The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING “LUCEO NON URO” THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 1937. The Road Transport Grab

Southland Times, Issue 23228, 17 June 1937, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING “LUCEO NON URO” THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 1937. The Road Transport Grab

By methods that are arbitrary and the very negation of justice the Labour Government is moving towards its objective of eliminating long-distance road goods services in favour of the railways. The latest step is reported in our news columns this morning. A circular letter has been sent out by the Commissioner of Transport inviting owners of road services which the Government wishes to acquire to follow one of two courses. They may signify their willingness to sell —at a price to be decided by negotiation with the Government’s purchase officers or, if that negotiation fails, by the verdict of a tribunal; or they may refuse to sell. On the surface there is nothing unjust in these alternatives. But transport operators who refuse to sell are reminded by the circular that their cases will then come before one or other of the transport authorities and their applications for renewal will be considered under the terms of the Transport Licensing Act. “Before deciding,” the circular continues, “whether you will negotiate with the Government or proceed with your application .... you are strongly urged to make yourself familiar with the provisions of the Transport Licensing Act in both its positive and negative aspects. This is very important and needs your attention.” The phrase, “in its positive and negative aspects,” may simply be an attempt to give this threat a little extra weight; but if it means anything, it means that operators are invited to consider both what is in the Act and what is not in the Act. No doubt two of the provisions of the Act in which they are intended to interest themselves particularly are those (1) empowering a licensing authority, on his own behalf or at the direction of the Minister, to revoke any licence, on the ground of “public interest”, upon giving 14 days’ notice; and (2) establishing the Minister of Transport as the sole court of appeal. As for what is not in the Act, operators are perhaps intended to reflect that the present transport authorities are in effect officers of the Transport Department appointed to carry out the Government’s policy (which the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Railways have between them made abundantly clear) and that at least one of these authorities has already declared that “in all cases where the Railway Department can render the necessary service ... patronage should be given to the State-owned service” (that is, to the railways). When operators have thus made themselves familiar with the Act “in both its positive and negative aspects”, they will realize that the choice between selling their services and not selling them is in reality a choice between selling them and having them taken away. For obviously a departmental official, carrying out the Government’s policy, will hold that it is in the “public interest” that the Government should have any service it thinks it ought to have; and as any appeal against his decision must also go to a representative of the Government —the Minister—the Government simply cannot lose. These are the methods employed by a Government which professes to believe in democratic institutions; they have a closer resemblance to the methods of Germany or Russia. The road transport industry in New Zealand has not developed in an orderly or economic way but it has unquestionably performed an important public service. It deserves better of any Government than this arbitrary and autocratic handling. But apart altogether from the industry’s position, the people of New Zealand may well feel some alarm at a deliberate and vicious encroachment on their traditional rights of justice as a British community.