The Daily News WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 1935. TRANSPORT SERVICES.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 April 1935, Page 6

The Daily News

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 1935. TRANSPORT SERVICES.

OFFICES: new PLYMOUTH, Currio Street. STRATFORD, Broadway. HAWERA. Hish Street

The Transport Co-ordination Board, in stating its findings upon a number of appeals from the decision of a District Licensing Authority, gave some of the reasons upon which it based the reversal of the authority’s decisions. The board’s statement of the principles and interpretation of law that supported its findings should be of considerable value as a guide to other District Authorities from which licenses for goods services may be sought. Put briefly, the board’s findings seem to support regulation rather than the suppression of road-borne traffic. The need for regulation is generally admitted, but difficulty has arisen when regulation has meant the elimination of established services on the ground that they were unnecessary in view of the transport agencies available in a particular district. It was recognised that this must entail individual hardship, the justification being, of course, that the cost of redundant services must be borne ultimately by the community, and that their elimination would prevent further waste. There has been much criticism of some of the rulings, entailing as they did the limitation, and sometimes the suppression, of enterprises in which much individual capital and labour had been invested. In the cases reviewed by the Co-ordin-ation Board this week, the district authority refused to issue licenses for certain goods services already in existence on the ground that they were unnecessary. The board points out, ho.wever, that desirability as well as necessity must be regarded when a district authority is deciding whether a license shall be issued. In the case of established services the board makes the commonsense suggestion that desirability may be assessed upon the amount of patronage accorded a particular service, with the period during which it has been in operation another factor to be taken into consideration. The Co-ordination Board’s judgment contained a plain reference to the State-owned railway system. It found that “the Government railways are entitled to such consideration and protection as is comparable with the service they are rendering to the public,” but the' board can find nothing in the Transport Act’ “which gives the railways any claim to special protection or consideration. If the present legislation had intended that all road services paralleling the rail should be eliminated it would have expressed that intention in definite terms.” Those are plain words, and they will commend themselves to those who think the intention of the Legislature has been exceeded by some district authorities. The board’s finding does not include a decision whether further protection of the railway or elimination of parallel services is necessary or desirable. It simply states that under the present Act a district authority must take other factors besides the protection of the railways into consideration. The board refers also to what one district authority considered the weakness of the present legislation, namely, that it gives no power to compel co-ordination of transport services. There are many opinions in regard to the desirability of such power being given to licensing authorities, but there will be general approval of the board’s insistence that if compulsion is intended by legislation the intention must be expressed in definite terms. That better co-ordination of road and rail services would eliminate waste in certain districts is generally believed. But the elimination must be fair to all parties concerned, including the general public, for it is the community that pays for the waste involved in transport services that are really uneconomic. If, for instance, ’the railways are to have no protection from such services, the taxpayer must continue to make good the deficiency in railway earnings to cover interest and other fixed charges. There is also the question of the share to be borne by road services in the upkeep of the highways upon which they operate. These are not matters to be settled in a few weeks or months, or to suit circumstances which may appear to some district authorities to determine whether certain services should be allowed to continue. The Co-ordina-tion Board’s pronouncement contains a warning that the scope and intention of existing legislation must not be exceeded, although it admits the possibility of further co-ordination of transport services were the Transport Act amended. That is, however, for legislative and not administrative action.