Political Commentary By JANUS
Page 50
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Outbreak of Xenophobia
WHAT goes on in other countries seldom interests the British public. . The study of transport problems that the Economic Commission for Europe have included in their economic survey for 1956 almost compels the conclusion that the roads are a much better proposition for future investment than the railways. The probable effect of this on the public would be to confirm their wisdom in cherishing the older form of transport, so thoroughly British an institution even down to the name.
We are, of course, not quite so insular as we used to be. Britain has become reconciled to the need for playing her part in European free trade. There is again talk of a Channel tunnel. Caution is essential before assuming too much from these signs of greater tolerance. Too sudden a contact with the facts and opinions of other countries may lead to a reaction. The revelations about transport that come to us from the E.C.E. could produce an outbreak of xenophobia among millions of train-lovers, with a result exactly the opposite of that towards which the economic survey points.
In spite of the risk of hostility and the likelihood of indifference, one hopes that the details in the survey become widely known in all the right quarters. The conclusion that the railways are, or ought to be, declining is of particular significance in Britain, where so much is done for the railways and so little for the roads One of the many tables in the report rams this point home. It compares the taxation of road users with the expenditure on the roads in a number of Western European countries. Estimated taxation in Britain is almost twice as much as in France, the next highest country on the list. Both France and Western Germany spend more money on roads than Britain.
Money Spent
The table also shows (in dollars) how much money is extracted and spent in respect of each vehicle. The British vehicle is apparently taxed a little less heavily than the Italian and Finnish. The share of road expenditure per vehicle in Italy and Finland is $246 and $788 respectively. For Britain, the figure is only $83, not much more than half of the $140 spent per vehicle in FrAnce, the country next from the foot of the list.
The statistics in the survey are concerned mainly with the past. The obvious comparison with the table of road income and expenditure is the railway plan to borrow and spend £1,200m. on a programme of modernization, coupled with the Government's willingness to allow the British Transport Commission to borrow extra money to keep abreast with their mounting deficits.
On this point, the conclusions in the survey run almost directly counter to present Government policy. Although goods traffic on a number of main railway lines in Western Europe might increase considerably in the next quarter of a century, the survey says that "it seems unavoidable that traffic will have ceased or will be much smaller than to-day, while road traffic, both of aassengers and of goods. will be several times the present level."
The industrially developed countries seem to have little choice, the survey continues. Road construction, the readjustment of cities to deise traffic, and the build
ril6 ing of new industrial centres away from the overcrowded old towns have to be given a high priority. "To neglect these investments in the hope of being able to reverse the trend from rail to road by restrictions on road traffic or by railway modernization will only make the traffic problems of the future still more intractable."
To road operators and road users these conclusions may seem almost self-evident, and certainly no more than common sense. The opinion is by no means universal,as the E.C.E. have found. The survey state§ that in Europe, by way of contrast with other continents, the development of air and road transport is not always hailed as an unmixed blessing. Sometimes they are regarded as " undesirable luxuries, requiring big new investments while undermining the financial position of the traditional means of transport and the economic advantages of the well-established railway tariff pattern."
Wider Choice
Road transport -has made it p3ssible to spread industry and commerce over a wide field instead of concentrating them in a few towns. The survey points out that the less industrialized countries of eastern and southern Europe should have a wider choice in the location of new industries than the highly developed countries. They have the passibility of "avoiding overinvestment in railway lines and the evils of excessive concentration."
Correction of these faults is the obvious policy in developed countries such as Britain. Other factors beside the conscious need for decentralization may contribute towards the decline of the railways, according to the E.C.E. survey.
Coal and associated fuels make up the most important item of railway goods traffic. In Britain they account for about half the total tonnage. -The growing tendency is to convert coal into electricity, and to do this, at or near the pithead. The demand for transport for coal is likely, therefore, to decline, and the process is bound to be hastened by the growing use of other sources of power, such as that provided by imported liquid fuels and atomic energy.
Air Competition On the passenger side, the survey is no more comforting to the railways. The use of the private car and of air transport is already taking traffic away. As an example of what may happen, the survey is able to show the trend in the U.S.A., where in the last 10 years there has been a general decline in the number of passengers travelling by rail and by bus, whereas the number going by air has increased threefold. "Although this nay not occur within the next few years," the survey says, "revenue from passenger traffic may in the long run decline rather than increase." This will probably happen whatever price policy the railways may choose to apply to passenger traffic.
The survey is not completely favourable to road transport. There is a suggestion that the operator with a trunk service between two large towns is able to provide so cheap a service that he is promoting the Centralization that it should apparently be the mission of road transport to disperse.