applied to any other purpose, or to supply
the common exigencies of the state. When
it is applied to the sole purpose above mentioned,
each carriage is supposed to pay exactly
for the wear and tear which that carriage
occasions of the roads. But when it is applied
to any other purpose, each carriage is
supposed to pay for more than that wear and
tear, and contributes to the supply of some
other exigency of the state. But as the turnpike
toll raises the price of goods in proportion
to their weight and not to their value, it
is chiefly paid by the consumers of coarse
and bulky, not by those of precious and light
commodities. Whatever exigency of the
state, therefore, this tax might be intended
to supply, that exigency would be chiefly
supplied at the expense of the poor, not of
the rich; at the expense of those who are
least able to supply it, not of those who are
most able.
Thirdly, If government should at any time
neglect the reparation of the high-roads, it
would be still more difficult, than it is at present,
to compel the proper application of any
part of the turnpike tolls. A large revenue
might thus be levied upon the people, without
any part of it being applied to the only
purpose to which a revenue levied in this
manner ought ever to be applied. If the
meanness and poverty of the trustees of turnpike
roads render it sometimes difficult, at
present, to oblige them to repair their wrong;
their wealth and greatness would render it
ten times more so in the case which is here
supposed.
In France, the funds destined for the reparation
of the high-roads are under the immediate
direction of the executive power.
Those funds consist, partly in a certain number
of days labour, which the country people are
in most parts of Europe obliged to give to the
reparation of the highways; and partly in
such a portion of the general revenue of the
state as the king chooses to spare from his
other expenses.
By the ancient law of France, as well as
by that of most other parts of Europe, the
labour of the country people was under the
direction of a local or provincial magistracy,
which had no immediate dependency upon
the king's council. But, by the present
practice, both the labour of the country people,
and whatever other fund the king may
choose to assign for the reparation of the
high-roads in any particular province or generality,
are entirely under the management
of the intendant; an officer who is appointed
and removed by the king's council who receives
his orders from it, and is in constant
correspondence with it. In the progress of
despotism, the authority of the executive
power gradually absorbs that of every other
power in the state, and assumes to itself the
management of every branch of revenue
which is destined for any public purpose. In
France, however, the great post-roads, the
roads which make the communication between
the principal towns of the kingdom, are in
general kept in good order; and, in some
provinces, are even a good deal superior to
the greater part of the turnpike roads of
England. But what we call the cross roads,
that is, the far greater part of the roads in
the country, are entirely neglected, and are
in many places absolutely impassable for any
heavy carriage. In some places it is even
dangerous to travel on horseback, and mules
are the only conveyance which can safely be
trusted. The proud minister of an ostentatious
court, may frequently take pleasure in executing
a work of splendour and magnificence,
such as a great highway, which is frequently
seen by the principal nobility, whose
applauses not only flatter his vanity, but even
contribute to support his interest at court.
But to execute a great number of little works,
in which nothing that can be done can make
any great appearance, or excite the smallest
degree of admiration in any traveller, and
which, in short, have nothing to recommend
them but their extreme utility, is a business
which appears, in every respect, too mean
and paltry to merit the attention of so great a
magistrate. Under such an administration,
therefore, such works are almost always entirely
neglected.
In China, and in several other governments
of Asia, the executive power charges itself
both with the reparation of the high-roads,
and with the maintenance of the navigable
canals. In the instructions which are given
to the governor of each province, those objects,
it is said, are constantly recommended to
him, and the judgment which the court forms
of his conduct is very much regulated by the
attention which he appears to have paid to this
part of his instructions. This branch of
public police, accordingly, is said to be very
much attended to in all those countries, but
particularly in China, where the high-roads,
and still more the navigable canals, it is pretended,
exceed very much every thing of the
same kind which is known in Europe. The
accounts of those works, however, which have
been transmitted to Europe, have generally
been drawn up by weak and wondering travellers;
frequently by stupid and lying missionaries.
If they had been examined by
more intelligent eyes, and if the accounts of
them had been reported by more faithful
witnesses, they would not, perhaps, appear to
be so wonderful. The account which Bernier
gives of some works of this kind in
Indostan, falls very short of what had been
reported of them by other travellers, more
disposed to the marvellous than he was. It
may too, perhaps, be in those countries, as it
is in France, where the great roads, the great
communications, which are likely to be the