ROAD FREIGHT SERVICES

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22343, 5 March 1938, Page 4

ROAD FREIGHT SERVICES

♦—- BASIS FOB* PURCHASE NORTH ISLAND DECISIONS <rii»» amocutiojh tileosam.) WELLINGTON. March 4. The Government has adopted the financial recommendations 6f the tribunal set up last year to consider a basis of settlement between the Crown and certain long-distance road freight •services. The recommendations apply to 13 out of a total of 54 freight services with which the tribunal has had to deal, but the financial details of the transactions which have been concluded were not disclosed. The Minister for Transport (the Hon. R. Semple) said: "The main concern of the Government in these transactions has been to do the fair thing by the road operators, having regard to the interests of the taxpayer on the one hand and the operator on tho other. A most gratifying aspect for the Government is that the recommendations of the tribunal, representing the interests of buyer and seller, were unanimous, and in these circumstances it was not difficult for the Government to ratify the findings and recommendations as representing a fair and equitable basis of purchase. The tribunal, in its report, states that the members interpreted their warrant as requiring them to ascertain a fair goodwill value for each goods service, and to deduct from that such a percental as was thought reasonable as an allowance for thy benefits derived from the operations of the transport licensing system which had undoubtedly contributed materially (though in a varying degree) to the stability and profit-earning capacity of licensed services. ______»__«_——