Political Commentary
Page 33
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Roman Roads
BY JANUS
S " OMEWHERE the other day," said Maggie, "I read that the celebration of Christmas was even older than Christianity. Perhaps the Romans learned to be such good soldiers by fighting their way to the counter during the Christmas rush."
" Except that the Romans would have had priority in Britain," I said, "and the local inhabitants would have had to make themselves scarce."
"Just what I have been reading about in your evening paper," said Maggie's brother Cromwell. " Mr. Ernest Marples must have wished himself back in the days of Tiberius when he was planning his shocking pink zone. The Romans had their own method of dealing with congestion. Whenever a crowd collected, they called the military and beat the daylights out of them. They made people do as they were told."
"That is certainly one way of dealing with the problem," I said. "Just refuse to let people in at all. Then there will be no cars, no buses, in fact no traffic.
" Bloggs had the same idea," said Cromwell. 'He says that in that way you deal with the root of the trouble instead of merely treating the symptoms. Mind you, he is not saying too much about it He is a great admirer of Mr. Marples, and what is more to the point he does not have much traffic for the West End of London. He likes the idea of a pink zone that keeps the police busy with other people's vehicles."
"Is what you were talking all about in the paper?" asked Maggie. "1 thought you were reading the film reviews."
"There is an account of the new film about Ben Hur," said Cromwell, "who was in the same boat as the Ancient Britons—except that it was a trireme instead of a coracle, and except that he was in occupied Palestine. There must have been a real risk in walking down Oxford Street in those days, Christmas or no Christmas. If you so much as looked into a shop window, you might find yourself arrested for loitering with intent and sent to the galleys."
As Good As It Sounds
"When you have seen the picture, let me know if it is as good as it sounds," I said.
You are on the wrong track this time," said Cromwell, "There seems no point in the contest. A chap tried to run a book on the result the other night from the back stalls, and was nearly sent to join Ben Hur at the oar. What is the use of a race, however spectacular, if you cannot have a hob or two each way?"
"It would certainly create the right atmosphere," I said. "From all accounts, the Romans spent a lot of time and money on the race track."
"Except when they were building roads," said Cromwell. "Highway development must have been something of an obsession with them. In this country alone, which as far as they were concerned was the end of the earth, they built hundreds of miles of roads, and I see that Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn said the other day they had only about 20,000 chariots. How they managed to get sanction for the capital expenditure year after year I cannot imagine."
"There could very well have been questions in the Senate about alt the money being spent on roads that hardly anybody used," I said.
It would certainly make a change if the same sort of question could be asked today," said Maggie.
"Perhaps road-making was cheap and chariots very expensive," I said, "so that when the cost was reckoned up it gave the impression that there must he a lot of traffic." Mr. Berm argued the other way round," said Cromwell. "He worked out that in seven years over £6,000m. has been spent on new road vehicles and on petrol and licences. This compared with the £295m. that went on new roads during the same period. Only one twentieth, as Mr. Benn put it."
You must explain the catch to me some time," said Maggie. "I seem to remember finding exactly the same brain teaser in Nmy Christmas cracker last year. I have forgotten the answer, or perhaps I could not understand it."
Mi,ssed a Great Chance
"Mr. Marples missed a great chance in his reply," I said, "of saying that the figures were not significant, because more than half of the £6,000m. went to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, so that the true proportion of road expenditure was as much as one tenth."
• " Bloggs agrees the Government are unfair to themselves about this," said Cromwell. "He says they should put a really substantial tax on road building—say five times the cost. Then the picture of road expenditure would look very much better."
"It would look even better if we actually had the roads," said Maggie. "Somebody said the other day that if the Romans had worked at the same rate as we do today they would only have built a couple of miles of road."
" Mr. Benn again," I said. "He has a nice touch with statistics. He calculates that at the present rate the Government are building six inches of road for every new vehicle."
"I agree with him that there again the Romans could teach us a thing or two," said Cromwell. "They knew nothing about bulldozers or mechanical shovels, but they had the right approach. When they felt the urge to build a road, they just built it. But what do you suppose happens today after the Government have decided on a bit of highway construction?"
"They follow the correct democratic procedure," 1 said with a certain •pride in British institutions.
'All very right and proper," said Maggie. "Suppose the road was planned to go through your back garden! "
"I should open a cafe and make a fortune," said Cromwell. " But I should need plenty of patience. There is still a long time to wait, because even when the objections have been dealt with we are . still only at the beginning. There are land plans to be prepared, approved and issued. As soon as this happens more objections flood in from the owners of the land, and the work of valuation goes on from the local officials to the Ministry headquarters and back again." • "Only when all that is over." I said, " is it possible to ask for tenders and to sort out which firm are going to do the work, if they have managed to stay in business while they are waiting."
"So at last we come to the point where the Romans started," said Cromwell.
"Tell me once again how it was they managed to get served before everybody else in the shops," said Maggie.