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Political Commentary

7th March 1952, Page 41
7th March 1952
Page 41
Page 41, 7th March 1952 — Political Commentary
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

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Elizabethan Age

I4AUDABLE as it may be to recall the achievements' of the past to inspire us for the future, those people who already talk confidently of a new Elizabethan age are .a little MO ready to assume that the reign of the first Elizabeth was glorious in every particular. They may be •right in ascribing to that• period a high spirit of adventure, great literary achievements and a vast field of corn for the harvesters of Hollywood 1 find no evidence that road Users were any better treated. in those days than they have been since. In spreading out his cloak before the Queen, Sir Walter Raleigh was making a silent but pungent comment on the shortcomings of the contemporary equivalent of the Minister of Transport.

"The roads are yours—use them" was formerly the motto of one of the transporfassociations. The Tudor public obeyed the injunction in the letter as well as the spirit. Nobody was debarred from using the road for practically any purpose he liked. On one occasion an Aylesbury miller wanted some clay and set his men to dig it from the middle of the road. At the end of a day's work there was a pit 10 ft. long, 8 ft. wide and 8 ft. deep, which soon filled with water. A glover returning from market to his home at Leighton Buzzard fell into the pit and was drowned. Accused in the local court of causing his death, the miller was acquitted, apparently on the grounds that he needed the clay and that the dead man should have known better than to keep to the road, besides coming from foreign parts which automatically put him in the • wrong.

The court had some justification for its decision. There was no licensing system to privilege or penalize the road user nor did he contribute towards the cost of road maintenance. Although nominally the local authorities were responsible for highways, the general belief was that roads made themselves. This belief the local authorities and landowners did little to dispel.

No Art or Science

Throughout the reign of Elizabeth, and indeed for a long period before and after, there was no art or science of road-making. Up to three years before she came to the throne, the Lord of the Manor was the sole highway authority charged with keeping in proper condition that part of any road passing through his demesne. The obligation was usually disregarded. Most of the work on the roads during the Middle Ages was carried out by the Church.

This state of affairs ended with the dissolution of the monasteries. As the Lords of the Manor were not coping with their task of looking after the roads, something had to be organized to carry on where the work of the Church had abruptly ceased. The Highway Act of 1555 was the first piece of legislation to deal with the upkeep of the roads. Under the Act each parish was made responsible for its roads. Every inhabitant had to give six days of his labour to the task in a year. Surveyors appointed by the Justices of the Peace were to oversee the work, make periodical inspections and submit reports.

Failure of the Act and of a good deal of supplementary legislation. cars be understood when it is learned that the surveyors were unpaid, that they were compelled to accept the job or to pay a heavy fine, and that they had no technical knowledge of roadmaking. , The forced labour of the local population was hound to be half-hearted, particularly when it was of the opinion that ISIOSt of the damage to the roads was caused by through traffic. The surveyor who pressed on energetically with his task was likely to make himself highly unpopular with his neighbours. The neglect of the roads continued and was aggravated by the rapid increase in traffic.

Elizabethans have a reputation for toughness which is borne out by the extensive use they made of their deplorable roads. The Queen would often go on• horseback, by far the most comfortable means in those days. When she had to travel by coach, she was on occasions so bruised by the journey that she found it necessaiy, to carry out her subsequent engagements standing up. No doubt the Queen had the benefit of whatever, steps could be taken to avoid discomfort. Her subjects grimly persisted with their clumsy vehicles, as innocent of tyres as of springs, and transferring to their intrepid occupants the full shock encountered from every bump and hollow in the road.

Carriers' Service . Even before Elizabeth's time, well-established services by carriers existed between the larger towns. A 16th-century writer describes the surprise of the King when on a journey out of London he was held up by a string of over 200 cloth-wains. Towards the end of her reign stage-wagons appeared on the roads, huge vehicles with hoods, drawn by eight to 10 horses. Each wagon, in addition to a heavy load of baggage, could carry 20 to 30 passengers. Progress was naturally slow, not more than 10 or 12 miles a day. The abnormal indivisible load presented formidable difficulties. Often the roads could support it only during a spell of hard frost or after a prolonged drought. Heavy timber needed for the shipbuilding industry might therefore take several years to reach the coast.

The Elizabethan roads, built with little skill and for the most part grossly neglected, were in no shape to withstand the growing volume and weight of Elizabethan traffic. During the reign complaints were made that the lumbering wagons, whose bone-shaking persistence was playing an indispensable part in building up the country's prosperity, were cutting the roads to pieces. For perhaps the first time the theory was propounded that, instead of making roads to fit the traffic, the traffic should be restricted to fit the roads. In the end the critics gained their point, although not until after the Queen's death. The first construction and use regulation was passed in 1621. It prohibited the use of anyfour-wheeled wagon or the carriage of any load exceeding one ton.

As often happens with legislation that is not generally accepted as in accordance with commonsense, neither this law nor the many others that followed it were closely regarded. The new Elizabethan period need not repeat the mistakes of its predecessor. It should certainly not perpetuate the.heresy that the user should adapt his purpose to the road rather than the other way round. The men of the 16th century had nobody to teach them how to make a good road and had not solved the problem of who ought to meet the cost.

Methods of road construction to-day are more than capable of taking the strain of modem traffic. Sufficient money to bring the road system up-to-date and to keep it in first-class shape is contributed by users in the form of taxation. To get the money back from the Exchequer so that it may be spent on the roads may not be easy but is not impossible.

Tags

Organisations: Carriers' Service
People: Walter Raleigh
Locations: London

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