TRAFFIC COMPETITION

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 March 1935, Page 7

TRAFFIC COMPETITION

RAILWAYS v. MOTORING

SERVICE TO PUBLIC [PEB PBESS ASSOCIATION.] AUCKLAND, March 15. The appeal case before the Transport Co-ordination Board was continued to-day. In January, the licensing authority delivered its decision regarding applications made by goods service operators in the Auckland province, for renewals of their licenses. Of 29 applications for renewals, only three were approved, and the three were petrol tank wagons. The remaining six were refused route licenses, and allowed only local carrying licenses. All were in whole or in part running parallel with the Railways. The general submission on behalf of the 18 transport firms was presented by Mr Lea Ty.

It is obvious, he said, the intention of the Legislature is that your Board shall look to the benefit of transport as. a 5 whole, _ neither favouring the railway nor ships, nor lorries, but holding an even hand between them. This is a different thing from a direct mandate to abolish all motor transport, that does not merely feed the railway. If the Legislature had intended this it could be trusted to have said so. As to the suggestion that the transport companies do not possess sufficient plant to handle heavy seasonable traffic. This is an extraordinary argument to be put forward for the abolition of transport traffic. It is an argument for its increase. Looking at the matter by small and large, the real opponents of organised route transport may be said to be the railways, and its auxiliary carriers at termini. This combination has suggested that long distance operators are causing great deficiency in the railway returns. The truth of the matter, however, is that the real cause of the railway deficit, apart from political non-paying lines, is the fact that the passenger service has dropped off. The advent of the motor car has provided the private individual with an asset as mobile with regard to himself, as road transport has provided with regard to his goods. He 5 has availed himself of the private motor car to a much greater extent than he has of the road carrier. The true value of railways as national assets should be ascertained, not upon basis of what they cost but what they were worth as a transportation system. The difference would amount to many millions. It was a national matter and must be met from the national purse, but not by the expedient of hamstringing the country and depriving it of efficient transportation. Had the Railways Board not interceded in 1931, another £600,000 would have been added to the already wasted £4,000,000 on unremunerative railways. Roads had been constructed out of public money in the same way as had railways. The country had about £62,000,000 invested in roads, and approximately £60,000,000 in railways. The revenue from road operators was helping to pay interest find sinking fund on the first of those sums. If they were prevented from running and assuming that thereby the railway revenue was increased, who was to say that the increase in railway revenue thus made would be greater than the taxation direct and indirect in road transport? <

CASE FOR RAILWAYS.

On behalf of. the Railways Board, the principal objector to the granting of the Auckland motor freight operators’ appeals, a long and detailed statement was submitted by Mr F. W. Aickin, solicitor to the Railways Department. After referring to the tendency of the road transport to concentrate on goods of high commercial value, leaving those of low commercial value to be carried by the railways, Mr Aickin said he would endeavour to prove that unregulated competition in transport was unfair, wasteful and gravely prejudicial to the general public, which in 1933 had been called upon to provide £1,196,807, the excess of interest charges over net revenue carried by the railways, together wtih £4,941,896, toward the annual reading bill. Were the road services called upon to carry low rates goods they would quickly go out of existence.

Counsel proceeded to discuss at length the established system of railway freight charges and to defend the discriminative rating as against the suggestion in an earlier transport case, that the railways should charge a flat rate determined by the level of the average costs. The present rating system, said Mr Aickin, had behind it years of experience in New Zealand and other countries, and was supported by distinguished economists. To discard it would be to bring about economic chaos. It was impossible to base railway freight rates on costs of service, because goods and passenger costs in practice could not be separated.

Dealing with the present appeals, counsel pointed out that before the licensing authority, local bodies and various leagues and farmers’ organisations had said that they did not want road services. A strong plea for the abolition of long-distance service had been made by a number of groups of local carriers. In conclusion, Mr Aickin referred to the arguments based on “the march of progress.” There was no justification, he declared, for saying that the licensing authorities’ decision against road operations wfould hinder progress in transportation. On the contrary, legislation for control of transport was a progressive measure such as economists and other authorities in all countries unanimously approved, as making for economic effectiveness brought about by processes of planned production.