motives on Highways Act, 1896, and the Roads Act, 1920, specifying such things as the maximum width of vehicles, the minimum breadth of hard tyres, weight of tractors, brakes, silencers, lamps, springs, and so on. These have been altered from time to time in the light of experience. An important order came into effect on October 1, 1928. This raises the permissible speed of "heavy motor-cars" (i.e. vehicles exceeding two tons in weight unladen) from twelve miles an hour to twenty miles if they are fitted with pneumatic tyres. In the main the new rule applies to motor coaches, which for some time past have been driven regularly at two or three times their legal speed; one must hope that the new limit will be enforced. If the heavy motorcar has solid tyres the twelve m.p.h. limit is retained, but motor vehicles drawing a trailer will be allowed to travel at twelve m.p.h. if both vehicles are fitted entirely with pneumatic tyres. If either vehicle has solid tyres the limit will be eight m.p.h., and in any other case it will remain at five m.p.h.

Just as the Minister of Transport has changed his orders from time to time, so the Chancellor of the Exchequer should change and develop the taxation of motor vehicles in successive budgets. At present the change most needed is a large addition to the licence duties payable in respect of the heavier vehicles of all kinds, whether intended to carry goods or passengers. No economist or statistician can examine the existing scales of licence duties without seeing that they are absurd. The Chancellor might very well follow the Minister of Transport by making a discrimination in favour of vehicles with pneumatic tyres, with a smaller discrimination in favour of solid rubber tyres. Then, in order to meet the case of motor vehicles which escape the petrol duty by burning coal or heavy oil, a special licence duty should be imposed, unless it is found possible to arrange for mileage payments on the taximeter principle. Electric vehicles driven by storage batteries do not yet appear cheap enough for general use; since they are less of a nuisance than other motor vehicles, their use should not be discouraged by heavy taxation.

If one may judge from letters to The Times and other journals, public opinion is mainly concerned about the growing casualty list, and the noise, vibration, and dirt caused by motor traffic. Railways have been hedged round by a growing network of regulations designed to secure the safety of the traveller and of the

railway worker, and to protect the trader against overcharges and discrimination. In fact a railway company has become a semipublic body, having very little freedom of action, no opportunity of making profits on a commercial scale, and only a minimum authority over the pay and working conditions of its staff. On the other hand anyone who is not blind can obtain a licence to drive a motor car or van. He can charge what he likes, work when he likes, and take or refuse traffic as he likes. He may be a man of straw, against whom an injured party has no means of redress. It is not too much to say that if motor vehicles were subject to the same rules for the protection of the public which Parliament has imposed on the railways, motor traffic, as we know it, would cease.

Casualties are part of the real cost of motor transport. An average of more than fourteen persons were killed every day last year in street accidents, and a total of nearly 150,000 were injured in that year. The Sunday Times may well say that the motor vehicle has proved itself the most murderous invention ever let loose upon the national highways. On the railways only thirteen persons lost their lives in train accidents during the whole of the year 1926; the average for the preceding ten years was eight. During the last two years the numbers doubled, but even so, railway accidents are inconsiderable when compared with road accidents. A railway accident strikes the public imagination, and an official inquiry is at once held; yet the more numerous street accidents are left to the coroner. As The Times put it (August 15th) it is largely because of the public concern about train accidents and the resultant thoroughness of the system of inquiry into their causes that they so seldom occur.

There remain to be considered four other evils which motor vehicles inflict on the long-suffering public-noise, dust, smell, and vibration. Noise, it is clear, can be largely prevented if Parliament and the local authorities choose to prevent it. A Rolls-Royce makes less noise than a motor cycle with a bad silencer. Even the heaviest kind of commercial vehicles need not make so much noise, as we may learn from the silent running of the newest motor coaches. Horns and screeching instruments, originally intended, like the cyclist's bell, to warn the pedestrian, have become a means of ordering everyone else out of the motordriver's way. These orders, like those of a dictator, are enforced by the threat of death or mutilation if the pedestrian or cyclist

disobeys. Dust has been greatly reduced within the last few years as a result of the Road Board's experiments in road-making : dust prevention is largely a matter of expense. Vibration, however, is a growing evil, and has already inflicted serious injury on property fronting roads and streets. Both noise and vibration have an injurious effect upon the nervous system, which may not even be apparent to the sufferer himself. Vibration depends upon the weight and speed of vehicles, and partly on their tyres and springs; there is no reason why it should continue. Much has been done in recent years to reduce the smoke nuisance in our big towns; the exhaust from the internal combustion engine threatens to become a greater nuisance, since it starts at the street level instead of from a point above our roofs. In some places petrol fumes are said to be killing roadside vegetation.

