Phases of Passenger Travel
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HOW SOUTH WALES OPERATORS BENEFIT BY ASSOCIATION
Interesting Facts Brought to Light at the Annual Meeting at Cardiff of the Motor OmnibusProprietors'Association IN the past year the membership of the Motor Omnibus Proprietors' Association has more than doubled, so that now it includes about 90 per cent. of the owners, representing approximately 90 per cent, of the motorbuses in operation in South Wales. Municipally-, owned and railway-owned services are. not represented. The objects of this important organization are co-operative buying and mutual protection in every feasible form. The association has been in existence since 1922 and by now it has attained the goodwill and mellowness of maturity.
At the recent annual meeting the audited accounts showed a substantial balance in hand and a healthy position generally. Mr. Howell M. Davies, the proprietor of the Imperial Motor Co., of Abercynon, was reappointed chairman for the third year, and Mr. Theo. John, director of Enterprise Motor Service l(Gorseition), Ltd., was made vice-chairman. The executive committee for the New Year comprises Mr. W. E. Gough (Gough's Welsh Motorways, Ltd., Mountain Ash), Mr. Thomas White :(the big private bus owner of Barry), Mr. W. T. Jones (the Bryncethin owner), Colonel Llewellyn (of Neath), Mr. John James (of Ammanford), Mr. Val Jones (of Skewen), Mr. George Taylor (of Swansea), Mr. W. V. Ralph ;(of Abertillery), Mr. Guy Bown (director and secretary of Red and White Services, Ltd., Chepstow), and Mr. T. R. Jenkins (of Abercarn).
The company has fought several Parliamentary Bills and taken an active part in all local Ministry of Transport inquiries and in all Ministry of Transport appeals whenever a principle is involved. The association's petrol con tract now amounts to practically 4,000,000 gallons per annum and at present it is held by Russian Oil Products, Ltd. The requirements of oil come to approximately 120,000 gallons per annum and this supply is obtained from four concerns. Consideration is now being given to the co-operative placing of tyre contracts and to the settlement of the insurance needs of all the members with one company, if advantageous terms can be obtained. Should this suggestion materialize the premium is likely to exceed nom() per annum.
Another important matter discussed at the meeting was the setting up of a conciliation board, with the object of meeting the organizations of the employees and standardizing wages and conditions of employment, and it was decided that the necessary steps be at once taken to obtain recognition from the Ministry of Transport.
At the dinner which followed the meeting Mr. H. M. Davies took the chair. The toast of " The Visitors" was proposed by Mr. Guy Bown and responded to by Mr. H. W. Emery, the Cardiff manager of Russian Oil Products, Ltd., and Mr. J. T. Richards, ex Lord Mayor of Cardiff, who is the association's solicitor. In Mr. Richards's speech he expressed the hope that, with the advent of the Road Traffic Act, the trouble due to licensing authorities being themselves bus operators would entirely disappear. Mr. T. G. Richard son, manager and engineer of the Rhondda Tramways Co., Ltd., also responded to the visitors' toast.
"The Association" was toasted by Mr. Trevor Williams, of the Cornhill Insurance Co., Ltd, who urged the importance of co-operation to face the railways and municipalities, with their almost limitless capitaL Mr. T. R. Jenkins, responding, said that the association had saved ratepayers thousands of pounds by preventing local municipalities from going ahead with Parliamentary Bills which the association would have opposed and which, in any case, had but . little chance of being passed. It was he who stressed the importance of a conciliation council to meet employees' representatives. He said that the wage for a driver varies in the different districts and among the different bus-operating concerns, large and small, of South Wales, between 9d. and 1s. 6d. per hour, whilst for conductors the range is between 7d. and 1s. 4-0 per hour. This gross irregularity, this lack of conformity, is interfering with satisfactory operation, and steps must be taken to put this matter right. Mr. Clifford Thomas, secretary of the association, also responded, and mentioned that, in the 12 months during which he has been secretary, as well as before that time, the association has had to fight not only licensing authorities which favoured their own services but those which appeared to favour
private operators. This has been a burden of anxiety and work for the association, a burden which the provisions of the new Act -will, it is hoped, remove. But the Act Win bring other troubles in its wake, making the importance of co-operation greater than ever.
• The toast of "The Chairman" was proposed by Mr. W. E. Gough, who rightly warned members that the coming year will be a difficult one. He is one of the many who appreciate in its full value the work which Mr. Howell M. Davies has done in his position as chairman of the association, during the past two years and in his speech he stressed the good fortune of being able to retain Mr. Davies's chairmanship in the first year of operation of the new • Road Traffic Act—also the unselfishness of Mr. Davies in agreeing to continue through what was sure to be a trying period: Mr. Gough said he believed that the only people present at the dinner who attended the first meeting of the association were Mr. T. R. Jenkins, Mr. Thomas White and himself. The evening passed most successfully.