Another interest of the London streets is the battle of
wits that is going on between the Minister of Transport and the independent omnibus owners who refuse to with- draw their 'buses from certain routes now forbidden to them. In principle it always seems to us infamous that private enterprise which confers a public benefit should be prohibited in order to bolster up a tramway system which cannot make a profit on its merits. But it must be admitted that the traffic problem of to-day is so complicated that no reasonable complaint can be brought against the Minister for limiting the number of vehicles if his 'motive is merely to accelerate the traffic. Some of the small owners of 'buses seem, however, to have been very hardly used, if not by the Minister, then by circum- stances. One ingenious small company has tried techni- cally to evade the law by making all its passengers shareholders in the company, the point being that nobody can prohibit them from travelling in an omnibus which is their own property.
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