The advantage of authorizing parish officers to contract with the commissioners for the repair of the roads passing through the parish by labourers belonging to it, has been strongly pressed on the attention of your Committee, but though they are disposed to admit that such a system may often afford desirable relief to the parishes, they are not equally satisfied that it will have a tendency to promote the improvement of the roads. They think it right to bring the proposition under the consideration of the House, though they are too diffident of its utility to venture to add to it their recommendation. It seems generally admitted, that the present exemptions from toll granted to broad-wheeled waggons require to be revised, as the enormous weights which they carry render them more destructive to the materials of the roads than their supposed advantage in consolidating them can compensate. Without entering into the yet unsettled controversy respecting the superior utility of conical, barrelled, or cylindrical wheels, for the purpose of draught, it is perfectly evident, that the narrow part of the surface upon which wheels of the two first descriptions meet the ground, cannot give them the advantage of the roller. As soon as impolitic exemptions shall be abolished, and the tolls be regulated upon all carts and waggons, with wheels of a moderate width, in proportion either to the weight carried, or the number of horses, there will no longer be the same temptation to carry excessive loads; and it is probable that a new practice, regulated by private interest, may render it unnecessary to limit the weight allowed to be taken. Some regulations appear to be absolutely required in respect to the conduct of tollkeepers, and the liability of renters, for the penalties imposed on their servants. Your Committee have thus noticed a few of those objects of amendment which have presented themselves to their consideration. To reduce these and other proposed improvements into proper form—to digest the various provisions of former Acts—to expunge what is useless or injurious,—to reconcile what is contradictory—to re-model and arrange what is sound and useful, will require the assistance of the best legal judgment. Your Committee however, after having thus availed themselves of the power granted by the house, of reporting the partial result of their investigations, will continue to make such inquiries, and to collect such materials, as may pave the way for the accomplishment of that important undertaking. It will at once be seen, that they have confined themselves to one branch of the work committed to them, having conceived it to be more judicious not to distract their own attention and that of the House by too many subjects of inquiry, but to pursue that which they first undertook to a practical result.