For a country, so very far behind us as Ireland, to have got suddenly so
much the start of us in the article of roads, is a spectacle that cannot
fail to strike the English traveller exceedingly. But from this
commendation the turnpikes in general must be excluded; they are as bad
as the bye-roads are admirable. It is a common complaint that the tolls
of the turnpikes are so many jobs, and the roads left in a state that
disgrace the kingdom.
The following is the system on which the cross-roads are made. Any
person wishing to make or mend a road has it measured by two persons, who
swear to the measurement before a justice of the peace. It is described
as leading from one market-town to another (it matters not in what
direction), that it will be a public good, and that it will require such
a sum per perch of twenty-one feet, to make or repair the same. A
certificate to this purpose (of which printed forms are sold), with the
blanks filled up, is signed by the measurers, and also by two persons
called overseers, one of whom is usually the person applying for the
road, the other the labourer he intends to employ as an overseer of the
work, which overseer swears also before the justice the truth of the
valuation. The certificate thus prepared is given by any person to some
one of the grand jury, at either of the assizes, but usually in the
spring. When all the common business of trials is over, the jury meets
on that of roads; the chairman reads the certificates, and they are all
put to the vote, whether to be granted or not. If rejected, they are
torn in pieces and no further notice taken; if granted, they are put on
the file.
This vote of approbation, without any further form, enables the person
who applied for the presentment immediately to construct or repair the
road in question, which he must do at his own expense; he must finish it
by the following assizes, when he is to send a certificate of his having
expended the money pursuant to the application; this certificate is
signed by the foreman, who also signs an order on the treasurer of the
county to pay him, which is done immediately. In like manner are
bridges, houses of correction, gaols, etc. etc., built and repaired. If
a bridge over a river which parts two counties, half is done by one and
the other half by the other county.
The expense of these works is raised by a tax on the lands, paid by the
tenant; in some counties it is acreable, but in others it is on the
plough land, and as no two plough lands are of the same size, is a very
unequal tax. In the county of Meath it is acreable, and amounts to one
shilling per acre, being the highest in Ireland; but in general it is
from threepence to sixpence per acre, and amounts of late years through
the whole kingdom to one hundred and forty thousand pounds a year.
The juries will very rarely grant a presentment for a road which amounts
to above fifty pounds, or for more than six or seven shillings a perch,
so that if a person wants more to be made than such a sum will do, he
divides it into two or three different measurements or presentments. By
the Act of Parliament, all presentment-roads must be twenty-one feet wide
at least from fence to fence, and fourteen feet of it formed with stone
or gravel.
As the power of the grand jury extends in this manner to the cutting new
roads where none ever were before, as well as to the repairing and
widening old ones, exclusive, however, of parks, gardens, etc., it was
necessary to put a restriction against the wanton expense of it. Any
presentment may be traversed that is opposed, by denying the allegations
of the certificate; this is sure of delaying it until another assizes,
and in the meantime persons are appointed to view the line of road
demanded, and report on the necessity or hardship of the case. The
payment of the money may also be traversed after the certificate of its
being laid out; for if any person views and finds it a manifest
imposition and job, he has that power to delay payment until the cause is
cleared up and proved. But this traverse is not common. Any persons are
eligible for asking presentments; but it is usually done only by resident
gentlemen, agents, clergy, or respectable tenantry. It follows
necessarily, that every person is desirous of making the roads leading to
his own house, and that private interest alone is considered in it, which
I have heard objected to the measure; but this I must own appears to me
the great merit of it. Whenever individuals act for the public alone,
the public is very badly served; but when the pursuit of their own
interest is the way to benefit the public, then is the public good sure
to be promoted; such is the case of presentment of roads: for a few years
the good roads were all found leading from houses like rays from a
centre, with a surrounding space, without any communication; but every
year brought the remedy, until in a short time, those rays pointing from
so many centres met, and then the communication was complete. The
original Act passed but seventeen years ago, and the effect of it in all
parts of the kingdom is so great, that I found it perfectly practicable
to travel upon wheels by a map; I will go here; I will go there; I could
trace a route upon paper as wild as fancy could dictate, and everywhere I
found beautiful roads without break or hindrance, to enable me to realise
my design. What a figure would a person make in England, who should
attempt to move in that manner, where the roads, as Dr. Burn has well
observed, are almost in as bad a state as in the time of Philip and Mary.
In a few years there will not be a piece of bad road except turnpikes in
all Ireland. The money raised for this first and most important of all
national purposes, is expended among the people who pay it, employs
themselves and their teams, encourages their agriculture, and facilitates
so greatly the improvement of waste lands, that it ought always to be
considered as the first step to any undertaking of that sort.
At first, roads, in common with bridges, were paid out of the general
treasure of the county, but by a subsequent act the road tax is now on
baronies; each barony pays for its own roads. By another act juries were
enabled to grant presentments of narrow mountain roads, at two shillings
and sixpence a perch. By another, they were empowered to grant
presentments of footpaths, by the side of roads, at one shilling a perch.
By a very late act, they are also enabled to contract at three-halfpence
per perch per annum from the first making of a road, for keeping it in
repair, which before could not be done without a fresh presentment.
Arthur King, Esq. of Moniva, whose agriculture is described in the
preceding minutes, and who at that time represented the county of Galway,
was the worthy citizen who first brought this excellent measure into
parliament: Ireland, and every traveller that ever visits it ought, to
the latest time, to revere the memory of such a distinguished benefactor
to the public. Before that time the roads, like those of England,
remained impassable, under the miserable police of the six days' labour.
Similar good effects would here flow from adopting the measure, which
would ease the kingdom of a great burthen in its public effects
absolutely contemptible; and the tax here, as in Ireland, ought to be so
laid, as to be borne by the tenant whose business it is at present to
repair.
Upon the imperfections of the Irish system I have only to remark, that
juries should, in some cases, be more ready than they are to grant these
presentments. In general, they are extremely liberal, but sometimes they
take silly freaks of giving none, or very few. Experience having proved,
from the general goodness of the roads, that abuses cannot be very great,
they should go on with spirit to perfect the great work throughout the
kingdom; and as a check upon those who lay out the money, it might
perhaps be advisable to print county maps of the presentment roads, with
corresponding lists and tables of the names of all persons who have
obtained presentments, the sums they received, and for what roads. These
should be given freely by the jurymen, to all their acquaintance, that
every man might know, to whose carelessness or jobbing the public was
indebted for bad roads, when they had paid for good ones. Such a
practice would certainly deter many.
At 11,042,642 acres in the kingdom, 140,000 pounds a year amounts to just
threepence an acre for the whole territory: a very trifling tax for such
an improvement, and which almost ranks in public ease and benefit with
that of the post-office.