TRANSPORT REGULATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22714, 29 October 1935, Page 8

TRANSPORT REGULATION

The Government has not escaped criticism in respect of its legislative endeavours to regulate transport. The provisions which have been put into operation have involved a good deal of interference which has been regarded as irritating by private enterprise. In a general way competition in trade and business is looked upon as desirable. It ensures that the public shall receive good service, and it is not denounced as uneconomic and wasteful. In regard to transport, however, a different view is taken by the Government. It is considered with some reason that the uneconomic and wasteful aspect of land transport is a matter of national concern, and that the remedy is Government regulation. Upon road and air transport the Transport Coordination Board has concentrated thus far, since it has no control in respect of railways and shipping. The Minister of Transport claims that the legislation in operation has involved a saving of millions of vehicle miles annually, a saving of about £30,000 a year in vehicle operating expenses, and a substantial. saving of wear and tear on the roads, and has freed much capital for other forms of investment. The figures quoted by Mr Coates last week may be accepted as definite evidence of success in the achievement, through legislative and regulative measures, of a reduction of the wasteful competition which has a peculiar tendency to develop in road transport. Whether the public is the better served it may be difficult to say. The Government's object, Mr Coates has explained, has been to provide an adequate service for the public at the lowest possible cost. Probably the public itself cares less than it should about the economic aspect of transport as an industry. Its main concern is the cost and convenience of travel. Admittedly the transport question is a thorny subject. A much worried aspect of it is embraced in the term " co-ordination." The importance attached to co-ordination has been seen in the creation of an authority enjoying extraordinary powers and entrusted with special co-ordinating functions. This Board regards itself as only at the beginning of its task. It hopes for the co-operation of all forms of transport. It speaks gravely of what it calls " wasted effort." It regards legislation governing transport as still at the experimental stage, and it evidently hopes that some day its own powers of control will be enlarged. In its view the absence of any control on its part over the railway and shipping services represents an obstacle to progress and to a closer approach to a mutual understanding between all transport interests. The argument on these lines may be entirely impressive and logical so far as it goes, but there may be a question whether it is wholly "based on thoroughly sound premises. "When the Transport Coordination Board says, "We do not suggest that competition should bo eliminated altogether," it goes pretty far. Road services constitute a special transport problem. But Avhether there is any necessity for an authority such as the Transport Co-ordination Board to cast a meditative eye on the shipping services of the country may be another matter. No doubt the Board is animated by a protective instinct, but it is only likely to indulge it in the light of its own conception of what constitutes the public interest. The common result of regulation designed to introduce co-ordination is to bring about a restriction of enterprise and a reduction of services. There is a point of view from which an argument might be presented in favour of an encouragement of the expansion of coastal shipping in New Zealand. It is an anomaly that coastal passenger services in this country are not to-day available. In that respect we were better off years ago. It would be agreeable to think that the restoration of such an amenity might find a place in plans for the future that arc based on high-sounding principles. But the transport authority is incorrigibly economic, whereas in the tradition which they follow the shipping services, though they face fierce competition, have at least been spared "co-ordina-tion."