§ *THE EARL OF MALMESBURY rose to call attention to the increasing damage caused to roads by the development of heavy traction traffic, and to the expenditure thereby thrown upon local authorities, who are responsible for the maintenance of the highways.
§ The noble Earl said: My Lords, it was just after the Whitsuntide recess that I first placed this Notice on the Paper, and I am sorry that no opportunity has been available to raise the question before. Since I put down the Notice certain events have happened which may possibly make it felt that my action is superfluous and unnecessary. A deputation consisting of representatives of the County Councils Association and of urban and rural district authorities was very sympathetically received by the President of the Local Government Board on June 24, and subsequent to that we had an assurance from His Majesty's Government that a Joint Committee of both Rouses is going to be appointed, if it has not already been appointed, to inquire into the whole traffic question. I hope that the Committee will not lose sight of the very serious damage which is done to the roads by heavy traction traffic.
§ When the roads first became an object of serious consideration to the ratepayers in general, we were inclined to look to the ordinary motor-car as the cause of the greatest damage. The motor-car may do a certain amount of damage to the roads, but I am sure those of your Lordships who use motor-cars will admit that the motorcar is accused of doing a great deal more damage than is really the case. The motor-car is daily becoming a lighter vehicle, and yet the roads are being damaged more. What is the reason for this? The reason is that it is almost impossible to travel in any part of England for even a short number of miles without sooner or later coming across a heavy traction train with two or three, and sometimes four or five, wagons behind. The roads are costing a larger sum of money every year, and it seems to me that there will come a time—in fact, I am not sure that it has not already come—when we must cry stop to this expenditure.
121§ The best way to bring about a decrease in the public expenditure on the roads is by taking action in regard to the traction trains which are increasing in number week by week. Local authorities have really no power in the matter. What is more, the excellence of the modern road is really responsible for encouraging this heavy traction traffic. I dare say many of your Lordships remember roads which are now first-rate which in the old days were in such a had condition that no traction train would have ventured upon them in the winter time. But the excellence of the modern road has led to these commercial traction trains being pat upon the roads in increasing numbers. And owing to these trains keeping to the middle of the road, other vehicles, perhaps heavy motor cars, have to pass very much nearer the edge of the road than they ought to, and by damaging the edge of the road they damage the whole of the draining system of the road and when a heavy rain comes there is more damage still. Again, the bridges and culverts on our country roads were never intended to carry heavy traction traffic, and their repair is an additional burden cast upon those who are responsible for their upkeep. I do not suggest what the terms of reference to this Joint Committee should be, but I respectfully venture to suggest that in Gaming the terms of reference special attention should be paid to this question of heavy traction traffic. I am convinced that quite half, if not more, of the damage to the roads is done by this traffic.
§ Then there is the other question, also a serious one. I refer to the enormous amount of delay and obstruction caused on the public, roads by the presence of heavy vehicles. There was a time when few of them did not pay ordinary respect to other users of the road, but now they do not even comply with the ordinary rule that there should be a man in the last wagon with a string by which he could indicate to the driver that there was a vehicle coming behind. These drivers of traction trains deliberately keep in the middle of the road and make no attempt to get out of anybody's way. Only the other day, when I was endeavouring to catch a train, I came across two long traction trains which had met and neither could pass the other, and it was only by going down a narrow side street, which might easily have been blocked, that I 122 was able to catch my train; and I have heard of a number of similar cases. Our roads were never intended for such traffic.
§ I noticed in a discussion the other day that the question was raised of what further taxation should be put on these vehicles. When I hear the word "taxation" mentioned a cold shiver goes down my back, because I am afraid that the taxation will go on the wrong shoulders. That is why I hope that this Joint Committee, in considering the question of taxation, will be as careful as possible to avoid putting taxation on the ordinary motor-car, which is becoming every day lighter, and will consider the putting of taxation upon the vehicles which really damage the roads, and the owners of which, by the way, make a large sum of money out of this traffic. We are told that these traction trains are a great convenience in some districts, but I think there are not many districts that are not served by the ordinary railways or light railways. In Hampshire you find these heavy traction trains in very large numbers on the main roads where the main roads run almost parallel with the railway system. In other words, you are permitting a very unfair competition with the railways, who, by the way, being large ratepayers, have to pay a heavy share of the damage to the roads; so that not only do the railway companies suffer from unnecessary and unfair competition, but they also have to contribute heavily to the rates for the damage done to the roads by people who are in competition with them.
