WORKING OUT TAXES. 69 



undertake to say this, — that if a town will have good roads and 

 appropriate money to keep them in thorough repair, they will 

 find it for their advantage ; their property will be enhanced in 

 value enough to pay for the outlay. 



I do not mean to say, I repeat, that a little town away back 

 here with half a million of property, or the town of Newton 

 even, with its twenty millions of property, can afford to build 

 80-feet highways and macadamize them all this year or next. 

 It would put a debt on the town that it could not bear. But I 

 say they can afford to improve their highways. All the towns 

 throughout the State can afford to change their system. I 

 would go for a change at once. I believe the legislature ought 

 to take up this matter, and declare that no town shall adhere to 

 tlie old system of working out their highway taxes ; that point 

 gained, it is something. Then there are several plans proposed 

 by intelligent engineers and others, to bring about an improve- 

 ment of the roads throughout the State. I am not competent 

 to decide which is the best plan of those suggested, but let us 

 so impress this matter upon the people of the State, that they 

 will wish to begin to improve their roads, as I think they can in 

 various ways. I know it is almost impossible in some cases. 

 A gentleman said, coming up in the cars : " How are you 

 going to improve the road from Truro to Provincetown, where 

 the land moves about every day ; where it is taxed in Truro, 

 and by the time the tax is collected, it has got down to Province- 

 town ? " I know it is difficult. The way they get a road 

 down there is by going back into the pastures and tearing up 

 the whortleberry bushes, like a leather apron, and spreading 

 them over the sand. But I submit it to you whether Province - 

 town could not afford to send to our friend Flint, who says he 

 will furnish plenty of material to macadamize any road, and 

 have some of this material shipped at once and put their high- 

 way in good condition ? I ask you if it would not be good econ- 

 omy in the end ? It strikes me so. But, in most cases, it is not 

 necessary to transport the material that distance. In many 

 towns of the State, there is plenty of material that would need 

 to be carted but a few rods, which, if properly applied, would 

 make these highways permanently good. I do not know how 

 long the Chestnut Hill road will last, but I will venture to say 

 that neither you, nor I, nor our children, nor our grand-chil- 



