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Keep Licensing System
Page 54
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"
FOR more than 21 years the licensing system has proved itself as a protection of the public interest and an instrument of justice for the operator; the set-up of Licensing Authorities and traffic courts has worked well, and should not be tampered with." This statement was made by Mr. R. W. Birch, chairman and managing director of the Potteries Motor Traction Co., Ltd., in his annual I-eport, last week.
The Government's White Paper on transport policy was welcome insofar as it sounded the death knell of the notorious area , schemes for nationalizing passenger road transport, he declared. The suggestion. that the working of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, should be reviewed, was less welcome. Mr. Birch said he would be sorry to see any material alteration of the licensing system.
Reviewing the concern's progress in the past year, Mr. Birch regretted -that it would shortly be necessary to apply for a third increase in fares. "The industry has grown up with a constitutional belief in cheap fares," he said. "But when successive Governments deliberately increase our running costs by heavy artificial rises in our fuel price, we have no alternative but to recoup from the travelling public what would otherwise be an operating loss."
Crushing Burden
Renewed efforts would be made this year to get some relief from the present crushing burden of special taxation; this would go far to dispel the rapidly growing impression that under the influence of old-fashioned economists with an ingrained prejudice against road transport, the repression of the latter by punitive taxation was an integral part of the fiscal policy of every successive Government. The reorganization of services and routes in the Potteries area, following the acquisition, last year, of five smaller local undertakings, had given North Staffs passengers facilities never previously enjoyed, said Mr. Birch. Substantive licences for the new services had now been granted by the Licensing Authority. Additional revenue as well as operational economies had been made possible by the'-reorganization.
The full benefit of these changes would be secured when the highway authorities were persuaded to lower the roads under three railway bridges so that normal double-deckers could be operated.
Annual mileage had gone up by 5m. to 19iin. since the business had been enlarged. The number of passengers carried had risen by 36m. to 150m. The new 120-vehicle garage at Hanley was well advanced and should Ise in full operation next winter, No Change Needed
Speaking at the 29th annual general meeting of the North-Western Road Car Co., Ltd., this week, Mr. J. W. Womar, chairman, declared "There can be no doubt that the [licensing] system has worked exceptionally well since it was introduced. . . . In my considered opinion—and I have spent a lifetime in the industry—no change in the system is needed.
"We have reached a time," said Mr. Womar, when any increase in costs must itself be a direct charge on the public by way of increased fares." On the subject of workmen..s fares, he declared that they were totally unjustifiable, arid. in the second fares application made by the concern, already granted in some degree, the differential between standard and workmen's fares had been reduced.