§ There is another class of vehicle which does a great deal of damage. I refer to the large motor chars-à-banes. These vehicles carry a large number of people and pay no passenger rates, whereas if these passengers had been carried on the railways the railway companies would have been responsible for paying rates. I hope I have succeeded in conveying to the noble Lord who will answer on behalf of His Majesty's Government the importance of a very strong reference to the Joint Committee on the subject of the amount of damage done by these traction trains. Parliament has recognised in many cases this session the principle, where corporations come to Parliament for powers to run motor-omnibuses, that they should contribute a substantial sum towards the roads, but so far we have been unable to get hold of the private trader. I sincerely hope that 123 the precedent which Parliament has established in the case of public bodies will be followed sooner or later in the case of private traders, whose vehicles do a great deal of damage, and who are well capable of paying rates towards the up-keep of the roads if the law on the subject was altered. I do not wish to touch the general question of traffic on the roads. That is a matter which the Joint Committee can decide better than any other body. But I do hope that the Joint Committee will pay special attention to the enormous damage done to the roads by this increasing motor traction traffic.
LORD LOVATMy Lords, I would make a special plea that purely rural districts should be represented on this Joint Committee. The reference that has been made to heavy traffic may lead one to suppose that the damage is confined to the immediate neighbourhood of towns. I can assure the noble Lord opposite that the damage done to the roads in rural districts is infinitely greater than that in the case of the well-built roads in the immediate vicinity of towns. In regard to the district that I know best, in the North of Scotland with its mountainous roads, we have on two or three occasions made recommendations to the Secretary for Scotland, to the Road Board, and to other bodies, but as yet entirely without result. I would especially put forward a plea in respect of the mountainous rural districts, particularly on account of the possibility of the great damage which may be done to roads when a thaw comes after a fall of snow. I would also suggest that before any legislative action is taken in respect of grants, such legislative action should wait until after the Report of the Joint Committee has been received. I might say in this connection that a Local Taxation Committee is now about to sit in Scotland, but the whole question of the grants in respect of the roads has been decided before that Committee has reported.
§ LORD FARRERMy Lords, I venture to think that the noble Earl has done a great service in bringing up this matter. As a member of the Highways Committee of the Surrey County Council, the county which has to bear the vastest traffic I suppose out of London, I can say that we have felt for some time that this is a matter which must be considered from the point of view of the ratepayer. One does not realise, 124 unless one lives in the country, what a vast change has come about since the introduction of petrol. In last week's West Sussex Gazette I saw a letter from a man who had started from London on a Sunday on a motor trip into Sussex, and he said he had not met a single horse-drawn vehicle until he reached the border, and when he got over the border he met only two.
The feeling of surveyors is this, that they are prepared to make a road for anything that is wanted, but they ought to have power to regulate these vast vehicles in some way that shall enable them to keep them off the roads at a time when they are not suited for such heavy traffic. For instance, take a frosty morning. Our surveyor told me only a week ago that £200 to £300 worth of damage might be done, when a thaw was just coming on, to a beautiful road. Noble Lords who motor must have seen also that when a road has just been tarred an enormous amount of damage is done by one of these great vehicles with trucks tearing up the newly-tarred road. In my opinion it is not a matter that can be purely dealt with by a Committee, because the real question at the bottom of it all is that of area. If the county council knows that it is the authority and has power to regulate the traffic, at any rate in our county I believe we should be prepared to do what we could; but the mixture of authorities is such that it is a regular chess board puzzle. There is a rural district council in certain cases, which has some roads; then there are the urban district councils and boroughs, all having little patches; and no proper system of control has been adopted throughout the country. Therefore I believe it is necessary for Parliament to settle the area that has to be governed.
