BUYING BRITISH BUSES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 599, 27 February 1929, Page 1

BUYING BRITISH BUSES

DISSATISFACTION IN MOTOR TRADE RAILWAY DEPARTMENT TENDERS (From Our Resident Reporter) WELLINGTON, To-day. Dissatisfaction among certain members of the motor trade has been caused by the decision of the Railway Department to give an ord,er for ten motor-bus chassis, required for the Elutt Road run, to an English firm. The question was to be decided by tender, and the discontent arises from the fact that one well-known Continental car was represented on the tenders list at a price 40 per cent, lower than that of the successful firm. The difference in price between the buses ordered and this Continental chassis is between £4,000 and £5,000. Tho departmental explanation that six-cylinder buses were needed and that the Continental buses are only four-cylinders is discounted, as at the same time a number of four-cylinder buses belonging to a third firm are stated to have been acquired.

“The absurdity of it,” said a business man interested to-day, “is that while the department is following the line of buying British goods with the public's money, regardless of possible savings—and the interest on the difference in price between these two buses would be from £2OO to £250 per annum, the officers who are so blithely spending are most, if not all of them, owners of American cars.”