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Local Taxes on Road Use.

24th April 1913, Page 7
24th April 1913
Page 7
Page 7, 24th April 1913 — Local Taxes on Road Use.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Keywords : Coventry, Tax, Warwickshire, Tram

Suggestion that there should then be No Grants from the Road Board.

A Letter to the Editor from Mr. W. Worby Beaumont.

Sir,—In the article entitled " The Penalty of Liability to TCIIII6 for Road 'User ' of Municipal Motorbuses," which you have published, you very properly dwell upon the difficulty which municipal trading introduces into this subject. This, however, is not a sufficient reason for permitting an attempt to deprive the public of the advantages of free use of the highways in and with the modern means of transit.

The limitation of municipal trading powers including statutory tramway undertakings is, of course, desirable as a means of limiting the bankruptcy liabilities on their failure, and of preventing a population from being denied the advantages of the now as compared with any apparently established thing a trading municipal council may have adopted— adopted in ignorance or in defiance of obsolescence, which is so likely to overtake any trade in which iron and the engineer who is free are employed. Objections may on several grounds he raised as against, for instance, the Coventry Corporation's proposal to run motor omnibuses either in or round about Coventry, and chiefly on the ground that the Coventry ratepayers should not be called upon to pay for experiments, or to pay the casts of the experience of anybody (not being their sisters, cousins, or aunts) entering in a narrow-profit-margin business with appliances or stock in trade, which, admittedly successful to-day, may have competitors in the future who will put the whole stock on the scrap heap; or, if it be not put on the scrap heap, because of capital invested, will for ever handicap ratepayers with anachronisms and inconvenience. In view, however, of the very public way in which the contents of the laps of the gods, in whom municipal tramway enterprises place their trust, have exposed the failures as well as the successes, there should be little difficulty in reading the indications of the future.

One reading leads to the suggestion that, although a municipal matter at Coventry, it would be well for the people of Coventry to have the advantage of the motor omnibus conveyance in and round about their town, rather than that they 6hvuld he without that convenience, or be led into the expense of constructing road railways, which may soon become obsolete, and can, in any case, only serve fixed mutes. The omnibuses would serve any routes and any change of routes, and would probably be the means ultimately of increasing the traffic-carrying capacity of some of the narrow streets of

Coventry, wherein tramcars on their fixed routes are obstructive. The omnibuses would, moreover, take people occasional long runs out of Coventry, and it is not altogether beneath mention that they could be made in England and perhaps in the town. When, therefore, increased transport facilities are required, the dirigible vehicle, capable of running anywhere on the high roads, should be encouraged as an extension to existing tramway facilities. It would, therefore, as I have said elsewhere, be to the public disadvantage if a tax, as proposed by the Warwick County Council for the use of the road outside Coventry, were imposed on companies or municipalities working under special Acts. Such a tax cannot be imposed on private or joint-stock enterprises, but the threat by the Warwick County Council has caused the withdrawal of the Coventry proposal, to provide an omnibus service for its people, intended more especially to meet the convenience of those residing in the sparsely-populated but growing suburbs of that presperous city.

The proposal to impose such a tax as that indicated by the Warwick County Council originated, I believe, with the projects for running overhead trolley' electrically-propelled omnibuses near Sheffield, There was some plausibility in this case, because such omnibuses not only require the use of the road for poles and overhead wires, but the omnibuses tend to run on defined lines and cause local wear or ruts. This objection does not obtain with the ordinary totally-independent motor vehicle, omnibus, char-I-banes, or commercial vehicle. The proposal to impose such a tax as that suggested would lead to other proposals which would fall upon all kinds of road vehicles already specially taxed, and ultimately to the public disadvantage. Such a tax is unjustifiable, considering the fact that a levy is already imposed by the petrol tax for the purpose of road making and maintenance. Further, it is now known that the intention of the tax now collected and to be expended by the Road Board has for its object the general improvement of the highways of this country, which change has become necessary by the increase in population and the consequent growth in common road transport. Tf such a tax as that proposed by the Warwickshire County Council were allowed, then any contribution to such Council from the Road Board funds should be withheld.


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