§ MR. CREMER (Shoreditch, Haggerston)asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the cabs and omnibuses plying for hire in the Metropolitan Police District are subject to a police licence of £2 per year; whether the last annual Return showed that the revenue derived from police licences 869 during the year ended 31st March, 1887, amounted to £33,610 15s. 2d.; who received the money; what check there is upon the expenditure; whether the original object with which the tax was imposed was to provide for a proper inspection of such vehicles; whether he will state the annual cost of such inspection; whether there was on the 31st March, 1887, standing to the credit of the police in the Bank of England and elsewhere a balance of £198,505 19s. 9d.; in whose name the money is banked, and what is intended to be done with it; and, whether the proprietors of cabs pay in addition to the above-mentioned police licence, 15s. per annum as Carriage Tax, and the proprietors of omnibuses £2 2s. per annum?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS) (Birmingham, E.)in reply, said, the cabs and omnibuses plying for hire in the Metropolitan Police District were subject to a police licence of £2 a-year, and that the revenue derived from this licence amounted last year to £33,610 15s. 2d.