The Danger of Metropolitan Police Extremes.
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Six or seven months ago all London was amazed at the license accorded to motor-omnibus companies by the Chief Commissioner of Police. Nerve-racking noises emanated from a large proportion of the buses, less than 300 in number, then " in commission," and the Strand, between King William Street and Wellington Street, to cite one thoroughfare of many, was little less than a pandemonium. This situation was, in our judgment, the outcome of a mistaken indulgence, and we gave pointed expression to those views on the opening pages of our issues of February 1st and 8th last. We venture to quote several of the passages :
" We foresee grievous and immediate trouble for proprietors of motor omnibuses, unless increasing vigilance is directed to the elimination of legitimate cause for public restlessness in respect of the noise which now proceeds from so many of these
vehicles when they are in ordinary use Sounds of a nature to suggest ambulatory riveting shops will not, for much
longer, be permitted in the Strand. . . . Ill-considered eagerness to keep the largest possible number of vehicles on the road is allowed to transcend the dictates of sober judgment . . . is obviously tolerated only from a laudable inclination on the part of the public to give a new thing a chance to settle down, and we have to face the likely termination of this rigime of benevolent neutrality . . . it behoves the operating companies to issue stringent and inflexible orders that a noisy
vehicle is to be kept in the deped . . the day for excuses is fast passing away. . . • Any company which has pressed forward beyond the resources of its organisation should make sure of the plant which it now possesses before yielding to the tempting influences of expansion."
It took some three months for the authorities to recognise the urgency of these demands, though they had their echo throughout the daily Press; in fact, the police moved after, and not before, the public willingness to allow motorbuses a reasonable degree of latitude had been outraged. The harm inflicted upon motorbus interests by this unduly prolonged initial period of official abstention from road inspection can hardly be expressed in cold print. The operating companies, spurred on by a multitude of competitive influences, and affrighted by rumours of new flotations, were sorely tempted not to call in the noisy vehicles of their own accord, for, at that time, the immediate earnings of each vehicle were of very considerable importance, in more senses than one, to their owners. Excessive noise went unabated, and real occasion was given for the growing volume of serious complaints from bona-fide sufferers. It will be found that we reverted to the matter in our issue of May 3rd last (Vol. III, No. 6o, page 187) in the course of an Editorial intituled " From probation to regular system : delays inadmissible." We then wrote, at a time when makers and owners had, by slow degrees, effected great improvements: "The impending arrival at a new stage in the treatment to be meted out by the police to omnibuses should bring about neither revolution nor hardship. It can affect, as a maximum, only some seven or eight per cent, of the motorbuses in use, because the remainder certainly make smaller contribu• Lions to the total volume of London's traffic roar than an equal number of carts, horse-drawn omnibuses, or tramcars. The essence of any change must be promptitude. Given inspecting officials who possess those 'more than average powers of observation and discrimination' for which we appealed three months ago, we fail to see that any valid objection can be raised to the serving on a driver of orders to take his bus into the depOt at the end of the next completed journey. Any formalities which permit the introduction of circumlocutory methods, though they involve a delay of only, let us say, six hours, will fail to meet the case, because thousands of members of the public must, in consequence of such procedure, have their senses affronted, and be obliged to endure a nuisance. We advocate summary powers for the acting officials, as any unnecessary delay means effacing the recollection of all the noiseless and smooth-running omnibuses in service. The police will, in point of fact, be serving the companies' best interests as well as those of the public."
To-day, unfortunately, we are witnessing a campaign, on the part of the police, which is nothing less than astoundlog; notwithstanding the cessation of objection by all but a
comparatively small number of interested property owners, they appear to he seized with a fit of heedless and unreasoning activity. So many motorbuses arc being ordered off the streets that we are obliged to reiterate our queries in relation to the vital question of the inspectors' qualifications. We pointed out, as part of our references named earlier (issue of February ist last, page 406) : "Only a harsh and unconscionable interpretation of the clauses affecting side-slip, vibration, noise, arnd the increased swaying due to cross springs, can lead to any disagreement, as these points alone are referred to the Commissioner's inspectors for the exercise of their judgment. It rests, therefore, with the Chief Commissioner himself to establish acceptable and reasonable standards, and, also, to entrust the inspecting duties to competent officials, who mast, necessarily, possess more than average powers of observation and discrimination. Chaos and financial ruin will result for the omnibus companies if these selective powers are in any way abused," We now ask, in the presence of action which it is wellnigh impossible to explain, whether these inspectors are sufficiently trained to be capable of apprising justly the standards of noise and vibration below which a motorbus should not fall? We are obliged, regretfully, to have to say that their actions belie their claims in numerous instances, and that, whilst many of them act with commendable discrimination, others appear to be imbued with the idea that they " must reject something " in order to justify their appointment.
Sir E. R. Henry is, no doubt, beset with an influential remnant of the original advisers and objectors on these very thorny subjects, and his position is by no means an enviable one. We are satisfied, none the less, that capricious, not to say reactionary, behaviour on the part of some inspectors can only have the result of adding to his anxieties in this connection, and that, if " stop " notices are to become haphazard " playthings " in the hands of subordinates, the companies will be forced to take such steps, by way of protest, as will effectually rouse public attention to the grave injustices that are being perpetrated under the guise of qualified supervision I The first extreme of laxity was bad : the present extreme of pedantic interference is infinitely Worse, and it is not in the public interest. To have an omnibus licensed one day, and to have it ordered off the streets the next, is an impossible State of affairs for an operating company to endure : neither should it be possible for large numbers of motorbuses to be condemned by one inspector, and to be passed, within 24 hours, and without the application of even a spanner during the interval, hy another in Spector! Yet these crude anomalies are rampant, and the expressions of not a few of the men who are entrusted with the most responsible police duties are positively ludicrous. By all means let us have stringency where there is need for it, but nobody can afford to see authority enforced in a wholly irresponsible manner. Severity without justification is as blameworthy as leniency where faults are outstanding and proclaimed. Each is equally disastrous and unsettling in its effects. To the companies, at this stage of developments, we offer one piece of advice, in the name of expediency : let the services which follow semi-professional or residential streets other than main routes he curtailed or abandoned for the present. Another vital question, that of the Commissioner's delay in licensing new chassis, which affects both makers and proprietors, will receive full attention at our hands in an early issue.