Licensing of Taxis

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22370, 6 April 1938, Page 8

Licensing of Taxis

The decision of his Worship the Mayor to resign from the Metropolitan Licensing Authority is a regrettable consequence of disagreement between- the authority and the Minister for Transport. It is obvious that this disagreement is deep. Towards the end of last year the authority reached decisions affecting the system and the scale of charges for taxi services, the conditions of labour, and the number of licences issued. The Minister's decisions, on a wide variety of appeals, Tnave \ip & quite different system of reckoning fares, have changed the labour conditions, and increased the number of licences granted. The Minister's decisions are of course final; and he is not bound to disclose the evidence on which he arrives at them. But it is interesting to note that Mr Semple said he was " in possession of "a great deal of verified information which "was not made available to the licensing " authority." Even though this evidence seems to have concerned the personal hardships which would follow if licences cancelled by the authority were not revived, it remains disturbing to see decisions taken by a public authority in the pubiic interest over-ridden by a superior authority for reasons which, being undisclosed, cannot be judged. When the Minister says, however, that "the measurable benefits" to the taxi industry would not be great enough to justify the refusal of certain appeals and the " definite hardship " which would " in some "cases" result, it is easier to take his word for it than when he over-rules the authority on major issues of policy and does not explain his reasons. This is what the Christchurch City Council, on Monday evening, described as "stultifying" the authority. It is true enough that in dealing with the taxi industry in Christchurch the authority deals with a problem of great difficulty, full of contrarieties and confusions. The authority may very well fail to find the complete solution at once. But the very difficulty of the problem is reason why the decisions of the authority in broad principle should, if possible and so far as possible, be upheld. The authority has the advantage of special knowledge of the industry in its local conditions and the advantage, also, of collecting and checking its evidence on the spot. When the Minister rejects rather than modifies its policy decisions, an uneasy situation develops. Every possible inference is unfortunate. And if the Minister's judgments are not accompanied by sufficiently full and clear statements of his reasons for them, the public and the industry are left in the dark and the authority is left helpless. The Minister has said that he " does not for a minute claim that " his decisions had laid down a permanent " basis for the industry," and that he would be " the first to agree to any alteration which ex"perience showed to be necessary." If this is an argument for a provisional policy, to be tested by its results, it is a wise one; but its wisdom certainly implies that the authority,

being in the better position to work- out a solution that way, should have been left to do it. '