The Welsh toll-riots have comparatively subsided ; it appears that
the military will not be resisted ; and positive insurrection is quelled. It is unfortunate that positive insurrection seems to have been the only thing to draw attention to the real and galling griev- ances that provoked it. From clearer explanations that have re- sulted from the disturbance, and the curiosity which it excited, we learn the nature of an oppression which sounded paltry enough. The tolls of that part of the country are farmed, and it seems that the toll-contractors must compete very much for Very small profits ; for they can only pay themselves by screwing the last farthing out of the passengers. In order to that, they not only pot up so many toll-gates that the average is one to three miles—in one place there are eleven toll-gates within nineteen miles—but every by-road and outlet from the main way has its toll. The consequence is, that the operations of the farmers—,their removal Of produce, nay, the very making of their own lime for manure, and its carriage to the field—subject them at every turn to the payment of very high tolls. In some instances the by-roads are paid for by rates and again in these tolls! It is a kind, of tax-manifestly ill-contrived, and vexatiously exacted, in palpable money, many times a week, or even many times in one day. We grumble at the Income-tax twice or four times a year ; but this toll is something like an in- come-tax, or at least a produce-tax, levied daily. The payers re- sent it ; "sympathizers" fan the flame ; they raise a general com- motion; and then they are attended to. What a lesson to teach the people, while they are preached to in Northern England and Ireland about the needlessness and profitlessneos of popular conk} . motion! It is an illustration of the wisdom of leaving every thing) to "the department," or "the local authorities.? An abuse does not reach the ears of our rulers, or does not eneege their attention, till it has provoked a district comprizing whole counties to the verge of rebellion. A word from the Home Minister might early have set the Welsh road-mismanagers on a better track. If they cannot have by-roads except at the expense of insurrection, it were better to have no by-roads at all: if the farmers will have by-roads, see that they duly assent to pay for them; but do not let the business of road-trustees come to be transacted between a magistrates' committee of safety and a convention of delegates from armed rebels !
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