RAILWAY-SOUGHT GENERAL ROAD POWERS.
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The Manifesto of the Commercial Motor Users Association. The Arguments against the Claims of the Railway Companies.
THE -arguments which arise in the public interest and may be raised by the general haulier and carrier against the applications of the railway companies for extended road powers are contained in a statement from the National Council of the Commercial Motor Users Association. The statement would be difficult to condense or abbreviate, taking into consideration the desirability of leaving the sense undisturbed, so we give it in full.
The Statement on Points where Public Interest is Concerned.
1.—Railway companies represented to Parliament when the Bills under which they work were promoted that, if they were granted authority to provide specified railway facilities, they estimated such-and-such traffics might come to them. The resulting traffics Oman without exception greatly exceeded the submitted expectations upon which they relied.
Parliament has at no time guaranteed any or particular volumes of goods or passenger trafHas to the railway companies, it has only authorized the pro vision of facilities. All the railways possess powers to use road motors to feed to or deliver from rail. They cover goads vehicles, omaianses, coaches and charsa-banes. They are full and unrestricted. They allow the railways to provide extensive road services, if they wish to do so.
2.—Mneh of the recognized ancillary work undertaken by railways is done at a loss. The total loss on their cartage departments has sometimes exceeded f3,000.000 in a year. This loss, which has enabled the companies seriously to menace the eandnued existence of independent cartage contractors, is charged against the profits from the remunerative branches of railway working. Extensions of this source of loss by the.awnership of more road vehicles is now indicated.
The Bills apply for powers which are not ancillary to but are outside the legitimate and proper functions of railways. Why do the railways, with their very extensive " feeding " powers by road, which they are entitled to use to or from any station at their own unfettered discretion, seek new powers for direct haulage by road, and to run direct omnibus services or coach or char-a-banes trips? What are the ends in view?
The Why and Wherefore.
3.—The true motives and intentions of the railway companies in seeking powers, for direct road transport call for
disclosure or discovery. The Bills deposited for Parliamentary consideration are drafted in terms which are dangerous for traders who desire to see independent nonrailway road-transport facilities continue. Is it of much avail that traders in respect of merchandise Ire given rights
O f appeal to the Railway Rates Tribunal? This is a most costly and labcaious proeess far any individual who is dissatisfied. But there is no protection for traders in respect of the continued existence of non-railway hauliers to serve them in coatracting jobbing or Firing work which does not constitute "a reader service." The 'railways seek powers to cut rates in unlimited fashion against these road' contractors upon -whom tens of thousands of Small manufac turers and traders rely. Sanction for rate-cutting which can ensure the extinction of the min-railway contractor, or h is being "brought to heel" by the railways, is asked from Parliament under Clauaea 1, 7, 8 'east W-of the Bills taken together.
What is the use of excessive competition for a few years,: and railway domination thereafter? Only traders who have enough regular traffic to justify the purchase of road motors themselves will have any prospect of an effective remedy. Other traders, in the event of a railway strike, must rely on non-railway hauliers, and must not be left in normal times to depend solely on railway control and its dependent organization. 4.—The provisions concerning undue preference of the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts of 1854 (Section 2) and 1888 (Section 27) are not mentioned in the Bill. They will presumably not apply.
It will be a serious position for traders if " undue preference" is allowed by road on behalf of the railways.
5,.—The provisions of Section 49 (2 and 3) of the Railways Act, 1921, concerning all traffic or none are mentioned. They are (Clause 10 of Bilis) to apply. These sub-sections read
" (2) Any such company may, and upon being required to do so and upon payment of the proper charges shall, at any place where the company Wilds itself out to collect awl deliver merchandise, perferm the services of collection and delivery in. respect of such merchandise as is for the time being ordinarily collected and delivered by the Company at that place: "Provided that the company shall not be required to make delivery to any person who is unwilling to eater into an agreement terminable by him on reasonable' notice for the delivery by the company at the charges included in the rate book of the whole of his, or the whole of his perishable, traffic from the station at which those charges apply.
