212 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



GOOD ROADS. 



BY HON. GEO. W. MCBKIDE OF GRAND HAYEN. 



I commence the discussion with knowledge that your people are aware 

 of the benefits that come from good roads. Holland is one of the pioneers 

 in this work, and the miles of graded and graveled roads that run out 

 from the city show that the primary objects of a good road have been 

 obtained. I therefore enter upon the discussion feeling that I have before 

 me those who are interested in the subject, and that have thought along 

 the lines of a bettering of the highways of the country. How shall this 

 be done, if at all, is the question that confronts us at the present time. 



Engineers give us a rule and an estimate of the cost of construction, that 

 runs into the thousands of dollars per mile. You and I are not prepared 

 to join with them in this expensive work. The taxpayer as a rule looks 

 upon this agitation as a scheme of wheelmen to extort money from the 

 pockets of the taxpayer. The contention of the good-roads men is now for 

 a money tax, a change of the present system of pathmasters, and a change 

 in the constitution of the state by which there can be a tax levied upon 

 the property now exempt. These changes are objected to on the part of 

 our farmer friends, upon the grounds that the changing of the present 

 labor tax to a money tax will add to the burdens of the taxpayer, and 

 the change of the S3^stem of pathmasters will make it possible for a man 

 to show favors and will act as a hardship; and the}' oppose the changing 

 of the law so as to make the non-taxable property liable for its share of 

 the highway tax. 



We at Grand Rapids submitted to the meeting the idea of changing the 

 labor tax to a money tax, with this proviso, that the highway tax could 

 be worked out as it may be now, asking only that a day's work done on the 

 road should equal that done by a man in the employ of the commissioner. 

 There is now taxable property in the state of Michigan of more than 

 twelve hundred million dollars' worth that does not pay a cent of high- 

 way tax. We ask that the tax may become a money tax so that it may 

 become a uniform tax and to apply to all alike. I would like to hear from 

 some man here, giving his reasons why such a change should not be made. 



We wish to do away with the present system of pathmasters, for the 

 reason that they are so many and of such a difference of mind and ideas 

 that they confound the system, and as a rule do not improve the highway. 

 The road work, we say, should be uniform, and under some competent 

 person who will and can give to it a thorough oversight, by which the 

 work in one part of a township shall be in line with that done in some 

 other part of the same town. We wish the law changed so as to make 

 this vast amount of property taxable. What is wrong with these propo- 

 sitions? Will some good friend ansAver? 



We are entering upon a new era all along the line of civilization. Men 

 are fast learning that the rule of the long ago is followed in the making 

 and kee])ing in repair our highways, that in almost every thing else we 

 are advancing, and changing for the better. Are we doing so with our 



