persons are named as trustees; the practice is to make almost every
one a trustee, residing in the vicinity of a road, who is an opulent
farmer or tradesman, as well as all the nobility and persons of large
landed properly: so that a trust seldom consists of fewer than 100
persons, even it the length of the road to be maintained by them does
not exceed a few miles. The result of this practice is, that in every
set of trustees there are to be found persons who do not possess a
single qualification for the office, persons who conceive they are
raised by the title of a road trustee to a station of some importance,
and who too often seek to show it by opposing their superiors in
ability and integrity when valuable improvements are under
consideration, taking care, too frequently, to turn their authority to
account, by so directing the spending of the road money as may best
promote the interests of themselves or their connexions.
“It sometimes happens that if one trustee, more intelligent and more
public-spirited than the rest, attempts to take a lead, and proposes a
measure in every way right and proper to be adopted, his ability to
give advice is questioned, his presumption condemned, his motives
suspected; and as every such measure will, almost always, have the
effect of defeating some private object, it is commonly met either by
direct rejection or some indirect contrivance for getting rid of it.
In this way intelligent and public-spirited trustees become disgusted,
and cease to attend meetings; for, besides frequently experiencing
opposition and defeat at the hands of the least worthy of their
associates, they are annoyed by the noise and language with which the
discussions are carried on, and feel themselves placed in a situation
in which they are exposed to insult and ill-usage.”
He observes, that “Although this turnpike system has led to the making
of many new roads, and to the changing of many old ones into what may be
called good roads in comparison with what they formerly were, this
system has been carried into execution under such erroneous regulations,
and the persons who have been entrusted with the administration of them
have uniformly been either so negligent or so little acquainted with the
business of making or repairing roads, that at this moment it may be
stated with the utmost correctness that there is not a road in England,
except those recently made by some eminent civil engineers, which is not
extremely defective in the most essential qualities of a perfect road.”
To the varying extent of these defects the public are forced to ascend
unnecessary heights, travel unnecessary distances, employ more
horse-labour than would be necessary in travelling over roads that are
kept hard, dry, and level, instead of wet, soft, and rugged. From the
Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the subject, it
appears that for every 200 miles of turnpike road there are, on an
average, ten surveyors: whereas, if the highways and turnpike trusts
were consolidated, one properly qualified surveyor might perform much
better the service with which the ten are charged. There are, it
appears, 1,116 turnpike trusts, comprehending about 22,000 miles. The
officers employed consist of 1,120 treasurers, 1,135 clerks, and 1,300
surveyors: total, 3,555. The annual cost of the _repair_ of the turnpike
roads is 51_l._ per mile: total expenditure of 1,122,000_l._ per annum.
The debts amounted to upwards of 9,000,000_l._ and they appeared to be
rapidly increasing. The average expense of the _management_ of the
highway and the turnpike roads is estimated at 10_l._ per mile per
annum; but it is calculated that if the management of the turnpikes and
highways were consolidated, they might be better managed at an expense
of from 30_s._ to 2_l._ per mile per annum. On comparing the actual
expense of the repairs of roads under a scientific management of the
highways with the common cost, it appears probable that by management on
an extended and appropriate scale, upwards of 500,000_l._ per annum may
be saved on that branch of administration alone.
The Committee of the House of Commons, which sat in 1834, examined some
of the most able engineers in the country, and a Commission subsequently
appointed, at the head of which were the Duke of Richmond and the
Marquis of Salisbury, coincided in recommending the adoption of the
principle of consolidation as the only means of retrieving that branch
of administration.
I venture humbly to submit the grounds for the opinion in which I
believe their Lordships would concur, that the principle of
consolidation may be carried still further, and include all public works
within the locality, as the best means of obtaining for each or for all,
at the least expense, the most efficient scientific direction.
