TRANSPORT SERVICES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22023, 4 August 1933, Page 10

TRANSPORT SERVICES

STATE REGULATION THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS (Special to Daily Times.) WELLINGTON, August 3. The economic aspects of the State regulation of transport were touched upon by the Commissioner of Transport (Mr J. S. Hunter) in an address delivered at a meeting of the Victoria University College Commerce Society tonight. Mr Hunter dealt particularly with the competition against the railways by road traffic. He said the case for the regulation of transport rested fundamentally on the fact that transport belonged to that group of industries known as public service monopolies. Mr Hunter said that motor transport did not perhaps conform to the conditions determining public service monopoly to quite the same extent as the railways and the tramways did, but obviously when competition arose between public motor services and other services the question arose whether the control exercised over them was to be relaxed or whether similar control was to be extended over the road services or whether some mid-course should be adopted. “ Even where the railways are owned and operated by private enterprise it has been considered expedient to lift the control already exercised by the State over them,” he said. “In New Zealand, where the railways are State owned, and where the investment of public money represents some £60,000,000, it would undoubtedly produce chaos in our industry and trade if unregulated competition held sway. Could we afford to see the deficit on our railways increase from £1,500,000 and our road bill to greater than the £8,000,000 it is to-day? We could not afford it. We have no alternative but in the national interest to extend the regulation to motor transport. The chief disadvantage of the State regulation of transport is that any form of regulation must retard progress. There is always a tendency to maintain the status quo against new advances. The motor interests claim that regulation means bolstering up the railways. This argument is quite sound but it misses the point. The question is not whether road or rail services, for instance, shall prevail, but what arrangements yield the' maximum benefits to the public. If it were in the public interest to scrap the railways in favour of road transport, the railway interests would, no doubt, raise the cry of the bolstering up of the road services. It is always difficult to visualise what is going to happen in the future, more particularly in such a dynamic field as transport. “ I would, however, direct your thoughts to the following points to reflect upon:— 1. Whether as a step further in the regulation of transport an investigation on the lines of the Saler Committee in Great Britain and it prototype in America would not serve a useful purpose in New Zealand in determining what proportion of our growing road bill should be met by taxation levied on the motor vehicle. Tins would do away with a concealed subsidy if one were found to exist. 2. Whether there is not room for greater unification in the control of the various transport services in the Dominion through a single tribunal which would envisage all forms of transport. At present the railways are controlled by the Railways Board, the motor services by the licensing authorities under the Transport Licensing Act, the roads are built by the Main Highways Board, while the harbours and coastal shipping services are quite independent. 3. Whether there is not need for some co-ordinating authority to direct investment in transport facilities in the channels of greatest productivity. We have built some times at the same time harbours, roads, and railways to compete with one another in areas where there is only sufficient business for one form of transport.”