The supporters of the amendment talk a lot about sugar. It is, in fact, a sugar coating to what is a very nasty pill, and Senator Wilson thinks it is unfair that there should be any bar or barrier in regard to matters of this kind. Senator Milroy works somewhat to the same end. Why was it necessary to introduce the Act of 1933? Surely it was because it was considered necessary to have a bar or barrier that the House almost unanimously—I think unanimously—endorsed the principal of the Principal Act. That Act was not introduced by any means exclusively in the interest of the railways. It safeguarded all the existing vendors of public transport. These people were competing on the roads at that time with a certain number of lorries. The chances are that if the Principal Act were not passed, in the course of a few years they would be driven off the roads by ruinous competition. They are protected from that competition by the Principal Act. In order to benefit them still further, it is sought to get outside the Act by increasing the carrying capacity which they then had by 100, 200 or 300 per cent.
It is suggested that my picture was equivalent to a ghost train. Well, then, I must have been seeing ghosts because I have seen along the Naas road tractors with as many as three trailers of coal. Senator Wilson had better take a drive down these roads, too, and he will see the same pictures. He can then see whether they are ghosts or not. The position is this: a man had, say, four lorries that comprised a certain carrying capacity. He now feels under the Act, which gave him a good deal of protection and a vested interest which is more valuable than it was before the Act was passed, or more valuable than it could ever possibly be unless the Act was passed, that he wants double or treble that carrying capacity. He sells a lorry which was able to bring one load and he buys a tractor which can draw two trailers, each of them with a greater carrying capacity, perhaps, than the lorry which he sold. If this amendment is passed and is availed of to any large extent, then the original Act becomes a perfect fraud and a farce. It was because transport had become a drug on the market that the Act was ever introduced. There was far more offering than was required and it was sold, because of the competition, at a price which was uneconomic. It meant that thousands of men were thrown out of employment in one place and that a few hundred sweated workers were put into employment in another. The hours that were worked and the wages that were paid were of a disgraceful character in order that this excessive carrying capacity should be placed at the disposal of the community.
Senator Wilson thinks that the more you have of these vehicles the more prosperous the country will be. If plenty of transport is an indication of prosperity, certainly this country and Northern Ireland should be the most prosperous in the world, because, having regard to the amount of traffic available and the density of the population, we have probably more transport than any other country in the world. That is quite evident by the empty trains, the empty buses and the half-filled lorries that are operating on the roads and the scandalously low rates of wages that are paid. I would not be in favour of any railway company developing on the roads through the medium of the tractors. I think it is a monstrous proposition when they have steel roads there, constructed at great expense, perfectly safe, offering no obstruction and with no other traffic on these roads. Why should these steel roads be allowed to become rusty in order that the company can go out on the public highways and use the roads that were meant for pedestrians and all sorts of traffic? I should strongly object to any railway company developing in that direction.
We have in the Free State very nearly 2,500 miles of excellent railways. To let them go waste, to scrap them, and to develop this trailer business on the crooked roads of this country, in order to carry beet or peat or for any other purpose, would be the very worst form of economy and I do not think the House should encourage that. The Oireachtas as a whole laid down these definite restrictions because of sheer necessity in the Act of last year. It is sought now, by a side wind, before the Act has actually come into operation, to neutralise a great part of the effect of that enactment. We impose restrictions under the licensing laws on publichouses and so on. Nobody is considered to be under any particular hardship if a man who had one publichouse previously was not allowed in recent years to take out a licence for another. Transport has become just as big a nuisance as publichouses were at one time, and in order that those who are in it shall survive it is necessary that nobody shall be allowed to take undue advantage of the laws that have been passed for the protection of existing carriers.