Ebook English Local Government

AT the beginning of the year 1913 the Story of the King's H ighway — an account of how, in England and Wales, the roads have actually been made and managed, from the earliest times down to the present day — may claim a certain topical interest. The advent on the roads of the automobile and the motor omnibus is producing effects, both on public opinion and on adminis tration, which are curiously parallel to those produced, three centuries ago, by the coming in of the carriage and the waggon. The New Users of the roads in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whose aggressions on the pedestrians and on the road surface were made the subject of persistent complaint in their day, are now themselves resenting the quite analogous aggres sions of the New Users of the roads in the twentieth century. A hundred years ago, as our eighth chapter relates, the country was saved by Pontifex Maximus Telford and Macadam the Magician. We do not find ourselves able to foretell the name of our twentieth-century deliverer, nor even the message that he will bring, or the office that he will hold! We limit our suggestions or predictions to the last two pages.