STATE CONTROL

Southland Times, Issue 22895, 21 May 1936, Page 6

STATE CONTROL

Advocacy By Labour

Member

(From Our Parliamentary Reporter.)

Wellington, May 20.

State control of transport was defended by Mr W. J. Lyon (Lab., Waitemata) during the second reading debate on the Transport Licensing Amendment Bill in the House of Representatives to-night. The Bill, he said, was one of the milestones along the path of progress, whereby science and human ingenuity could be linked together for the benefit of the people as a whole. Mr Lyon said that in New Zealand railway construction had become stultified. Nothing. had been done to develop new services, and the addition of modern equipment had been neglected, with the exception of a belated attempt by the present Minister of Railways (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan) to introduce the rail car. If Government services were stultified, private enterprise could not help but succeed. The Bill aimed at the closest co-ordination and co-operation in order to provide the most effective service for the community as a whole. There were scores of railway crossings in New Zealand that were veritable death-traps, and surely the Opposition would agree that it was in the interests of the country to have closer co-operation between the Minister of Railways and the Minister of Transport. Members of the Opposition appeared to have overlooked the fact that under the democratic system the present Government had introduced into Parliament for the first time personal jealousies and Departmental parochialism would be eliminated in favour of a national outlook.