Book V, Chapter I, 6

When highways, bridges, canals, and the like are built and maintained in this way by the commerce conducted through them, they can be built only where that commerce requires them, and thus where it is proper to build them. Their cost, too, and their grandeur and magnificence must be suited to what that commerce can afford to pay. They must, accordingly, be built as they ought to be. No magnificent highway can be built through a desert country where there is little or no commerce, merely because it happens to lead to the country villa of the province’s intendant, or to that of some great lord whom the intendant finds it useful to court. No great bridge can be thrown across a river where nobody crosses, merely to embellish the view from the windows of a neighboring palace. Yet such things sometimes happen in countries where works of this kind are financed by revenue other than what they themselves can yield.

In several parts of Europe, a canal’s toll or lock duty belongs to private persons, whose own interest obliges them to maintain the canal. If it is not kept in tolerable condition, navigation stops altogether, and with it all the profit they can make from the tolls. If commissioners with no personal stake in those tolls managed them, they might take less care to maintain the works that generate them. The canal of Languedoc cost the king of France and the province upwards of thirteen millions of livres, which (at twenty-eight livres the mark of silver, the value of French money at the end of the last century) amounted to upwards of nine hundred thousand pounds sterling. When this great work was finished, the likeliest way to keep it in constant repair, it was found, was to grant the tolls to Riquet, the engineer who designed and directed the work. Those tolls now constitute a very large estate for the several branches of that gentleman’s family, who therefore have a strong interest in keeping the work constantly repaired. Had the tolls instead been entrusted to commissioners with no such interest, they might perhaps have been spent on ornamental and unnecessary expenses while the most essential parts of the works fell into ruin.

The tolls intended to maintain a highway cannot safely become private property. A highway, even if entirely neglected, does not become altogether impassable, as a canal does. Owners of highway tolls could therefore neglect repairs altogether and still collect very nearly the same tolls. It is proper, then, to place tolls for maintaining such a work under the management of commissioners or trustees.

In Great Britain, the abuses committed by trustees in managing these tolls have in many instances rightly drawn complaints. At many turnpikes, it has been said, the money collected is more than twice what would be needed to carry out the work as fully as possible, although the work is often done very carelessly and sometimes not done at all. It should be observed that the system of repairing highways through tolls of this kind is not very old. We should not be surprised, therefore, if it has not yet attained the perfection of which it seems capable. If unsuitable persons of little standing are frequently made trustees, and if suitable courts of inspection and account have not yet been established to oversee their conduct and reduce the tolls to no more than is needed for the work they are to undertake, the institution’s recent origin both explains and excuses these defects. The wisdom of parliament may gradually remedy most of them in time.

The money collected at the various turnpikes in Great Britain is thought to exceed the cost of road repairs by so much that the savings possible under careful management have been regarded, even by some ministers, as a great resource that might one day meet the needs of the state. It has been said that government, by taking the turnpikes into its own hands and employing soldiers who would work for a very small addition to their pay, could keep the roads in good condition at much less cost than trustees, who can employ only workers who live entirely on their wages. A great revenue, perhaps half a million [Since publishing the two first editions of this book, I have obtained good reason to believe that all the turnpike tolls collected in Great Britain do not yield a net revenue amounting to half a million; a sum which, under government management, would not suffice to keep five of the kingdom’s principal roads in repair], could supposedly be gained in this way without placing any new burden on the people. Turnpike roads might then contribute to the state’s general expenses as the post office does now.

I have no doubt that considerable revenue could be gained this way, though probably nowhere near as much as the proponents of the plan have supposed. The plan itself, however, appears open to several very serious objections.

First, if the tolls collected at turnpikes ever came to be regarded as a resource for meeting the needs of the state, they would certainly be raised whenever those needs were thought to demand it. Under the policy of Great Britain they would therefore probably rise very quickly. The ease of drawing a large revenue from them would probably encourage the administration to resort to this resource very often. It may be more than doubtful whether any economy could save half a million from the present tolls; but it can scarcely be doubted that a million could be saved from them if they were doubled, and perhaps two millions if they were tripled [I now have good reason to believe that all these conjectural sums are much too large.]. This great revenue, moreover, could be collected without appointing a single new officer to receive it. But as turnpike tolls rose continually in this way, they would soon become a great burden on the country’s inland commerce instead of facilitating it as they do now. The expense of moving all heavy goods from one part of the country to another would soon rise so much, and the market for all such goods would consequently shrink so much, that their production would be largely discouraged and the most important branches of domestic industry extinguished altogether.

