This Bill gave rise to a curious wordy warfare, which was carried on for some years, and may be said to have interested people in the general questions of wheeled traffic right on until the time when McAdam’s schemes altogether altered general opinion. This war, of course, hardly touched private carriages, but was waged in so many quarters and with such various weapons that it deserves some mention in any account of carriages.
It was immediately “objected by multitudes” that the Bill of 1745 would “greatly enhance the price of carriage of goods,” but its apologists argued that even if it did, better-designed carriages and carts would be built, so that the roads would improve, and the price of cartage ultimately go down. “It is urged,” they said, “that light carts or waggons may be used, and the horses draw double, as in the rabbet waggons of Norfolk, which improves the road and contributes to expedition.”
At an early stage in this war two factions arose. On the one hand you had coachbuilders and others filling the newspapers and publishing tracts, some very serious, some extraordinarily mathematical, others merely facetious, to prove that the roads could be preserved only by using very broad wheels—some, indeed, advocated rollers, which, as we shall see, were actually tried—and on the other hand you had people filling more columns, and very dull columns some of them were, to show that a low broad wheel was the one thing which no really satisfactory vehicle could possibly possess. These were the apologists for the lighter waggons with large but slender wheels. Decrease your weight, said they, and never mind about the wheels; it is the great weight that ruins the roads. How can you decrease the weight, asked the broad-wheel faction, without increasing the cost of carriage? Increase the cost of carriage for a while, was the reply, and see what happens to the roads.
For a time, however, the broad-wheel faction held the advantage, and when further legislation was made in 1754, it was entirely in their favour.
“It is enacted that after next Michaelmas, no wheel carriage of burthen (except it be drawn by oxen only, or if by horses with less than five, if a four-wheeled carriage, with less than four) shall travel any turnpike road, unless the fellies of the wheels shall be nine inches from side to side under a penalty of £5, or the forfeiture of one of the horses, with all his accoutrements, to the sole use of the person who shall seize them.”