Socialists Stick To Their Policy
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THE Labbur Party conference at Scar". borough, last Friday, unanimously condemned the Government's policy on transport, because it was "inimical to the , co-ordination and integration of services," and reaffirmed the belief that a publicly owned, co-ordinated and integrated system, as was the aim of the 1947 Transport Act, would best serve the country.
Mr. G. S. Lindgren (former M.P. for Wellingborough), speaking for the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, said the railway unions believed in full coordination and integration, using the best method and the best vehicle to suit the particular traffic—whether road, rail, inland waterways or coastwise shipping, whichever was preferred.
Mr. George Brassington, assistant general secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, said the wonderful fleet of lorries built up in British Road Services must have been the pride of the Transport and General Workers Union. B.R.S. were in difficulty for the first year but, by 1953, even on the yardstick of profitability, they had'turned the corner. But then the Tory "wreckers" produced their 1953 Transport Act, described as one of the most barefaced acts of brigandage the country had known.
Mr. Ray Gunter, M.P. for Southwark, and president of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, supporting the resolution for the natianal executive committee, maintained that politicians had failed to face. up to the fundamental problems of transport. "We from the railway unions are arguing that there is no thought of forcing traffic back on to railways.