It has been shown, in respect to drainage as well as road construction,
that the economy and efficiency of the works will be according to the
qualifications, the powers, and responsibilities of the officers
appointed to execute them, secured by legislative means, and that new
labour on the old condition, without skill, will be executed in the old
manner, extravagantly and inefficiently. But engineers or properly
qualified officers having the science of civil engineering could not be
procured for every separate purpose in every part of the country, as is
generally assumed in Acts of Parliament for effecting particular
objects. When such connected work is divided and separated, the
remuneration necessary to obtain properly qualified officers to attend
to the fragment of service is too high; the separation, therefore, in
most places, amounts to the exclusion of science from public work, or,
in other words, to its degradation. It will be found, when the works of
draining and road making and maintenance are examined, that the common
practice of making sewers on plans independently of the construction of
roads, and roads independently of the arrangements for cleansing and
keeping them dry, is always to the disadvantage of the work and to the
public. The same surface levels and surveys serve for drainage and for
road construction. The construction of the drains for roads and streets,
and the maintenance of them, are the primary and most important works;
the construction and maintenance of the surface of the road is a
connected work, subsequent in order, and can be best superintended by
the same officer. In every part of the country inconveniences and losses
are experienced from the separation of such work on almost every
occasion where repair or new construction is needed. In the towns a road
is broken up by the bursting of a sewer or the necessity of cleansing or
repairing it; the sewer is repaired, but the road is left broken,
because the road surveyor and his separate set of workmen are engaged in
some other work. In the metropolis, the breaches left in the roads by
the delay and want of concert amongst the various officers are a source
not only of great obstruction but of frequent accidents. In replacing
the pavements the water and the gas-pipes are not unfrequently put out
of order, and these again occasion another opening and another expense
to the public, for repairs. In the rural districts a road is out of
repair, but the first remedy is drainage; the road surveyor cannot
proceed because the sewers’ surveyor has his men elsewhere occupied. In
various other particulars the consolidation of the same work under the
same officer, acting with a combined staff of foremen and workmen, is
attended with advantages in efficiency and economy to which it were
unnecessary to advert, if the opposite arrangements were not the most
frequent. In the few instances that have taken place of a combination of
duties, the experience of the advantages of the combination would
occasion a proposal for separating them to be viewed as an increase of
trouble and expense, and a hinderance to the proper execution of the
work.
In the districts where the greatest defects prevail, we find such an
array of officers for the superintendence of public structures as would
lead to the _à priori_ conclusion of a high degree of perfection in the
work from the apparent subdivision of labour in which it is distributed.
In the same petty districts we have surveyors of sewers appointed by the
commissioners of sewers, surveyors of turnpike-roads appointed by the
trustees of the turnpike trusts, surveyors of highways appointed by the
inhabitants in vestry, or by district boards under the Highway Act; paid
district surveyors appointed by the justices, surveyors of paving under
local Acts, surveyors of building under the Building Act, surveyors of
county bridges, &c.
The qualifications of a civil engineer involve the knowledge of the
prices of the materials and labour used in construction, and also the
preparation of surveys, and the general qualifications for valuations,
which are usually enhanced by the extent of the range of different
descriptions of property with which the valuator is conversant. The
public demands for the services of such officers as valuators are often
as mischievously separated and distributed as the services for the
construction and maintenance of public works. Thus we have often, within
the same districts, one set of persons appointed for the execution of
valuations and surveys for the levy of the poor’s rates; another set for
the surveys and valuations for the assessed taxes; another for the land
tax; another for the highway rates; another for the sewers’ rates;
another for the borough rates; another for the church rates; another for
the county rates, where parishes neglect to pay, or are unequally
assessed, and for extra-parochial places; another for tithe commutation.
And these services are generally badly rendered separately at an undue
expense.
It is in the ordinary course that local bodies would have the power of
appointing surveyors for seeing to the execution of provisions for the
regulation of buildings, on the precedent of the Metropolitan Building
Act; and these officers are paid by fees varying from 1_l._ to 3_l._
10_s._ each building. In the towns, it is rare that one-story houses are
erected where the ground is of much value; and it will be a low average
to take all the new houses as of two stories, that, is, fourth-rate
houses, for which a fee of 2_l._ has been proposed to be paid. Before
the building surveyor can proceed, the sewers’ surveyor must have seen
that the drains are properly laid, and the builder have obtained a
certificate from him to that effect. The labour of the budding surveyor,
if properly performed, may require as much as an hour for the inspection
of each new building. But the amount of the proposed fee would in
general more than pay, in ordinary cases, for the construction of an
efficient drain for such a tenement. Any speculating builder who is
building a fourth-rate street of fifty houses, would, by removing out of
the limits of the jurisdiction, save by the removal the means of
erecting an additional house or drains for the whole of them.
No past or proposed legislative measures prescribe any securities for
appropriate skill, or trustworthiness for the performance of such
services. It is matter of complaint in one extensive district in the
metropolis, that the duty of examining the premises is performed by
young men, junior clerks to the district surveyor.
In proportion as science is securely allied to local administration is
its respectability enhanced and the attainment of its objects ensured.
