APPEALS LODGED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26909, 22 October 1948, Page 9

APPEALS LODGED

LIFTING OF RESTRICTIONS RAILWAY MOTOR TRANSPORT PJI. CHRISTCHURCH. Oct. 21. Appeals by a number of transport companies and operators against an order by the Acting No. 3 Transport Licensing Authority (Mr E. M. Arnold) lifting the war-time restrictions on motor transport licences held by the Railways Department for several routes in the South Island and limiting them to a shed-to-shed basis were heard before the Transport Licensing Appeal Authority (Judge Archer). Mr Arnold, on April 23, issued an order permitting the auxiliary use of motor transport on the routes. Mr R. A. Young and Mr G. C. Sandston appeared for the New Zealand Express Company, J. M. Heywood and Co., H. Gould, Ltd. (Timaru), Mid-Can-terbury Transport, Ltd., W. A. Habgood, Ltd., and W. W. Grieve, Ltd. (Ashburton): Mr E. J. Anderson, of Dunedin, represented Crust and Crust, Ltd., H. C. Campbell, Ltd., and the Tilbury Forwarding Company, all of Dunedin, and the Dunedin office of the New Zealand Express Company; Mr J. Walker, of Wellington, appeared for the Railways Department. Fresh Hearing Suggested Mr Anderson said that the hearing at Christchurch came on without reasonable notice to his four clients, and the State* Department had been put into a position of operating a shed-to-shed service without the restructions which applied to private operators. The advertisement of the sitting was inadequate, bald in detail, and did not indicate how wide was the range of the application. It had appeared only in the Canterbury newspapers, and the matter had been dealt with before his clients knew of it. He would suggest that the application be reheard and dealt with by proper applications in the areas concerned. Agreeing that the matter was one which affected the whole of New Zealand. Judge Archer said that the Railways Department had no way of making a national application. He did not feel there had been a dereliction of duty on the part of the department. /Mr Anderson: I would suggest, with force, that there was & failure to, recognise the importance of this matter’ as it affected the Dunedin operators. It is not right that we should start 50 yards behind scrach in a 100 yards sprint. Railways’ Attitude The application involving the shed-to-shed principle was advertised and heard in Dunedin about three months before the Christchurch hearing, said. Mr Walker. The Dunedin firms had not opposed it. The application had been submitted to the Road Transport Alliance, which had distributed it to its branches, and he was at a loss to understand why anyone should not have known of the cases. Frederick Goodwin, formerly general manager of Crust and Crust, Ltd., said his firm thought the Dunedin application was for short hauls to make up a wagon shortage, and the firm did not see then that a series of such applications could give a link over the whole island. To Mr Walker, witness said that the Dunedin firms were affected only in furniture trips where back-loading was carried out. Judge Archer: Aren’t you taking a dog-in-the-manger attitude? Aren’t you saying,*“We can’t go shed-to-shed, so we will force the railways to operate uneconomically, using two trucks instead of one? ” The appeals had apparently arisen for two reasons, said Mr Walker—a misconception of what was happening now and a fear of full-scale long-dis-tance road services in the future. The department had no intention of departing from its present policy, he said.

The hearing was adjourned after Judge Archer had suggested that either the department and the operators should come to some amicable agreement, or that Mr Young take each case separately and prove it on the evidence.