Good Roads and the Public Welfare

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen:

I am sure that I appreciate very much receiving an invitation from your Club to come here and discuss with you for a little time today a question which, although belonging apparently to very commonplace matters, is to my mind one of very great importance. It has been my pleasant duty during the last twenty years to have gone throughout the Province of Ontario trying to create an interest among the people in the betterment of waggon roads.

In the first instance we had to make it prominent and clear that the object of the movement was not for the express purpose of raising or increasing the amount of money expended upon these roads, so much as it was a movement for the better organization of the forces which were at work at that time upon the roads. In order to do this successfully we had to attack in a rather strenuous manner the method, or system, which was then in operation and which had been followed for nearly one hundred years in this Province. In doing this we necessarily had to tread upon the toes of some of the more sensitive people who had come to the conclusion that the old system was one which they could not afford to discredit. It was looked upon as being the time-honoured system: the system of making macadamized roads with the labour of the individual.

There was a time in the history of the Province when this was a very strenuous task. The citizenship of early days was sparse and scattered over large areas, and the work of building a road, of draining the swamps, of bridging the streams, of laying corduroy in the marshy places, had to be done by the labour of the individual citizen without assistance in any way from Provincial or Municipal monies; and we all agree that all honour is which can be imposed, within a degree that is reasonable and properly expended, that will be of greater benefit, and bring about a more beneficial improvement to the people as a whole, than one devoted to the improvement of roads even outside the cities and towns.

I am exceedingly pleased that the citizens of Toronto should have decided to aid the farmers of the county of York in building roads. I appreciate the difficulty of County Councils, and Township Councils, in considering the question of the improvement of roads surrounding Toronto, in having to deal with the problem of traffic drawn from forty miles round Toronto, and being brought to the markets of Toronto. Start, for instance in the county of Simcoe, or Ontario, and as the city is approached the roads become more and more congested, and consequently the cost of maintaining the roads more and more expensive, and it would be unfair to make the people in the immediate vicinity of the city pay the whole cost of maintaining those roads. I do not believe that the solution of the problem could have been brought about had it not been for the generous spirit in which the citizens of Toronto consented to contribute $100,000 of the $300,000 required for the scheme, and thus assisted the farmers to carry out this work.

The improving of the roads means the bringing in of produce more regularly and uniformly. It means the bringing of it in to the city in better condition, the improved condition of the road will make the cost of transportation less and in this way give a greater return to the producer, while the producer can give a better article to the consumer at a less cost. In addition we find that improved roads surrounding large centres like Toronto are an agency for, and have a tendency to permit, the people to see more of each other, for the people of the city to go out among the people of the country thus breaking, to a great extent the isolation of the country, and having a tendency to relieve and elevate farmlife, and encourage improvement. When this is done we will get a better class of public men. It will also lead to the people of the cities going outside and buying large farms, spending their surplus cash in cultivating land in an intelligent way, in experimenting, and in demonstrating to the farmers what they can do to better their own condition, to make their own work more profitable, and to relieve farming of some of the distasteful feelings which some people have regarding it today.

There has been a great deal of progress made along these lines and more can be made, and it is a delight for me to find Clubs in these great commercial centres who will devote half an hour, once a year, to the consideration of this subject, encouraging the people to improve their roads and to have a good word for the work which they are doing. -We are beginning to see the importance of this matter to a far greater extent than we did a few years ago. I remember that when I was a City Engineer for a city in Ontario some years ago I followed the same old method of dumping gravel and sand. But the bicycle came looming on the horizon, and as soon as men became the propelling power of the vehicles which carried them, their attention was attracted to the condition of the roads. The bicyclist noticed every hole, rut, loose stone and bump. He became interested in grades, and what it meant to go round hills rather than climb them, and he began to write, criticise, and lecture me about my knowledge of road-making, and I began to realize that I ought to sit up and study a little, something about street-making and roadmaking. The bicycle was a wonderful instrument in favour of good roads, for it caused people to think.

