§ MR. GOURLEYsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he will, before fixing the sum to be paid by the owners of omnibuses and cabs for the new Police Regulation Licenses, consider the arrangement existing in provincial towns, and so adapt the charges that the burden of local taxation may not fall heavier on the owners of public vehicles in the metropolis than in other places, the Secretary of State being empowered by the present Metropolitan Act to fix £2 2s. as the license on each public carriage, which in other places was only 10s. per annum?
MR. BRUCEsaid, in reply, that the last thing he should wish to do was to intercept any portion of the benefit which would accrue both to the owners of vehicles and the public from the diminution of the duties upon public vehicles. The charges for inspection, which had amounted to about £13,000 a year, had hitherto been borne partly by the Imperial revenue and partly by the metropolitan police rate. It was stipulated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that this charge for inspection 1542 should be levied on the vehicles themselves. It was his desire that this charge should be as low as was consistent with effective supervision. An inquiry was now going on in all the provincial towns as to the cost of supervision, but whether he should be able to reduce the charge to the level of the sum found sufficient in provincial towns he did not know.