Get A Move On
Page 21
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I N remarking that: " The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers ", William Hazlett did not have politics in mind. Yet how apt his remark is today in the realms of political involvement in transport matters. The Minister of Transport, Mr. Tom Fraser, is certainly fluent and plausible (he is also, let it be clearly said, sincere and capable); only he can answer whether he is or is not the justest of thinkers.
This week, on page 25, is summarized the report of the inquiries and experiments in improving transport facilities in certain rural areas—a move instituted last year by Mr. Fraser's Tory predecessor, Mr. Marples. It is, by and large, a dead loss so far as suggesting remedies and comes to the not-altogether-startling conclusion that the best method is to improve existing bus services.
However, it does once again bring the spotlight on to this most pernicious of passenger transport problems. What lead does the Minister give? He has told Parliament that the report pointed to the conclusion that the financial problems of providing bus services in rural areas cannot be dealt with in isolation from the general problems arising throughout the country of maintaining efficient public transport.
First it was Geddes, now rural buses. Does Mr. Fraser really believe that all will be solved by a return to 1947-style overall State control of every aspect of transport?
If he .does, then he deserves no claim at all to inclusion among the country's just thinkers. Mr. Fraser is showing signs of putting everything off until the millennium. Problems are not solved that way— only magnified.