MR. A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAW EN (Kent, Tunbridge)I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the Board has yet legalised any improved wheel for traction engines under the provisions of the Locomotives Act 1896; whether he is aware that Boulton's patent wood-block wheel has been approved by very many surveyors of roads; that several borough authorities in Lancashire have compelled its use by bye-law, although its use is really illegal except with the sanction of the Local Government Board; that Mr. Boulton has further offered to submit the wheel to the most severe test before the Board's surveyors; and whether under these circumstances, the Board intend to take any steps towards legalising this wheel?
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. HENRY CHAPLIN, Lincolnshire, Sleaford)The only application which the Board have received has been with respect to the wheel mentioned in the Question. The Chief Engineering Inspector has inquired into the effects of the use of this wheel on roads and has visited several districts in the course of his inquiry. It was stated that in certain counties the wheels had been in use for some years, and after the inquiry by their inspector the Board 1066 deemed it desirable to communicate with the County and Town Councils in those counties with a view of ascertaining the results of their experience. In some cases the wheel is favoured and in others is objected to except on certain conditions, but we have not received replies from them all. I hope to be able ere long to give a decision in this matter.
§ MR. WALTER HAZELL (Leicester)asked the Speaker whether it was expedient that a patentee should receive a gratuitous advertisement of his patent by means of a Question put in that House. No doubt the advertisement was inadvertently given in the present case?
§ *MR. SPEAKERQuestions which are obviously in the nature of an advertisement ought riot to be put upon the Paper, but I am not prepared to say that that is the case here.