ABSTRACT
The interest in good roads was, of course, due primarily to the necessity of providing the means for the conveyance of the raw material and manufactured products of a rapidly developing industrial people, including the means for their subsistence. In the words of Adam Smith, “Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expense of carriage, put the remote parts of the country nearly on a level with those in the neighbourhood of a town: they are, upon that account, the greatest of all improvements.” The problems pertaining to the use of broad and narrow wheels, weighing engines, the relative advantages of statute labour and assessments, proposed changes in the appointment of surveyors, the consolidation of turnpike trusts, and, in fact, everything connected with the improvement of roads, came in for extended consideration. The only important work done by Parliament before 1830 was a new codification of the laws pertaining to the roads.
