Kite-flying
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Forecasts by Government Spokesmen about the Lack of Brightness in Future Prospects Lead Some to Guess the Date of an Election : Meanwhile, Improvements in Road Transport Could be Made
AMATEUR astrologers who wish to calculate the nearness of a General Election in accordance with the aspect of the stars may like to ponder over the increasing tendency of official spokesmen to add a string of excuses, like the tail of a kite, to each unpalatable fact they are forced to announce.Even the 1950 report of the British Transport Commission was festooned with involved explanations as if in pre
paration for some notable public event. • • Conforming to fashion, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, after giving Parliament the news of a 5-per-cent. increase in industrial production during the first five months of this year, added that the prospects for 1952 were not nearly so bright, and gave a list of reasons why this should be so. As he had no obvious motive for keeping the list short, the omission of any reference to transport difficulties may have been deliberately intended to avoid criticisms on that point from the opposition benches. ,
The Minister of Transport himself filled in the gap a few days earlier. Replying to some trenchant comments by Mr. Geoffrey Wilson, M.P. for Truro, on delays in the handling of goods by the railways, Mr. Barnes admitted that embargoes had had to be placed on traffic last winter and could give no assurance that similar difficulties would not be met in the coming winter.
The significance of Mr. Barnes's apology, taken in conjunction with Mr. Gaitskell's reasoned pessimism, appears to be that at the moment transport efficiency is lagging behind production. This was confirmed in the final stage of the summing-up by Mr. John Edwards, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who included transport in a short list-of backward industries where "increases of production are open to us."
Evils to Avoid
The subject of transport deficiencies could well have been introduced at an earlier stage in the debate on the financial and economic situation. A decline in transport efficiency hinders the work of every industry. Mr. Wilson, in the earlier debate, gave example after example of delays on the railways which were increasing costs, slowing down production and hindering the export drive—the very evils that Mr. Gaitskell would like to avoid.
Mr. Barnes was not slow in adding the necessary decorations to his own kite. Now that the Government has accepted responsibility for running the railways, it is beginning to discover difficulties, and these are getting worse as time goes on. •There has been an unusual amount of sickness among the railway staff, particularly those working in the open air, There have been labour troubles, leading to extensive "go-slow" demonstrations. The necessity to import coal reversed the usual flow of this traffic, which had to be carried from harbours for long distances inland.
Like Mr. Gaitskell, the Minister of Transpo; t selected his excuses with some care.' He ignored the possibility of road haulage taking part of the burden off the railways. For various reasons road transport might have been unsuitable for the imported coal, but it could have relieved the railways of some of the usual coal traffic—as it has done with noticeable success in the case of opencast coal—and thus released trucks to deal with the problem presented to the British Transport Commission by its sister organization, the National Coal Board.
Obvious improvements in road transport efficiency could be made if the Minister and the B.T.C. remembered that the railways are not the only providers of transport. The increase to 30 m.p.h. in the speed limit for heavy goods vehicles would do a great deal. So would the encouragement of the use of the mechanicalhandling devices so admirably explained in the latest report from the Anglo-American Council on Productivity. Manufacturers of these devices in this country are well enough equipped technically to meet the growing demand from road hauliers, but the flow of raw materials is painfully slow.
B.T.C. Back-pedalled
The time is overdue for a realistic reconsideration of the permit procedure in the light of experience and of to-day's requirements. Public opinion almost a year ago forced the B.T.C. to back-pedal and to cancel a number of revocations of original permits. The review was grudging and cheeseparing. It did not get to the root of the matter.
Mr. Barnes has said that the railway crisis will be a recurring and regular complaint. Hauliers will have to be called in equally regularly to deal with the surplus traffic as it threatens to engulf the railway depots.
If the present policy be maintained of doling out job permits only in times of crisis, hauliers will be more and more reluctant or unable to oblige. It is fair that they should be given some inducement to keep vehicles available for the long-distance traffic that the B.T.C. has to turn away. Ordinary permits should be granted in greater numbers. They should cover a reasonable period and allow for the carriage of a reasonable tonnage. All permits, moreover, should give the holder the right to collect a return load.
This last point is important. Even the holder of an original permit is frequently restricted to one-way traffic, which means wasteful and unremunerative return journeys. The reform of the permit system, together with a change in the speed limit and the increased use of mechanical handling, should be possible without any great difficulty, whereas the labour problem, on which Mr. Barnes concentrated in his reply to Mr. Wilson, bristles with problems for a Socialist as well as a Conservative administration.
The Minister was careful to avoid the issue which is becoming plainer every day. The Transport Act and integration are palpably in conflict with transportivity. One side or the other must make a concession. In view of the waining by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, there can be only one answer to the problem.