NEWCASTLE'S BUS POWERS.
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IN a report on the new Corporation Act, the Parliamentary Committee of the Newcastle Corporation states that the Bill was subjected to considerable amendment and alteration in its passage through Parliament. When it was set down for second reading in the House of Commons, amendments to postpone the reading for six months were put down in the names of several members representing railway and other interests, and in order to secure a second reading it was necessary to withdraw the portion of original Clause 3 relating to the running of omnibuses within a radius of 21 miles of the city; original Clause 5, under which the corporation was not to he liable to claims for extraordinary traffic on roads ; and original Clause 11, to authorize the corporation to hire
out its omnibuses on private-party duties.
There were 16 petitions agdinst the Bill, some of which were not proceeded with as a result of the withdrawal.
The Bill was referred to the Local Legislation Committee, and, after a hearing lasting 13 days, the committee decided that the preamble of the Bill, so far as it related to Clause 3 (power to the corporation to run omnibuses along certain routes), was not proved.
In order to meet the objection of opponents to original Clause 7 (power to substitute bus services for tramways), that clause was amended to provide that the corporation should not, without the consent of the Tyneside Tramways and Tramroads Co., or the Gateshead and District Tramways Co. (as the case may be), take up or remove the rails of any tramway over which those companies were for the time being entitled to run tramcars, or over which the corporation was under obligation to the companies to run a service of tramcars. A proviso was also added to the clause applying Section 22 (cheap fares for labouring classes) of the Corporation's Act of 1902 to any substituted service of buses.
Clause 9, enabling the corporation to enter into working and other agreements with regard to the running of buses, was amended to agree with the model clause and, in order to meet opposition, an addition was made protiding that no agreement should be entered into between the corporation and any local authority except with the consent of the Ministry of Transport.