Uniteds and Transport

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 961, 2 May 1930, Page 8

Uniteds and Transport

WILL PRESENT BILL AGAIN

Local Bodies’ Attitude

Special to THE SUN WELLINGTON, Today. ANOTHER attempt will be made by the United Government during the coming session to gain the approval of the House of Representatives for the Transport Bill which failed to pass last year. There now seems little doubt that the influences which led to the Bill being killed were largely exercised by local bodies who looked with disapproval upon any proposal to limit the scope of their authority.

The Bill, which would have provided the first important step in the direction of unified transport control by setting up the machinery for the newly-created Transport contained provisions for the division of the Dominion into defined areas and the appointment of independent Transport Commissioners to administer the law governing commercial motor traffic. The'Motor Omnibus Regulations, which constituted the local bodies licensing authorities in respect of omnibus traffic, possessed the weakness that they gave the local bodies power to deal with competitors in the transport field—that is, made them Judges in their own caurre, and it is the loss of this authority which has led to the crystallisation of local-body opposition to the Bill of last year. There were not wanting other factors to lead to complication of the position. The 1927 Railway Statement of Mr. Coates had defined his position, for it stated: “The question of safeguarding the enormous capital cost of the national transport system requires the gravest consideration, and after carefully weighing the whole of the circumstances surrounding the transport problem I have come to the conclusion that if we are to secure for the country a continuation of the liberal developmental and protective policy that has been so valuable in the past, it will be necessary to inaugurate transport control through a properly constituted Ministry of Transport/* When the proposals came before the House last year, however. Mr. Coates temporised. Whether he felt some natural concern at the fact that the Government was stealing his thunder, or whether he was not certain of the course to be adopted is not clear; at all events he pressed for the appointment of a Royal Commission to define the line of action to be followed. PROPOSALS OF THE BILL

The proposals of the Bill were broadly on the lines of the system in operation in the United States, where the Public Utilities Commissions, formed originally to deal with other public utilities from traction franchises to telephone charters, were

ready to take over the new duties arising from the motorisation of transport and have formed a very efficient system of administration. The proposed Transport Commissioners in this country will be charged with the administration of their particular territories under the supervision of the Transport Department, and supplied with scientific knowledge which the department’s information officers will accumulate for them. The objection of the local authorities to the removal of their powers in relation to commercial transport was probably summed up by Mr. G. ATroup, Mayor of Wellington, at the last Municipal Conference, when he stated that resistance should be offered to the tendency to sap the authority of the local bodies. An argument advanced by the local bodies has been that they should not be asked to hand over control of the running rights over their own streets. As, however, the local body cannot lay down a tramway without an Order in Council, or run a car without a licence from the general government, It is difficult to see what running rights over its own streets a local body possesses now. SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENTS From the point of view of the country at large, the developments overseas since the last session of Parliament are significant. Two Royal Commissions have reported to their respective Governments on the subject of transport control, one In South Africa and one in Britain. In Britain, the recommendations of the commission have been incorporated in a Bill which has already been through the House of Lords, and is to come before the House of Commons shortly. They are in agreement with the proposals of the New Zealand Bill. The South African Commission also reported upon the same lines, and the conclusive fact that these two investigations have been able to find no system better than the one in operation in the United States should dispose of the objection raised by Mr. Coates that more investigation was needed before the Transport Bill became law.

It is extremely unlikely that a New Zealand Commission will be able to devise better methods than the strong commission which was appointed by the Baldwin Government and which has convinced’ the Labour Government of the wisdom of its proposals.