TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. FRIDAY, 13th AUGUST, 1937. TRANSPORT A UTILITY.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3939, 13 August 1937, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. FRIDAY, 13th AUGUST, 1937. TRANSPORT A UTILITY.

IN order that a proper grasp may be had of the negotiations between public and carriers it is desirable that transport should be regarded a utility rather than a self-centering enterprise. It must be apparent that transport services all industry and that without it there would be an immediate collapse. This, of course, rather explodes the old theory about farmers and their independence and is a graphic illustration of how definitely interwoven related services in the exchange mechanism have become. Granted, then, that transport is a necessary and vital utility we see at once the need for an arranged plan to assure stability. This in turn, disproves largely the suggestion made that there should be collaboration and agreement between vendors and purchasers in the commodity markets. There is hardly a parallel, and very certainly modern economics have not produced either the desire or willingness to dispense with the rule of supply and demand in a market that is kept pure by the filtration influences of competition. Moreover the suggestion advanced at the meeting last Tuesday that the acceptance of agreement played right into the hands of the Government would appear to be the height of political bias and partizanship. What matters is whether agreement is sound business and designed to suit public interest, all elements of cost, convenience, and reliability considered. The carriers, as the directly affected parties, clearly sought agreement or otherwise they would have held aloof from the meeting, and the majority of the buyers of their service endorsed the desire. A wide survey shows that orderly arrangement, even if it no more than assures stability in a very necessary utility, is desirable. Clearly what is now in progress is but a beginning. The fanners submit that there can be a pooling of service to effect, if not economies, more efficient servicing, and the Chamber of Commerce makes a more direct approach to this in its advocacy of a centralised transport station. New perhaps to this district, it is a by no means new or untried development in transport. Various degrees of co-ordination have been under practical test in different lands, and even in the Auckland district the principles have been expanded. One of the most interesting systems is now operative in the Gisborne

district where ten licensed operators with 42 trucks have formed a "Co-ord-inated Transport Company,” thus securing a centralised direction and a systematic use of vehicle mileage. In a recent report this Co-ordination concluded a survey of its operations thus:

“The system has operated now for the last nine months without the slightest hitch, and it is intended to apply the same principle to carting of every description, and for every client, by working through one office, reducing empty mileages, cutting down overhead costs, giving a better service to the public and at the same time a better return to the operator.”

It, in short, means leadership, within transport. An analogy would be a number of disconnected units operating trams along the tramway tracks in the cities. Only by centralised direction can there be a full and effective utilisation of the vehicle mileage consistent with the demands. Gisborne has at least preserved the individual status, linking it in a co-ord-inated plan, and above all applying the quality of leadership.