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September 30th last show decrease of $238,708 or 29.46% which will result in the paying by your Petitioners to Government of $12,000 less in royalty for that period.
30. Your Petitioners and/or their predecessors commenced their operations 25 years ago and as the result of efficient service and low fares and carrying on in spite of a long bad and unprofitable period in the early years resulting in writing off 75% of the original capital and only then reaching a dividend-paying basis (on such heavily reduced capital) in 1912, the undertaking has been gradually built up into a prosperous concern. If your Petitioners had failed in their obligations either to the Public or to Government during that period, your Petitioners could have understood the reason- ableness of and justification for the competition they now have to face but no such complaint has ever been made against them.
31. Your Petitioners are solely concerned in the business of transportation. The Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels Limited are not a transportation company but it is realised that a motor bus service between Hong Kong and their Hotel at Repulse Bay is a legitimate branch of their Hotel business. The present Hotel bus service however operates along the most thickly populated routes and therefore takes the cream of the transportation business whereas your Petitioners' buses are restricted to unprofitable routes.
32. In 1925 the Ministry of Transport appointed a Departmental Committee on the Licensing and Regulation of Public Service Vehicles. In their first Interim Report there appears a number of paragraphs which are peculiarly applicable to the Hong Kong situation of which the following is one:
"With regard to trams and trackless trolleys, these, of course, can only be "operated under statutory powers and either they belong to the local authority or the "local authority has an option to acquire the undertaking on arbitration terms at re- "curring periods. Where either of these conditions exists the licensing authority are "liable to criticism on the action they may take in granting or withholding licences "for motor omnibuses to compete with the trams or trackless trolley vehicles. On the "one hand, if they refuse licences, they are open to criticism that they are exercising "their functions as the licensing authority not in the interests of the public but for the "purpose of protecting their transport undertaking from competition. Whilst on the "other hand, if they grant licences to omnibus proprietors to compete with trams and "trackless trolleys established by private enterprise, they lay themselves open to the "criticism that they are doing so for the purpose of depreciating the value of the "undertaking so that they may be able to acquire it, when their option to purchase "'arises, at a less price than they would otherwise be able to do."
33. Your Petitioners do not suggest that the grant of licences to a competing omnibus proprietor has been done with a view to depreciating the value of the Peti- tioners' business but it cannot be disputed that the value of the local Electric Tramway Undertaking has been seriously impaired thereby.
34. In contrast with most other tramway systems of the world the system of your Petitioners has (with one exception) no branch routes. It is essentially one long line from Shaukiwan to Kennedy Town (divided, nevertheless, for traffic purposes, into shorter sections). It necessarily follows that any competition near the centre of the system must be extremely detrimental to your Petitioners.
35. The topography of the City of Victoria is such that the shortest route be- tween East and West is the Queen's Road route and this fact greatly enhances its value as a motor bus route since it will naturally rob the longer (tramway) route of a large number of passengers.
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36. Your Petitioners would point out that not only do they carry passengers at rates considerably below those specified in the Ordinance but they carry third class passengers between Shaukiwan Terminus and the Western Market a distance of about 6 miles for five cents, and it is submitted that in doing this your Petitioners are rendering a valuable civic and social service to the community. This is the Peti- tioners' least remunerative route and it is submitted that the existing competition in the heart of their system and where it was hitherto possible to recoup themselves for lack of a fair margin of profit elsewhere is an injustice to your Petitioners.
37. After authorising the use of motor buses over the Queen's Road route the Government not only refused to allow your Petitioners to operate buses along it but twice increased the extent of competitive service allowed to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels Limited and appear to have placed no restriction on the length of the vehicle which would be licensed.
38. Your Petitioners submit that so long as a statutory tramway or omnibus company is maintaining good and efficient service, that Company should be protected against unfair competition and your Petitioners submit that they are being deprived of a large part of the fruits of their labour and enterprise over the past twenty-five years by the competition which is now proceeding from the operation of the Hotel Com- pany's buses along or contiguous to what has always been the busiest part of the tram- way route.
39. In 1902 your Petitioners and/or their predecessors came to an arrange- ment with Government which was intended ultimately to be for the mutual benefit of both parties by providing cheap and efficient passenger transport along and upon the shore of the Island.
It is submitted by your Petitioners that it was the intention of the Government of that time in return for the enterprising, though financially hazardous venture, upon which the promoters were prepared to embark, to assist, encourage and protect your Petitioners and/or their predecessors whilst they did all they possibly could to keep up to date and develop its undertaking for the good of the community.
Your Petitioners submit that the official attitude of Government regarding the propriety of a motor bus service along Queen's Road changed in 1927.
40. That your Petitioners' application to operate buses along Queen's Road should be refused on the grounds of narrowness of the road and that subsequently another company should be granted a monopoly over this route without reference to your Petitioners appears incomprehensible.
41. Had this happened in Great Britain there would have followed an appeal to the Minister of Transport under Section 14 (3) of the Roads Act 1920. This right of appeal lies against every licensing authority. The Minister of Transport has power to make such an Order thereon as he thinks fit: such order is binding upon the licensing authority, is final, is not subject to appeal in any court, and upon the application of the Minister is enforceable by Writ of Mandamus.
42. It was the intention of Parliament by Section 14 (3) of the Roads Act to provide for an appeal against the decision of a local authority to some other body or person who could approach the question with a wider outlook than that naturally adopted by a local authority and who at the same time, would be able to take into con- sideration relevant and material factors which would not fail to be considered and reviewed by the Court in the course of proceedings by way of Mandamus.
For these reasons it was considered best that an appeal should lie to the Minister of Transport.
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