Rail and Road Each Has Own Function

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 464, 20 September 1928, Page 12

Rail and Road Each Has Own Function

MOTOR-TRADERS’ VIEWS GOVERNMENTS COMPETITION > (Special to THE SUN) NELSON, To-day. Interference and competition in motor transport by the Government and municipalities was criticised at the Motor Traders’ conference to-day. Mr. E>. F. Bauch op. of Wellington, said no objection could be made to competition but that the competition must be on an equal basis. The public ■was called on to pay any loss and had to follow on blindly as any details of Government activity in transport could not be traced. No balance-sheets were issued and the Government services were not liable to the taxation which private enterprise had to bear. He said that the heads of departments had built themselves into the department without reference to Parliament. Things were done mostly by Orders in Council. They had too much power—they initiated policies and carried them out in a high-handed manner. “What we are up against is that Mr. Coates is the Minsiter of Railways. He must justify the railways existence and he does it in a way we don’t altogether agree with. There should be no catchword of ‘road versus rail.* It should be Toad and rail.’ “Both rail and road had its own function and each should be catered for. Rail was necessary, but that necessity should not be outraged by carrying the rail into unproductive districts. Roadways should be the big brother of rail. There should be collation of road and rail and all kindred services by setting up a board of transport. People asked for and paid for modern transport by road and that transport should not be prejudiced.” He moved the following resolution: That this conference, embracing practically the whole of the wholesale and retail motor trade interests of the Dominion records its protest against the unequal Government and municipal competition in motor transport on the following grounds: That the present motor transport has evolved as a result of public demand and could not persist if it did not till a definite public need; that private enterprise has every right to institute and maintain a transport service, irrespective of the fact that such a service may actively compete with existing services, whether Government, municipal or private; that the fact that large sums of public money are invested in Government and municipal transport systems is no satisfactory reason why private enterprise should be discouraged or penalised as real progress is based upon economic law and can never be permanently repressed by non-economic restrictions; that any Government or municipal. trading ventures should be amenable to the same laws and taxation as private businesses and responsible for the production of trading and proflt-and-loss accounts; that the Government be requested to appoint an independent board to investigate the transport problem embracing all the Dominion road and rail traffic and to bring down a report at as early a date as possible. Mr. L. A. Edwards, of Wellington, said that the Government listened to votes. Immediately private competition was set up against either municipal or Government enterprise legislative machinery was set in action. Then there was talk of a tariff war and talk of running services off the road, yet we prided ourselves on our liberty. It was bureaucratic control of the worst possible kind. He seconded the resolution which was carried unanimously.