" (a) Where any person does not so agree, the company shall not be required to deliver any of his merchandise, but, if such person fails to take delivery of any merchandise within a reasonable time, the company may deliver such merchandise and make such reasonable charges therefor as it thinks fit."
Why do the railways,. whilst omitting the "undue preference" safeguards for traders, thus take powers to force their hands, or leave them in the lurch, as regards road conveyance if it is not to eliminate the li
non-railway haulier? the trader is asked to forgo
his only general alternative.
Accounts No Protection.
0.—The Bills offer separate accounts, the apparent effect being to show in respect of the road wark how losses pr profits occur. No specimen accounts, items or schedules 'ars) yet available, but it is proposed to keep one set of accounts for each railway group for all its road services. The lot will be lumped together, and the accounts for any one year man be available the following ,Tuly. Area accounts are deliberately excluded, as Section 77 (2) of the Railways Act, 1921, which requires their adoption, is not to apply.
A road haulier, or an omnibus, coach or char-Sabancs proprietor, who is being systematically put out of business by district or area or local rate-cutting, will have no possible means: of proving his case l Is this in the public interest?
7.—The railways are to be protected, but not the nonrailway haulier. The trader may—fors what the right is worth—appeal. to the Railway Rates Tribunal if road charges are too high, hut what if they are too low? The trader is unlikely to apply, and the non-railway haulier cannot. He is left to rely on a farcical accounting system, or uponthe inability of the railways to increase standard charges by rail in order to make good such ancillary less. But railways may and do legally incur heavy .losses on ancillary businessesThey may in consequence legally pay lower dividends if it is policy to do so.
The Ordinary railway capital of all classes approxiMates 1310,000,000. One per cent. on this (f3,100,000 per annum), or less, if deliberately applied for a few years—as can legally be done under the Bills—to direct road-rate cutting, is enough to wipe out competition and to establish railway domination. Here is the crux of the Situation. Do producers and traders wish to see this done? Does Parliament wish to eoufer this new power, which as certainly now sought?
S,—Railway agents and canvassers, in furtherance of propaganda arranged "higher up" in support of the Bills, keep repeating the statement that as large ratepayers they subsidize road transport, and that the remedy is to let them come on the roads for direct motor conveyance work.
The railways escape rates very well for themselves. Most local rates (viz., those on their tracks) are paid on h sliding scale according to profits, and then with a 75 per cent. allowance. Manufacturers and traders generally pay on assessments regardless of profits or Josses, and pay in full. From August, 1914, to August, 192! (seven years), railway companies were relieved by the State of responsibility for local rates as part of the State guarantee of their 1913 net receipts. No other section of ratepayers was so well treated. Exceptional incidence in some rural areas is no guide to the overall position.
Total payments by all railways in local rates are now only some 60 per cent. higher than in 1913. The average corresponding increase for nen-railway ratepayers has exceeded 100 per cent.
Comparative Incidence of all Local Rates.
common form of expression, which enables broad Comparisons with other classes of ratepayers to be established, permits appreciation of the favourable treatment accorded to railways. Their overall total annual payments in local rates add up to less than 13s. per cent. on the aggregate capital including preference shares and debenture stocks—say, £8,000,000 on £1.300,000,000.
Typical industries are bearing rates which, when expressed as a percentage on capital, are at least double those borne by the railways. British colliery undertakings, for example, bear between two and three times as much per cent, per annum as do the railways.
10.—Railway pretensions as to a grievance over highway rates are still more specious. Of the 18,000,000 a year (or thereabouts) which all the railways pay as a combined total in local rates, the only available analysis (given by counsel for L.M.S. Bill of 1922) indicates that not more than £1,400,000 is for highways. What does this epresent for traders generally?
if the railways were totally excused highway rates, and if they gave the whole benefit to trade and industry, it is contingently equal to about one thirtyfifth of a penny per ton-mile averaged over all traffics l(coal, mineral, general merchandise and live stock) other than the companies' " free hauled." Is this enough to matter? Does it not expose the hollowness of this plea?
