Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1885-04-12
s UNDAY.............APRIL IL, 1885.
Good Roads.

The Farmers Convention will assem-
BILE in this city on Wednesday next.
We published yesterday letter from
Minnesota giving some hints which may
be of service to the members OF that
body, and calling their attention to the
necessity, not only of having good bar
gains 10 offer TO settlers, but OF letting
the fact be known to the world.
Good roads are needed in Virginia;
and we were little surprised, when In
reading our Minnesota correspond
ept's letter. we found that he had not
emphasized this want. Certainly all
of us who have travelled over the State
and become familiar with its highways
and by-wsys must concede that good
roads are just what virginians cannot
boast Of.
"There is that scattereth and yet in
creaseth," says the Book Of Proverbs.
The money expended in making good
roads is money that is well expended
not only when comfort or convenience
is what we mean, but when the pecu-
niary results are taken into the account.
/, costs several thousand dollarsa square
to put down good pavements in cities
far removed from granite quarries;
but the payements are worth all
they cost. The city of Richmond con-
yerted the old Fair Grounds into a
park, and thereby made money. In
stead Of being an expense to the COM
munity, it became a means of replen-
ishing the city treasury. The money
expended in building the Pacific rail-
roads was repaid over and over again
a hundred times-in the increased value
of the lands lying on the line Of those
roads. In fact, many millions of acres
which had had no selling value became
at once marketable, and at fair prices.
We mean to say that one landowner
cannot afford to make good roads, but
that all of them together can afford to
do so, and when these roads are made
the landowners as a body will be
richer than they were before. There
fore, the work Of making good roads
must be done not by small commune
ties or by neighborhood efforts, but by
communities rich enough to do the
work without experiencing any undue
inconvenience whilst it is in progress,
and large enough to insure that the re-
turns shall exceed the outlay-rich
enough and large enough Including
populousncss) to make it come under
the rule that "there is that scattereth
and yet increaseth."
We agree with the Stanton Tindica-
tor that no system of rosd-making in
NHkillih Nlht 10 nv ycHt'Ut anu SOhi-
pulsory from the start is going to adj
vance with certainty and rapidity enough
to improve the country in our day and
generation. The public highways, like
the public schools, must be made and
sustained by the whole Commonwealth
or they will not be made and sus-
tanned at all. Perhaps, in the case Of
the roads as in the case Of the schools the
State need only supplement the efforts
Of counties, cities, and districts. But
the law must be a State law. As we'll
try to build railroad by requiring
each magisterial district to build it
within its own borders as TO try to Sc
cure good county-roads in that way.
The people Of Virginia have relied upon
the counties long enough, and the roads
are no better now than they were fifty
years ago. Now let us see what virtue
there is in State law.