It is impossible to have a more vivid picture than this of the sudden impediment which the commercial enterprise of one country receives from the want of the commonest means of communication in another. The bullock-cart of Syria, and the Australian bullock-cart, would be useful instruments if they had roads to work in. But there must be general civilization before there are extensive roads. Carts and bullocks are of readier creation than roads. It has taken eighteen centuries to make our English roads, and the Romans, the kings of the world, were our great road-makers, whose works still remain:-- "labouring pioneers, A multitude with spades and axes arm'd, To lay hills plain, fell woods, or valleys fill, Or where plain was raise hill, or overlay With bridges rivers proud, as with a yoke."--PARADISE REGAINED. What the Romans were to England, the colonized English must be to Australia. But the discovery of great natural wealth, the vigour of the race, the intercourse with commercial nations of the old and new world, the free institutions which have been transplanted there without any arbitrary meddling or chilling patronage, will effect in a quarter of a century what the parent people, struggling with ignorant rulers and feeble resources, have been ages in accomplishing. It is encouraging to all nations to see what we have accomplished in this direction. In 1839 the turnpike-roads of England and Wales amounted to 21,962 miles, and in Scotland to 3666 miles; while in England and Wales the other highways amounted to 104,772 miles. The turnpike-roads were maintained at a cost of a million a year; and the parish highways at a cost of about twelve hundred thousand pounds. There were at that time nearly eight thousand toll-gates in England and Wales. There had been two thousand miles of turnpike-roads, and ten thousand miles of other highways, added to the number existing in 1814. But the improvements of all our roads during that period had been enormous. Science was brought to bear upon the turnpike lines. Common sense changed their form and re-organized their material. The most beautiful engineering was applied to raise valleys and lower hills. Mountains were crossed with ease; rivers were spanned over by massive piers, or by bridges which hung in the air like fairy platforms. The names of M'Adam and Telford became "household words;" and even parish surveyors, stimulated by example, took thought how to mend their ways.