Notes from Northern Ireland.
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By Ulsterman.
firillE assembling of the parts of a motor bus combine
is apt to be a somewhat tedious business; so many interests have to be adjusted and lubricated, and so many minor but self-assertive gadgets have to be put into their proper places. At times, too, when everything appears to be ready for the road the wheels refuse to stir, owing to the unfortunate absence of the great motor spirit known as "f s. d."
For some time past the air of Ulster has been filled with combine, anti-combine and post-combine rumours; but at last a genuine combine has been formed with solid financial backing of adequate strength. All the important passenger transport firms are embraced in this agreement, which was reached after muchmidnight oil had been burned in a Belfast hotel while the representatives of the London syndicate discussed matters with the representatives of the Ulster firms.
This agreement, signed in the first week of February, led to the purchase by the London syndicate of ten motorbus companies which had been considering the question of amalgamation for purposes of efficiency and economy under a scheme promoted by Mr. James Boyd, accountant, of Raleigh House, Belfast. Since
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then nearly all the members of another group of bus companies of about equal numerical size have been taken over by the London syndicate, so that the capital value of the new combine is estimated to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1400,000.
On both sides of the border strong protests have been raised against the taking of any step which would add to the existing nuisance of the customs barrier and which was certain to result in a mutually injurious policy of trade -barrier reprisals. But, recently, the Free State authorities have issued new regulations under which motor vehicles crossing the border into Free State territory will in future be subject to import duty. Northern clergymen, doctors and veterinary surgeons are exempted from the operation of this decree, and Northern chars-k-bancs and motorbuses may spend 48 hours in the Free State free of import duty ; but all other commercial vehicles, including the commercial traveller's motor car, must henceforth pay the full duty at the boundary. This, as has been pointed out, is in restraint of trade and could only be justified, if it benefited the country as a whole, a proposition which could not be supported by any known facts, -nor by any conceivable arguments.