PLAN WANTED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 153, 30 June 1944, Page 2

PLAN WANTED

• NATIONAL TRANSPORT I EFFECTIVE CO-ORDINATIOfI The suggestion which he made last year, that an efficient and represent#, tive authority to co-ordinate all forms of transport should be set up T in New Zealand, was emphasised a again to-day by Sir Ernest Davis d chairman of the Northern Steamship •s Co., Ltd.. when addressing the a annual meeting of shareholders. He said that his remarks had been supo ported by harbour boards and i- coastal shipping companies through>f out New Zealand, and by the Associn ated Chambers of Commerce coni- ference. l- Sir Ernest said to-day that his e ideal was a body of men informed e and experienced, competent to deal ,- with the problem of transport, which ), was one of uncommon complexity. 0 The personnel of the committee or y council to consider the matter should consist of men representative of both f employer and employee, in railwavs 1 shipping, shipbuilding and ship'n repairing, road services and air I transport. s At Least Real Cost The problem of co-ordination must 1 be attacked in a courageous, practi--3 cal and co-operative spirit—and the s sooner the better. No post-war j problem was more urgent. Its verv • complexity should be a challenge to . an immediate and zealous beginning - No one nowadays believed that one element of transport can be dealt . with on its own; all were inter- . dependent. Their services and charges must be co-ordinated and , assimilated in the national interest Only eight months ago Lord > Leathers, Minister of War Transport . assured the House of Lords that > he and his advisers would not be . daunted by the complexity of the , issues involved, or by the magnitude - of the interests concerned in this i question. "The only criterion," he T said, "must be what will best serve 3 the interests of the nation. The aim l must be to establish a transport t system so co-ordinated and run that it can provide, and does provide, the r best possible service for the ieast real cost to the community as a whole." Importance of Coasters | Lord Leathers, with his business- > like appreciation of Great Britain's transport demands, had said: "War . has once more shown us how important the coasters are to us; we could f not do without the coasting fleet. But . for the relief they have given to . railways, our transport system 1 would have been seriously blocked. These ships have the great asset of mobility; they can be put in where the strain is heaviest. They have, L in particular, been invaluable in distributing ocean cargoes through the smaller ports. Here again the experience of war has underlined the advantages of close co-operation be--2 tween the various forms of transport, enabling traffic to be allocated among . them according to their availability. We must be careful in planning the co-ordination of road and rail to see that nothing is done to impede coastal shipping from fulfilling its full function." Lord Leathers, said Sir Ernest, had expressed in those words a con- . cise statement of the truth as it stands revealed to any who take the . trouble to examine the position. . Here in New Zealand we can no • more permit a policy of drift and . indifference than can the very much • larger interest in Great Britain. Inefficient Lack of Order In New Zealand, as elsewhere, ; transport concerned every individual, . every business, eVery farm, every factory, said Sir Ernest. Goods and . foodstuffs were the mainstay of ■ transport, and transport was the , arterial system of the-nation. How . ridiculous then, how "'deserving of . general condemnation, was that system which grew up in this countrv . under which Government - owned ; railways competed with coastal shipi ping, and, up till recently, motor , transport. Rate cutting became so ■ rampant in this suicidal and grossly inefficient lack of order that freight i was all too frequently carried at ; non-paying rates. i Could this be suffered? Could we : view with equanimity a continuance of this preposterous lack of coordination in the busy years of reconstruction, with all their demands for efficient and essential service? The answer was plain. Only the railways could survive under these anarchical conditions—the railways, with all their limitations, as with their admitted advantages in defined spheres. It was plain that here, as in Great . Britain, the call was for wise co- ■ operative planning in the interests t of trade and commerce, which, in : the long run, spelled the highest in- ; terest of the community as a whole. ; Let the respective zones and areas > of usefulness be expertly examined, > surveyed by competent and representative interests, to the end that ; all services be usefully and economi- > cally operated. Then it would be - apparent that the coastal shipping • services, which had helped this counl try so materially in past years, had > an important part to play—that they > were, indeed, by any practical test, ■ essential to the welfare, safety and 1 economic stability of an insular country such as New Zealand.