THE ANSWER TO THE RAILWAY COMPANIES.
Page 49
Page 50
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
The Arguments Placed Before the Chancellor of the Exchequer Against an Increase in Vehicle Duties.
OCO behalf of the Chancellor of the Exchequer the Right Hon. Ronald McNeil, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, received a deputation on Friday, the 1st inst., from the Standing Joint Committee of Mechanical Road Transport Associations. The deputation consisted of Mr. E. S. Shrapnell-Smith, C.B.E. (London) (chairman), Mr. E. J. Howley, C.B.E. (Midlands) (vice-chairman), Mr. William Edwards (Lancashire), Mr. James France (Yorkshire), Mr. S. E. Garcke (Kent), Major-General S. S. Long, C.B. (Cheshire), Mr. E. W. Rudd (Essex), Mr. R. S. Tilling, J.P. (Southeastern Counties), Mr. P. R. Turner (London) and Mr. F. G. Bristow, F.C.I.S. (London) (hon. secretary).
Time Required to Test the New Scale.
Mr. Shrapnell-Smith opened by stating that mechanical road transport interests recognized the importance to the nation of railways, but it was .not a case of road haulage contractors versus railway haulage companies ; six out of every ten commercial goods motors were now owned by agriculturists, manufacturers and traders for their own purposes. They were obliged to move some of their traffics by road themselves, exactly as motorcar owners sometimes went by road and sometimes by rail in order to keep their engagements. They were perturbed to find that, within three months of the new scale of taxation becoming operative, it should be brought in question by anybody. They claimed that time must be allowed for facts and effects to emerge. That was hardly possible in a less term than several years. They considered that grounds for reductions in the scale would be established after two years.
The rise in road costs was almost entirely due to the increased charges for labour and materials in respect of the same work done, the combined ratio of increase since 1913 being little short of 100 per cent. The maximum net increase falling upon ratepayers in any recent year, compared with 1911-12, was £15,100,000 for Great Britain, and this approximated the 100 per cent. It was unfair to ascribe the whole increase to commercial motor transport. There were 2,074 more miles of adopted highways than there were in 1911-12, and the deputation felt entitled to mention that a road benefits many non-motor interests, including the railways. For example, property is developed ; Means of communication between both new and old points are provided ; use by the Post Office for telephone and telegraph pasts and cables, also by gas, water and electricity undertakings.
The Railways Not Bearing Their Share of Increased Local Rates.
If the railway companies were large ratepayers, so were agriculturists, manufacturers and traders who own commercial motors to enable them to carry certain traffics for which the railway services failed them. He put in a table showing the increase of all railway company payments in local rates since 1912 as 63 per cent., whilst the corresponding increase upon non-railway ratepayers was 116 per cent. If the railways were exempted completely from highway rates, it represented less than one-fiftieth of a penny per ton-mile, and this element was, therefore, insignificant from the point of view of trade and industry. The railways themselves were enormous users of the highways, and paid only some £1,450,000 a year in highway rates.
Railway protagonists urged that road motor traffic was often considerable where it paid no rates. Railway traffics, including livestock, by road did the same. Our railways paid no local rates in more than 5,000 parishes te, from and through which their traffics passed by
road. So far as motor traffic was concerned, payments into the Road Fund should be available to equate matters as between strong highways in respect of which there was a surplus of tax yield, and other and weaker highways in respect of which there might be at present a deficiency of contribution. Such weak roads now in a state of transition were not fair criteria.
" On the point of the railway representation that there should be differential rating between commercial and private vehicles, it was pointed out that only 13s. 4d. per h.p. is now paid into the Road Fund in respect of private ears. The new taxation scale on commercial motors, expressed in the same terms, varied from £1 10s. to £4 10s. per h.p. In many cases this disparity was grossly unfair to commercial owners.
On the point that road competition is unregulated and subsidized, a .very considerable measure of regre,.. lation already. existed. If the freight rates charged for services were " at large," nobody had yet succeeded in formulating a scheme for control of competitiou which was in the public interest. It was strenuously denied that road transport was subsidized. Records of traffics and road costs, considered together, showed that the new scale, in numerous instances, levied more per gross ton-mile than the certified highway costs. The deputation submitted that the solution for rural difficulties was that where and when the combined district and county highways rates exceed 2s. or 2s. 3d. in the I. (the exact line of division to be settled by the Government), such excess, subject to proper safeguards and central approval of work done, should be a charge against the Road Fund.