I do not, I confess, quite understand the constitution of the Road Board as it at present exists. If the Road Board is going to have a definite classification of roads I think it ought to let us know as soon as possible what that will be. I do not see Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, who is on the Road Board, in the House, but perhaps some day he will let us know what is intended in regard to the classification of roads. Until the roads are classified and the area settled which shall be rated for particular purposes, I do not believe we shall get any further Any one acquainted with rural government knows that one 125 rural council may have the most beautiful roads, but the authority next to it may have the very worst of roads; yet the cost of upkeep is £300 a mile different where the road is very good. The case which the noble Earl has brought forward for the regulation of these heavy vehicles is unanswerable, and I hope that the Government will see their way to take the matter up.
§ LORD FABERMy Lords, having had the opportunity three weeks ago of making a long motor trip down into the Western country extending over eight hundred miles, I can say that everything that fell from the noble Earl in introducing this subject was below the truth. For instance, on one occasion I remember getting behind one of these immense traction engines with metal wheels and metal flanges convoying two trucks also with metal wheels and containing bricks. I venture to say that those trucks must have weighed, with the bricks, thirty tons each. Personally, if doubt if there is any road in this country at the present time, however good it is, unless it is laid with six inch cement with wood on the top, which will stand the traction engine at all. It is no use putting a charge on the traction engine. The traction engine is too dangerous to the road. What happened in the case of the big engine dragging these trucks? I was behind and could not get by. It was making such a noise that the driver could not hear us. I was behind for half a mile. The road was a very good one, with a hard surface; it was in Devonshire. This engine and trucks as they went along smashed up the surface of the road and did damage to the extent of hundreds of pounds while I was following. That is why I say to the Joint Committee which will consider this question, that no tax, however big, that is put on these trucks and engines will compensate the authorities for allowing them to use the roads.
LORD SEMPILLMy Lords, I think the noble Earl who raised this question missed one point. I do not agree with him that road upkeep can be reduced. I think it is likely to go on increasing. What we ought to do is to try and pit the burden of road upkeep on to the right shoulders. The county to which I belong, Aberdeenshire, sent a resolution to every county council in Scotland in favour of petitioning the Secretary for Scotland to move in the matter of the 126 rebate on motor spirit. Trade vehicles get a rebate of one-half the duty on motor spirit, yet they are the very vehicles which use and damage the roads most. And, as the noble Earl pointed out, they are competing with the railway companies at an unfair advantage. They pay practically no road rate, and they have no permanent way to keep up. When the Joint Committee sit I hope they will bear in mind, in regard to the relief we hope to get towards reducing our road rates, that in the last few years many of our road rates in Scotland have doubled and now stand at two shillings in the £, while in one or two cases they are over that.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD STRACHTE)My Lords, I am sure no one can complain of the way in which the noble Earl has brought this Motion before the House. In fact, I sympathise with him a great deal from the local government point of view. But I should like to correct the noble Earl in regard to an error into which he has fallen. He seems to think that this Joint Committee of both Houses which is about to be appointed by the 'President of the Local Government Board, and over which we are fortunate to have Lord Balfour of Burleigh presiding, is to be a Committee to inquire into the question of the use of roads by motors and locomotives, heavy and light. That is not so. This Committee will be appointed only to deal with the vexed question of motor-'buses. I made that announcement the other day when we were dealing with the Middlesex County Council Bill, when Lord Montagu of Beaulieu was objecting to a charge of ⅜d. per mile being imposed upon these 'buses. This Committee is to inquire into the whole incidence of the matter, and as to whether that contribution from motor-'buses should be made universal or not. The reference is entirely confined to that, and will not deal with the question of heavy motor traffic on the roads. But on the other hand, the President of the Local Government Board is going to set up an expert technical committee, so to speak, of engineers to inquire whether it is necessary to revise the Motor Car Acts. Then as regards the question referred to by the noble Earl and by Lord Farrer—
LORD LOVATBefore the noble Lord leaves that matter, might I ask him to be good enough to answer the question which I put to hint with regard to the grants.
