Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAYasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that on the, 19th November, 1912, the President of the Local Government Board issued a Regulation prohibiting the use of any cut-out, fitting, or other apparatus or device which will allow the exhaust gases from the engine of a motor-car to escape into the atmosphere without first passing through a silencer, expansion chamber, or other contrivance, suitable and sufficient for reducing as far as may reasonably be practicable the noise which would otherwise be caused by the escape of the said gases; whether his attention has been called to the fact that this Regulation is not infrequently disregarded by motorists and motor-cyclists within the Metropolitan area and throughout the country; and whether he will issue such instructions to the police as will ensure the strict carrying out of the Regulation?
§ Mr. SHORTTThe answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The police are instructed to enforce the Regulation, and the Commissioner informs me that in the Metropolitan Police District there were 275 convictions for breaches of the Regulation during the six months ended November last. I have received, so far as I know, no complaints on the subject from other police districts.