11.—The increases of direct taxation for road purposes which were put upon commercial motors both for goods and passengers, as from January 1st, 1927, havg had the result in many cases of making the augmented licence duties in part a tax upon transport per se. The yields per gross ton. mile are in many eases demonstrably and very generally higher than the related highway costs (vide proceedings of the Institute of Transport Congress at Birmingham).
The railways, in seeking unrestricted road powers, are not, despite their repeated assertions that road transport is subsidized, offering to pay any higher licence duties.
Have they dropped their old argument?
12.—The general ratepayer is at least as much a user of load transport as of railways. The railways depend for most oftheir traffics (including live stock) upon the roads. The railways use for their traffics many thousands of parishes in which they pay no local. rates, exactly as road transport does. B oth are in the same beat as to this. So widely spread throughout agriculture and industry is the ownership of commercial motors, that these owners certainly Pay in the aggregate several times as much in total local rates as do all the railways. If these numerous owners were
united as the railways are, they might conversely plead that they subsidize the railways.
If increased costs of labour and material far the same work be taken into account and allowance made for the greater total mileage of adopted highways, for 1927 compared with 1918, the higher costs of highways falling to be met by ratepayers, after grants from the Road ll'und (which is wholly derived from direct motor taxation), are little more than in strict ratio.
It is too often sought to lay all increases of highway costs at the door of motor omnibuses and wagons, whereas highways are more and more needed for general
, means of communication, military requirements, social intercourse, improved housing, distributive supplies to dispersed population, water mains, gas pipes, electricity cables, telegraph and telephone wires, public drains
and sewers.
13.—The railway companies state that they wish to use the roads on the " same terms" as other ratepayers. Their real object appears to many to be to get traffics back to the railways. (Sir Josiah Stamp, at Leeds, on January 20th last, said inter alto :—" We desire to retain to the railways all traffic that ought economically to be upon them.") Assuming that they are coming largely upon the roads, are they ready to pay full highway rates, instead of only 25 per cent., where they now are excused 75 per cent? They also claim their status as ratepayers as the justification for undertaking direct road transport.
Are those ratepayers who own no road vehicles to be wholly ekcused highway rates? This untenable conclusion is certainly involved as the converse to the contention of the railways r
The True Objective of the Railways.
14.—Are the railways' Bill.s drafted and presented genuinely? Are they not part of It concerted move to force an inquiry into the possibilities of co-ordination between existing road and rail hauliers? The Commercial Motor Users Association courts an inquiry, but questions if this should be by Private Bill procedure. The public interest may be held to call for other and prior inquiry.
In point of time, road transport is 69 years behind railway transport—Rainhill locomotive trials, when George Stephenson's "Rocket" won first prize, 1829; Liverpool Heavy Motor Trials, when Leyland and Thornyceoft won prizes, 1898. The road has during recent years gone ahead while the railways have slumbered. Now, under vague pretences of co-ordination, which objective is not covered by the terms of the Bill, the railways seek powers the most assured results of which will be to enable them to blot out competition.
Has due consideration been given to the alternative
of full prior inquiry as to the value to the
nation of non-railway road transport? Such
transport is the only Safeguard (apart from coast wise shipping) against railway control of all inland transportation.
15.--Who or what is to set a: measure upon, or who or what to fix a gauge for, that "efficient and economical working and management "• upon which alone the railways are entitled, under Section 58 (1) of the Railways Act, 1021, to expect to receive their annual standard revenue from producers, traders and the travelling public?
Nothing short of a definite outside stimulus, as provided (often in conjunction with coastwise shipping) by non-railway road transport can achieve it ! The majority report of the Balfour Browne Committee of 1921 was against the granting of • these direct powers.