Secondly, a tax on carriages proportionate to their weight, though a very equitable tax when devoted solely to road repairs, becomes very unequal when used for any other purpose or to meet the state’s general needs. When used solely for repairs, each carriage is supposed to pay precisely for the wear and tear it causes to the roads. For any other purpose, each carriage is made to pay more than that wear and tear and to contribute toward some other need of the state. But because the turnpike toll raises the price of goods according to their weight rather than their value, it is paid chiefly by consumers of coarse, bulky commodities, not by consumers of precious, light ones. Whatever need of the state the tax was meant to meet, therefore, it would be met chiefly at the expense of the poor rather than the rich: of those least able to pay rather than those most able.

Thirdly, if government ever neglected highway repairs, it would be even harder than it is now to compel the proper use of any portion of the turnpike tolls. A large revenue might thus be collected from the people without any of it being applied to the only purpose for which revenue collected in this way should ever be used. If the trustees’ low standing and poverty now sometimes make it difficult to require them to put right their misconduct, their wealth and power in the case imagined here would make it ten times harder.

In France, the funds set aside for highway repairs are under the direct control of the executive power. Those funds consist partly of a certain number of days of labor which rural people in most parts of Europe are required to devote to repairing highways, and partly of whatever portion of the state’s general revenue the king chooses to spare from his other expenses.

Under the ancient law of France, as under that of most other parts of Europe, the labor of rural people was directed by local or provincial magistrates who were not directly dependent on the king’s council. Under present practice, however, both their labor and any other fund the king chooses to assign to highway repairs in a particular province or generality are managed entirely by the intendant, an officer appointed and dismissed by the king’s council, from which he receives his orders and with which he corresponds continually. As despotism advances, the authority of the executive power gradually absorbs that of every other power in the state and takes charge of every branch of revenue devoted to a public purpose. In France, nevertheless, the great post roads connecting the principal towns of the kingdom are generally kept in good condition and in some provinces are considerably better than most English turnpike roads. But what we call the cross roads—that is, by far the greater part of the country’s roads—are entirely neglected, and in many places are utterly impassable to heavy carriages. In some places even travel on horseback is dangerous, and mules are the only means of transport that can safely be trusted. The proud minister of an ostentatious court may often take pleasure in executing a splendid and magnificent work, such as a great highway frequently seen by the leading nobility, whose applause not only flatters his vanity but helps sustain his standing at court. Yet to undertake a multitude of small works, in which nothing that can be done will make a grand appearance or stir the slightest admiration in any traveler, and which have nothing to recommend them but their extraordinary usefulness, seems in every respect too humble and petty a business for so great a magistrate. Under such an administration, therefore, such works are almost always wholly neglected.

In China and several other governments of Asia, the executive power undertakes both highway repairs and the maintenance of navigable canals. The instructions given to each provincial governor, it is said, consistently urge these matters upon him; the court’s judgment of his conduct depends heavily on how much attention he appears to have given to them. This branch of public administration is therefore said to receive much attention in all these countries, especially in China, where the highways and, still more, the navigable canals are claimed to far surpass anything of the kind known in Europe. The accounts of these works sent to Europe, however, have generally been written by credulous, wonderstruck travelers, often by foolish and dishonest missionaries. Were the works examined by more discerning eyes and described by more trustworthy witnesses, they might not appear so marvelous. Bernier’s account of some such works in Indostan falls far short of the reports of other travelers more inclined to marvel than he. Perhaps, too, the situation in these countries resembles that in France: the great roads and connections likely to be discussed at court and in the capital receive attention, while all the rest are neglected. Besides, in China, Indostan, and several other governments of Asia, the sovereign’s revenue comes almost entirely from a land tax or land rent that rises or falls with the land’s annual produce. The sovereign’s chief interest—his revenue—is therefore necessarily and immediately connected in these countries with cultivating the land and increasing both the quantity and the value of its produce. To make that produce as abundant and valuable as possible, however, one must secure for it the widest possible market, and consequently establish the freest, easiest, and least expensive communication among all parts of the country. Only the best roads and navigable canals can do this. In no part of Europe, by contrast, does the sovereign’s revenue come chiefly from a land tax or land rent. In all the great kingdoms of Europe most of that revenue may ultimately depend on the produce of the land, but the dependence is neither so immediate nor so evident. The European sovereign therefore feels no such direct call to increase both the quantity and value of the land’s produce or to provide the widest market for it by maintaining good roads and canals. Even if it were true—and I think it distinctly doubtful—that the executive power properly manages this branch of public administration in some parts of Asia, there is not the least likelihood that, as things now stand, it could manage it tolerably well anywhere in Europe.

