COMMISSION MOVED FOR. (Hansard, 7 May 1861)

§ MR. ALCOCK
said, he rose to move that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that She will be graciously pleased to issue a Royal Commision to inquire and report how far it may be desirable and practicable to substitute an equitable system of assessment in lieu of the present mode of maintaining the turnpike roads and bridges in England and Wales by tolls. He only asked the Government to follow out the course which had already been adopted in Scotland and Ireland. In his opinion the best plan would be to abolish the gates and tolls at once, and to raise by highway rates a sufficient sum to pay the interest of the debts for which they should be mortgaged. He had already submitted such a plan to the trustees of the Reigate road, with which he was connected, and it had been very favourably received. He, however, did not intend to make any suggestion to the House as to what was the best to be done; all he required was a Commission to inquire into the whole subject, with a view to some definite plan by which to secure the object he had in view. There 1718 were trusts in Essex receiving as much as £4,000 a year, and yet they had not got a penny of debt. The chief obstacle to turnpike toll reform was the surveyor's interest, as he might call it. The surveyor of roads had great influence over the country gentlemen, and thus the present system was maintained. There were 23,000 miles of turnpike roads in the country, and the bonded debt on those roads was about £5,000,000; and the whole cost of carrying out the scheme he proposed with regard to all the turnpikes and toll-paying bridges of the kingdom would, according to calculations which he defied the right hon. Baronet the Home Secretary to question, amount to only £790,000 per annum. A rate of 1¾d. in the pound on the real property of the country would provide that amount and more. He had been told by the Leatherhead trustees that they were anxious to get rid of their tolls, but the Secretary of State compelled them to renew their tolls for twenty-one years. Now, all he asked of the right hon. Gentleman was to do that for England which he had thrice done both for Ireland and Scotland, and he trusted, therefore, that he would not oppose the Motion.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS
said, that he could not vote in favour of the Motion. The question was, as the hon. Gentleman said, a very simple one; and he did not for a moment doubt that his calculations were all accurate, and that his plan if adopted would produce the results which he had promised. If that was so, however, there was no occasion to have recourse to the expensive, circuitous, and dilatory proceeding of issuing a Commission. All the facts were presented to Parliament in an annual statement prepared in the Home Office, and if there was a general opinion that turnpike tolls ought to be abolished, the materials for legislation were at hand, and there could be no difficulty in framing a measure to do away with them. Before adopting such a course, however, it might be wise to inquire what had been the result of the existing system. The revenue in 1837 was £1,500,000, and in 1858, the last year of which they had the accounts made up, it was only £1,000,000. The revenue was, therefore, diminishing, in consequence of the great diminution of receipts along the main lines of communication. Looking, on the other hand, at the charge, it was found that the repairs, which in 1837 cost £938,000, had diminished to £537,000, 1719 and the improvements, which in 1837 cost £202,000, had diminished to £36,000. Therefore, although the revenue had fallen off, the charge had diminished at least in in a corresponding degree. The bonded debt, which in 1837 was £7,000,000, was last year reduced to £4,900,000. That was a most satisfactory state of gradual reduction. The unpaid interest, which in 1837 was £1,000,000, had been reduced to £780,000. The financial state of turnpike trusts, therefore, was by no means unfavourable. Certainly the tax was an unpleasant one. It had unpleasant reminiscences for travellers,— Onward as we roll, Surgit amari aliquid, the toll. He did not think, however, that the House would be prepared to vote for the issue of a Commission, or to act upon the conclusion that the whole system of maintaining the roads by means of tolls ought to be abolished.

MR. J. H. PHILLIPS
said, he was glad to hear that the right hon. Gentleman would not assent to the issuing of the Commission of Inquiry, for there really was nothing to inquire into. He had no objection to the abolition of tolls, but he certainly objected to that being accomplished by the process of paying for them by the people of one district putting their hands into the pockets of another.

MR. PACKE
said, he would remind the hon. Member that roads and bridges were maintained from two different sources—the roads by tolls, the bridges by the counties, so that the Commission he proposed would have two different subjects to inquire into. He was glad the right hon. Gentleman was disposed to refuse an assent to the Motion.