It is dangerous to legislate in detail, for the information is not
usually available for legislative preparation against all existing local
difficulties, still less all future important contingencies. Where
detailed regulations are prescribed arbitrarily, the danger is incurred
of creating an obstacle to the work intended to be forwarded. For
example, it has been proposed that Parliament shall not only provide
“That every outer wall of every building shall be built of good, sound,
well-burnt, bricks, or good sound stone, and set in good mortar,” but
shall direct and instruct the builders, and fix, against any alteration
or improvement, the mode in which good mortar shall be made, viz., “And
the mortar and cement shall be _well_ compounded in the proportion of
_one_ part of good fresh-burnt lime or cement, and _three_ parts of
clean sharp sand;” there, however, are large tracts of country where
neither clean sand, nor sharp sand, nor sand of any sort is to be had,
and where they use smiths’ ashes for the purpose. But the use of this
material is thenceforward illegal, and no new discovery can be adopted
without the sanction of an Act of Parliament. In one large parish it was
lately desired to try a pavement of wood, when it was discovered that
the local Act prescribed the use of granite for pavement. In the
impracticability of carrying out all such detail, or from default of
defining the ends and prescribing the attainment instead of the means,
or stating the means generally, as that a wall shall be built “of
incombustible materials,” it is in the usual course to require that
important work shall be done in such manner as “shall be satisfactory to
the surveyor who shall inspect the same,” or “according to the
directions of the surveyor of the district;” _e. g._, that no chimney
shall be built more than six feet high, “unless the same shall be
secured by sufficient iron stays of such strength and dimensions, and to
be fixed in such manner as shall be approved of by the surveyor who
shall inspect the building.” The objections entertained by builders of
respectability to the granting of such large powers, is founded on the
certainty as to the character of the appointments of surveyors to be
hereafter made if no other securities than mere general directions be
taken in respect to them for the public protection. It may be a rival
builder who is appointed, and it is very certain to be generally a
person in trade by whom the power is exercised, whose dissatisfaction
with work really fair and good may be governed by sinister
considerations against which a fair builder will feel he has no defence;
but the greater danger is to the public, that no dissatisfaction may be
expressed with work that is cheap but unsound. The building covers bad
drains, and hides rotten walls, and the effects in the calamities of
spreading fires and falling houses, and calamities of sufferings, and
deaths, occur in after years, when the original defect may not be
detected by the closest examination, and when all concerned may have
departed.
If the services of men of independent position, with the science and
qualifications of engineers, were secured, their inspection of works
would often be invited, and the notice they could not fail to take of
unintentional and profitless errors, such as wrong levels, which detract
from the convenience and value of tenements, would be of much value and
be received cordially, and the exercise of discretionary authority in
such hands would meet with comparatively respectful obedience.
No one can have had occasion to examine much of the business of local
administration, without being aware of other evils entailed by the
multiplication of badly appointed officer’s in addition to the evils of
excessive cost and bad quality of the service to the ratepayers. One of
the evils is the fuel they add to the flames of local parties, by which
both parties are generally losers. Where special and scientific
qualifications are not defined, or, if defined, not secured—where the
most fatal errors, as in this instance, are shrouded by the nature of
the work from detection—all the idle dependents of election committees
who have time to spare, because they have failed in their own business
for want of steady application, and because their time is worthless, are
let in as candidates, and in proportion to the absence of security for
qualifications is the extent of expectation created and disappointment
ensured. The dreadful state of the labouring classes in the most
important towns,—the entire neglect of existing sanitary
regulations,—the apathy to repeated remonstrances that have been made by
eminent medical practitioners, as by Dr. Ferrier in Manchester and by
Dr. Currie of Liverpool,—the entire neglect of recommendations made by
them, which, if carried out, would have protected those communities from
immense burdens, from pestilence and slaughters worse than many wars,
and from an enfeebled, diseased, and, by physical causes, a degraded
generation of workpeople,—the resistance made from no other manifest
cause than a blind jealousy of interference, to the exercise of powers
that can have no other object than to prevent the like evils for the
future,—all indicate the conclusion as to the nature of the arrangements
to be expected from those who have by familiarity become insensible to
the means of preventing the evils which fall with the greatest weight on
the least protected classes.
Supposing population and new buildings for their accommodation to
proceed at the rate at which they have hitherto done in the boroughs,
and supposing all the new houses to be only fourth rate, the expense, at
the ordinary rate of payment of surveyors’ fees, would be about
30,000_l._ per annum for the new houses alone. Fees of half the amount
required for every new building are allowed for every alteration of an
old one, and the total expense of such structures would probably be near
50,000_l._ in the towns alone—an expense equal to the pay of the whole
corps of Royal Engineers, or 240 men of science, for Great Britain and
Ireland.[43]
But at the rate of increase of the population, of Great Britain, which
is 230,000 per annum, (_i. e._ equal in population to the annual
addition of a new county, such as Worcester or the North Riding of
Yorkshire,[44] and to accommodate them 59,000 new tenements are
required, or a number equal to that of two new towns annually such as
Manchester proper, which has 32,310 houses, and Birmingham, which has
27,268 houses,) affording, if all that have equal need receive equal
care, fees to the amount of no less than from 80,000_l._ to 100,000_l._
per annum. This would afford payment equal to that of the whole corps of
sappers and miners, or nearly 1000 trained men, in addition to the corps
of engineers.
