ON THE ROAD PROBLEM. 373 
The Road Problem. By the Right Hon. Sir J. H. A. Macponatp, 
K.C.B., F.R.S., Member of H.M. Road Board. 
[Ordered by the General Committee to be printed in extenso.] 
Tue present year is probably the first in the world’s history in which 
any national scientific association has condescended to allow the road 
to take a place in its syllabus. In the early part of the present year 
the Royal Institution gave a welcome to a paper on the Past, Present, 
and Future of the Road, and the members accorded an appreciative 
reception to it. Now, those who guide the proceedings of the British 
Association have asked that the subject should be dealt with by me, 
as a member of His Majesty’s Road Board, and it is a pleasure to 
respond. Tor there is nothing which that Board are more anxious to 
see than that an interest should be taken by the public in the improve- 
ment of roads, and that information regarding the work should be 
disseminated throughout the community. Those who have studied 
the matter are forced to the conclusion that want of attention to efficient 
road construction causes a national loss annually of millions of pounds 
sterling. There is vast loss in the wearing-out of traction animals and 
vehicles by the rough, uneven surface presented by our highways, 
made heavy by mud, and injurious to men and horses by dust. There 
is vast loss by injury to goods by the dust which penetrates every 
package of goods which is not hermetically sealed, and forces its way 
into our shops and houses. There is vast loss in the incapacity of the 
road user to cover any but the most limited distances by his horsed 
vehicles during the day’s work. There is vast loss from the insanitary 
conditions consequent upon the uncleanly state of the highway from 
the surfaces being such that insanitary matter not only lies upon them 
but lodges in them, and spreads mischief when it is dried into dust and 
blown into throats and into dwellings, carrying with it the seeds of 
disease, causing injury to health and even loss of life. There is vast 
loss in the expense caused by the filthy condition of the streets of our 
towns, such a town as London or even Dundee having to do scavenging 
upon such a scale that thousands upon thousands of tons of 
filthy insanitary matter have to be removed from the streets annually. 
In passing, I may mention as showing the greatness of this evil, and 
its diminution by the decrease in the number of horses—amounting in 
London already to at least 75 per cent.—that in the City of West- 
minster alone the amount of street filth to be removed has during the 
last five years diminished by 18,000 tons per annum. 
The making of a road did not interest man in early times. In the 
only two cases known in history where road-construction was 
systematically done, it was the military conqueror who did the work. 
When the Roman invaded our land he, to facilitate the movement 
