100 Objectors Urge B Licences
Page 40
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for L.M.S.
" BEFORE granting this application, you may consider it advisable to call upon tile railway company to notify to you the number of its vehicles that carry advertisements and the identity of the vehicles that carry luggage in advance, so that you may know to what extent B licences should be substituted for A licences."
This was part of an interesting subrni.;•sion by Mr. H. Backhouse (Commercial Motor Users Association solicitor), on behalf of more than 100 objectors to applications by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway CO., heard by the North-Western Licensing Authority, Mr. W. Chamberlain. Mr. Backhouse contended that to carry luggage in advance under an A. licencewas illegal, •because the transport of luggage in advance was coincidental to the passenger-carrying contract. Insofar as that class of traffic was carried by the railway company in collection and delivery vans, those vehicles must have B licences.
To exhibit advertisements on the • sides of an A-licence vehicle was, Mr. B30 Backhouse continued, illegal, because advertising was a business carried on by the railway company, which charged for these advertisements, just as it did for those on the hoardings and walls of the stations.
Other allegations against the railway company made by Mr. Backhoure were that, having given up 11 horse for each 3-ton mechanical horse, the concern now wanted to substitute 6-ton mechanical horses for 3-tanners without offering concessions; and that, having transferred a motor to Chester and another to Lancaster from Manchester, without notification, the company transferred a vehicle from Hull to Manchester and illegally used it there for 12 months.
On a part of the L.M.S. application for hiring allowance in respect of 35 vehicles and three trailers passed over from the Great Western Railway Co. in the pooling arrangement, Mr. Backhouse asked for an undertaking that these vehicles should be hired to the L.M,S, only at the Manchester base.
Mr. G. H. P. Beames, for the L.M.S.,
replied in detail to the allegations. lie raised the point as to whether advei tisements were goods or burden within the meaning of Section 2 of the Road and Rail Traffic Act. The advertisements were generally attached to the outside structure of the vehicle and the " burden " which he thought the framers of the Act obviously had in mind was one carried inside the vehicle.
He strongly urged the Licensing Authority to say that luggage in advance could properly be regarded as goods. He vigorously opposed the suggestion that the railway company
should apply for B licences. That matter was fully thought out not only by the Salter Committee, but also by the House when the Bill was drafted.
Mr. Chamberlain put several searching questions on various points, notably that of the transference of vehicles from one base to another, and stated that he would require time in which to give consideration to his decision an the legal position.