§ LORD STRACHIEI will deal with that later. What I have said already has been to remove the misapprehension that the Joint Committee of both Houses would have anything to do with heavy motor traffic. Then there is the question of obstruction. I have myself been in the same position as the noble Earl has described, and also as described by Lord Faber. But I would venture to suggest that it is really much more a question for the Police, and perhaps for ourselves who have been obstructed. We ought to report the matter and see that a prosecution takes place where an obstruction has been unjustified. Perhaps in these days it is too much to hope that heavy motor traffic will decrease, or that we shall have none of these engines with trailers, which, from the personal point of view is a great nuisance but from the trade point of view is sometimes of great advantage. Then Lord Farrer referred to the question of surveyors regulating the traffic, and said there might be circumstances in which a valuable road might be destroyed in an hour or two. I would venture to suggest that the surveyors can deal with that by regulations as to the road being under repair and shut it up when it is not fit for traffic to go over it.
§ THE EARL OF SELBORNEIs it possible for a surveyor to make a regulation to shut a road for certain kinds of traffic?
§ LORD STRACHIEI am sorry if the noble Earl has misunderstood me. I do not mean, of course, one particular kind of traffic. But if the road is in such a state that it is undesirable that heavy vehicles should go over it, it might be right to shut it up for a certain time. As to that, of course, it would not be for the surveyor but for the local authority to judge.
§ LORD FARRERThe real damage is done very often when the roads are soft in the morning, whereas these heavy loads could pass over the roads quite safely in the middle of the day. The law, as explained to us, is that we have no power to prevent the passage for an hour or two of traffic over the roads, although damage might be done to the extent of hundreds of pounds.
§ LORD STRACHIEI understand the noble Lord's point. No doubt the expert committee will take evidence of all sorts from surveyors as to the desirability, if there is not power already, of giving power to the local authority to prevent certain vehicles going over roads at certain times when it is not desirable to shut up the road entirely. But that is a matter of detail to be threshed out and considered by the Committee which will go into the whole of this question. I think it is unfair to say that this question has been neglected or has not been considered of sufficient importance by the Local Government Board. For a very long period this question has been pressed upon the Government of the day and they have dealt with the grievances of the time being, though, of course, as time goes on new matters arise; heavier loads are drawn, and other regulations are required.
Prior to 1896 there were very stringent regulations as regards traction engines; so much so, that a heavy traction engine could only go at four miles an hour outside a village and at two miles an hour through village streets. There was also a provision that these heavy traction engines should have a man walking in front with a red flag. Even now, though the flag has been abolished, the regulations applying to heavy locomotives still enjoin four miles an hour in village roads and two miles an hour in village streets. Then came the Act of 1896, which made a distinction between heavy and light locomotives. A locomotive not exceeding in weight three tons unladen, with one trailer not exceeding one ton—the whole unladen weight not to exceed four tons—was able to go at a faster rate, though the speed was not to exceed fourteen miles an hour. But Parliament was so anxious to safeguard the public that they provided that the Local Government Board were to make regulations as regards the speed limit, and they were given power to reduce it to under the fourteen miles per hour. As a matter of fact, the Local Government Board did not allow the maximum; they reduced it to a speed of twelve miles per hour. That regulation is in force at the present moment. Then came the Motor Car Act of 1903 under which there was a new system of registration and licensing, and powers were given to the Local Government Board to make regulations. They made what is known as the Heavy Motor Car Order of 129 1904, and that is the Order under which traffic goes on at the present moment. I am sure the. Local Government Board's officers would be the first to admit that after an experience of ten years it is only right that that Order should be reconsidered, and, if necessary, altered, in view of that experience.
§ LORD FABERDo I understand the noble Lord to say that by the Act of 1904 the truck load must not exceed four tons in weight on the road?
§ LORD STRACHIEI said that under the Act of 1896 it was a load not exceeding three tons unladen for the engine and one ton for the trailer, a combined unladen weight of four tons as the limit.
§ LORD FABERAll I can say is that they are running ten times that weight on the roads now.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYDoes the noble Lord say that that is the existing regulation?
§ LORD STRACHIEThat is the regulation under the Act of 1896.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYIt would interest us more to know what is the regulation to-day.
