TRANSPORTATION

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 11, 7 October 1927, Page 8

TRANSPORTATION

WANTED: A REAL NATIONAL POLICY

NEW ZEALAND BEHIND THE TIMES

Recent events indicate that New Zealand could with advantage take stock of its national transportation policy. The fundamental fact iu the whole situation is that cheap transportation is an inestimable public boon and of the highest value to the community from a business, health, and social point of view. It means increased opportunity all round, and the grand objective should be to open that door of opportunity to as large a section of the people as possible. At the present moment this aspect of the question receives scant attention indeed. Motor body duties, for instance, are considered primarily in the interests of the motor body builders, and scarcely at all in the interests of users. It is desirable that every reasonable opportunity should be taken of encouraging local industry, but there is no escaping the fact that a cheap motor car with a body made in the Dominion ceases to be a cheap car. This position is, of course, different with certain makes sold in large quantities and with the bodies merely' put together locally, but otherwise it holds good. The present motor-body duties are also on an unsound principle in that they are subject to fifty per cent, reduction on all excess above £2OO in the customs valuation of the complete car. In so far as this applies to motor vehicles for private use it means that the true luxury article—the costly private car—is let in at a preferential' rate. The wealthy pian investing in a luxury article is let off lightly, and the man of small means gets it in the neck. The motor duties have been so much pulled about, that anomalies of this sort are not surprising. The fact remains, however, that the very expensive car is a luxury pure and simple, and if the tariff is to be graded it should be graded exactly the other way round from what it is at present.

Although the motor-vehicle owners of the Dominion are paying somewhere about £1,500,000 in taxation annually —more than the land tax brings in, and equal to about half of the total income tax receipts—it cannot be said that any outstanding recognition of the principle of service in return for payment exists. The greater part of the motor tax receipts—the Custom duties, with the exception of those on tires—goes into the general revenue account, and that is the end of it. The ridiculous delay of years in granting one little concession to pjptor■ists is typical of the whole official attitude to motor transportation. Six or seven years'ago local by-laws permitting the standing of unlighted motorvehicles at night on parking places were held to be ultra vires, as_ the Lights on Vehicles Act, 1915, laid it down that any rnotor-vehicle ou any public highway must be lighted after dark. It was years ago promised that this state of things would be alteredIt never has been altered, and all over New Zealand every evening thousands of parked cars remain needlessly using up electricity. This could be ended by a twopenny notice in the “Gazette,” but the notice never comes.

Since 1924 the revision of local body traffic by-laws has been held up all over the” Dominion pending the issue of Government regulations under the Motor-vehicles Act of that year. Although nearly three years have elapsed, those regulations have vet to appear Then, take the question of road

maps. . Every owner of a motor-vehi-cle is interested in knowing where he can take his vehicle, and where he cannot. Nobody but the Government lias the facilities for producing complete and accurate maps of the roads. The road maps turned out bv the Government are a waste of good paper. This is due to a complete lack of coordination between the Survey Department and the Public Works Department, that it is apparently worth nobody’s while to put right. One can spend pounds in buying Government maps, but it is impossible to buy anything that gives a complete and accurate representation of lhe usable roads.

The above instances arc typical of New Zealand’s official attitude towards motor transportation. It has lately been announced that a Ministry of Transportation is to be formed, and the foregoing indicates that there are plenty of useful things it could do.