Terms of Contract for Long-period Hiring of Commercial Motors.
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We are satisfied that not a few supporters of this journal will be interested to have in their possession a specimen memorandum of agreement for adoption in connection with any contract for the hiring of a commercial or motor vehicle. We do not here refer to a hire-purchase agreement, but to an agreement between the owner of a vehicle and the party to whom it is hired to do regular haulage work.
We are indebted to a well-known London motorhaulage company for permission to reproduce the particular memorandum of agreement which will be found on page 74 of this issue. We can state, from our own experiences, that various contingencies are fairly met in the terms of this contract, and that, from the point of view of the contractor, there are introduced no more safeguards than those which common occurrences show to be both desirable and necessary. It is at all times a difficult matter to embody in any agreement provision for or against every possible contingency. There must be a eon: tam n amount of give and take, and at all times reasonable behaviour between the parties. We can readily conceive that not a few users of hired vehicles will object to a few of the clauses, but we none the less recommend owners of vehicles which are so hired td put themselves 'on theright side, especially at a time of difficulty and uncertainty.
MuCh motor haulage is to our knowledge done merely on a load or trip basis, and without any continuing undertaking in the shape of an agreement. The absence of a term contract leaves the hirer or the owner open to break or vary the arrangement at will, and the non-existence of an agreement is, therefore, to a certain extent in favour of the owner, but only so when he has insufficient confidence in his rolling-stock or his own managerial ability so to commit himself. There were, ten years ago and more, very good reasons 'for not entering into agreements, but those reasons no longer obtain. Continuity of connection, stability of business relationships and those recommendations which invariably follow satisfactory working are nowadays generally found to attach to motor haulage contractors who will enter into agreements.
We shall be happy to give space in later issues, if we find occasion to do so, to reproduce other typical forms of agreement, or to comment upon any essential differences between other specimens which may reach us and the one which we now publish.
Definition of Motor Spirit : C.M.U. A. Support for Llandudno Co.'s Appeal.
We referred briefly, last week (page 50 ante), to the conviction sof the Llandudno Motor and Garage Co., Ltd., and of certain of its employees, for using "motor spirit" in connection with char-h-bancs work, contrary to the Order in Council of the 18th August last. A fuller report of the case will be found in onr present issue (page 69). We also reported, a week ago, that the matter was going before the Genesal Committee of the C.M.U.A., and it is now a matter of general knowledge that the decision was then unanimously reached to support the appeal of whidh the Llandudno company had given notice.
Numerous efforts have been made, and not only by the C.M.U.A., during the past few weeks, to obtain a reply of a 'convincing character from one or other of the Government Departments which are connected with the working of the regulations under the Order in Council. bThe Home Office, by virtue of its control of the police, was tried without result, except that it was ascertained that in its view petrol substitutes might not be used. A noncommittal attitude was adopted by the Board of Trade, through the Petrol Control Committee, and also by the Treasury. Each of these three Departments either relied upon a non-possumus attitude, which is a favourite one in like circumstances, or referred the enquirers to the Board of Customs and Excise. The officials at the Customs House were no more informative. Despite the concurrence of view on the part, of the other Government Departments that it was the correct dePartment to which to apply, and at which it was undoubtedly somebody's business to know, there was, if we may use colloquial language, 'nothing doing" at the, Customs House, E.C.
The matter is now sub judiee. The decision of the Divisional Court, on the case which has been stated by the Conway Bench, will be awaited with very great interest, alike by 4sers of commercial motors and private motors, but above all by owners of motor chars-h-bancs. We are not exceeding our journalistic rights, notwithstanding the fact that the position is now in course of legal elucidation, if we again briefly state the difficulties by which the Courts will be confronted, The Order of the Privy Council, under which the use of motor spirit for the purposes of chars-h-bancs or other like vehicles on any excursion or trip of any n19 sort was (with specified exceptions) forbidden, embodied the definition of " motor spirit" which is found in the Finance Act (1909-1910), 1910. We extract that definition, from sub-section 7 of Section 84 of the Act:— "The expression 'motor spirit' means any inflammable hydrocarbon (including any mixture of hydrocarbons and any liquid containing hydrocarbon) which is capable of being used for providing reasonably efficient motive power for a motorcar."
The foregoing definition is immediately followed, in sub-section 8 of the same section, by the following enactment in respect of the proceedings of the Commissioners of Customs and Excise:— " The Commissioners may by regulations prescribe tests for the purpose of determining whether any inflammable hydrocarbon or mixtur-3 of hydrocarbons, or liquid containing hydrocarbon, is motor spirit within the meaning of this provision."
Prior to the passing of this Finance Act the words " motor spirit" had not, so far as we are able to find, been employed in any Act of Parliament or any regulation. The words "petroleum spirit" had been previously used, and to those words an exact and scientific significance attaches. Statutory Rule and Order No. 226, of 1903, laying down the regulations for the use of petroleum in motorcars, and dated the 18th March of that year, states, inter alia:— " In these Regulations the expression petroleum spirit ' shall mean the petroleum to which the Petroleum Acts, 1871 and 1879, apply, provided that when any petroleum other thair that to which the said Petroleum Acts apply, is on or in any light locomotive, or is being conveyed or kept in any place on or in which there is also present any petroleum spirit as above defined, the whole of such petroleum shall be deemed to be petroleum spirit." The foregoing extract shows the importance of using one substitute only, and no petrol.
The second Petroleum Act, passed in the year 1879, defines petroleum as follows:— . "Such petroleum as, when tested in the manner set forth, gives off an inflammable vapour at a temperature of less than seventy-three degrees Fahrenheit's thermometer."
It will thus be seen that not a few ambiguities necessarily arise in respect of the legal meaning of "motor spirit." We have dealt with these difficulties in our past several issues, and it was three weeks ago (issue of the 31st ult.) that we published the C.M.U.A. memorandum to its members on the matter. The General Committee of the C.M.U.A., at that date, took the view that " Any fuel that does not pay the petrol tax can be used." We hope this may prove, after all, to be the correct view. Such substitutes may still be used, but only, as the police are in opposition, at the user's risk, and on his being prepared to take any consequences.
The point of law will probably turn upon whether the Commissioners of Customs and Excise have, or have not, made regulations and prescribed tests, as they are enjoined to do by the above-quoted subsection of Mr. Lloyd George's far-reaching Finance Act. It is only the production of those regulations and tests in Court, or the admission in Court• that none has been made, by which, in our opinion, the true legal situation can be positively made clear.
We hope that any of our supporters who are experiencing trouble with their local police, will be able to point out that an important appeal is to -be heard, at an early date, in London, on a case stated by the Conway Bench. It is improbable that any local police will then wish to cause undue interference with local transport, pending the decision of the appeal, and it should be possible, until the case is thus out of the way, for owners to continue to use petrol substitutes, which come between petrol and paraffin, in .their chars-h-banes and other vehicles.
We do not at the moment deal with the alleged claim of the Petrol Control Committee that all petrol substitutes should be entered upon the "Licence to purchase motor spirit." The Committee is surely misnamed, if it is entitled to control anything beyond petrol.