LORD LOVATIs it not a fact that, whatever your regulations as to weight are they are absolutely inoperative because there is no means of taking the weight?
§ LORD STRACHIEThis is really a question of detail. I have here the Order of 1904, and if noble Lords so desire I can quote from it.
§ LORD STRACHIEIt is the Order of 1904 and is in force at the present moment.
§ LORD FARRERI think I might put Lord Lovat's mind at rest on one matter with regard to the weight. In Surrey we have requisitioned seven weigh-bridges in order to get at those who exceed the weight.
§ LORD STRACHIEI will hand the Order to the noble Marquess. [The Order of 1904 was handed to the Marquess of Salisbury.] In view of the addition in weight and consequent increase in wear and tear, it has been proposed by the Local Government Board to set up this expert committee to go into the whole question of the necessity of revising the regulations as to tyres, the diameter of the wheels, and generally as to the conditions of speed and the construction of the vehicles, and as to whether the designs cannot be altered so that there may be less damage done without any unreasonable limitation as regards the traffic upon the roads. Undoubtedly there has been a great outcry by the local ratepayers as regards the damage done and the consequent charge upon the local rates.
Then the noble Earl said that very soon it would be necessary to stop any further increased expenditure on the roads, or, rather, that it would be necessary to reduce the present expenditure. I cannot agree with him unless he thinks it is desirable to starve the roads, or to decrease the expenditure which is necessary to make the roads fit to carry this modern traffic. We cannot expect to put back the clock and revert to the days when there were only horse-drawn vehicles or very light traffic on the roads. As long ago as 1882 it was recognised that the Imperial Exchequer ought to make a contribution towards the maintenance of roads which, from the fact that the public generally made use of them and they were not confined to the use of the locality alone, were to a large extent national roads. Parliament in that year made a grant of one quarter the cost of the main roads to the local authorities, and that grant was doubled in 1887–8. Then came the Local Government Act of 1888, and all the Exchequer grants were discontinued. But county councils and local authorities have received instead substituted licences such as game licences, establishment licences, and carriage and motor licences, up to a certain amount. Further, a Royal Commission as long ago as 1901, which was appointed by the late Conservative Government, made a valuable Report upon the question of the roads, and they declared that the maintenance of main roads was a national service and recommended that half of the total cost should be borne by the Imperial Exchequer. Nobody regrets 131 more than myself, as a local ratepayer, that that recommendation has never been carried out.
But something was done by the Parliament of 1909, who set up the Road Board with the object of making grants to local authorities in order that they might construct new roads and generally improve the foundations of the old roads which were not fit to carry the ordinary heavy motor traffic of the present day. The Road Board was set up under the Act of 1909 and was financed under the Budget of that year, with the result that in the Report of the Road Board lately published we find that the amount of £1,675,000 has actually been granted to local authorities for the improvement of the main roads in their areas. But if we reckon the total commitments we find that a sum of over £5,000,000 has up to date been provided for local authorities for the improvement of their roads. So that it cannot be alleged that the Government have neglected this matter.
The Departmental Committee on Local Taxation, which was set up a few years ago, also reported upon this question of the maintenance of the main roads, and their recommendation, upon which the Government mean practically to act, was that roads should be divided into three classes—main roads, county roads, and district roads. In the case of main roads it is proposed that the local authority shall receive an amount equal to one half the maintenance of the roads; in the case of county roads the local authority will receive one quarter of the cost of the maintenance; but in the case of district roads they will receive nothing, the idea of the Committee being, no doubt, that those roads were purely local in their character and very properly might be maintained out of the rates. As I have said, the Government have in substance adopted that recommendation, and the Road Board has been asked to make a classification of the roads in order that in due course the grants may be made.
