment; the materials have been more carefully broken, and they have continued to use the hammers, rakes and other tools which were recommended to them; but the general improvement is unimportant: and I am not aware that any alteration has taken place in the system of expenditure, and the mode of being supplied with materials, or in employing more competent surveyors.

From the experience you have had in the improvements that have taken place, have you found that these have been attended generally, with an increase or diminution of expense?—In general the expense must be diminished by the improvements. The repairs of one hundred and forty-eight miles round Bristol, and many expensive permanent improvements and alterations, have been made in the last three years, during which a floating debt of upwards 1,400l. has been paid off, a considerable reduction of the principal debt has been made, and a balance of a considerable amount is remaining in the hands of the treasurer, applicable to further alterations, or to the payment of part of the debt, at the discretion of the commissioners.

Can you state what proportion that is?—I think the first year, 723l.

What is the amount of the whole debt?—The whole debt is 43,000l. I said a considerable reduction of the principal debt had been made, I did not use the word proportion. I can mention that the balance in the hands of the treasurer, on the last settlement of the account amounted to 2,790l. 0s. 4d. in the Bristol district, beside a considerable diminution of the debt, and beside alterations and improvements.

That applies only to one hundred and forty-eight miles round Bristol?—Only to the one hundred and forty-eight miles round Bristol. The Bristol district has been under one trust for twenty years, and in that period the debt has increased to 43,000l.

You will be kind enough to furnish the Committee, with a statement similar to that which was supplied by you to the Holyhead Committee, down to the latest period?—I will. Bristol is the only district for which I can have precise figures, I have not had the finances in my own management or direction with respect to the others. As I have only advised with respect to them, I cannot give you the items; and I must say, that my information with respect to other roads, must be much more general than with respect to this road. In Sussex, the roads in nine trusts have been mended with a considerable diminution of the former expense, and the thanks of a general meeting of the trustees of the Lewes trusts were unanimously voted to Lord Chichester “for the introduction of this system, by which the roads had been so much improved, and the country was likely to derive so much benefit.”

Have you found that a similar diminution of expense has taken place where the materials have been bad, as where they have been good?—Yes, I have.

Do you find your mode of management equally applicable where the materials are bad as where they are good, and that the same proportionable benefit arises?—I am afraid gentlemen suppose that I have some particular mode of management, which is certainly not the case, nor can by any means be the case; and in every road I have been obliged to alter the mode of management, according to the situation of the roads, and sometimes according to the finances. At Epsom in Surrey, the roads have been put into a good repair, at an expense considerably under the former annual expenditure, by which the trustees have been enabled to lower their tolls on agricultural carriages. The road between Reading and Twyford, in Berkshire, has been made solid and smooth since the beginning of July last, by persons under my directions, at an expense, including the surveyor’s salary, not exceeding fifteen pounds per week; and their former expenditure, exclusive of the surveyor’s salary, was twenty-two pounds per week. A great part of the road in the neighbourhood of Bath, which was formed upon the plan laid down in my report to the commissioners, and with the greatest success, is made with freestone, which was always supposed impossible to make a good road of; but it will make a good road. It certainly does not last so long as one made of better materials; but it is equally good whilst it does last. One of the roads out of Bristol towards Old Down has been made good, where it was a received opinion, that from the nature of the materials the road could not be made so; and the commissioners would not consent to my beginning it until the road was threatened to be indicted. It was put into my hands in October 1816, and at the Christmas following I was able to report that it was one of the best roads in England for a distance of eleven miles, at the expense of first outlay only of 600l. and it has continued so until the present.

Please to inform the Committee, what are the means, in your opinion, the most eligible to be adopted for the amelioration of the roads throughout the kingdom?—That question, I think, divides itself into two branches: The operative part, in making the roads, and the care of the finances, and the mode of their expenditure. I should imagine the operative part of preparing roads cannot be effected without procuring a more skilful set of sub-surveyors; young men, brought up to agriculture and labour must be sought, and regularly instructed. It is a business that cannot be taught from books, but can only be acquired by a laborious practice of several months, and actual work upon roads, under skilful road-makers. Young men who have been accustomed to agricultural labour are fittest to be made road-surveyors, as their occupations have given them opportunities of being acquainted with the value of labour both of men and horses. But I should greatly mislead the Committee if I did not inform them, that skill in the operative part of road-making cannot alone produce a reformation of the multitude of abuses that are practised in almost every part of the country, in the management of roads and road funds. These abuses can only be put down by officers in the situation of gentlemen, who must enjoy the confidence, and have the support of commissioners, and who must exercise a constant and vigilant inspection over the expenditure made by the sub-surveyors. They must be enabled to certify to the commissioners that the public money is judiciously and usefully, as well as honestly expended; without this control and superintendence an end cannot be put to the waste of the public money, and all the various modes that are injurious to the public interest, the amount of which would appear incredible, could it be ascertained; but which, I conscientiously believe, amount to one-eighth of the road revenue of the kingdom at large, and to a much greater proportion near London.

Do you mean the frauds amount to one-eighth?—No, not direct frauds, I call it mis-application; it must not be concealed, that the temptations with which, even a superior officer will be assailed, the facility of yielding to them, and the impunity with which transgression may be committed, require great delicacy in the selection of persons to fill the situation; and encouragement to make this a profession must be in proportion to the quality of the person required.