HIGHWAYS 



in twelve miles ; in another, thirty might be travelled without a 

 single payment. The financial chaos of the trusts, as well as the 

 inadequacy of the statute labour, gave a fresh impulse to the 

 ultimate triumph of the rival principle of a rate. Already Justices 

 in Quarter Sessions had been empowered to levy a rate, assessed on 

 the principle of the poor-rate, for general purposes of highway 

 maintenance when other means proved insufficient, for the purchase 

 of road material, and to buy land for the widening of highways. 

 Already also the liability for statute labour might be compounded 

 by the payment of a money equivalent. In 1835 these principles 

 were extended by an Act 1 which abolished statute labour and 

 substituted highway rates for the maintenance of all minor roads. 

 The abolition of statute labour was a severe loss to the turnpike 

 trusts, to whom the legislature still looked for the repair of important 

 highways. In 1839, four years after the passing of the Highway 

 Act, a Select Committee reported that in some instances the creditors 

 of turnpike trusts had seized the tolls to secure payment of the 

 interest on their mortgages, and that nothing was available from that 

 source for road-repair. The development of railways struck the 

 trusts another blow, for the decay of the coaching-traffic deprived 

 them of one of the chief sources of their revenue. Their financial 

 position went from bad to worse. Drastic action was needed. 

 The powers of the Home Office to refuse the renewal of Turnpike 

 Acts were in 1864 transferred to a Select Committee of the House of 

 Commons. The new authority acted with vigour. Roads were 

 dis-turnpiked at the average rate of 1,500 miles a year. 



The extinction of turnpike trusts threw upon local ratepayers a 

 heavy burden. Their existence had not relieved the parish from its 

 old liability : their removal revived that liability in the form of 

 increased rates. In rare instances, individuals were liable by tenure 

 or prescription for the repair of portions of public roads. But, 

 speaking generally, the parish was always responsible for the main- 

 tenance of the highways within its area. For a time, turnpike roads 

 had been partly maintained by the tolls which the trustees were 

 authorised to raise. Yet whenever the trusts neglected their work, 

 became bankrupt, or were extinguished, it was the inhabitants of the 

 parish, not the trustees, who were subject to indictment for failure to 

 maintain the roads. Tolls were subsidiary to local labour and local 

 rates ; they Avere substitutes for neither. Now that they were 

 1 5 and 6 Wm. IV. c. 50. 