I think I may fairly claim that the Government and the Local Government Board have not been neglectful in this matter. I think a step in the right direction has been made by going back to the old system of 132 making a direct grant to the local authorities in respect of main roads. No doubt the tendency has been to put more and more duties upon local authorities without at the same time providing some part of the necessary money for carrying out those fresh obligations. Therefore I think the House will see that the Government are doing the right thing in specifically providing money for partly maintaining those roads which are national in character and the whole cost of which certainly should not fall upon the local rates.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYYour Lordships have listened to an interesting speech from the noble Lord, who, as I gather, has made three important announcements. The first announcement was that there was to be a Joint Committee, presided over by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh, to inquire into the damage done by motor-omnibuses; secondly, that there was to be appointed an expert Departmental Committee which was to revise the Local Government Board Orders in respect of the user of the roads; and, thirdly, that the Government had adopted the recommendation made to them that they should pay one half of the cost of maintenance of main roads and one quarter of the cost of county roads, leaving the smaller roads to be maintained by the district authority. I should like to ask the noble Lord when these two Committees are going to sit? When do the Government propose to appoint the Joint Committee of both Houses over which Lord Balfour of Burleigh is to preside? And when is the Committee of experts going to sit? Are they going to sit this Year?
§ LORD STRACHIEAs regards the Joint Committee, it will depend on whether the Chairman thinks it desirable to sit at once. Of course it will be in his hands. As regards the Committee of experts, that Committee will set to work directly it has been appointed, and the intention is to appoint it immediately.
LORD LOVATWill the noble Lord be good enough to answer the question I raised on the subject of Scotland? He has laid down the exact terms under which grants are to be given to roads in England. But what is to be given in respect of roads in Scotland?
§ LORD STRACHIEMay I remind the noble Lord that the Department which I represent has nothing to do with Scottish main roads.
§ LORD STRACHIELord Emmott.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYThe noble Lord will no doubt deal with Lord Emmott on a subsequent occasion. It is, however, almost a pity that in a subject of this kind, which is very much the same in England and Scotland, for a road is a road wherever it is, the expert Committee might not so far transgress the national feelings of Scotland as to inquire into what is happening in Scotland as well as in England. But perhaps the noble Lord does not feel that he has the courage to make such a proposal. I do not think that this multiplying of inquiries is a very good thing. I should have thought that if the inquiry had been confined to one important Committee, over which Lord Balfour of Burleigh presided, we should get good results. However, that is a detail. If the Government will take the matter in hand at once, that is the important point as regards the country at large.
We quite recognise the difficulty of the subject. Both industrial produce and agricultural produce in districts where railways are few must be carried over the roads, and it is very difficult to make any objection to the fact that they should be carried by mechanical traction. But I think the noble Lord, if I may say so, altogether under-rated the great evil which exists. For example, he was asked as to the actual regulations on the subject, and he referred us to certain Orders which, according to him, would tell us what the weights were which were allowed to be carried by these vehicles. Well, the Order which he handed to me had reference only to motor vehicles, and not to these heavy traction engines at all. The noble Lord talked about four tons. He was, may I say with great respect to him, ridiculously under the mark. Even motor traffic runs up to twelve tons upon the axle and four tons upon each trailer. But when we 134 turn from motor-cars to the heavy traffic to which my noble friend Lord Malmesbury referred—I mean these great locomotives puffing out any amount of steam and smoke with which your Lordships are very familiar on the roads—I doubt if there is any limit. For I find in a memorial which was presented quite recently on behalf of the County Councils Association, I think to the Road Board, that one of the suggestions made is that the county surveyor ought to be informed when it was proposed that an engine should pass over the roads under his jurisdiction with a weight exceeding sixteen tons. Clearly if the weight may exceed sixteen tons the noble Lord opposite, with his four tons, is lamentably under the mark. The fact is, I doubt whether there is any regulation as to the weight which these enormous vehicles may carry.
§ LORD STRACHIEThese vehicles only go at the slow rate of four miles per hour.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYWe were not discussing the pace. It is quite true that if they were going fast it would be worse. I cannot conceive anything more awful than one of these enormous engines and four trailers running at fifty miles an hour. But, as it is, the damage is enormous. Even while I have been in the House two of my noble friends have informed me of their experiences. One told me that he was travelling along the Great North Road recently and saw an enormous vehicle going upon a road which had been just newly made, dragging behind it a tremendous weight and making a positive groove with its wheels on the new road. Conceive what that means to the ratepayers of the county. Another noble friend of mine showed me an account of how, in the neighbourhood of a town, three miles of a very good road were absolutely destroyed because a quarry used that three miles of road and the heavy haulage to and from the quarry had reduced the road to an absolutely rotten condition. That has to be met by the ratepayers of the county. The ratepayers of the county have to put up with it so far as the expense is concerned, and the users of the road so far as their tempers are concerned. In any case it is a great evil and constitutes a great grievance.
