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Show EUROPE'S GOOD ROADS Regarded as Economic Factor ol Life and Not a Fad. Legacy Left by Romans Has Been Husbandtd and Has Added to Prosperity of France Austria Aus-tria Is Close Second. The wide Interest that the road question has for all classes In Europs is remarkable, and It la this unity ol purpose that builds on the netwoik legacy left by the Ilomans, Frances Milton writes In the Scientific Amor Wan. Since that time, and that of ths llenrls and the Louises, to whom were due much of the elements of beauty that compose the French road system today, particularly with respect re-spect to tree planting alongside, and since the later day of the military road making genius of Napoleon much has been undertaken In the way of refinement re-finement which has produced. If not an actual money return, at least a prosperity which would i otherwise nave been unknown. To be just there are as good roads In the United States today as In France. In top dreaslng, In comport with the needs of the new locomotion, according to any one of the four or five methods commonly made use of In America, results are superior even to anything yet achieved In Kurope. llrlck Is found on some roads r-l Holland, but It dates from before ths motor car era, before even that fa tnous pavement of Terre Haute, Ind. owning already to some twenty years and still good. Great claims of durability dura-bility are made for brick, and If these two examples have any weight, ths thing would seem to be worth something. some-thing. In France there la a famou stretch of Route Natlonale tn ths outb, near Marseilles. Straight ai an arrow, flat aa a billiard table and smooth as marble, with a row ol windbreak rypreases on the north, which in the writer's opinion is th nearly ideal roadway. French national, na-tional, departmental and communal roads, as a class, are the best In ths world. In the French Alps are the finest mountain roads In Europe, far and away ahead of those of Bwltserland on all counts. Many of them were due to the genius of Napoleon and his military road builders, and If their main purpose in times past waa strategic, stra-tegic, today they are essentially practical. prac-tical. The mountain roads of Austria are a close second, particularly wheu It comes to considering them from the point of view of the motor car. Italy has a nationalised roads system; sys-tem; so has Ilelglum, Austria and most of the German confederation. The first three meet the situation but partially, organisation and control being be-ing decidedly inferior to that in France. |