delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a review on certiorari, on petition of defendant, of a judgment for plaintiff for $203.75 on appeal by defendant from a judgment of a trial magistrate for $75.00. Code, Art. 5, sec. 104. Plaintiff sued to recover moneys collected from it by defendant, as fees for operating taxicabs in Montgomery County, under an ordinance of defendant which was not offered in evidence. The question, if any, presented is whether Montgomery County has authority, under Chapter 941 of the Acts of 1945, to impose upon the owner or operator of a taxicab any registration fee or license fee for operating it in Montgomery County. The lower court held that it has not.
Chapter 941 of the Acts of 1945 is entitled an act to add a new sub-title, “Taxicabs”, and three new sections, 1130 A, 1130 B and 1130 C to Article 16, “Montgomery County”, of the Code of Public Local Laws, “providing generally for the regulation in Montgomery County of taxicabs and their owners and operators by the County Commissioners” and for regulation of taxicab rates. Section 1130 B, “in order to protect the public health, safety and welfare of the citizens of Montgomery County” and others who may use taxicabs there, authorizes and empowers the county to enact ordinances “providing regulations for the ownership and operation of taxicabs in Montgomery County, and to provide for and fix the requirements for the registration, licensing and inspection of taxicabs, their owners and operators”; and to fix rates. “The regulations herein provided for taxicabs in Montgomery County shall be in addition to any regulations by the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles * * * or the Public Service Commission * * *.”
Art. 66%, sec. 1, of the Code, 1947 Supplement, as enacted by the motor vehicles act, Chapter 1007 of the Acts of 1943, and as amended by Chapter 322 of the Acts of 1949, provides: “1. (Applicability.) The provisions of this Article are intended to be State-wide in their effect, and except to the extent that they may be *419 specifically authorized by other provisions of this Article [or by Public Local Laws providing for the regulation of taxicabs and the operators thereof, heretofore or hereafter enacted], no City, County or other Municipal subdivision of the State shall have the right to make or enforce any local law, ordinance or regulation upon any subject for which provision is made in this Article, nor require any registration or licensing of motor vehicles or operators thereof in addition to the registration and licensing herein prescribed, nor impose upon the owner or operator of any motor vehicle any tax, registration fee, license fee, assessment or charge of any kind for the use of a motor vehicle upon any public highway or highways in this State.
“The provisions of this Article (except as herein otherwise specifically provided) are intended to be exclusive of all local and municipal legislation or regulations, upon the various subjects with which this Article purports to deal, and all Public Local Laws, Ordinances and Regulations inconsistent or identical therewith or equivalent thereto are hereby repealed; and the charters of all Municipal Corporations of this State are modified so as as prohibit such corporations from making or enforcing any ordinance or regulations in violation of this Article. * * *
“No provision of this Article shall be deemed as repealed by any act hereafter passed unless said provision is expressly referred to and repealed in terms or some other clear evidence given of the intent on the part of the General Assembly to change the policy of the State herein declared.” The bracketed words are not part of the Act of 1943, but are part of the section as amended in 1949.
In an opinion in a case of
Swisher v. County Commissioners
of Montgomery County, which did not reach this court, the lower court said, in 1948, “Art. 3, Sec. 29 of the Constitution of Maryland provides, ‘every law enacted by the General Assembly shall embrace but one subject, and that shall be described in its title.’ This
*420
has been passed upon by the Court of Appeals in many cases; we shall refer to only a few. The purposes thereof are twofold: ‘The first is to prevent the combination in one Act of several distinct and incongruous subjects; and the second is, that the legislature and the people of the State may be fairly advised of the real nature of pending legislation.’
Kafka, v. Wilkinson,
*422
Plaintiff, for reasons not made clear, seems anxious to disclaim reliance on the
Swisher
case and asserts that all references to that case “should be disregarded” by us. He asserts “that the validity of [the Act of 1945] was not in issue in [the instant] case — the court merely held that it conferred upon Montgomery County no authority to.impose registration or license fees or charges of any kind, upon owners or operators of taxicabs in Montgomery County.” He contends that any such authority is denied by the very Act of 1949 [swpra] which amended Art. 66%, sec. 1, so as expressly to except from the ban of the state-wide policy “Public Local Laws providing for the regulation of taxicabs and the operators thereof, heretofore or hereafter enacted”. This particular contention is based on an ungrammatical reading, which does not make sense. The exception, like the exception in the original act, is plainly applicable to all the rest of the sentence and cannot be restricted (as plaintiff attempts to do) to the first of the three “rights” denied in that sentence. The preamble of the Act of 1949 recites that uncertainty has been expressed as to whether Article 66% was intended to include all the provisions for the regulation of taxicabs, this doubt having arisen in connection with the construction of Chapter 941 of the Acts of 1945, relating to taxicabs in Montgomery County. Section 2 of the Act declares “that it was not the legislative intent that Article 66% should preclude the enactment of local laws for the regulation of taxicabs and taxicab operators”, and also provides that no public local laws heretofore enacted and no municipal ordinance or regulation heretofore adopted or passed under authority comprised by any such laws, relating to the regulation of taxicabs, shall be deemed to be invalid on the ground that such acts contravened the policy of the state as to regulation of taxicabs and operators. It" is thus clear that since June 1, 1949, Art. 66%, sec. 1 expresses no policy against local regulation of taxicabs. The legislature, however, had no power in 1949 to determine the proper construction of the Act
*423
of 1943.
