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6. In my opinion the learned Advocate General's contention is correct. The word "toll" is not a new expression but has a well defined meaning in public finance. Tolls have been levied over bridges and roads for several centuries in England and Europe and the levy was made primarily not for increasing the general revenue of the authorities concerned but for the purpose of recouping the expenses incurred in constructing the roads and bridges and in maintaining them Thus in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Volume XIII, edited by Edwin R. A Seligman, at page 404, it is pointed out as follows:

"From then on to 1774 Parliament passed hundreds of acts creating turnpikes. A turnpike trust was created with jurisdiction over a certain stretch of road and with authority to borrow money on the security of the tolls, which were to furnish the funds for the maintenance of the road and repayment of the loan. The tolls collected yielded barely enough to maintain the road in satisfactory condition and in relatively few instances were they sufficient to pay interest on the loan."

It was only in 1896 that the last turnpike vanished from the British soil When the Act was passed in 1851 it may be reasonably inferred that the expression "tolls" in the Act was intended to convey the same meaning as was given to the expression in Britain, namely, a levy for the purpose of providing funds for the maintenance of roads and bridges and repayment of the loan (if any) taken for their construction in the Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 26, at page 675, the expression "toll" has been defined as follows:

"Toll, the fee exacted by those who erect or maintain a bridge for the privilege of passing over the same a compensation for services especially for transportation, as canal of railway toll."

In the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1965 edition, the following note appears under the heading "Toll Bridges".

"Long-span bridges are mostly, and experience has shown that the most practicable manner in which they can be afforded is to build them as financially self-liquidating projects by charging tolls on the traffic using them."