The Times TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1941. Road Transport Services

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 208, 2 September 1941, Page 4

The Times TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1941. Road Transport Services

The latest official statistics of the Transport Department make pointed reference to an issue which the user community

has represented time and again without exciting any practical measures on the part of the Government to remove the burden of costs it is obliged to carry. In a general summary of the statistics for the year 1939-40 the report states “ . . . that only 41 per cent, of the potential carrying power from the vehicle mileage run was actually used for transport of goods—--244,000,000 ton miles were not used. The problem of utilising or reducing this enormous waste in potential transport is the major problem in the road transport industry to-day. M

From the North Cape to the Bluff representations have been repeatedly made by representatives of the user community to the Transport Licensing Authorities concerning uneconomical running, but their efforts towards obtaining any relief have failed. Nearly 12 months ago increases in road transport charges were granted notwithstanding the plea, now supported by official statistics and official evidence on the point, that the then existing charges were constructed on unsound premises. In spite of the official admission of enormous waste 440 new applications for licenses for goods services were granted.

"Well over 12 months ago the Government called an Economic Stabilisation Conference and among the recommendations from this conference was one suggesting that the Government set up a national tribunal for the purpose of investigating the whole question of road-transport charges. This conference was satisfied that the question of road transport called for investigation, and since its recommendations were drawn up the position has drifted to cause the Transport Department to admit that the country is faced with a major problem in dealing with the enormous waste in potential transport.

The user community is to-day paying for this enormous waste and until the Government is prepared to deal with this menace to economic equilibrium the public will continue to be penalised by being obliged to pay charges fixed without any fundamental exploration of true costs. The Government cannot any longer ignore its responsibility in this matter since it is now in possession of irrefutable evidence from its own Transport Department of a position which has been repeatedly asserted at sittings of licensing authorities and largely ignored.