TRANSPORT PROBLEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 140, 16 June 1930, Page 9

TRANSPORT PROBLEM.

REGULATION BY THE STATE.

FORECAST OF LEGISLATION.

STATEMENT BY MINISTER

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

DUNEDIN, this day.

"New Zealand, like other countries has had motor transport superimposed on existing .transport services," said the Minister of Transport, the Hon. W. B. Taverner, during an interview on the subject of transport co-ordination. "There have been and Will be resulting derangements in the economic equilibrium and at the present' time the arrangement -of various services, having regard to national welfare, is one of the outstanding economic problems of the day. "In the United States," continued the Minister, "where motor transport has reached a higher pitch than anywhere else in the world, regulation by the State has been resorted to as the measure most suitable to meet the situation. The Home Country is about to follow suit, while South Africa apparently sees in regulation a practical solution.

"Fundamentally the problem 'is the same in these countries as it is in New Zealand, with perhaps this difference, that in New Zealand we have a very much lower population per mile of road and rail, and by virtue of our higher foreign trade per head of population are more in need of highly organised transport facilities. With experience of these other countries and the results of investigations carried out of the Transport Department as a guide, the time is ripe for legislation to enable a system of regulation that has been carefully adapted to suit this country's requirements to be brought into existence."