Even public works that cannot earn revenue for their own maintenance, but whose benefits are almost confined to a particular place or district, are always better maintained by local or provincial revenue administered locally or provincially than by the general revenue of the state, which must always be administered by the executive power. If the streets of London were lit and paved at the treasury’s expense, would they be as well lit and paved as they are now, or even at as little cost? Moreover, instead of being raised through a local tax on the inhabitants of each street, parish, or district of London, the expense would then be paid from the state’s general revenue and thus raised by taxing all the kingdom’s inhabitants, most of whom gain no benefit whatever from lighting and paving London’s streets.

When roads, bridges, canals, and similar works are built and maintained with money from the commerce that uses them, they can be built only where that commerce needs them. That is where they should be built. Their cost, size, and splendor must also match what the commerce can pay. So they must be built in a suitable way. No one could build a splendid highway through a desert with little or no commerce just because it leads to a provincial intendant's country house, or to the house of a great lord whom the intendant wants to flatter. Nor could anyone build a great bridge where nobody crosses the river simply to improve the view from a nearby palace. Yet such things sometimes happen where these works are paid for from revenue other than what the works themselves bring in.

In several parts of Europe, private people own the tolls or lock fees on a canal. Their own interest makes them maintain it. If they fail to keep it in reasonable condition, boats cannot use it at all, and they lose all the profit from its tolls. Commissioners with no personal interest in the tolls might take less care of the works that earn them. The canal of Languedoc cost the king of France and the province more than thirteen millions of livres. At twenty-eight livres per mark of silver, the value of French money at the end of the last century, that came to more than nine hundred thousand pounds sterling. Once this great work was finished, it was decided that the best way to keep it in constant repair was to give its tolls to Riquet, the engineer who designed and directed it. Those tolls now provide a very large estate for the different branches of his family. They therefore have a strong reason to keep the canal in repair. Commissioners without that interest might instead have spent the tolls on decorative and unnecessary things while letting the most important parts fall into ruin.

Tolls meant to maintain a highway cannot safely be made private property. A highway does not become completely impassable when wholly neglected, but a canal does. The highway toll owners could therefore neglect all repairs and still collect nearly the same tolls. The tolls for maintaining such a work should instead be managed by commissioners or trustees.

In Great Britain, people have rightly complained in many cases about trustees' abuse of their control over these tolls. At many toll gates, it is said, they collect more than twice what it would take to do the work thoroughly. Yet they often do it carelessly, or do none of it at all. Repairing highways with these tolls is a fairly recent system. We should not be surprised that it has not yet become as good as it could be. People unsuited to the job are often made trustees, and suitable courts to inspect their work and accounts have not yet been set up. Such courts could oversee their conduct and limit the tolls to what is just enough for the work. The system's recent origin both explains and excuses these defects. With wise action by parliament, most of them can gradually be fixed in time.

Some believe the money collected at Great Britain's toll gates exceeds the cost of repairing the roads by so much that careful management could yield great savings. Even some ministers have seen these savings as a major resource for the state's future needs. It has been said that the government could take over the toll gates and use soldiers to maintain the roads. Soldiers would do the work for a small addition to their pay. This would cost much less than employing the trustees' workers, who must live entirely on their wages. It has been claimed that this could bring in a large revenue, perhaps half a million [Since publishing the two first editions of this book, I have got good reasons to believe that all the turnpike tolls levied in Great Britain do not produce a net revenue amounting to half a million; under government management, that sum would not suffice to keep five of the kingdom's main roads in repair], without adding any new burden on the people. Toll roads could then contribute to the general cost of government, just as the post office now does.

I have no doubt this plan could raise a considerable revenue, though probably far less than its promoters suppose. But the plan itself seems open to several serious objections.

First, if tolls at the gates ever became a source of funds for the state's needs, they would certainly rise whenever those needs were thought to require it. Under Great Britain's policies, they would probably rise very quickly. The ease of getting substantial revenue from them would probably make the government use this source very often. It may be more than doubtful whether even careful management could save half a million from today's tolls. But if the tolls doubled, it seems likely that a million could be saved; if they tripled, perhaps two millions [I now have good reason to believe that all these estimated sums are far too large.]. This revenue could also be collected without appointing a single new officer. But tolls raised over and over in this way would soon become a heavy burden on inland commerce rather than helping it, as they now do. Transporting heavy goods across the country would quickly become much more costly. Their market would therefore shrink so much that producers would largely stop making them, and the most important branches of domestic industry would be wiped out altogether.

