TRANSPORT POLICY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 180, 1 July 1937, Page 7

TRANSPORT POLICY

OPERATORS' STATEMENT. WHAT AUTHORITIES PROPOSE. In a statement on the Government’s transport policy, the Now Zealand lload Transport Alliance says:— “No recent move in the direction of Government restriction of private enterprise is more worthy of careful attention by businessmen, and the public generally, than the plans which now appear to be entertained by Cabinet for the expropriation of commercial goods motor services in New Zealand. Accustomed as we are now becoming to radical Socialist inroads on the field of private business, few beyond those immediately concerned take much interest in what is going on until they feel the shoe pinching; and by that time, as a rule, it is too late for effective action. In this insidious fashion Socialist ‘white anting’ of private business is steadily going on, and unless business people and the general public wake up, they will find their commercial and business liberties filched away and replaced by the bureaucratic control of a socialised Government department. Here as everywhere else the price of liberty is unceasing vigilance. “Effective co-ordination is essential in the transport business, and neither the public nor the industry objects to a reasonable system of licensing to avoid wasteful duplication. The Government. however, has already gone long past this point, and is contemplating further drastic inroads that will completely destroy private initiative in the goods motor industry. Already regulations, introduced not to secure co-ordination, but to afford artificial protection to the railways, restrict motor competition in areas within thirty miles of open railway lines. This restriction is designed not to promote efficiency and convienencc in the transport of goods; in fact, it has the opposite effect, but to bolster a less convenient service at the expense of a more convenient one. Now the Government intends to go a step further along the socialising path. THE NEW POLICY.

“The new policy is the compulsory purchase of some fifty-odd designated road motor services that at present are in partial competition with the railways. These services are to be acquired in an entirely arbitrary manner, the legal authorisation for which is either non-existent or dubious, and quite irrespective of the wishes of the owners. As a weapon to force sales, tile Government is, without much attempt at concealment, brandishing oyer the heads of the firms affected a veiled threat to refuse them licenses if they decline to sell out. To call such a transaction a voluntary sale is just a misuse of language. With this weapon in its hands, however, the Government can drive these operators out of business The fiftv services in this first list (already published) are, of course, merely a commencement; many others arc later to be forced out too, until the State has a monopoly on all vital transport routes linking the cities and the country districts. ' •’‘Nor is this the end of the story. The Government intends when these public services are State-acquired to declare the highways over which they have been operating controlled areas, so making it illegal for any private commercial truck to run for more than thirty miles along any of these roads paralleling the railways without a license, thus effectively completing and protecting the State monopoly. The Government has already taken statutory power to do I this, and it surely goes without say- ! ing that this powei;. will be very effectively used—iis a matter of fact this is" the very reason given for including it in the recent amending transport legislation. It is obvious that ancillary user transport, that is, goods carriage by private firms and individuals on their own account, is gravely endangered by this policy, and may go the same way as the commercial operators. “The outlook for both private and public motor transport of goods in the Dominion is thus very ominous, in view of the socialising policy ol the present Government; and unless those interested wake up and act with energy they will probably find themselves helpless in the grip of an autocratic Railway Department uitli a monopoly ol internal transport. If, ns is almost inevitable, such a condition results in poorer services at higher cost, the general public will pay for the change, and wake up to regret its apathy when it it is too late for effective action.”