THE OPERATION OF THE LONDON TRAFFIC ACT.
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A Commentary upon the Formation of the Passenger Traffic Combine in London and the Usefulness thereto of the New Act.
By F. A. Mac quisten, K.C., M.P. for Argyll.
Mr. F. A. Mac quis the author of huge competing fleet of omni LONDON passenger traffic is now at a very critical stage of its existence. If the London Traffic Act (which, it is alleged, was framed by a Conservative Government and was passed by a Labour Government) is operated in the way that is being done now, there is no doubt that the whole passenger transport of London will fall into the hands of a trust or monopoly, which may behave itself for a time, but which will inevitably be driven by the demands of its own privileged labour to exploit the community. The demand will then be made to take over the whole concern by the State or a public authority, and it will be' difficult to justify resistance to such demand.
Our last state then will be worse than our first, because, whilst monopoly may sometimes be greedy and corrupt, it always has a certain efficiency which tends to decrease with age, but never wholly disappears, whereas a commercial enterprise run by public authority seems to be, with one or two exceptions, inevitably inefficient.
My friendship with the late Mr. Kennedy Jones, who was chairman of the Traffic Enquiry in the 1918-1922 Parliament and who consulted me with regard to the report which he issued and asked me to revise, led me to take an interest in the question of transport. One thing that Mr. Kennedy Jones was determined upon was that the London traffic combiner would not get a monopoly, and had he lived there is no doubt that the Transport Bill that was passed in the last Parliament would never have become law. When the Tubes were taken over by the group under Lord Ashfield, they determined to get control if possible of the street passenger transport and, under a threat to start a Mr. F. A. Mac quis the author of huge competing fleet of omni buses, the London General Omnibus Co. came into the Combine. Tilling's were too big and too efficient to be crushed, so a working arrangement was entered into with them. Tilling's build their own buses, but the Combine is supplied by the Associated Equipment Co. on tervs very satisfactory to the latter company. When you have a concern fulfilling a public utility, it is well to show small profits in the concern that directly ministers to the public need, and that is easily done y buying from some other corporation on good terms for the latter. [The Associated Equipment Co. Ltd., has paid no dividend for two years.—En.
Tubes and railways must be run as monopolies, but road transport should never be permrtted to be monopolized, and those who have the monopoly of the tubes or railways should not be allowed also to go on to the roads with vehicles ; they should not have it both ways, otherwise they will inevitably use their railway monopoly to crush their free competitors on the road. We have sad knowledge of the fruits of monopoly in the Highlands, in
steamer transport. ,
-Li.. March, 1020, not long after the N.U.R. had
succeeded in extracting from the Coalition Govern _
meat an agreement which made the railwaymen a privileged class, Mr. J.. H. Thomas brought in a Bill on behalf of the London traffic combine to give them the right substantially to increase their fares. The Bill was the Electric Railways (Fares) Bill. The fact that the men's secretary should bring in such a Bill clearly showed that there is no such antagonism between capital and labour as is commonly supposed. If capital is only big enough, it can always get the support of labour in any scheme jointly to exploit the public. Mr. Thomas desired to abolish the " split shift," whereby a certain percentage of the men after -four hours' work at the peak load in the morning were idle for the rest of the day and did their other four hours at the peak load in the evening. The Bill involved the engagement of about 25 per cent, more men and an increase of over £1,000,000 in the wages bill. But, of course, the increase that the Combine got by the raising of he fares far more than covered this expenditure, so that the public money was divided between Mr. Thomas's constituents in the shape of idle time after the peak load in the morning, whilst the Combine got the balance. , Of course, the bus fares were raised correspondingly.
I thought that all this was wrong and that it was going to add probably half a crown a week to the travelling expenses of every working man, shop assistant, clerk, typist or other worker, who had to travel to and from his or her work. The raising of the bus fares immediately started to stimulate competition. Mr. Kennedy Jones told me how, during the war, the Home Secretary's
ten, K.0 , M.P., Regulations made it impossible this article. for the taxicab companies to carry on. They accordingly shut down and sold their taxicabs to their drivers, with the result that two men lived off one taxicab—one being on all day and the other on all night, week about. That was, and is, the explanation why you can get taxicabs at any time of the night in London. A man will stay up all night in his own interests, but he would not dream of doing so as a hireling. It odeun.ed to me that the best solution for the bus traffic and the most certain preventive of the hold up of the transport of London would be that the buses should be on the same basis as the taxi. cabs, viz., that the owner and the driver of the bus 'Should be one and the same. I believed that the Combine was making very large profits out of the buses and, with a view of testing this, I, after some ;delay, found a young, enthusiast who was an expert ex-flying officer and mechanic and first-class motorist_and he agreed to become a bus owner and run his bus on individualist lines. I bought the •bus from Leylands and sold it to my ytaing friend for what. I paid for it, and advanced him a little working capital for third-party insurance (which is properly insisted upon by Scotland Yard), and for other preliminary outlays. Leylands w.ere three months late in delivering, which was v ery unfortunate, but the young man ultimately got started c29
and prior to the operation of the Traffic Act dill very well.
