THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1934. TRANSPORT AND RATES.

Wairarapa Age, 17 July 1934, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1934. TRANSPORT AND RATES.

Some very interesting proposals aiming at an improved control of transport were made at the meeting of the Wairarapa Provincial Executive of the Farmers ’ Union yesterday. While it is only right that policy changes like those advanced by Mr. L. T. Daniell should be examined carefully in detail, there is not much doubt that the policy of making the user of roads pay for them and'giving him representation on roading authorities must be adopted in any effective handling of the problem of transport regulation. It is already perfectly clear, also, that a so-called system of control which controls only one of several competing branches of transport is to be tolerated only as a measure of the most temporary and transient kind. Neither, as the Minister of Finance has frankly recognised, is the diversion of motor taxation to the general revenue fund of the Dominion capable of being defended save on grounds of temporary emergency. Indeed, it may definitely be questioned whether a palpably unjust and inequitable use of taxation can be justified at any time or in any circumstances.

A critical reference made yesterday by Mr. Duncan McGregor to the present system of transport regulation all the more deserves attention since it came from a man of ability and experience who is never inclined to find

fault for the sake of doing so. Mr. McGregor remarked that the Transport Board had yet to justify itself and that so far the system of regulation had produced chiefly additional taxation and restrictions. This assuredly should not mean that transport in this country should be cast back into conditions of anarchy, but it is a fact to be faced that at' its present stage of development the regulation of transport is largely ineffective and is productive of increasing injustices. It is flatly at variance with the national interests that the railways should be placed in a specially favoured position as against motor transport—the fact, of course, being recognised, that in an equitable adjustment the railways would be called upon to perform a very large part of the transport service of the Dominion. The official view may be that a full and efficient control of transport will be reached in due course, but it is a question whether the whole system of regulation and the possibilities it holds are not being endangered by mere fiddling with details, side by side with a perilously protracted neglect of essentials.

There should be excellent opportunities of improving greatly in the near future on the present poor rate of progress towards an equitable and economical regulation of transport. The diversion of some three-fourths of the proceeds of motor taxation to the Consolidated Fund is plain piracy. The abandonment of this policy of injustice may be turned to account, however, in facilitating greatly a measure of road derating which is long overdue. Incidentally it seems rather a pity that the Wairarapa Provincial Executive yesterday seemed inclined to go back in some measure on the demand made by the Dominion Conference of the Farmers’ Union for the complete derating of rural lands for roading purposes. It surely would be difficult to find any good reason for departing in any particular from the sound principle of making the cost of roads a charge upon those who use them. A really comprehensive control of transport and an equitable adjustment of roading finance are reforms that are plainly overdue.