Marburg v. Mercantile Building Co.,
On the other hand, the Act of 1943 is pertinent, if at all, only to the extent that it may throw light upon the construction of the Act of 1945, and not in any event as “precluding the enactment” of any local legislation by the legislature itself. The legislature cannot by statute “preclude” the repeal of any statute by a subsequent legislature. Art. 66%, sec. 1, in the last sentence above quoted, provides that no provision “shall be deemed as repealed” unless “clear evidence [is] given of the intent * * * to change the policy of the State”. In legal effect, this is no more than a statement of policy and an emphatic statement of the ordinary rule of construction against repeal by implication. If, however, words which seem more peremptory than these are clearly inconsistent with subsequent legislation, the subsequent legislation is not invalidated but repeals
pro tanto
the provision against repeal.
Herman v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore,
If two legislative acts can reasonably be construed together so as to give effect to both, such a construction is to be preferred. We need not consider whether the Act of 1945 would be susceptible of any narrowing construction so as to conform with a statement of policy in Art. 66%, sec. 1. We are satisfied that, within the meaning of Art. 66%, sec. 1, regulation of taxicabs is not a “subject for which provision is made in” Art. 66%, and registration and license fees in such regulation are not charges “for the use of a motor vehicle upon any public highway or highways in this State.” Any doubt *424 as to the meaning of the words of section 1 in this respect is dispelled by consideration of its history and its contemporaneous legislative construction. Section 1 originated in the first section of the first motor vehicles act, Acts of 1916, c. 687. The second sentence above quoted (repealing local laws and powers) was new in 1943; the third sentence is substantially unchanged since 1916; in the first sentence the operative words (including the reference to charges for the use of a motor vehicle upon a highway) are the same, as far as they went in 1916, but the subject matter is broadened. From 1916 till 1943 the statement of state-wide policy was directed against local regulation “which shall * * * affect the speed limits prescribed by this sub-title, require any registration or licensing of motor vehicles or operators thereof in addition to the registration and licensing herein prescribed, or impose upon the owner or operator of any motor vehicle any tax, registration fee, license fee, assessment or charge of any kind for the use of a motor vehicle upon any public highway or highways of this State,” with a proviso permitting local “reasonable traffic regulations”, not involving “any charge of any kind for the use of their highways” [other than reasonable parking charges, by amendment in 1929]. Code of 1939, Art. 56, sec. 145. In 1943 the reference to speed limits was broadened to “any subject for which provision is made in this Article.” The reference to charges “for the use of a motor vehicle upon any public highway,” unchanged since 1916, is patently only a part of a statement of policy against local duplication of (a) statewide registration and licensing and (b) fees therefor. In 1916 registration and licensing fees were more important to the state as a source of revenue, than they now are, and to the motor vehicle owner also duplication was a serious menace. In 1943 regulation of taxicabs (as distinguished from other motor vehicles) was not a subject for which any provision was made in Article 661/2.
In England and America, regulation of hackmen and their charges was one of the oldest kinds of rate regula
*425
tion.
Munn v. Illinois,
The history of taxicab regulation in Maryland shows that both before and since the enactment of the present motor vehicles act in 1943 such regulation has not been a state-wide or unified system and has not at any time been covered in the motor vehicles act. In addition to the requirement of registration and licenses under the motor vehicles act, the taxicab business in Baltimore is subject to four other kinds of regulation, as to cab stands by the Police Commissioner, as to rates and owners, and also as to permits, by the Public Service Commission, and as to taxicabs and operators by the taxicab bureau. This is an illustration (not the only one) of the wide difference between regulation of or charges for (a) use of motor vehicles on highways and (5) conduct of a business which requires use of motor vehicles on highways. Cf. Atkinson v. Sapperstein, supra.
*427 Contemporaneous legislative construction of Art. 66%, sec. 1, is unusually significant because it is really contemporaneous, not wholly subsequent. The repeal provision (second sentence) is as broad as the statement of statewide policy in the first sentence. If the first sentence covers taxicab regulation, the second also does and repeals the Prince George’s County and Annapolis acts approved a few days before and the Baltimore act approved the same day as the motor vehicles act. The only conclusion is that by the true construction of Art. 66%, sec. 1, the legislative intent was consistent with the three local acts approved the same day or a few days before and the eight acts enacted in 1945 and 1947.
Plaintiff contends that the fees exacted from him were unlawful because, aside from the provisions of Art. 66%, sec. 1, “licensing”, under the Act of 1945, does not include power to impose license fees to raise revenue that bears no reasonable relation to the expense of regulation.
Mayor & City Council of Baltimore v. Canton Co.,
Whether or not the payments made by plaintiff were voluntary, is not before us.
Wasena Housing Corp. v. Levay,
Plaintiff contends that no question at all is properly before us for review because the record does not show any objection below by defendant to any rulings on the prayers. Rule 17 provides, “Formal exceptions to rulings or orders of the court are unnecessary; but for all purposes for which an exception has heretofore been necessary it is sufficient that a party at the time the ruling or order of the court is made or sought, makes known to the court the action which he desires the court to take or his objection to the action of the court and *428 his grounds therefor; * * Plaintiff and defendant each offered a prayer for a directed verdict. Plaintiff’s prayer was granted, defendant’s refused. As all prayers presumably were offered and ruled on at the same time, defendant’s prayer necessarily amounted to an objection to plaintiff’s prayer. Defendant thus, “at the time the ruling of the court was sought and made, make known to the court the action which he desired the court to take and his objection to the action of the court and (at least by all the prayers) his grounds therefor.”
Judgment reversed, and case remanded for a new trial.