314 History of Inland Transport 



and McAdam, was in itself a most serious item, apart from 

 the excessive expenditure on administration. Dr James 

 Anderson says on this subject in the issue of his " Recreations " 

 for November, 1800 : 



" I have been assured, and believe it to be true, though I 

 cannot pledge myself for the certainty of the fact, that there 

 is annually laid out on repairs upon the road from Hyde Park 

 to Hounslow considerably above 1000 a mile. A turnpike 

 road cannot be made in almost any situation for less, as I am 

 told, than 1000 per mile ; but where it is of considerable 

 width, as near great towns, it will run from 1500 to 2000 per 

 mile ; and in annual repairs, including the purchase price of 

 materials, carting them to the road, spreading, raking off, 

 and carting away again, from 100 to 1000 a mile." 



The trustees generally raised loans to meet their first 

 expenses, payment of interest being guaranteed out of the 

 tolls levied ; but though, at one time, and especially before 

 the competition of railways became active, the security was 

 regarded as adequate, an unduly costly management, combined 

 with decreasing receipts from tolls, resulted in the piling up 

 of huge financial liabilities which the trusts found it im- 

 possible to clear off in addition to meeting current expenditure. 

 The Select Committee on Turnpike Trusts in 1839 reported 

 on this subject : " The present debt of the turnpike trusts in 

 England and Wales exceeds 9,000,000, and it is annually 

 increasing, in consequence of the practice prevailing in several 

 of the trusts of converting the unpaid interest into principal, 

 the trustees giving bonds bearing interest for the amount of 

 interest due." At this time there were no fewer than eighty- 

 four trusts which had paid no interest on loans for several 

 years, and there were said to be some trusts which had paid 

 no interest for sixty years. Sir James McAdam, son of John 

 Loudon McAdam, informed the Select Committee of 1839 that 

 the amount of unpaid interest on the trusts at that time was 

 1,031,096. 



In order to improve their financial position, the trustees 

 generally adopted the expedient either of seeking Parlia- 

 mentary authority to increase their tolls or of setting up the 

 largest possible number of toll-gates along their own particular 

 bit of road. In either case it was the road-user who paid. 



The Select Committee of 1819 reported that in the three 



