Cartage Rebates.
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The article on the subject of railway companies' rebates in respect of eartage services performed by private firms, outside carrying companies, or cartage contractors, upon goods which have been conveyed only from station to station by the railway companies, though charged by them at collected and delivered rates, has attracted not an inconsiderable amount of attention, though certainly less than the importance of the matter deserves. One correspondent has asked us whether, now that the railway company serving his town has reluctantly admitted its liability to refund so much per ton in respect of particular freights, upon which it has hitherto made no allowance whatever, the company in question is justified in refusing to make the allowance retrospective only so far back as the 1st of May last. The very occasion for the raising of such a query proves the unwillingness of the railway companies to admit their liability to traders; but, fortunately for our querist and others, the Courts have given quite a number of decisions under which rebates have been allowed to apply over periods varying between two and four years, whilst, of course, the statutory limit is six years. Any trader who may be awakened to the fact that he has been either doing his own, or paying separately for, cartage services between railway stations and points of collection or delivery, and at the same time paying the railway companies on the basis of a collected and delivered rate, has no occasion to accept any railway company's suggestion that he should abide by the situation as he finds it on such a company's graciously giving him a rebate in the future. Although the Law imposes upon the trader a limit in respect of what is termed " reasonable discovery," it will not commend itself to anybody as a business or equitable proposition that redress should not be given because unjust charges have been paid in ignorance.
Metropolitan Police Methods :
Is there a Policy ? -1
Close acquaintance with the action of the Noise Committee of the Metropolitan Police does not inspire admiration for many of the decisions, and there is a real absence of consistency about them. We have, in consequence, been much exercised to discover some explanation for the procedure of the gentlemen who constitute that committee, and who act largely, if not entirely, at the instigation of the principal officials of the Public Carriage Department of New Scotland Yard. We have held the opinion, for many months, that Sir Edward Henry has been working upon a principle which may be colloquially termed that of "putting on the brake." The Metropolitan Public Carriage Act of 1869, and the Order, dated the 18th of August, 1897, made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under that Act, do not vest in the Commissioner of Police the absolute and unconditional power to limit the number of stage carriages in London, or to refuse consideration of so many as may be presented for the purpose of examination. It is provided, however, by section 6 of the Order named, that the allimportant metal plate need not be affixed unless " the inspector finds the carr'..age fit for public use," and it has been evident, for about a year, that New Scotland Yard has been doing everything in its power to reduce the rate of introduction of mechanical stage carriages into the traffic of the Metropolis. Their action, if we may borrow a somewhat commonplace simile, reminds us of the behaviour of the caterers at a banquet where the agreed price per head includes the wines. There is, in such cases, no direct or deliberate refusal to bring along the champagne, and one is politely assured by the ordinary waiters that the wine waiters will be told, and that the additional bottles will be along in a few minutes, with the result that, notwithstanding every outward evidence of consideration, attention, and politeness, the aggregate total of bottles issued by those in charge mounts up very slowly : it is a case of hope deferred.
We should be sorry to think that the heads of the Metropolitan Police have no definite line of policy, because their actions are inexplicable in any other light but that in which we have regarded them for a long time past. We have, more than once, rejected the suggestion that Sir Edward Henry has been influenced by political pressure, at the instance of the London County Council, and the likelihood of any such undue influence is now much less probable than was the case before the last L.C.C. elections; but the question of real interest to motorbus constructors amid users is, in the present disconcerting general situation, whether the time is not at hand for a cessation of the unaccountable decisions which are given at Wimbledon Common, both in respect of new chassis and of old chassis that have to be presented after a " stop " notice. The Chief Commissioner has attained the only object that can be reasonably ascribed to the policy with which we feel justified in crediting him : he has fully checked the unwise and feverish boom of 19o3
and the early months of 3906. It is admitted, on all sides, that his policy has been most effective, as regards its depression of the curve of numerical increase of vehicles in commission, but we cannot credit it with being the sole
cause of the improvement in the average degrees of noise and visible exhaust which are associated with the London motorbus. In that the Chief Commissioner's policy has effected its broad object, and has brought the operating companies to realise the wisdom of gradual extensions in preference to attempts at any over-rapid multiplication of their mechanical plant, we trust it will be recognised that no harm can now result from the more rapid passing of the majority of the chassis which have been the subject of so many vicissitudes during the past six months. We are prepared to admit the general benefit that has accrued from the original slackening of the pace in the granting of licenses, but even a good policy may be over-strained and carried too far. if the police will now appreciate the bearing of the fact that the operating companies have both the will and the organisation to keep their machines in the best, possible condition to gain the approval and support of the public, and if they will concentrate their attention more and more upon breaches of the speed limit, to which most of the subsequent defects are directly traceable, they will gain the respect and confidence of the manufacturers, the proprietors, and the public alike. If, on the other hand, they continue, in a comparative sense, to ignore the root and origin of the noise ;rouble, which unquestionably lies in the evil of overdriving, plenty more work will be found to enable the Noise Committee at Wimbledon to add to their unenviable reputation for anomalous rulings. There is no standing still in the motor-omnibus world, and the official attitude will, it appears to us, require modification pari passu as the constructors and operating companies give evidence of their capacity to conduct their still new businesses more and more satisfactorily. Repression, the dictate of expediency a year ago, will do all-round harm if continued, immutable, relentless, and unintelligent, because it was, once upon a time, the correct and necessary course.
