2,500 People Demand Inquiry A RESOLUTION calling for a public inquiry
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into all £i sPee t s of the' proposals for nationalizing the transport industry, before any irretrievable step was taken, received overwhelming support at a meeting of about 2,500 people in Glasgow; last week.
. The resolution declared that the Bill " provides no practical or constructive plans for the iniprovement and co-ordination of transport, but, on the other hand, proposes an unwieldy and oppre5sive control, which would be disastrous to the industrial life of the country." The meeting, convened by the Scottish
branch of Road Haulage Association and the Scottish Railway Stockholders' Protection Association, was addressed by Col. Walter Elliot, M.P., Col. J. R. H. Hutchison, M.P., and Major Guy. Lloyd, M.P. Sir A. Murray Stephen presided. It was the first of a series of similar protest meetings to be held in .Scotland. Although there were many interruptions, when a vote on the resolution was taken by show of hands, only about six people sheiwed they were dissentients. There was an outburst when Major Lloyd -suggested that the hecklers had been paid to interrupt the meeting.
Col. Elliot expressed the view that, at the General Election, no Mandate had been given 'for the destruction of a great number of small businesses. Public control must exist over ttansport. but it could be exercised to an almost unlimited extent in the flexible system of this :country, without necessarily making a Minister responsible for the provision of transport. 'The test that Must be applied to the Transport .Bill was: Would it produce More goods or Services, or more trouble?
Col. Hutchison dealt with two aspects of what he described 'as "this Montrous measure "—the railway companies and the general question of compensItion to those dispossessed.
Major Lloyd said he believed that the great meeting of protest and indignation was the beginning of the end of the Socialist Government.. The-. present regime must be' brought to an end before the heritage of'our freedn's Was finally extinguished by totalitarianism, masquerading under the name of democracy,