TRANSPORT MONOPOLY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19365, 1 July 1937, Page 5

TRANSPORT MONOPOLY

ROAD OPERATORS PROTEST EFFECT OF STATE POLICY WARNING TO THE PUBLIC (Special to the Herald.) WELLINGTON, this day. A strong protest against the proposal of the Government to take over road transport services and a warning to the public of the consequences of such a policy is contained in an official statement issued by the New Zealand Road Transport Alliance. '‘No recent move in the direction of Government restriction of private enterprise is more worthy of careful at - tention by business men, and the public generally, than the plans which now appear to be entertained by the Cabinet for the expropriation of commercial goods motor services in New Zealand,”, says the statement. “Accustomed as we are now becoming to radical socialist inroads on the field of private business, few beyond those immediately concerned take much interest in what is going on until they feel the shoe pinching; and by that time, as a rule, it is too late - for. effective action. In this insidious fashion socialist ‘white anting’ of private business is steadily going on, and unless business people and the general public Wake up, they will find their commercial and business liberties filched away, and replaced by the bureaucratic control of a socialised Government department. Here as everywhere else the price of liberty is unceasing vigilance: Co-ordination Essential “Effective co-ordination is essential in the transport business, and neither the public nor the industry objects to a reasonable system of licensing to avoid wasteful duplication. The Government, however, has already gone long past this point, and is contemplating further drastic inroads that will completely destroy private initiative in the goods motor industry. > Already regulations, introduced not to secure co-ordination, but to afford artificial protection to the railways, restrict motor competition in areas within 30 miles of open railway lines. This restriction is designed, not to promote efficiency and convenience in the transport of goods—in fact, it has the opposite effect —but to bolster a less convenient service at the expense of a more convenient one. Now the Government intends to go a step further along the socialising path. “The new policy is the compulsory V purchase of some 50 odd designated road motor services that at present i are in partial competition with the railways. These services are to be acquired in an entirely arbitrary manner, the legal authorisation for which is either non-existent or dubious, and quite irrespective of the wishes of the owners. As a weapon to force sales, the Government is, without much attempt at concealment, brandishing over the heads of the firms affected a veiled threat to refuse them licenses If they decline to sell out. To call such a transaction a voluntary sale is just a misuse of language. With this weapon in its hands, however, the Government can 'drive-these operators out of business The 50 services in this first list are, of course, merely a commencement, many others are later to' be forced out too, until .the State has a "monopoly on all vital transport .routes linking the cities and the country districts. Control of Highways “Nor is this the end of the story. The Government intends when these public services are State-acquired to declare the highways over which they have been operating ‘controlled’ areas, so making it illegal for any private commercial truck to run for more than 30 miles along any of these roads paralleling the railways without a . license, thus effectively completing and protecting (the State monopoly. The Government has already taken statutory power to do this, and it surely goes without saying that this power will be effectively used; as a matter of fact this is the very reason "given for including it in the recent amending transport legislation. It is 'obvious that ancillary user transport, that is, goods carriage by private firms and individuals on their own account, is gravely endangered by this policy, and may go the same way ns the commercial operators. “The outlook for. both private and public motor transport of goods in the Dominion is thus very ominous, in view of the socialising policy of the present Government; and unless those interested wake up and act with energy they will probably find them selves helpless in the grip of an autocratic Railway Department with a monopoly of internal transport. If, as is almost inevitable, such a condition results. In poorer services at higher cost, the general public will pay for the change, and wake up to regret its apathy when it is too late for effective action.”