IT WOULDN'T WORK.

Observer, Volume XXVII, Issue 45, 27 July 1907, Page 3

IT WOULDN'T WORK.

The Motor Car and the License Fee.

IT would almost seem as if the Waitemata County Council is intent upon defeating the desire of Sir Joseph Ward that every working man in this pro. gressive country shall own a motor car. Else, why the revenueraising movement against motorists who condescend to honour this benighted and backward district with their hustling presence? The Waitemata County Council owns an ancient by-law under which it claims a license fee for eveiy vehicle that traverses the roads of the district. This law was passed long before motor cars were ever thought of, and at a time when foreign vehicles seldom or never invaded the sacred territory of Waitemata, but the spectacle of an occasional motor car careening through the district has prompted its resurrection for the purposes of " more revenue."

Mr Arthur Cleave, happily unconscious of the cupidity he was exciting in the minds of the county officials, made an excursion into the wilds of Waitemata on his motor car the other day. Immediately afterwards, he was served with a summons charging him with the heinous offence of driving on the roads of the county in a motor car that had not been licensed by the Waitemata County Council. Mr Cleave was dumbfounded. It bad not previously occurred to him, as a motor car pioneer of the interior, that he was liable for a license fee every time he took his machine into a new county or borough or road district. He took the advice of the Automobile Asso ciation, which was also dismayed at the prospect of license fee liability opened out to it. Then they both took the advice of the lawyers.

The case came on for bearing before Mr Dyer last Monday. There are very few laws or by-laws in New Zealand through which a coach-and- pair might not be driven, and, in this particular instance, Mr Clayton found a very wide avenue of escape. The by-law deals with " any vehicle drawn along or upon a road." As Mr Cleaves motor car had not broken down, and was not hitched behind an obliging bullock team — as sometimes happens in the back-blocks — Mr Clayton took the objection that a motor car was not a vehicle within the meaning of the section, because it was not drawn along or upon the road, but was propelled. Mr Dyer grasped the point. The case was dismissed, and the tooavaricious Waitemata County Council was compelled to pay the costs. * * • Leaving the legal objection out of the question altogether, however, the prosecution, considered from the broad ground of common sense, was most absurd. Motor cars are chiefly employed for the purposes of touring. If this by-law had been enforced against these machines, then it would be necessary for a motorist to take out a thirty - shilling license for every borough, county, and road district in New Zealand. On his one annual trip, he would be required to pay a fresh license fee every few miles he travelled, the consequence of which would be that he would find it too costly to venture outside the boundaries of the district in which he lived. Such a condition of things was never contemplated by the framers of by-laws with regard to vehicle licenses. The Waite. mata County Council has en. deavoured to strain the law to G

far, in the hope of getting license fees from strange motor cars, and deserves to be mulcted in the costs. But, supposing every local body in the country passed by-laws imposing this liability upon motor cars, what would Sir Joseph Ward'sexemption from duty avail? Even if each and every working man did own a motor car, as sir Joseph Ward evidently contemplates, he would not be able to take it out of his own back yard without bumping against the tax collector or summons server.