Closely on the heels of the bicycle comes a more strenuous and more expensive vehicle known as the automobile. These vehicles are being driven all over the country; it is almost useless to start to run them for a few miles. People want to go from Montreal to Windsor, Toronto to Buffalo, all through the Province, at least where the roads are distinctly or fairly good. Now I tell you that .it is a perfectly serious thing for you who are users of the roads and these luxurious vehicles to consider whether you have the right to curse the farmer because he is not keeping his road in proper condition. It is difficult for him to do better, and I pause here to say, that if you are advocates of the improvement of the roads for the benefit of your automobiles the farmer may say

"We don't want your advice." He feels that if you are really conscientious in your desire for better roads then you will go out and give a day's statute labour, spend a dollar, and where there is a loose stone see to it, where there is a hole bring a spade, and where there is a rut level it up. In that way you can convince the farmer of your sincerity.

Some States in the Union are today discussing whether automobiles, or rather automobilists, should not contribute a special tax for the purpose of making special roads. I have frequently discussed the matter with automobile people, and I find them adverse to the plan of spending money through the ordinary municipal channels, where we find large amounts voted, and some wasted. Lay down a comprehensive plan for the making of improved inter-county roads and for keeping them right; and then if a special tax is placed upon the automobilists they will contribute and contribute liberally and generously.

I have in my mind a main Provincial road running along the shores of Lake Ontario from Montreal to Windsor, 500 miles. I have in my mind another main Provincial road running from the city of Toronto in a northerly direction, through the beautiful scenery of the Muskoka district, on through North Bay, to the Cobalt mining district, through the Temiskaming belt of two million acres, to the great sixteen million acres of clay belt, and on to Winnipeg. In addition to these I have in mind the construction of roads in the Southern and Eastern parts of the Province; from Fort Erie and Niagara Falls between the waters of the Thames River and Lake Erie, through Guelph and Palmerston, reaching to the Huron and Bruce districts, and giving to the Province a means of intercommunication which is comprehensive, and yet easy and simple. I think that automobilists would contribute an annual tax of $100 each towards the maintenance of such a system of roads, and if they cannot afford to do so then they cannot afford to run automobiles.

This one road, we will say from Montreal to Windsor, 500 miles, could be made a first-class road, macadamised and gravelled, for $3,000 a mile. Due and a half million dollars we will say. Ten thousand motors at $100 and one million dollars is provided, and surely the municipalities through which the road passes will contribute the small balance! I -would undertake to go out tomorrow and secure without any serious difficulty the remaining half million, anal in one or two years you would have something to show for the expenditure. In twenty years we have expended forty millions, and what have we got to show for it? A few patches of road in a few counties which illustrate the improved government system. These we hope may set an object lesson for the municipalities in the better way of making roads, but in addition to the plan for the making of good roads it must be remembered that you must also lay down a plan, a suitable system, for their maintenance. There are a few principles of road-making which must be observed. The foundation is the first thing to secure. Without a dry and unyielding foundation it is as useless to attempt to build a first-class road as a first-class building. Then the road must be shaped to shed the water, and ditched to carry it off at the sides, and it must be formed of broken stone properly prepared, and rolled so as to resist wear, and form a surface which will send the water into the ditches. These few principles must be adopted and observed. There is nothing mysterious about it, but it requires care and the closest attention possible to the rules if you are to have a proper road which will be a secure and profitable investment.

But if you build your five hundred miles of road you will afterwards require a proper staff of men to see that it is kept in proper repair. "A stitch in time saves nine." To keep up a road little attention is required, whereas if you once allow it to break it is only a matter of a few weeks before the passage of vehicles cuts into the foundation, and the road is practically destroyed. Judgment must be exercised in carrying on a campaign of education along these lines, to show people by simple methods of road-making that it is possible to protect your millions of expenditure and at -the same time give Properly-constructed roads which can be maintained at a fairly reasonable cost.

Gentlemen, there is no use in going further. This may appear a common-place problem, but while in my duty as Deputy Minister of Railways and Canals I am brought into contact most closely with the great transportation systems of the country, and look at this matter from the other end, I may say that it is of vital importance to have proper consideration of this question. We must not loose sight of the fact that while we have 8,000 miles of railroad entering into and covering this Province so closely that it is almost impossible to see where another railroad is required, we .have 60,000 miles of waggon roads, acting as feeders to the railways, carrying millions of tons of produce which would swamp the carrying capacity of all the railways and canals of the country. Close the waggon roads of Ontario and the railways would starve. They would be useless, and if we consider our great transportation problems it is as necessary to consider them from the one end as from the other. I lave been twenty years studying the elementary part of the system, and I have now developed a natural respect, from their vital importance, for the common waggon roads of the country.