The.Bus Position in Ulster.
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• The Editor, TEE Comm-611ml. Moues.
[27181 Sir,—In regard to the bus-traffic position in IT1ster, as referred tom a recent issue of your journal, you do not appear to have been fully informed on some points.
Firstly, the Ministry of Home Affairs refused to receive the deputation representing the Ulster Road Passengers.' Protection Association.
Secondly, your statement as regards "the hailing' with triumph" by the bus owners of the circumstances in which the agreement came to be discussed, is somewhat obscure in meaning. But the majority of bus' owners objected strongly to the proposals at a largely attended meeting.
The real effect of the three-cornered agreement between the Ministry, the Corporation and certain bus owners would be a monopoly on country roads In exchange for one in Belfast. What right the Ministry has to further an agreeraCnt between Belfast Corpora lion and certain bus owners, operating in the city, by arranging to secure for the latterspecial privileges in the country if they withdraw from the city, no one can understand.
The Ministry of Home Affairs will further secure by this agreement the limitation of licences—tor which no case has been made out in the country—and that there shall be no saleable value in licences ; the licences in case of sale, retirement, or disposal of the business in any way, having to be returned to the Ministry, which may or may not re-issue them at its discretion. This means no bus business may have goodwill attached to it, nor can the owner dispose of it (except as scrap) unless by kind permission of a Government Department.
I cannot see why at particular type of business should thus be picked out for the introduction of further . Government interference.. Apart from all this, I would suggest that there is a very grave danger for the British bus-owner in this proposed Northern Ireland legislation, for it probably foreshadows similar efforts in Great Britain.
I warn and remind you that increased commercialvehicle taxation was first forced on vs here by the Ulster Parliament and took effect in England soon
afterwards,—Yours faithfully, C. B. HURST. Belfast.