A number of speeches have been made upon this amendment, and I must confess that I am not clearer now than I was at the beginning as to what it is intended to achieve. The purpose of the amendment is to put carriage of beet for reward outside the scope of the Road Transport Act. It has nothing to do with the farmer carrying his own beet in his own lorry to the factory. There is nothing in the Road Transport Act to prevent his doing that or to prevent his neighbour carrying it for him, provided he does not do it for reward. If he does act as a public carrier, then he has to be subject to the provisions of the Road Transport Act and to the regulations governing the carrying of merchandise for reward on the public highways.
There is another point which, apparently Senators have entirely ignored. The Road Transport Act was passed in 1933. Senator Wilson made reference to the assistance given to the Carlow factory last year by members of the Beet Hauliers' Association, but every person who was engaged in the business of carrying beet for reward before the passage of the Act was entitled to, and did, receive a licence to carry beet, and on the authority of these licences they have, in fact, been carrying beet for reward to the Carlow factory in the last season. The question that arises on this amendment is not whether it is desirable to have the whole business of carrying beet for reward confined to the Railway Company, or whether we should have a number of independent carriers as well. That can be determined under the Act without any amendment. The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that the decision is going to be one way and to have, not merely the members of the Beet Hauliers' Association, but everyone who wishes to engage in the business of carrying beet for reward free to do so. I say, with all respect to Senators, that no case has been made for the exclusion of beet from the scope of the Road Transport Act that could not be made equally forcibly for the exclusion of other commodities. If this amendment is accepted it is a certainty that we will have similar representations made by other interests for the exclusion of milk, garden produce, peat, or some other agricultural product from the scope of the Road Transport Act.
In relation to a number of those things we have already had representations based precisely on the same grounds as the case for the exclusion of beet, or upon the necessity for speedy delivery in view of the perishable nature of the product. The undesirability of allowing a monopoly position to be created which may result in higher transport charges is an old bogey as is also the possibility of a strike, as if strikes are something that are associated with monopolies and with nothing else. The only reason why there might be more safety against strikes in the existence of a number of carriers rather than in the existence of one carrier is that the Trades Union organisation might not be efficient enough to organise the employees of all carriers. If that situation should exist we have no reason to believe that it will exist indefinitely. We have every reason to believe the contrary.
There is another argument which I think should have considerable weight with this House. This question of whether beet should or should not come within the scope of the Road Transport Act was discussed at length when the Act was being enacted and after prolonged deliberation the Seanad agreed that beet should be included. On the strength of that legislation the Great Southern Railway Company has committed itself to a heavy expenditure on equipping itself to deal with this transport; it has expended £96,000 already upon the construction of special railway wagons to deal with beet, and £32,000 in the provision of special road vehicles to deal with the beet traffic. Not alone that but it incurred heavy expenditure in the acquisition of vehicles licensed to carry goods. Licences have been transferred to them from people who had been engaged in transport work in the beet growing and adjoining areas. The adoption of this amendment to exclude beet from the scope of the Road Transport Act would mean that all the equipment with which the Railway Company has provided itself and all the licences that have been transferred to them would be if not completely useless in excess of its requirements, if the beet traffic were lost. It is true, however, that there is a problem to be considered in that connection, that is if the Railway Company are not fully equipped to deal with the whole of the business. It was not fully equipped last season and I am not sure that it will be fully equipped to deal with the much heavier traffic next season. Because of that we have given consideration to the question of whether or not the licences for which the Railway Company have applied should be transferred to it with beet included or excluded. That is the only problem that arises in connection with beet for us to decide and we must decide within a month whether in any transfer of licences that may take place to the Company beet will be excluded, not merely for this year, but for two years to come.
Certain Senators suggested the desirability of giving this system a year's trial. It has had a year's trial. The Act has been in operation during one beet season and the lessons to be learned from the experience of that period will be called upon now to enable a proper decision to be made upon that question of excluding beet from the licences transferred to the Railway Company. Bear in mind that all the persons who were engaged in this business of carrying beet for reward in the Carlow area or in fact any other area, have not yet had their licences transferred to the Railway Company. During the last season they were entitled to continue and as long as their licences are not transferred they will be entitled to continue in the business for the next season or the season after. There is, however, a problem in the other areas where the carriage of beet for reward by companies other than the Railway Company was not practised previously. The question for consideration is whether the Railway Company, with the new equipment with which it is providing itself and having regard to the nature of that equipment, will have as much as it can do to carry all the beet that will be offered to it in those other areas without taking on the additional task of replacing the private carriers of beet in the Carlow area as well. It is not impossible that the full utilisation of the Railway Company's equipment in all the other areas may, at some time, involve the granting of additional licences to existing carriers in these areas to carry beet during the next season and the season after that, because the amount of beet to be carried in these years will be considerably greater than the amount of beet that had to be carried in any earlier year.
There is another objection to the amendment. This amendment is to be retrospective. It purports to provide that the carriage of beet for reward without a licence not only shall be but shall be deemed always to have been legal. That would create an extraordinary situation, having regard to the fact that people have been prosecuted and convicted for the offence of carrying beet merchandise without a licence. The effect of the amendment would be to nullify the decisions of the courts and that would possibly involve the repayment to the persons convicted of the fines which have already been levied upon them. I am not quite sure of what the effect generally would be but it is an amazing proposal, having regard to the circumstances, that the law should be amended retrospectively to the date on which the original Act was passed.