On the point that road transport was eating into railway revenues, it was pointed out that railways were authorized by Parliament to provide facilities, but were never guaranteed their traffics. It was not merely a case of road hauliers versus railways. There were many known instances where traffic went by road at higher rates than those charged by rail, solely on account of greater efficiency.
Road Traffic Not Filched from the Railways.
As to the provision of signalling for motor traffic at public expense, this on country roads was very largely done by R.A.C. guides or A.A. scouts. In cities, as might be observed near any railway terminus or goods station, the police on point duty were largely required and used in respect of railway traffic.
With regard to alleged lower wages and excessive hours being _customary in road transport work, wages rates negotiated between road transport employers and the Transport and General Workers' Union were higher for motor lorry, drivers and their mates than those negotiated by the railway unions for motor lorry drivers and their mates in railway, employment, even after taking into account the value of special privileges granted by the railways to their employees. Both were based on the 48-hour week. Owner-drivers worked their own hours, and it was presumed that no Government would desire to interfere With such individual discretion. Organized transport companies which paid recognized rates of wages and overtime and observed agreed conditions suffered much more directly than did the railways from the operations of these small owners.
The deputation estimated that .direct taxation under the new scale for 1927 will produce £12,000,000 from goods, hackney and other commercial motors, compared with £8,800,000 in 1926.
Mr. P. R. Turner said that road transport was a new and effective form of transport which had sprung up as a result of the development of modern science. It 027
had been found to be economic and reliable from the trader's point of view, and the demand which industry generally had made upon it demonstrated what a useful purpose was being served. There could be little doubt that, so far as both goods and passengers were concerned, a great deal of the traffic now handled by road services had been created by this innovation and could not be said to have been filched from the railways in any shape or form.
The effect of the increased taxation imposed by the Budget of 1926 had had very serious results upon the industry. In numerous cases motor vehicles had been put aside and licences not renewed. In other cases vehicles had been -sold at considerable loss and, generally speaking, road transport costs had been increased. These statements were proved by the numbers of unemployed motor drivers.
Road Transport Workers Better Paid.
With regard to Mr. Bromley's statement to the Chancellor about the hours and wages of road transport workers, he pointed out that railwaymen worked on a 47-hour week and road transport workers on a 4S-hour week. As regards wages, the facts were that motor e drivers in the principal towns were paid at a much higher rate than any comparable class of railway employee, even -after making due allowance for such items as clothing and pensions. In places like London, Liverpool and Bristol, where the highest wages paid were 76s. and 72s. for drivers of six-wheelers and twoton vehicles and over respectively, the only wage paid in excess of that rate to any comParable railway employee was that paid to engine drivers of more than three years' service.
Where traffic could be shown to have come to road transport from the railways, the cause had been inefficient railway administration, and he quoted resolutions passed by the National Federation of Fruit and Potato Trade Associations, calling attention to the increasingly inefficient transport services given by the British railways during recent years. Mr. Turner finally called attention to the fact that the railway companies themselves subsidized a cartage service throughout the country at the expense of their station-to-station rates.
Major-General Long referred to the argument used by the railways that their rates were fixed and that they could not compete with road carriers, who could charge what rates they pleased. The railways, however, could, and did, quote exceptional rates for traffic and did not commit themselves to any length of time for their rates. The only hope for trade and commerce was that there should be healthy competition.
Bus Services Largely Tributary to the Railways.
Mr. Garcke, referring to the inter-urban omnibus services, said that their competition with the railways was not as serious to the latter as might at first sight appear. There were many services which were distinctly tributary to the railways in all parts of the country and without which the railways would suffer a loss of traffic. Even parallel omnibus services were very largely tributary, since statistics showed that the proportion of passengers booked between towns was very small in relation to the percentage carried from intermediate villages, which were not served hy railway stations, to the nearest town or railway station. The chief competitors for passengers were the private motorcar and the motorcycle, which, indeed, were chief competitors with the omnibus itself. Speaking generally, the complaint of the railways against the public omnibus system was hardly justified.
Mr. Ronald McNeill undertook to report to the Chancellor of the Exchequer the representations made by the deputation and their answers to the points raised by the railway companies.