TRANSPORT LEGISLATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20869, 8 November 1929, Page 8

TRANSPORT LEGISLATION.

However ruefully Mr Yeitch may regard the: fact that he has-found ,it necessary to : abandon this year the Transport Bill, which he had introduced in the House of Representatives, the public has no real reason to share his' concern with him. The Bill provided in the first' instance for the establishment of a new Government department, a Transport Department, or rather for the statutory recognition of a Transport Department which had been set up by the Government without the authority of law and placed under the control of Mr Veitch. There is no proven necessity for the establishment of any new State department for the regulation of transport within the Dominion. The only justification that could be pleaded for the creation of a Transport Department is that certain functions in relation to the control of transport should be discharged by it. Those functions are at present, in the main, discharged by local authorities which are in all probability as capable as any central organisation would be of discharging them efficiently. Moreover, it is certain that the interests of economy would not be served by the creation of a State department to do what is already being done by local authorities. It appears from the Supplementary Estimates that the Commissioner of Transport, who was to be the administrative head of the department, was to receive a salary of £IOOO a year. The manner in which a department expands from the hour of its creation and the manner in which its salary list swells are well known to every person who possesses an acquaintance with departmental history. If Mr Veitch succeeds in securing the establishment of a Transport Department, it may be taken for granted that the Commissioner will so organise it that in a very few years it will require a large and expensive staff. There is no reason why the public should be asked, to assume that the creation of f.bis new department is necessary. There is every reason why it should demand proof of the need of the department. That proof has not yet been provided.