LOOKING INTO RESTRICTIVE PRACTICES
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" rps ESTRICTIVE practices are by no I means universal in the bus industry but in varying forms they do exist and it is entirely wholesome that both sides of the National Council should jointly examine and pronounce one way or the other upon those that are alleged." This comment was .made by Mr. John Spencer Wills, chairman of B.E.T. Omnibus Services Ltd. at the annual general meeting last week. He was remarking upon some aspects of the committee of inquiry recommendations.
It was also highly important from the employers' point of view that various possibilities of differential pay for drivers and conductors should be considered constructively during a period when no urgent claim was pressing, he said. He remarked that the inquiry committee seemed impressed by the argument that a single rate of pay throughout the country regardless of circumstances was producing unfair results.
The cost of implementing the committee's recommendations was likely to add about 13 per cent to the wages bill— and the wages content of total costs was around 70 per cent. Companies had no alternative but to ask for higher fares— and the delay in obtaining fares sanction had to be added to the cost of the unOfficial strikes which had occurred.
On the results for the year ended March 31, he pointed to an increase of £136,000 in investment income and said that during the past 10 years this income had risen from £772,000 to £1,178,000.
Reporting upon overseas interests, Mt. Wills said that a dividend of 30 per cent was received on the United Transport Overseas investment last year, and he recorded that acquisitions during the year included Ross Transport (Pty.) Ltd., operating in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, Greenway Tours and Travel Agency Ltd., which arranges Victoria Falls tours, and sizeable stakes in haulage companies in Africa and Western Australia.