GOODS TRANSPORT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 194, 17 July 1937, Page 2

GOODS TRANSPORT.

EXPLANATION TO FARMERS. ROAD AND RAIL FREIGHT. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, July 16. “Your fear that the taking over or long-distance freight services by the Railways Department is a preliminary to the taking over of all forms ot goods transport is quite unfounded, said the Minister of Transport in a letter read by the president of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union. Mr Mulholland, at the annual conference at Wellington to-day. The Minister went on to say that the Government’s proposals covered only 197 trucks out of a total of 45,000 in the Dominion. The Government was not arbitrarily “strangling road transport in favour of the railways. It fully recognised that, on account of its flexibility and mobility, motor transport afforded a wonderful service for rural areas. The sole aim of tli6 Government was to increase the efficiency of all forms of transport. Experience had shown it was possible to bulk the freights of long-distance road services and haul them on the railways without deterioration in the standard of the service. While the “truck rate” system proved the practicability of co-ordinating long-dis-tance road and rail services, it had also shown that the possibilities of coordination were limited as long as the road services were organised in small units and until one ownership embraced both services. . The conference made the tollowing resolution : “That the conference entirely disagrees that ‘single ownership’ of transport services is essential t 0 efficient operation and states emphatically that if co-ordination he brought ‘about only by the elimination of the small operators it will he too dearly purchased. I lie idea should he abandoned. The mobility end flexibility of motor transport would he largely destroyed if small units were eliminated. The statement that only 107 trucks out ot 40,000 are affected shows that the action cannot affect the co-ordination of transport, as suggested, unless a very much greater extension ot control is intended.