From a consideration of the science and skill now obtained for the
public from these two corps for general service, some conception may be
formed of the science and skill that might be obtained in appointments
for local service, by pre-appointed securities for the possession of the
like qualifications, but which are now thrown away in separate
appointments at an enormous expense, where qualifications are entirely
neglected.
The officers of the engineer corps have the execution and care of
structural works, docks and dock-yards, fortifications, military roads,
and barracks, in addition to the ordinary military duties. One captain
of engineers fills the office of hydraulic engineer to the Admiralty,
and to his superintendence is intrusted the construction and repairs of
all the docks, buildings, and other public works.
The officers of the engineers have been distinguished for their services
on some of the most important civil commissions. As collateral services
which they have rendered to the public, may be mentioned the
trigonometrical survey of Ireland, and that now in progress for England
under the Board of Ordnance, and also the geological survey. The
levelling, however, and the whole of the detail of the trigonometrical
survey in England, is taken by the privates, corporals, and sergeants of
the corps of sappers and miners, who have been instructed in geometry,
drawing, and mensuration at the school at Chatham. The triangulation for
the detail of this work is executed by the engineer officers under the
direction of the superintendent of the survey, Colonel Colby. The great
majority of the surveys obtained under the Parochial Survey and
Valuation Act from private surveyors have been inferior to the surveys
executed under superintendence by the privates and non-commissioned
officers of the sappers and miners serving at a pay of from 1_s._ 2_d._
to 3_s._, per diem. Out of 1700 first-class maps received under the
Parochial Assessment and Tithe Acts, not more than one-half displayed
qualifications for the execution of public surveys without
superintendence. Amongst the most satisfactory maps of the first class
of parochial surveys were those executed by a retired sergeant of
sappers and miners. The Commissioners for the colonization of South
Australia found it difficult to proceed satisfactorily with persons of
the ordinary qualifications of surveyors or civil engineers for that
country; and deemed it requisite to obtain the services of an engineer
officer, with a suitable number of trained men, sappers and miners,
under his command.
But for the construction and care of local works, sewers, roads, and
drains and houses, no qualification whatsoever is usually conceived to
be requisite. The chairman of the Holborn and Finsbury Commission of
Sewers, where a change of management so beneficial to the health, and so
economical of the funds of the ratepayers, was obtained by placing the
work under the direction of an engineer, informed me that when that
commission advertised for a person to act as surveyor to the works who
understood the use of the spirit level, the candidates, who were nearly
all common housebuilders, were greatly surprised at the novel demand,
and several of them began to learn the use of that instrument in order
to qualify them for the appointment. In the canvassing letters which I
have seen for parochial or local surveyorships, I never observed
qualifications for skill or science even adverted to; and where a
special qualification happens to be prescribed by statute, it is not
regarded. For example, the Act of the 5 and 6 _Wm._ IV. enables the
parochial vestries to appoint as surveyor a person of “skill and
experience” to serve the office of surveyor of such parish. As an
example of this description of appointments, I may mention one where, in
an important district, the person appointed was an illiterate tinman, a
leading speaker at parish meetings, who, for a service occupying a part
of his time, receives a salary of 150_l._ per annum, _i. e._, as much as
a lieutenant of engineers and a private, or as much as three sergeants
of sappers and miners, whose whole time is devoted to the public
service.
The mode in which such emoluments are at present wasted in the course of
administration under the Building Acts, and the extent of science and
skill that might be obtained for all purposes by the same amount of
money, may be seen by the rate of surveyors’ emoluments for a single
town. I submit, for example, the town of Leeds. There the average rate
of increase of houses having been 855 per annum, and of families 940, it
may be assumed that they will continue to increase at the same rate,
that is, of two new houses and three-tenths per diem, which, if they
were only fourth-rate houses, would be required to pay in fees 4_l._
12_s._ per diem for two or three hours’ service at the ordinary rate of
payment to private surveyors. If we bear in mind the evidence as to the
character of the past appointments, and of the works themselves, and
consider that, where no securities are taken for qualifications, none
will be found except by accident, the contrast with the payment for the
services of men of superior qualifications will be clearly perceived.
Such an amount of emolument would defray the expense of a whole Board of
superior officers at the rate of pay to the officers of the corps of
engineers:—
_Board of Officers._
£. _s._ _d._
1 Colonel 1 6 3
1 Lieutenant-colonel 0 18 1
2 Captains, at 11_s._ 1_d._ 1 2 2
2 First lieutenants, at 6_s._ 10_d._ 0 13 8
2 Second ditto, at 5_s._ 7_d._ 0 11 2
—— —— ——
4 11 4