TRUCKS OWNED BY FARMERS

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22183, 28 August 1937, Page 13

TRUCKS OWNED BY FARMERS

STATUS UNDER NEW LEGISLATION REQUEST FOR STATEMENT BY GOVERNMENT A request that the Government should state plainly its attitude towards the continuance of ancillary road services is made in a statement issued by the New Zealand Road Transport Alliance. The statement is a reply to a recent statement by the Minister for Railways (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan) in which he said that "the Government had no intention of imposing any restrictions on farmers using their own trucks for the carriage of their own produce." "The very limited and guarded terms In which this statement is couched give ground for considerable anxiety, and in conjunction with the existing legal position do not seem to afford much assurance of safety to the farmer-owners of motor-lorries," the alliance's reply states. "At the present time there are approximately 45,000 trucks in use in the Dominion, of which about 5000 are used by licensed operators, 5000 by town carriers, 14,000 by farmers, and 21,000 by other ancillary users. The problem of the rights of the ancillary user under the Government's proposed internal transport monopoly is thus an important one to a very large number of owners of vehicles, and indirectly to the whole business community. "Illusory Protection", "If this interpretation of the law, which appears to be a logical deduction from decisions already given, is upheld, then the protection to the farmer operating his own motorvehicle will be illusory indeed. Under existing regulations and Court decisions the possibilities of restrictions on ancillary users are unlimited. "This being so, will the Minister state explicitly, yes or no, whether the Government intends to take action to restrict or interfere with the rights of ancillary users, farmers or otherwise? Will he also state how the persistence of ancillary users on a large scale prevailing in the Dominion is consistent with the avowed policy of single ownership? If they are incompatible, which policy is the Government going to adopt? How can widely spread ancillary use be reconciled with a policy of single ownership of internal transport, and its concentration as a monopoly in. the hands of the Railway Department? Do not all the facts point towards the ultimate elimination of the ancillary user altogether? "In his statement the Minister gives no assurance whatever as to the position of the non-farmer ancillary user; and the natural inference from this significant silence is that the Government intends to take advantage of existing legislation to restrict or forbid his activities altogether; the Government has taken power for the Minister for Transport (whose decision is final and cannot be appealed from) to de-

Clare any service by motor-vehicle for the carriage of goods, whether for hire or reward or not, to be a goods service subject to the provisions of the Transport Licensing Act, 1931," continues the reply. Farmer-Users "The position of even the farmeruser does not seem to be effectually safeguarded by the pronouncement which the Minister has made. Already convictions have been entered, and substantial fines imposed on owners of motor-vehicles transporting their own goods for sale at a price which includes an allowance for transport expenses. The principle of these decisions may easily be held to cover the transport of produce or supplies inwards or outwards by farmers in their own vehicles, if the prices of the articles concerned are affected by the fact that the farmer undertakes the expense of moving them. "The Minister's further promise to provide a flexible first-class goods service is vague in the extreme, and as it stands carries no precise meaning at all. In any case, for farmerowners of goods motor-vehicles (and as above stated there are about 14j000 of them in New Zealand at present). such a service is not likely to be of much use. If a farmer already owns a lorry, he will use it for the purposes of his own transport It is not likely that he will lay it up, with a total waste of the capital invested in it, in order to avail himself of any alternative service. Such farmers who already have a capital investment of approximately £3,000,000 in trucks will not use the Government's service except under compulsion, and the same applies to other ancillary users with an additional £4,000,000 capital investment. What is wanted is a plain answer to this question. Is it the intention of the Government to compel ancillary users to abandon the use of their own motor-vehicles and employ the road or rail services provided by the Railway Department? If it is not, what becomes of their policy of single ownership?"