CONTRACTS FOR MAILS

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1934, Page 6

CONTRACTS FOR MAILS

POWERS FOR LICENSING AUTHORITY OVER-RULES P. AND T. ANNOUNCEMENT OF JUDGMENT. FACTORS FOR CONSIDERATION. By Telegraph—Press Association. Christchurch, Last Night. An important principle concerned with the issuing of goods licenses for country districts as affecting mail-carrying contracts let by the Post and Telegraph Department has been decided by a reserved judgment announced to-day by the No. 8 Transport Licensing Authority. . The effect of the judgment is that the licensing authority maintains its right to overrule the Postal Department by refusing to license mail contractors. “In considering these cases a principle that we feel should be adopted is that if the mail contract far outweighs any other part of a carrying business, prima facie, if a new operator is a. lower tenderer he would be entitled to a license, and the unsuccessful tenderer should give way to him, the rest of the business in that case clearly following the mail contract,” says the judgment. “If on the other hand the mail subsidy is a small thing compared with the rest of the licensee’s business we think it would be wrong in the face of section 26 to bring in a new man, but that in such a case if the licensee cannot agree with the postal authorities as to the amount of subsidy to be paid it might be referred to the licensing authority to fix. “Consideration would be given in this case to the other elements, such as, for example, how much of the outside business is due wholly or in part to the licensee’s own exertions, and how much necessarily follows his having a post office contract. “Some consideration must be given also to the length of time the applicant has held the contract as having a bearing on this aspect of the case. The longer he has held it the greater the consideration to which he is entitled. Other considerations apply, too, but in our view these are the basic ones.”