RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 77 



addition of vile grips cut across the road under the pretense of let- 

 ting off the water." 



On the hillsides in Wales the roads were described as "rocky 

 lanes, full of huge stones and abominable holes." Between 1760 

 and 1764 it is reported that no fewer than four hundred and fifty two 

 Acts of Parliament were passed for highway improvement, but these 

 affected little change for a long time. 



Mr. Herbert Smith, an English expert, in his book on Prin- 

 ciples of Landed Estate Management, writing of the attitude of 

 the rural population of England to roads in the latter eighteenth 

 and earlier nineteenth century, says: — 



So conservative were the masses of the people that the 

 improvement of the roads in many places of Great Britain 

 was strongly opposed and in certain places entailed riot and 

 bloodshed; and even when roads had been made and improved, 

 country people in many districts refused to use them, but 

 their unreasonable conservatism was in the long run power- 

 less to stem the tide of improvement which gradually set in, 

 and brought the roads of the nation to their present admir- 

 able state and condition. Thus we see that the history of 

 road making in this country is, to some extent, a record of 

 the progress of its civilization. 



There is no greater hindrance to a successful agricul- 

 ture than the want of good roads. Railways have, of course, 

 conferred immense benefits. They have opened up the coun- 

 try and have generally increased the value of estates through 

 which they have passed, but railways alone are not enough; 

 it is often pointed out that estates, even if lying a long distance 

 from a railway, provided the communication in the shape of 

 roads between the railway and themselves is good, have bene- 

 fited more than an estate immediately adjacent to a railway 

 but not possessed of adequate means of communicating with it. 



Good roads are almost essential to high farming, and 

 farms are increased in value by the existence of them to an 

 extent which it is impossible to over-estimate . . . There 

 can be no better investment for a landed proprietor than 

 the opening up of his property by the formation of good and 

 substantial roads. 



The point of view expressed by Mr. Smith may be said to be 

 also that of the landowners of England who, for the past fifty years 

 at least, have shown their faith in good roads as a means of improving 

 the value of their property. Up till the time when the motor came 

 into general use, British roads were in excellent condition, and were 

 of adequate width to meet the needs of slow-going traffic. But the 

 coming of the motor has made it necessary to improve the surfaces 



