Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1885-04-10
4 STATE Road LAW,

attention of the members who are to COM
pose the Farmers Convention at Rich
mond next week to the Importance of de-
handing State road law. We had all
just as well admit that as long as the max
ing of the roads Of Virginia is left to the
counties, we are not to have the good
roads so important to increasing the
value and saleability of our lands and
making our State attractive to inning
rants. No one man may be able to give
the reason for this, but there is hardly
one man who won't concede the fact. The
counties have had general road laws,
special road laws, amended road laws, for
now twenty years under our new system,
and not county in Virginia has better
roads now than it had twenty years ago.
We don't that mean no county can
boast a better road, may be two of them
for sLort stretches, but no county has bet
ter roads. There ought to be State road
law by which all should be taxed, cities
and counties, for it is absurd in equity for
four or five thousand people to huddle
themselves together in Incorporated limits,
improve dozen streets and thus evade
their share Of the general improvement of
the State. The absurdity is still moro ap-
parent when four or five hundred people
can do the same thing-as they can under
a charter. There is no injustice in requir-
ing city or Incorporated town to pay
road tax; SO far from it, they often as
sumo heavy railroad tax for their own
benefit. Nor is there mach. If any, opposi-
ton in city, to being taxed for roads if
it's Inhabitants could be assured that the
system would be general instead of a series
of patches. The same may be said of the
county citizen. He don't want to be taxed
for a few straight strings of roads built
miles away from his property, and
which he may not drive over half-dozen
times during his life. 1t is not that the
town people are too stingy to see that a
little taxpaying will repay them an hun
dred fold in the way of increased trade and
augmented property, but because both
have seen from twenty years experience
that no system OF road making in Virginia
that is not general and compulsory from the
start, is going TO advance with certainty
and rapidity enough to improve the coun-
try in their generation or that of their
children. Practical men of this day have
an eye more single to themselves than to
posterity. We think the most experienced
men of our vicinity will readily admit that
all the county road laws passed since 1870
in Virginia have been only Git to repair
and tinker ready-made roads with, and not
to give good system Of roads to any
county. One had as well expect to make
a new pair of boots by half-soling an old
pair, as to give to Virginia good and, to
foreign immigration, attractive system of
roads under these laws. The old bugaboo
of which we 80 often hear that under
State road law the taxes Of the Valley
would go to help East Virginia, is without
foundation and should by this time be
worn too thin to be used as an argument.
Under proper State road law the money
of the Valley would be spent in the Valley
and not dollar of 1t would go elsewhere
in the State.
We believe that Virginians, all over the
State, are opening their eyes to the i'm
portance Of making our roads under State
supervision. OF the lately expressed views
of this journal on that point. the Freder-
icksburg "News" says:
Tho fo1Iouipn MI o1n o,ob4 10 bo o;,o,,I.
ted in every county of Virginia and read by
all the delegates to the Agricultural Conven-
ton to be held in Richmond on April 18th.
1t is from the Stanton VINDIcAToR (appro-
priately,) and very much to the point, both
in style and application. We commend it to
the counties and the convention, the delegates
and their discussions for the welfare of the
old State.
Of the same article the Amherst "Dsm-
ocrat'' says its shifts the nail On thu head''
and adds the following comment with
which we are sure all will agree:
There is no other investment which could
be made for the public benefit that would be
30 rsplete with good and permanent results as
the passage of good and efficient road law.
This is necessity which stares US in the face
day after day, and we constantly experience
the inconvenience which arises from the lack
of such law. Our farmers are literally the
backbone of our State and 1t is they who elect
our representatives. Let them lay stress up-
on this question all over the State and let