Secondly, a tax on carriages based on their weight is quite fair when used only to repair roads. It is very unfair when used for anything else, including the ordinary needs of the state. In the first case, each carriage is understood to pay exactly for the wear it causes. In the second, each carriage pays for more than that wear and contributes to some other state need. But a toll gate raises the price of goods according to their weight, not their value. Buyers of coarse and bulky goods therefore pay most of it, rather than buyers of valuable, lightweight goods. Whatever state need the tax paid for, it would be met chiefly by the poor, not the rich. The people least able to pay would bear it instead of those most able.

Thirdly, if the government ever neglected road repairs, it would be even harder than it is now to force anyone to spend the tolls properly. The people might pay a large sum without any of it going to the only purpose for which tolls should ever be collected. Today, trustees' low standing and poverty sometimes make it hard to force them to put right their wrongdoing. It would be ten times harder to compel the wealthy and powerful government in this case.

In France, money set aside for highway repairs is directly controlled by the executive power. It comes partly from a required number of days of labor by rural people, as is common in most of Europe. The rest comes from whatever portion of the state's general revenue the king chooses not to spend on other things.

Under the old laws of France, as in most other parts of Europe, local or provincial magistrates directed this rural labor. They did not answer directly to the king's council. Today, both the labor and any other funds the king assigns for highway repairs in a province or generality are entirely managed by the intendant. The king's council appoints and removes this officer, gives him orders, and stays in regular contact with him. As despotism grows, executive power gradually takes over the authority of every other part of the state. It takes charge of every source of revenue meant for a public purpose. In France, however, the main post roads connecting the kingdom's chief towns are generally kept in good condition. In some provinces they are much better than most English toll roads. But the cross roads, meaning the great majority of the country's roads, are entirely neglected. In many places heavy carriages cannot use them at all. In some places even riding a horse is dangerous, and only mules can safely carry travelers. A proud minister at a showy court may enjoy building a splendid highway. Important nobles often see it, and their praise flatters him and helps his standing at court. But small projects cannot make a grand impression or win a traveler's admiration, no matter how well they are done. Their only appeal is their great usefulness. Such work seems far too humble to deserve the attention of so important an official. Under that kind of administration, it is therefore almost always wholly neglected.

In China and several other Asian governments, the executive power takes charge of repairing highways and maintaining navigable canals. Provincial governors are said to be repeatedly instructed to attend to these works. The court judges them largely by how much attention they seem to pay to this duty. Public management of this kind is therefore said to receive much attention throughout those countries, especially China. Its highways, and even more its navigable canals, are claimed to surpass anything of the kind known in Europe. But accounts of these works sent to Europe have usually come from gullible travelers full of wonder, and often from foolish, dishonest missionaries. More capable observers and more reliable reports might have made the works seem less extraordinary. Bernier's account of such works in Indostan is much less impressive than the accounts of other travelers more inclined to marvel at them. These countries may also be like France. They may look after the main roads and connections likely to be discussed at court and in the capital while neglecting the rest. Moreover, in China, Indostan, and several other Asian governments, nearly all the sovereign's revenue comes from a land tax or land rent. It rises and falls with the land's annual produce. The sovereign's own revenue is therefore directly and necessarily tied to the cultivation of the land and to the amount and value of its produce. To make that produce as plentiful and valuable as possible, it needs the widest possible market. That requires the freest, easiest, and least expensive connections between all parts of the country, which only the best roads and navigable canals can provide. Nowhere in Europe, however, does the sovereign get most of his revenue from a land tax or land rent. In all Europe's great kingdoms, most revenue may ultimately depend on the produce of the land. But this dependence is neither so direct nor so obvious. A European sovereign therefore feels less direct pressure to increase the amount and value of that produce, or to provide it with the widest market by maintaining good roads and canals. Even if it is true that executive power manages this public service well in some parts of Asia—and I have considerable doubts that it does—there is no chance that, under present conditions, it could manage it reasonably well anywhere in Europe.

Some public works cannot bring in revenue to maintain themselves, and benefit mainly one place or district. Even these are always better maintained with local or provincial revenue managed by local or provincial officials than with the state's general revenue, which executive power must control. If London's streets were lit and paved at treasury expense, would they be lit and paved as well as they now are, or at as little cost? Instead of a local tax on the residents of each London street, parish, or district, the cost would come from general state revenue. All the kingdom's residents would therefore be taxed, though most would get no benefit at all from lighting and paving London's streets.