Meantime a Mr. Partridge had anticipated me by a few week; and started the Chocolate Bus, which, at the time, attracted a good deal of attention. Both the Chocolate Bus and the Liberty Bus— which is the one belonging to -my young friend—, were hunted and shadowed by Combine buses. They used to. run two behind and one alongside. To the honour 'of the busmen themselves, my young friend told me that they often apologized for what they were compelled to do.
That Useful Flexibility in Route Choice !
At that time, a busman could get a variety of routes to run on, and my friend's bus, when he found the shadowing getting too intense, would change to one of his other routes, and it was some time before Shadowing buses would come near him again. He tells me, that he tried routes where no Combine buses ran, but they quickly followed him into these areas. It is not true to say that the independent bus picks the best routes and that the Combine, like the Postmaster-General, supply places for transport which are unprofitable. Precisely the opposite is the case : the Combine have always flooded the busy routes, and only went to those that were not so busy when the independent buses started going there. More and more independent buses came upon the road and, given fair-play, they could never have been beaten by any company employing • hired labour. I believe an independent bus could run at anything from £15 to £20 a week cheaper than a Combine bus. As the number increased, the Combine found they could not shadow them all ; so, in my opinion, flooded the streets with an enormous number of buses, bringing out even all their old ones.
Having jammed the streets up, that astute commercial politician, Lord Ashfieldfor whose extraOrdinary abilities one cannot help having the deepest respect, because the way he has jockeyed Parliament is perfectly miraculous—raised his voice in wails as to the congested state of London traffic. (One was irresistibly reminded of the tearful cannibal who begged for sympathy for himself as a poor orphan, having just finished making a meal off his parents.) Then, even with the streets flooded and jammed, the Combine found they could not beat the independent busmen off the road and labour came to their assistance. The transport strike took place. Buses and trams went on strike. The independent buses faithfully continued to help and to serve the public and looked for greater gratitude than they have received.
A hurried traffic enquiry then took place, out of which the chairman of the Combine and the president of the transport workers were seen issuing together with the smile which is said to be worn upon the face of the tiger which has just eaten a child.
When the traffic enquiry had' concluded it labours, the Traffic Bill was produced and put through Parliament. As camouflage, clauses were put in it about needless opening up of the streets and matters of that kind, but these clauses were merely eye-wash. The real purpose on the part of the bureaucracy, who were determined to make for themselves an abiding job, was to get a grip on the buses. One finds all through the Bill the word "Omnibus." I think it occurs about ten score times.
Regulations have been issued. A great number of streets have been scheduled and closed to all except selected buses. The independent buses have, as the Transport Workers' Union secretary said they should, been tied down to one road on which they must live and die ; they can now be shadowed, and are shadowed by the Combine buses, behind and before. They are not allowed to follow the mobility of the population. They must run on Saturdays through empty streets instead of going -to football matches. They cannot take parties away on Sundays ; they cannot even stop for a meal as they used to do. No doubt, the Regulations are the same to the Combine as they are to the independent buses, and so the Minister for Transport declares that he is holding the balance evenly, but the Transport Act and the Regulations issuing thereunder are only suitable for a huge Combine and are destructive of the livelihood of the man with one
I am told by the traffic experts that I know nothing about transport, and I tell them. that they remind one of the Scotch railway engineer who, when he saw the flat plains of Canada, said :—" You cannot build a railway here. Where are you to get ' your viaducts, your . tunnels and your cuttings? " So the traffic experts cannot see London transport except in terms of regulations, and restrictions and the destruction• of individual enterprise. Had the individual busman been allowed to carry on he would have developed to such an extent that London would have been safe for all time from the• complete deadlock of a transport strike. The natura; law of supply and demand would have been in fill! operation instead of the artificial restrictions imposed by an Act of Parliament and bureaucratic regulations.
It is a pity that masses of capital are so blind and do not realize that the small capitalist is the ultimate guardian of the large capitalist as well as of the social organization. They are blindly digging their own graves.