135 The noble Lord who replied for the Government seemed to think that that was a matter for the Police. I know that the noble Lord is thoroughly conversant with rural conditions. But, does he really imagine that we could have police on every road to see how the traffic is managed just like we do in the streets in the metropolis? Of course it is impossible. Neither is it possible, as the noble Lord thought, to shut a road. Imagine what would happen to a district if one of the principal roads was shut up. It cannot be done. It is not like London, where you can shut up one street and every one can go down another street. That is not possible in the country. You have to use the main roads or not get about at all. We must have something much more than that, and I was glad to hear that the Government are going to undertake the reorganisation of the road system so that some weight may be taken off the burden of the ratepayers. The noble Lord said that half the cost of the main roads was to be borne by the central authority. If he refers to arterial roads, it should be the whole cost. I think arterial roads should pass altogether under the central authority. They serve His Majesty's subjects as a whole, and the cost of them ought to be taken off the shoulders of the ratepayers altogether.
I can assure your Lordships, being a member of the Hertfordshire County Council, that the suffering in purse which, we undergo in that county through the traffic on our roads is something terrific. Hertfordshire is so constituted that, although it is not a big county, all the great roads to the North run through it. Consequently there is tremendous traffic, hundreds and thousands of vehicles, every week, which destroy our roads, and we, the ratepayers of Hertfordshire, have to pay for them. The injustice is so crying that it has demanded a remedy for a long time. I think, with regard to roads generally, that there ought to be a much greater power in the hands of the local authority to regulate the traffic. They ought to be able to say, for example, during what hours of the day heavy vehicles such as we are complaining of should be allowed to use the roads. There is no reason why a great deal of this tremendous traffic should not be confined to particular hours of the night, when it would not interfere with people so much. Then the local authorities should have the 136 right to say what weight should be carried; they should have the right to say that on their roads no vehicle should weigh more than a certain amount. They ought to have a general power, of course within limits and with an appeal to the central authority against injustice, to regulate the weight, character, and times of employment of these heavy vehicles, and, of course, also to regulate the pace in order to prevent the contingency suggested by the noble Lord of these tremendous vehicles going at a break-neck speed. All those regulations they ought to have power to make.
When it comes to the question of who is to pay the cost, there is the subvention from the central authority. But there ought to be some taxation put upon these very heavy vehicles; they ought to pay for the damage which they do. They are in an exceptional position, and I think there was something in what Lord Montagu of Beaulieu said the other night, that it was not fair to single out motor-omnibuses and say that they and they alone should be subjected to taxation. These other vehicles ought to share the burden. If these changes were made in the law, justice, in my opinion, would be done. I hope your Lordships will agree that my noble friend has done great service in bringing this subject forward and drawing from the noble Lord the statement he has made; and I hope that, unlike some Ministerial statements—I am not referring to this Government only, but to all Ministerial statements—it will be a prelude to immediate relief to those persons who have substantial grievances such as we have described.
§ LORD BARNARDMay I ask whether any of the numerous inquiries which the noble Lord has informed us are to be held will deal with the vexed question which is really at the bottom of the difficulty—namely, the question of extraordinary traffic?
§ LORD STRACHIEAs far as I am aware, that question will not be dealt with by either of these two Committees. The Joint Committee will deal with the specific subject of motor-omnibus traffic, and the other Committee will be an expert Committee of engineers who will examine into the question of how, by regulations as regards tyres, wheels, diameter, and 137 generally the wear and tear of these vehicles upon the roads can be reduced. The question of extraordinary traffic is a very difficult one indeed, and when you bring an action in a Court of Law in regard to it you cannot be quite certain whether or not you will succeed.
§ LORD BARNARDThe object of my question was to ascertain whether the Government would assist in elucidating that difficulty.