FEARS UNFOUNDED
CONTROL OF GOODS TRANSPORT Bj Telegraph —Dress Association WELLINGTON, July 16. “Your fear that the taking over of long-distance freight services by the Railways Department is a preliminary to the taking over of all forms of goods transport is quite unfounded,” said the Minister of Transport in a letter read by the president of the New’ Zealand Farmers’ Union <Mr W. W. Mulholland) at the annual conference in Wellington to-day. The Minister went on to say that the Government's proposals covered only 197 trucks out of a total of 45,000 in the Dominion. The Government was not arbitrarily “strangling” road transport in favour of the railways. It fully recognised that on account of its flexibility and mobility, motor transport afforded a wonderful service for rural areas, and the sole aim of the Government was to increase the efficiency of all forms of transport. Experience had shown that it was possible to bulk freights of long distance road services and haul them on the railways without deterioration in the standard of service, while the “truck rate” system had proved the practicability of coordinating long distance road and rail services. It had also shown that the possibilities of co-ordination w’ere limited, so long as road services were organised in small units and until one ownership embraced both services. The conference passed the following resolution: —“That this conference entirely disagrees that ‘single ownership transport services are essential to efficient operation, and states emphatically that if co-ordination be brought about only by the elimination of smaU operators, it would be too dearly purchased and the idea should be abandoned. The mobility and flexibility of motor transport would be largely destroyed if small units were eliminated. The statement that only 197 trucks out of 45 000 are affected shows that action cannot affect the co-ordination of transport as suggested, unless very much greater extension of control is intended.” ___
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THD19370717.2.96
Bibliographic details
Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20782, 17 July 1937, Page 18 (Supplement)
Word Count
315FEARS UNFOUNDED Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20782, 17 July 1937, Page 18 (Supplement)
Using This Item
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Timaru Herald. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.