Channel ferries need competition
Page 16
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YOUR EDITORIAL on March 6 was doubtless intended to help the interests of road transport and the existing cross-Channel ferries. In fact, it was so chauvinistic and overstated that it could be counterproductive and Commercial Motor's viewpoint is now vulnerable to being disregarded as too hopelessly partisan in future by precisely those it no doubt was intended to influence.
Firstly, government support of loss-making railways is far from a "British phenomenom" — other European railways, especially in France and Germany, receive two, three or even more times as much subsidy as our own and, in addition, are benefiting from comparably larger injections of public money in capital investment as well.
Secondly, while a tunnel would certainly take a lot of traffic from Dover-based ferry routes, there would still be some types of traffic they could handle competitively — even if the tunnel is built large enough for piggy-back traffic. And there are all the other, longer sea routes as well — if they cannot compete against a fixed Dover-Calais link then they must be hoplessly feeble, and quite simply I do not believe that.
This, of course, negates your argument that a tunnel would be monopolistic — as train ferry traffic is negligible, road haulage plus ferries are in a monopolistic situation now and a rail tunnel link would add competition, not reduce it. Quite rightly, road transport has fought for the right to compete in the past — to deny the same right to others now will do nothing for its entrepreneurial image.
Finally, your industrial relations argument is equally invalid — docker and seamen shop stewards have shown — in fact quite recently — that they can "blow the whistle" just as effectively as any railway. MICHAEL J. COWLEY Shepperton Middlesex Mr Cowley misreads the content of the Editorial. We do not suggest that there should not be a fixed link with France. We favour the BSC conception of a tunnel and bridge which will accommodate road and rail and be built with private funds. This would destroy the monopolistic argument, with ferries competing with rail and accompanied road traffic.
France and Germany are pumping never ending amounts of cash into their rail systems, but we cannot see that as an argument for the British taxpayer to be asked to follow them over the cliff. Editor.