ROAD TRANSPORT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23221, 19 June 1937, Page 14

ROAD TRANSPORT

FUTURE CONTROL DISCUSSED DEFINITE VIEW OF USERS PRIVATE ENTERPRISE FAVOURED (Special to Daily Times) AUCKLAND, June 18. The conviction that users of road transport and the taxpayers generally would best be served by private enterprise was expressed by Mr A. S. Bailey, president of the New Zealand Road Transport Alliance, on his return from Wellington, where he attended a meeting of transport operators affected by the Government’s purchase proposals. Mr Bailey said he first wished to express appreciation to the Government, and to the Minister of Transport (Mr R. Semple), in particular, for their sincerity in endeavouring to treat the transport industry fairly.

“ The very definite opinion of the industry, however, is that the single ownership policy of the Government, embracing as it does State ownership and monopoly, can only bring increased transport charges and disservice to the public,” Mr Bailey added. “The operators believe that the interests of the users of road transport and of the taxpayers generally can be best conserved by the efficiency of private enterprise.” Mr Bailey explained that under the Transport Licensing Act, 1936, the Government had power to require a service to be licensed whether it was plying for hire or reward or not. That would mean that a private individual or firm carrying its own goods for more than 30 miles along a railway would require to get a licence. It was hardly likely, however, that after the Government had purchased licensed services those licences would be readily obtainable.

PROPOSED GOVERNMENT ACQUISITION OPPOSITION BY LOCAL CARRIERS Although carrying companies whose business includes longdistance road services have no local organisation from which an expression of opinion concerning the Government’s intention to acquire privately-owned carrying businesses can be obtained, the consensus of opinion among the companies concerned is that the Government’s action is too arbitrary, and that services which can be operated economically and satisfactorily under the present system do not lend themselves to successful operation under a large organisation such as will be necessary when the Government assumes control. It was stated by the principal of one large carrying concern in Dunedin yesterday that if the Government persisted in its intention to secure possession of all road services in the country, the existing companies which are conducting such businesses would be compelled to seek other avenues of employment for their organisations, with the result that competition in small areas would be intensified the necessary licences could be obtained. The point was stressed, however, that the purchase of the road services by the Government would inevitably result in a large number of them being replaced by railway transport, which would throw many qualified road operators out of employment, notwithstanding the Government’s stated intention to try to secure work for them. Even if employment were found for the displaced men, it would in all probability not be of the type to which they were accustomed, and would also mean the imposition of hardship on men with families who might be required to accept such employment as road construction work in places away from the centres in which they had established their homes.