§ SIR JAMES CARMICHAEL (Glasgow, St. Rollox)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, in issuing to the railway companies of the United Kingdom the Circular of 31st August 1892 with reference to eyesight tests, there was any intention on the part of the Board of Trade to insist upon the railway companies adopting the system of tests recommended by the committee appointed by the Council of the Royal Society, or whether it was intended to draw the attention of the railway companies to those recommendations, and to leave it to their discretion either to adopt them or to continue any system of tests which, in their experience, they had found to work well and satisfactorily?
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. J. BRYCE, Aberdeen, S.)The Board of Trade have no power to insist upon the adoption by railway companies of any particular system of tests; the companies must use their discretion in the matter; the Board of Trade have, however, felt it their duty to press upon the attention of the companies the recommendations on the subject made by such an authoritative body as a committee of the Royal Society.
§ SIR J. CARMICHAELasked whether he was to assume that the correspondence with the railway companies satisfied the Board of Trade, although several of the companies preferred to maintain their own system of tests.