Ministers Baffle Mr. Wills
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HOW responsible Ministers of any 1 Government can imagine that our industry with its finely adjusted balance between revenue and expenditure, can absorb such enormous impositions on the cost of its main raw materials and keep the price of its services unchanged passes my comprehension.” This statement was made by Mr. J. S, Wills, Ivf.Inst.T., chairman of B.E.T. Omnibus Services, Ltd., at its annual meeting last week.
Increases that had taken place in operating costs were mostly because of post-war inflation but discriminatory additions to the fuel tax were different. These were planned and deliberate and planners were unbelievably unable, or perhaps unwilling, to foresee or understand the results. On each occasion that the tax had been raised the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been warned by the industry that higher bus fares would be the outcome, and on each occasion representations -were not accepted.
. Mr. Will s said that fares woald have to be advanced again, and that although the economics of the industry were in a state of flux, it was in good shape. "It may be that the industry's achievement was too good—that the temptation of easy revenue from a public getting an essential service at such old-fashioned prices was too strong to withstand. If that be so, however, surely it would have been more realistic • . to avoid the pretenee that insignificant extras like 9d., zlid. and nd. per gallon on fuel could somehow be conjured away so that the industry could carry on as before as though nothing had happened," said Mr. Wills.
TURKEY WANTS HEAVY VEHICLES
THREE six-wheeled tractors and 50-ton trailers are required for work on the Sariyar hydro-electric power project in Turkey. Tenders for the supply of these machines will be opened on June 20 by Etibank Sariyar Tesisleri, Grup Mudurlugu, Evkaf Apt. Kat 3, Ankara.
This undertaking's consulting engineer, Charles T. Main, Inc., 80, Federal Street, Boston, 10, Mass., should also be informed. Further details can be obtained from the Commercial Relations and Exports Department, Board of Trade, Horse Guards Avenue, London, S.W.I.
NO-STANDING DECISION DROPPED
QFFICIALS of the Transport and General Workers' Union agreed, at a meeting held last week, to recommend that bus crews employed by Southampton Transport Department withdraw a decision to ban standing passengers.
The department had proposed to continue winter schedules for reasons of economy, but it has been decided to add more buses during the summer.