156 OLD H<> ADS. PART 111. 



until these are made it is virtually closed. Freedom 

 itself cannot exist without free communication, every 

 limitation of movement on the part of the members of 

 society amounting to a positive abridgment of their 

 personal liberty. Hence roads, canals, and railways, by 

 providing the greatest possible facilities for locomotion 

 and information, are essential for the freedom of all 

 classes, of the poorest as well as the richest. By bring- 

 ing the ends of a kingdom together, they reduce 

 the inequalities of fortune and station, and, by equal- 

 izing the price of commodities, to that extent they 

 render them accessible to all. Without their assistance 

 the concentrated populations of our large towns could 

 neither be clothed nor fed; but by their instrumen- 

 tality an immense range of country is brought as it 

 were to their very doors, and the sustenance and em- 

 ployment of our large masses of people become com- 

 paratively easy. In the raw materials required for food, 

 for manufacturing, and for domestic purposes, the cost 

 of transport necessarily forms a considerable item ; and 

 it is clear that the more this cost can be reduced by 

 facilities of communication, the cheaper do these articles 

 become, the more they are multiplied, and so enter into 

 the consumption of the community at large. Let any one 

 imagine what would be the effect of closing the roads, 

 railways, and canals of England. The country would 

 be brought to a dead lock, employment would be re- 

 stricted in all directions, and a large proportion of the 

 inhabitants concentrated in the large towns must at 

 certain seasons perish of cold and hunger. 



In the earlier periods of English colonization roads 

 were of comparatively less consequence. While the 

 population was thin and scattered, and men lived by 

 hunting and pastoral pursuits, the track across the 

 down, the heath, and the moor, sufficiently answered 

 their purpose. Yet even in those districts unencumbered 

 with wood, where the first settlements were made 



