AGAINST COMMUNITY INTERESTS

Evening Star, Issue 21138, 25 June 1932, Page 8

AGAINST COMMUNITY INTERESTS

- MOTOR TRANSPORT ACT CRITICISED MERELY A “RAILWAYS PROTECTION ACT " Instead of being, ns business men had expected, a business measure, the Motor Transport Act seemed to bo merely a New Zealand Railways Protection Act, declared Mr F. W. Freeman (Christchurch), at the quarterly meeting of the South Island Motor Union, at Wnimate yesterday. The Chairman (Mr F. W. Johnston) said that while he did not propose opening a discussion on the Motor Transport Act, he would like delegates to consider the whole Act with a view to being prepared for any action the union might take in future. Mr Freeman expressed the opinion that they should look behind the good intentions that seemed, at first blush, to inspire the Act, and examine the dangers that might far outweigh the advantages. It behoved thorn as a motoring organisation, to be militant and try to have the matter put on to a more equitable basis. He contended that the Act had been conceived in the wrong spirit, and recently they had the spectacle of the Transport and Appeal Hoards sitting in biased judgment on their bus such preferential treatment being, in his opinion, distinctly against the best interests of the community generally. It was expected by business men that the Act would be a business measure; instead of that it seemed merely a New Zealand Railways Protection Act. Before the motor ora the railways were an arrogant dominion monopoly, and the public purse was always manipulated for them. Mr Freeman went on to say that the Act could only result in the elimination of free and fair competition. and it was designed largely to protect the railways against competition from road transport. ft was, therefore, a menace to economic progress in transport. Mr Freeman was thanked for his remarks. and at the suggestion of the chairman, he agreed tc embody them in a circular to be forwarded to'motoring organisations throughout the dominion.