TRAM V. BUS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 54, 1 September 1926, Page 10

TRAM V. BUS

SELECT COMMITTEE'S REPORT

DISCUSSION IN THE HOUSE

THE NEED FOR REGULATIONS,

Following on the presentation of the report of the Select Committee set up to consider the Motor Omnibus Regulations, members of the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon expressed their views on tho much-discussed tram v. bus problem. The debate was mainly confined to members of the Labour Party, and two members of the Government Party (Messrs. A. Harris and V. 11. Potter), who strongly condemned the regulations. The report of the Committee, published in "The Post" last night, recommended that a statute should be enacted giving effect to the re gulations, and that the tramway authorities should acquire the undertakings of omnibus proprietors.

Mr. M. J. Savage (Auckland West) expressed his appreciation of the arduous work that had been put in by Mr. Lee in his capacity as chairman. The whole question of bus competition was a gigantic one, and he could not see what other report could have been brought in. It was plain that the p esent chaotic conditions could not continue. For tho purposes of mass transport, the trams could never be replaced, but the committee had not lost sight of tho rights of services which had crept in to compete with the tramways. Regulations were absolutely necessary, and they wanted to ensure that they would not have tho present difficulty all over again. Ho hoped that something would be done at the earliest possible moment, as that would bo in the best interests of all concerned.

"NOT CREDITABLE." Mr. A. Harris (Waitemata) said that the regulations had been brought down in a manner which was not creditable to the Government of New Zealand. They wei" brought down by Order-in-Oounoil to come into force six days before the opening of Parliament. The Government must have known that the r.gulations were ultra vires. At any rate, they should have been placed on the table of the House fourteen days after the opening of Parliament, but they had been sitting for three months and had not had tliem yet. ' The Government was afraid to lay the regulations on the table. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. H. E. Holland): "A vote of censure!" Mr. Harris: "The Government is certainly deserving of a vote of censure." The Board of Trade Act, essentially a war measure, had been invoked many years after the war to do exactly what the Board of Trade Act was designed to prevent—the sotting up of monopolies. There had been such an outcry at the proposal to impose a penal' fare on buses that the Government had introduced an amendment. Under the report that amendment had been removed, and it again became mandatory on bus proprietors to charge the penal fare. The regulations were designed to protect the tramways, and they were aimed against private bus enterprise. At the same time they were not in any way aimed at municipally-owned buses. Tho regulations either meant sudden death to the bus proprietors or doath by slow torture. There was no other alternative. The Prime Minister had referred to the "ruinous- competition" of the private buses, but at the same time he allowed the municipal buses to "ruinously compete" against the tramways. Referring to the Auckland tramways, Mr. Harris said that tho system was shockingly over-capitalised, and he ventured to estimate that tho price that was paid for tho undertaking was £ 600,000 above the actual value. If the Auckland tramways had beon written down last year to thoir truo value, it would have been shown that the fares charged were far too high. "SOCIALISTIC CONTROL." Did the Government stand for .the abolition of private enterprise altogether? Where did their business, in government come in? "Really, 1 don't know what this country is coming to," said Mr. Harris. "We have socialisi tic control of meat, and butter, and i cheese, and honey, and gum." Where does this cry of less government in business come in?"

The Postmaster-General (the Hon W. Nosworthy): "What would you do if you were the Government?" Mr. Harris: "Well, I have enough experience of business to do something better than this." Mr. Harris went on to deal with the competition at Takapuna, and referred to the tramway system they had there as "an early Victorian railway." He wanted to know what "pull" the tramway company had with the Government. The company had been able to persuade the Government to provide a special preference in its interests. "If I was offered the whole Takapuna tram company, lock, stock, and barrel, I wouldn't take it," declared Mr. Harris. Mr. P. Eraser (Wellington Central): "Now, now." Mr. Harris: "I wouldn't take it as a gift, yet they are trying to foist it on the ratepayers for £75,000. Why, it's not worth 75,000 farthings." Mr. Harris said that if the Government brought down regulations dealing with his district it would strike such a blow at Takapuna as to reduce it to a state of stagnation.

Mr. H. G. R. Mason (Eden) thought that the , suggestion, for a transport board in conjunction with other boards showed' that there was something wrong with local government in Auckland. Should not there be one local body coordinating all activities in Greater Auckland? There was quite an unnecessary multiplication of local bodies in Auckland.

A tribute to Mr. Lee, the chairman of the Special Committee, for the arduous ■work he had done in preparing the report was paid by Mr. E. J, Howard (Ghristchurch South). He suggested that' some of the evidence should be published in book form. It would be valuable, as there were many young men in public life who believed that the day of the tramcar was over. HARD WORDS POR AUCKLAND. Mr. V. H. Potter (Koskill) disagreed with the report. He said that Auckland City Council.had mismanaged its tramway affairs; in fact, Auckland was the most mismanaged city in Now Zealand. The Auckland City Council, through not catering for the outer areas, was1 responsible for the inauguration of bus services. He thought it. wrong for the Government to delegate powers to license buses to the Auckland City Council. The people who should have been considered in this matter of motor bug traffic ivere the traffic managers of the several tramway concerns and the traffic officials of the police, not Mayors and tramway managers. He claimed that tho insurance provisions were unwarranted, but said that if the proposed Bill was passed the Government Insurance Office should take over the whole of the bus insurance business. A WORLD-WIDE PROBLEM. Mr. P. Fraser (Wellington Central) i said the problem was not peculiar to

Auckland or New Zealand, but had arisen in every civilised country in the world. The Government was bound to face the fact, and did so in tho manner it thought best. Last session members pressed the Government to do something on behalf of tho local bodies. Tho motor-bus proprietors sought to establish that th«re was same hole and corner business in the way the registers were brought down, but that had been completely "blown out." Mr. Potter's had been tho only dissentient vote on the Committee. In other countries similar methods had been adopted to those in Now Zealand in regulating bus competition. In some American cities the trams had actually been run off the streets, but so unsatisfactory were the bus services that they had to bo regulated so that the trams might start again. It had been found necessary in London in tho interests of the public to regulate not only tho municipal buses, but the London and General Omnibus Company's services as well. "Pirating" had been stopped there, and one thing that was done was to order GOO buses right off the streets. Replying to the debate, Mr. Leo said that if, as Mr. Harris said, the regulations were ridiculous and commercially immoral, tho Committee in its report was erring in company with the authorities in England, America, and elsewhere. He knew of no "pull" which the Takapuna Tramway Company had over the Government, but at any, rate it had had-none over the Committee.

The report was adopted.