COLONEL BERESFORDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, By whose authority the Tramway Company or Companies using the Black-friars Road and the Old Kent Road have, as regards the first-mentioned road, broken up the entire surface of all the roadway, leaving heavy ground for carriages and other vehicles to pass over, and, in the latter case, have only left one passage for vehicles, causing great delay in the traffic; and, by what authority the Tramway Company in the Old Kent Road is allowed to alter the level of the road, thereby forcing all carriages and vehicles to drive over rubbish nearly eighteen inches high from the old level to the new?
§ VISCOUNT SANDONThis is a matter which rests with the local authorities, and the Board of Trade has no business to interfere with it, for it has no power; but I may inform my hon. and gallant Friend that the tramways in question were authorized by the Pimlico, Peck-ham, and Greenwich Street Tramways Act, 1870, 33 & 34 Vict. cap. 174. By Section 14 of that Act and by the provisions of the general Tramways Act of 1870, the Tramway Company were bound to make arrangements with the local authorities before they commenced to break up the streets. The matter rests entirely with the local authorities; 626 the Board of Trade has no information as to the facts to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman refers, and has no power of interference.