FIRST MOTOR LAW.

Wairarapa Age, 26 May 1936, Page 4

FIRST MOTOR LAW.

A QUAINT OLD STATUTE. MEMBER FOR MASTERTON’S DISCOVERY. (By Telegraph—“ The Age” Special.) WELLINGTON, May 25. When preparing his comment on the Motor Transport Amendment Bill, Mr. J. Robertson, member for Mastertoa went in for some research, and as a result was able to tell the House of a highly interesting discovery which he made in records nearly forty years old. It was in 1898 that the New Zealand Parliament paid its first attention to the horseless carriage, passing a statute which, as Mr. Robertson remarked, seemed very quaint in its provisions, but they gave some idea of the tremendous development that has taken place in transport since the advent of the internal combustion engine. Mr. Robertson proceeded to describe the terms of the McLean Motor Car Act, 1898, a private measure the title of which ran:—* ‘ An Act to authorise William McLean to use motor cars, and to enable other persons to obtain permits and licenses for a like purpose, and also to authorise the storage of inflammable substances used in driving such motor cars.”

The reason for this legislative innovation, as explained in the preamble, was that Mr. McLean and others had lately arranged for the introduction of motor cars into the Colony, but that it was doubtful whether such cars could lawfully be used on public roads and streets, and it was expedient that such power should be given. The clauses of the Act safeguarded the publie against the emission of “smoke or visible vapour therefrom except for some temporary or accidental cause,” and made sure that the pioneer ear driver should be provided with a bell or other instrument capable of giving audible warning of his approach. However, warning signals were not-, to end with a bell or other instrument, for in addition to limiting the speed of the vehicles to 12 miles per hour, a special clause enforced the carrying of a lamp during hours of darkness, and, as the design of the innovating transport medium was a little uncertain to the framers of the statute, they included the precaution, in a regulation, “That motor cars shall 'be capable of being guided by a person sitting thereon.”

Mr. Robertson commented that we had obviously travelled a long way since 1898 in the matter of road transport, and we had reached a position when the immense industry had to be subject to a larger and more effective measure of control than had recently been the case. Unrestricted competition ended in monopoly, and the country was fast getting into a position where transport was becoming a private monopoly. The previous Government, he declared, had carried out a policy which aimed at killing, as far as possible, the publicly-owned enterprises.