Municipal v. Privately Owned Buses.
Page 55
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CI ONSEQUENT upon extensive de velopments of bus traffic at Nottingham, a sharp -conflict has arisen between the municipal authorities and Messrs. Barton Bros., of Beeston, who were the pioneers of the work in that district. It was not for a considerable period after the Beeston firm had set the example that the Nottingham Corporation undertook the running of buses, the policy having previously been one of inflexible adhesion to tramways.
In cases in which the firm was recently summoned, together with nine of its drivers, for plying for hire with unlicensed vehicles, it was complained that the buses to which exception had been taken by the Nottingham authorities upon the score of their alleged mechanical defectiveness bad not been objected to by those responsible for the control of matters at Derby, Lough
borough, Long Eaton and other places, and it was further suggested that the Nottingham objection, through the competition which had occurred, had been based upon mere trivialities, constituting, an attempt by the corporation to obtain by indirect means a monopoly which the law had not given them. The magistrates, however, fined Mr. Thomas H. Barton 10s. in each of the nine cases and the drivers 5s. each.