'olitical Commentary
Page 55
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E. and O. E.
By JANUS
THE traditional affection of the British for an illogical compromise, and their "healthy dislike and distrust of extremists of any kind," encouraged 'Ir. John Elliot to make almost a virtue out of the ontradictions in his presidential address to the Institute ,f Transport. He may or may not subsequently have leen strengthened in his inconsistency by the fact that 4embers on both sides in the House of Commons found ; possible to quote from his address with approval when hey debated the British Transport Commission's report.
Mr. Elliot's reluctance to be dogmatic provides a eassuring foil to the flair for the systematic displayed iy Sir Reginald Wilson and other spokesmen of the 2ommission. Sir Reginald's enthusiastic ability to fit a class of data into an organized pattern was exemplified a his paper on the framework of public transport, in vhich he distinguished nine main varieties of transport iperation, and, after discussing each in turn, summed up Lis conclusions in a chart of extraordinary complexity hat looks like nothing so much as the opening bars of . concerto scored for pianola and full orchestra. It is alutary that within the Commission's sphere of nfluence there is a man with Sir Reginald's cast of mind, .nd also somebody like Mr. Elliot who is able to .upreciate that transport, like any other human activity, annot be entirely confined within a logical equation. slot only does the exception prove the rule, the rule nakes nonsense if the exceptions are ignored.
"Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict lyself," said Walt Whitman; and Mr. Elliott is in ood company when he diverges from the strait and .rid path. This does not give us freedom to throw all he rules overboard, like the Dadaists. To be inconistent is not necessarily to be right. When such people s Mr. Herbert Morrison and Mr. Frank McLeavy leclare (as they did in the recent debate) that they would ike transport to be taken out of politics, and propose n the next breath to achieve this by renationalization then the opportunity arises, they may feel rewarded by he cheers of their fellow-Socialists, but can hardly claim D have made an intelligent (or even original) ontribution towards solving the transport problem.
Platitude and Paradox In a debate characterized by platitude and paradox; he Minister of Transport was in no way. behind the est, particularly in the obscurity of the figures he gave
o show what vehicles the B.T.C. would retain. As very mathematician knows, these vehicles may have a otal,unladen weight up to five-fourths of that of the chides in companies formerly owned or controlled by he railways. Three categories of such vehicles are ifferentiated by the Act, and within each category the oermitted increase may not exceed thirteen-tenths.
,Pressed for details, the Minister declined to do more ban say what the thirteen-tenths would amount to in ach category. For motor vehicles and trailers specially onstructed to carry abnormal indivisible loads, he said, we have agreed on a ceiling of 2,743 tons "—a remark
Me architectural feat. For motor vehicles regarded by he Minister as special vehicles constructed for special ,urposes other than the carriage of abnormal indivisible Dads the figure was 3,831 tons, and for other motor
ehicles 9,642 tons. As was pointed out in The Commercial Motor last week, these figures do not tally with others previously given by the Minister. They have succumbed to the apparently growing tendency of figures never to add up to what one had been taught to expect. Another up-to-date example is to be found in the 32,000 vehicles that the B.T.C., the Disposal Board and the Minister all agree represent the total to be offered for sale in transport units and companies. A further 5,000 vehicles are to be retained, but the latest figures give the, total operating stock of British Road Services as 35,000. Somewhere a phantom fleet 2,000 strong is waiting for disposal.
Favourite Statistic
The Minister has expressed his fascinated respect flay the favourite statistic of the railways—the one that gives the net ton-miles hauled per total freight enginehour in traffic. As the B.T.C. point out, it has.improved each year since the war, and over 30 per cent. since 1938, when it was 461.
The B.T.C. go on to claim that there has been an increase in the efficiency of British Road Services. This is one opinion that the Minister does not share, and there is no accepted formula such as the railways have for deciding the question. The net ton-mile per engine-hour leaves out of account many factors such as the volume of traffic offered and the time taken for delivery, but even this statistic could not be calculated for B.R.S. on the facts at present available, We have the tonnage of traffic carried for each four-weekly period, and the total vehicle-miles, divided according to whether the vehicles were loaded or empty. We have the traffic receipts, but these are compared with the expenditure only once a year in the annual reports, and they can be misleading because of changes in the scales of rates. We have also each four weeks details of the vehicle strength and of the staff, and this information, meagre though it may be in comparison with what the railways provide, does enable us to make some sort of estimate of transportivity.
The obvious method is to divide the total tonnage carried by the total staff. For a recent period, covering the four weeks up to September 6, the transportivity figure reached by this method is 44. For the similar period last year it was 43; and it was 45 in 1951, when, according to the apologists, B.R.S. had scarcely got into their stride. The figure is bound to fluctuate during the year. If the first four weeks of the year are taken, for example, the figure is 40 in 1953, 43 in 1952 and 45 in 1951.
It would appear that, although B.R.S. have reduced their vehicle strength, their staff and the number of miles run, the tonnage carried has declined even more rapidly. Transportivity has decreased through a period in which, subject to fluctuations, the productivity of the country as a whole has risen. It would appear that the Minister is correct in his statement that B.R.S. have not been so successful as the railways. The political situation,has certainly made things more difficult for them, but their troubles began even before the last General Election, and one suspects that they would have been little better off now even if the change of Government had not taken place.