CONTROL OF TRANSPORT

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22521, 1 October 1938, Page 18

CONTROL OF TRANSPORT

GOVERNMENT’S POLICY

DEFENDED

ADDRESS BY MR T. H. LANGFORD

“I want to deny emphatically the statement made by Mr A N. Grigg, National candidate lor Mid-Canter-bury that we have set up a big transport dictatorship,” said Mr T. H. Langford Labour candidate for Riccarton, at Sockburn last night. “We have done the most democratic thing in the transport world that it is possible to do Provision was made by the previous government in transport legislation to take over private concerns without any compensation of any kind. We have given the private operators the right to go before a tribunal and they receive liberal compensation and a fair deal from the Government’s purchasing officers. Under the previous government’s legislation, 31 men were doing what four of us in the Transport Department are doing to-day. They cost the country £15,000. We cost £2400. All the previous government did was to leave behind a chaotic mass for us to unravel.” The speaker' paid tribute to the Kt. Hon. J. G. Coates and his party for introducing the transport legislation in the first place, but now, he said, they were condemning it. Eighty per cent, of the operators in the Dominion were virtually bankrupt, so chaotic were the conditions obtaining. There was no organised plan of operation at all. “The first job I took up was to get all these transport operators together in groups,” he said. “We succeeded, and now I think there is only one licensed carrier that is not a member of the association in this district. Our next job was to get among the users of transport and seek their co-opera-tion in making price agreements and beginning a general reconditioning of the whole system. Commenting on his own activities in the Canterbury, Nelson, and Marlborough districts, Mr Langford said that he had a hard fight to bring about a big merger in the Nelson district. Now it was one of the largest concerns of its kind in Australia and New Zealand, but he had met with a lot of opposition trying to convince those concerned that it was for the best. Savings in Freight

“Thousands of pounds have been saved in freight in Marlborough, Nelson, and the West Coast,” he said. We have reduced the wholesale price of coal in one district by 25s a ton through savings in freight. Our dictatorship’ has resulted in lower prices, better services, and finally greater profits for those in the transport business. Passenger road services have been improved to benefit everybody. At one'time we had service cars following on each other’s heels with erratic timetables and sometimes with cars that were practically empty. Fares have been reduced twice, and still the operators are making plenty of money. In some cases they are making t j much money, and further reductions will have to be made in fares. High fares mean empty vehicles. In every instance where we thought it would give a better public service we put the traffic on the roads. If it was better on the rail we let the railways handle it. . ... . , “Fifty-four per cent, of the cost of all production is absorbed in transport,” concluded Mr Langford. “It is out of all proportion. The only way the National Party can think of reducing costs is in terms of wage cuts. We can show them another way, and that is in the transport system of this country.”