THE ROAD.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1039, 31 January 1911, Page 6

THE ROAD.

ITS UTOPIAN PHILOSOPHY, *A DUSTY- SERMON.' .

(By J.Q.X.)

- It has often been remarked that all ro;uls lead to Rome, but it is equally true that all roads kad to Wellington—also to ' Eketahuna, Hokianga, ■ and Upper Hutt. That is what I like about reads. They join every place to every other place. From my own front door tho road stretches, without a single barrier and with no other interruption than a few cornel's, to the gates of Government House and to Haining Street. For convenience wo speak of this and that street or road as if they were separate, but they are really one. The Road is an immense enclosure of mazy and niany-angkd shape, stretching over the whole country. Different councils, boards, and departments as woll as private persons, add bits to it here and there, and keep portions of it in order,' but the wayfarer passes from one district to another without, climbing a fenco or. paying., for aidmissioii. I have said it is one enclosure, but I only used that word for want of a truer. The Road is not enclosed at all. It has a thousand open ends on the beaches and the unpartitioned mountains. The grazed and cultivated lands, the building sections, the parks, and racecourses—theso are enclosures, but the Eoad is the great unenclosed space 'which contains them. This ,island is just one road with many encroachments—most ■of them bring, of course, quite proper, legal, and necessary. Nay, tho Hoad is not confincd to the North Island, nor yet to all the Iklands of New-Zealand, taken together.' It runs out sto the shipping upon a hundred wharves, and all the seas of the' carlh are part of it. The conquest of the air is But annexing it to the Road. The praise of roads as civilisers has been often-and rightly-sounded; It is not tho least of their services in this kind that they are tho greatest promoters of commerce. In a world where protective tariffs are still, in vogue, the. Road s a firm, and persistent Free-trader. Bastiat (one of the few .who have- seen that: political economy is really a gay and frisky science) relates that when the i railway (which, of course, is simply a specialised form of the Road) was to bs made from Paris to Bayonne, some of tho practical ■ people of - Bordeaux demanded that -it ■ should liavo . a

break at their town. This, they said, would cause work for carters cabdrivers and porters arid bring custom to their ,'shons and hotels'." ; But, if there must'.'be 1 a "gap' at Bordeaux, • why 'not (asked Bastiat, in 'effect)' a gap at every town on the.route?'. 'And why" not have all gaps and no railway, so that all the carters, 'coach-drivers, and hotel-keepers from Paris to Bayonno might continue to get .money by performing unnecessary, tasks? That would bo a'logical expression of. the ; spirit of Protection—hindering trado in Order to make work. Protection requires obstacles. Tho Road is a Free-trader, I honour the Road as tho great idealist, the co-operator, the Utopian, tho world-federator. It is purely the servant of mankind, but it is centuries ahead of its masters.--In making it, webuildeil better than, we knew. ■ 0 happy town beside the sea, Whose roads lead everywhere to all; Than thine .no. deeper moat can be, ; No stouter fence, no steeper wall!

! Thus ' Emerson, • apostrophising and •idealising the Boston of' the Pilgrims. But h'e r must have known that the roads of all towns lead everywhere. What ho had. in mind was a special' plenitude of that air of freedom, that readiness of access to Nature's storehouses, ■ that welcome to labour, all of which aro tho characteristics of now lands, tho sweet savour of pioneering life, and tho "impractical visions" which idealists .see dimly through the' smoke of modem cities.. ( lle,believed,,that it is such things, rather' than walls, whether, of fort, or tariff, that make' a nation strong. And ho was right, except that ho did.not distinguish "between "strength and safety. Tho nations to-day are busy diminishing thoir'strength to increase their safotv.' Tho Road seems to suggest that it will not always bo necessary to do that. "You mado me for' self-interest," thus its sermon runs, "and it is for the same motive that you continually change me. For self-interest you have destroyed tho toll-gates that'you once placed upon me,, you havo continued me across all your frontiers, and given 'irie tho oceo.us and the atmosphere. You do,not vet knowhow many more barriers your self-interest will-prompt .you to demolish. ■ You aro constantly 7 making me more, free, because thereby'' you- -make mo ■ more . serviceable. .1 am inconiparably your greatest international institution. ' All your tribes co-operate in nie. Thereby they may at length learn that all their prosperity and all thoir power come of working together.- 'My stones cry out, my dust whispers, every footfall on my all-endur-ing frame declares that strength comcs of service, and .that to throw down tho barrier is to raise up tho man."

Tho Road, as I have said, is in advance of its time. Sitting besido it, in • ono of its fairest places, where it runs whito along some green .valley, I coukl fancy that its dust is botli a surplice and a crown.