The Press SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1938. Transport Policy

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22307, 22 January 1938, Page 12

The Press SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1938. Transport Policy

The executive of the New Zealand Road Transport Alliance, disturbed by the Government's plan of extending the single ownership of transport by purchasing road services, resolved on Wednesday to appeal to the Government to carry this plan no further before it appoints a commission to investigate and report on transport policy; and the object of this resolution is wholly commendable. But it cannot be approved without regretting that the move has been so long delayed and without fearing that it may be too late—at least to influence the present Government. Strictly, the Government has no transport policy. From all that it has given out on the subject of transport and then explained or tried to explain away, very little emerges distinctly. But what has been most distinct in words is also strongly confirmed by the Government's acts; and the Minister for Transport himself was the author of the statement which expressed the Government's intention of protecting the railways. Unfortunately, this is not a transport policy; it is a transport prejudice, a railway bias. Mr Semple's statement illuminated much in the recent history of transport in the Dominion and converted suspicions into certainties. The Government's readiness to build or complete railway lines in the face of warning figures, statements on the technique of " co-ordination" under single ownership, rulings by licensing authorities, clearly regarding themselves as the agents of thc'Governmcnt—these and other evidences were harmonised in significance by the Minister's declaration; and nobody can have, or need have, the smallest doubt that the determining factor in transport is this railway bias. To account for it is easy enough. There are obvious financial reasons; there is the steady pressure of a powerful department of State; there is a Socialist Government's even more powerful motive to secure the pre-emin-ence of a State enterprise. None of these reasons disposes of the fact that the country needs the best and most economical transport and cannot afford to be deprived of it; all of them together do not dispose of it. That should be the guiding principle of any Government, obeyed in spite of any political predilections in favour of nationalised services. But it is not a principle which can be applied by the light of nature. The problems which it will assist to solve require expert statement and analysis. They have not been surveyed; the facts have not been collected and analysed. Previous governments neglected the task, rather because they had not advanced beyond superficial views than because they prejudged the issues. The Labour Government's neglect, or refusal, is wilful. Its political creed furnishes a ready-made solution of an economic problem which it has not even investigated: either the State-owned railways are to be protected by legislative restrictions on the competition of private enterprise operating on the roads, or State enterprise is to monopolise the roads also. The New Zealand Road Transport Alliance has recommended to the Government the only sane procedure. It has been recommended in these columns again and again. But if the alliance does not feel a little like the ogre's victim, suggesting to him the value of a better balanced diet, its trustfulness is singularly and surprisingly complete.