HEAVY TRAFFIC FEES.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 June 1929, Page 8

HEAVY TRAFFIC FEES.

All things considered there is, . perhaps, some justification for the decision to hold over the question of heavy traffic fees until further information is available. No doubt the views of master carriers and. others have already been placed before the Minister of Transport (Hon. W. A. Veitch), and it is upon the Minister that the ultimate responsibility will rest. At the same time it seems only fail' that the new Transport Advisory Council, a committee of experts, should investigate the matter and give the Ministry the benefit of its vice. In his address at the inaugural meeting of the council Mr. Veitch spoke plainly. The council was not intended, he said, to be a well-balanced conflict of interests, or a well-balanced struggle between conflicting interests. It was intended to be a council of men who could speak as experts on every feature of .the transport problem, and would consider every phase of the problem from, the national point of ‘view. The Minister further assured his hearers that so far as the Government was concerned no attempt would be made to suppress the motor in the interests of the railway department. Coupled with the Prime Minister’s suggestions that n on-payable branch railways might be closed and the transport work they are now doing transferred to motor traffic, it looks as though a considerable expansion of State motor services may be decided upon before long. The new council "will certainly have need of all ite expert knowledge and impartial judgment. The main thing upon which motor vehicle owners, Government departments, local authorities, and the general public are agreed is that there is room for considerable improvement in handling transport affairs in New Zealand. To bring this about is the task for which the council has been created, and there will be a general desire to see that its efforts in that direction are thorough and successful.