The Wanganui Chronicle FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1928. RAILWAYS AND ROADS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20085, 2 March 1928, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1928. RAILWAYS AND ROADS

J.N view of New Zealand’s experience of competition between the railways and motor traffic, both in goods and passenger transport, the present discussions in the British House of Commons on the subject are interesting. The five largest'railway companies are seeking to obtain legislation to increase their powers so that they may enter more extensively into road transport, with a view to getting some of their own back on the hundreds of transport organisations which, have been taking away their trade, and the Bills have passed their second reading. It is not in dispute that the railways have been doing badly since the competition of road transport first began to be serious. They have lost both passenger and goods traffic to an alarming extent, and in respect of the latter the loss has been greatest in the more remunerative classes of goods. They say that they must have free road powers in order to meet the competition. At present they can only use the roads as feeders to their lines; their road services are closely restricted to those which are run in connection with the trains. They ask for freedom to use the roads as any other transport company is entitled to use them; and in support of their claim they argue that they are unfairly handicapped by reason of the fact that while they are the largest contributors to the upkeep of the roads, the prime cause of the enormously increased public expenditure on the roads is the motor traffic, which is robbing them of their business, and they are consequently obliged to subsidise the companies which are doing them most harm. The unfairness of this cannot reasonably be gainsaid, though the attempt is often made. It is estimated that the companies pay at least £1,250,000 a year in rates towards the construction and maintenance of roads of which, as the law now stands, they have only a strictly limited right of user, while their rivals are subject to no restriction whatsoever. It is recognised now that the State made a great mistake when it allowed the railway companies to acquire a stranglehold ovex’ the old canal companies, which virtually killed canal development in this country. The interest of the public in the present day is neither that road transport should ruin railway transport nor that the railway companies should receive Parliamentary permission to put a rope round the necks of the road companies. It was recognised at the recent World Motor Transport Congress in London that, what is required is not an interhecine competition between road and rail, but intelligent co-operation, since there'is such manifest need for both. The principal objection brought against the demand of the railways for road pow ers is that they are seeking an exclusive monopoly. The contention is that the companies will not rest until they have run their rivals off the roads and are in a position to put up fares and freights and drive traffic back on to the rails. Parliament, if it grants increased powers, must take care that the companies are not in a position to use them in the way suggested. Railway companies, in a word, must remain essentially railway companies and must continue to fulfil their primary function of transporting passengers and goods by rail. Competition exercises a salutary influence; its total absence is always followed by inefficient service. But competition can be carried to insane lengths, as it was at the end of last century, when the railway companies themselves were madly scrambling for unremunerative traffic and wasting scores of thousands of pounds in uneconomic directions while paying their staffs deplorably low wages. To-day, however, it must be remembered in fairness to the railways that they jire no longer in a position to fight a rate-cutting transport war cn the roads at the expense of the railway workers’ hours of work and rates of wages. Their hands, in this respect, are tied, though the Act of 1921 gives them certain statutory rights in respect of the raising of rates to maintain their financial status. The country desires both roads and railways to contribute their respective shares to a transport service fully adequate to the national needs, and to that end it seems only reasonable that the railway companies should be allowed fair use of the roads, as they have in New Zealand.