AnotherEntente.
We offered our congratulations, in April last, to the organisers of the conference between road makers and road users which took place eight weeks ago at Olympia. The evidence that was then apparent in the direction of an entente between the representative associations of these two important and far-reaching interests, whose recognised spokesmen came together for the first time with any real prospect of a useful issue, has now been very materially in creased. Nobody can fail to be impressed by the proceed ings at the Institution of Civil Engineers on Monday and Tuesday last, a summary of which is given elsewhere in this issue, for, notwithstanding occasional expressions of re sentment by county and municipal surveyors in regard to certain supposedly prevalent ideas about their attitude on the question of road maintenance and improvement, a tone of candid friendliness characterised the great majority of the speeches. We ask all parties to the discussion to let bygones be bygones: what does it advantage a road surveyor to bring up reminders of the Roads Improvement Associations' propaganda during its adolescence? Is it not morn to the point that misapprehensions, if not mistakes, should be admitted on both sides, and that the pre-occupation of each individual who is now seeking the most effective means for concerted action should be, how best can I help in present circumstances?
There is practical unanimity on the broad proposition that roads must be improved, and the necessary volume of public opinion is rapidly accumulating to render possible a general forward movement throughout the country, Without entering, here, into the technical details for and against the several alternative solutions that have been proposed by competent authorities, both engineering and financial, we shall give our adherence to the programme of conditional annual grants in aid from the Central Exchequer, and to the sanctioning of loans -by the Local Government Board for road construction or conversion, with the retention of a revised. local control. So far as a fresh schedule of taxation upon heavy motor vehicles arises, the Commercial Motor -Users' Association has already, as a matter of expediency, given its support, provided the proceeds are applied to the betterment ot the roads, to a reasonable increase. If that scale is to be relatively fair, we cannot discover any valid reason for the exemption of heavy horse-drawn traffic, and it looks as though the whole question of a wheel tax were not unlikely to be again brought under review, for final dismissal or universal application. Every person who has studied the situation is agreed that cost alone stands in the way of all-round improvement, and that the problem is one of first outlay rather than subsequent maintenance. It rests, therefore, with the gentlemen who are charged to represent both sides of the case, that they should satisfy the Government that any of the State's money that may be spent on our roads is money well spent, and, whilst disclaiming any political feeling or bias, we shall be disappointed if proper representations to the party of home development are nugatory. A better case for immediate benefit from Imperiat aid is not to be found the world over, than the one provided in this year of grace by the United Kingdom. No country, as we have insisted in the past, has the same road density as England, or the same opportunity of turning to account that means to the end of perfection of internal communication which the road motor can alone confer. We naturally welcome the entente which promises to bring nearer the day of good roads for all, and we must not fail to remind our readers that, in these days, the words "good roads" apply only to such highways as have strong foundations as well as nice surfaces : the latter, to-day, arc impossible of retention in the absence of the former, and it is this fact that introduces the heaviest items of prospective initial expense. Delay will mean chaos, for the councils of many purely agricultural counties are already at their wits' ends through the sudden development of long-distance road t raffle.
Legislation.
Our well-informed sister journal " The Motor " has again been lirst in a matter of real interest to motorists as a body and the public at large, for its pages, more than four weeks ago, contained an announcement of, and an editorial reference to, the Government's intentions in regard to motor legislation. Questions in the House—prompted, no doubt, by the intimation named above—have enabled other journals to give belated reports on this subject.
Further to our own brief paragraph of the 16th ultimo (page 275 ante), it is of particular moment to members of the commercial section of the industry to recall the principal adverse recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Motorcar Acts, because, when the time does come, those who will have the drafting of any new Bill cannot ignore them. They are the suggestions : (a) that the unladen weight of a heavy motorcar should be defined as inclusive of any fuel, water, or accumulators used for the purpose of propulsion ; and (b) that the speed limit for irontired vehicles of 2 to 3 tons unladen weight should be reduced from 8 to 5 miles an hour. Although no change in the Law would be retrospective, which fact safeguards existing owners or intending purchasers of vans or lorries against loss on that score, the first of these two suggested
changes is quite inadmissible : it is wholly idle, and at variance with the views of the Select Committee which was appointed by Mr. Walter Long in 1904, for it involves the discredited and unsupportable view that roads are affected according to the internal ratio of dead to useful weight in or upon a motor vehicle. The measure of external effect obviously is axle-weight, as recognised and expressed in the Heavy Motorcar Order, where tire widths and wheel diameters are also taken into account, and any departure from the principles there laid down will lead to disturbance of common ground between road authorities and owners of
utility vehicles. We are glad to know that the Trade and the Users' societies. have a clear course of action before them, and a strong case into the bargain.