UNEQUAL COMPETITION

Evening Star, Issue 22459, 2 October 1936, Page 8

UNEQUAL COMPETITION

PRIVATE CARRIERS’ GRIEVANCES NO CHANGE AGAINST BIG CONCERNS [Pek United Press Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, October 2. The difficulties of private carriers who had not tho chance to take some of tho advantages open to the big concerns were explained in evidence given this morning before the Taxi and Carrying Commission. Herbert William Wise, an ownerdriver carrier and the repesentative of carriers operating on their own without any organisation behind them, explained the position of general carriers in relation to the big carrying firms and the carrying work done by the Railway Department, “We have to face competition from two large carrying companies (the Express Company and J. M. Heywood’s), which is just as unfair as that of the railways. They have the truck system for sending goods to other towns. The trucks take such a quantity of goods and are available at such a low rate that the firms are able to do city carrying to the trucks free. That gives those two firms a tremendous advantage. Ido not think this Government intends to encourage monopolies, yet that will be the outcome. Steps should be taken to stop this free cartage of goods. It is the cheapness of the truck that lets the big firms carry goods to the truck free. No individual carrier could get the volume of business to take advantage of flic truck system.”