After the motor lorry and van we come to the motor coach and omnibus. In the towns the motor omnibus performs a service with which we cannot dispense. In the country the omnibus or coach sometimes duplicates a railway service, which is economically wasteful; sometimes it opens up areas which are not served by any railways. The motor omnibus, as a rule, is more useful than a motor coach, since the latter nearly always competes with the railways, and only offers a lower fare because it throws most of its running expenses on the ratepayer.

Before we leave the subject of taxation we must consider the problems set by vehicles which are driven by steam, by electricity, or by Diesel engines, and so escape the petrol duty. Perhaps they should pay a heavier tax per ton than petrol-using vehicles, or they might pay a mileage rate. Six-wheeled lorries and tractors drawing two or more vehicles present a further problem to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the road authorities; perhaps a tractor and its train should be taxed as one unit. One might go on to ask whether the roads, instead of being a burden on the ratepayer or taxpayer, should not be made self-supporting or even turned into a profitable property like the market-places of our big towns. Traders who carry on their business in a market-place expect to pay a rent or toll to the local authority for the privilege. Why should not the owner of a motor van or coach, who carries on his business along the king's highway, pay likewise for the privilege? Cities in the United States have drawn large revenues from the street car concerns for what are called " street

franchises." Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, perhaps the ablest advocate of the motor interest, maintains (The Times, August 2nd) that motor-owners do all that can be expected of them in providing two-fifths of the £52,000,000 a year spent on roads, while rates provide the remainder. Fifty-two millions is an underestimate, since that figure was passed five years ago. Is it unreasonable to ask motor owners to pay four-fifths, seeing that at least 80 per cent. of the expenditure is due to their vehicles? There are other expenses which might be charged to the Road Fund, such as the cost of policemen on point-duty and the services of hospitals in treating the sufferers from motor accidents.

Finally we come to the question which many people would put first-the deaths and serious injuries caused by motor vehicles. These have been growing steadily in number for several years past; indeed they are causing so much alarm and indignation that Parliament may be forced to take action. In most cases, I believe, these accidents are preventible, since they are due to dangerous rates of speed. No doubt the ordinary driver is cautious, but the margin of safety is not wide enough. Something goes wrong with the machinery, perhaps another driver makes mistake, a pedestrian or a cyclist is careless; the motor vehicle cannot be stopped within the minimum number of seconds and the result is a serious accident. It is essential in the public interest that means shall be found to make our roads and streets reasonably safe for all who have occasion to use them.

THE ROMAN LEGIONS

The Roman Legions. By H. M. D. PARKER, Fellow and Tutor of Magdalen College, Oxford. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1928.

THIS is an interesting and well-documented volume,

completing Oxford's contribution to the history of the Roman army, commenced by Mr. Cheesman, whose smaller treatise on the Auxilia, or non-legionary troops, appeared in 1914, not long before the author's much lamented death in action the following year. We may congratulate the university on having at last reared authors who are interested in the military side of Roman history, and not entirely absorbed in its constitutional, economic, or cultural aspects, like so many of their seniors. It should not be forgotten, however, that Mr. Henderson's " Civil War in the Roman Empire" showed a very lively appreciation of military problems, though it was not entirely devoted to them.

Mr. Parker's volume practically covers the administration of the Roman regular army, as opposed to its auxiliaries, from the time of Marius' great re-organisation, when the professional soldier first came into existence, down to the death of Marcus Aureliusa period of nearly 300 years. There is a short preliminary chapter dealing with the old citizen army of the republic, whose tactical problems have led to much controversy among an older generation of writers, but have comparatively little interest compared with those of post-Marian days. For undoubtedly the story of the legions which conquered Europe and Asia is far more worthy of study than that of the earlier short-service levies which discomfited the Gaul, the Samnite and the Carthaginian.

The legion, to put its organisation in modern terms, was a small infantry division of ten battalions (cohorts) with a squadron of divisional cavalry (about 120 sabres, or rather lances) and some slight provision of artillery (ballista, scorpio, etc.) for siege work. There was no division into brigades: the sole secondary tactical unit was the cohort (practically a battalion of 500-600 men) consisting of six companies (centuries), each commanded by a centurion, with an optio under him as second-in-command. The optio was more like a company sergeant-major than a lieutenant, but he could be (and often was) given a centurion's commission VOL. 248. NO. 506.

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