Restriction of Road Transport is Folly
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/1 ODERN, efficient road haulage 1Y1 had been shackled to a rail transport system which the development of the internal-combustion engine had made obsolescent, said Lord Bruce of Melbourne, chairman of the Finance Corporation for Industry, Ltd., at the company's annual meeting last week.
To enable the railways to earn sufficient revenue to meet interest charges, efficient road transport was to be prevented from exercising its full economic effect on the railways. "Such a policy would be disastrous," said Lord Bruce.
" These two activities should be handled by the Board as two separate parts of a great transport system," he continued. "They should be co-ordinated in operation to the maximum extent possible in order to afford efficient and cheap transport. They should be separated financially so as to ensure that the benefits of rapidly developing road transport, either as to facilities or costs, will not be denied to industry in order to protect the declining revenues of the railways."
The railways would probably incur losses, but "having regard to the importance of cheap and efficient transport to our whole economy, I believe this is a case where a Government subsidy would be justified in the national interest," Lord Bruce said.