TRANSPORT SYSTEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 173, 23 July 1936, Page 11

TRANSPORT SYSTEM.

QUESTION OF CONTROL.

The view that no form of transport regulations can be effective unless it combines efficient control of shipping, air, road and railway services with no predisposition in ' favour of any particular type of industry, is expressed by representatives of transport, interests in commenting on the new transport regulations. It was pointed out to-day by one authority that a first essential must be that various forms of transport must be placed on economic parity, yet there was much of the railway- transport that .was not on that basis. .The whole policy <..f the Railway . Department had been to kill by means of special rates New Zealand's coastal shipping trade.

The general contention is that some form of Dominion control is essential to a comprehensive system of transport, and that if transport is to develop in a comprehensive way along national lines, regulation by the Government in some degree must be extended to all agencies operating within the Dominion. It is maintained, however, that there is a danger in the exercise of an excess of regulation, because there is a degree of detail beyond which regulation could not go without imposing excessive demands upon managements and depriving the public of advantages of fair competition, . which it is the purpose of regulation to promote.

The question of the right of appeal, was discussed and the dealing with disputes by an independent tribunal is favoured. It is considered wrong in principle that a member of Cabinet should be the final arbiter when a Government service is a competitor in the transport system.