Political Commentary By JANUS
Page 53
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Twenty Years After
T. judge from their behaviour in Parliament, one would suppose that politicians regard inconsistency as one of the seven deadly sins. They take almost a malicious pleasure in contrasting what an Hon. Gentleman has just said with what the same Hon. Gentleman said five, 10 or 20 years ago. At times the indignation is justified, but frequently there is no allowance for the fact that changes in circumstances are bound to lead to changes in opinions and policies.
The Labour Party boasts possession of the young men with fresh ideas, and it expects to find a certain amount of tolerance when the ideas are contradictory. The current malady of the Party seems to be that the ideas are no longer fresh and that some of them are becoming uncomfortably high. Transport during the last 20 years has changed as much as any other industry and more than most, but the views put forward by the Socialists in the 1930s were embodied almost exactly in the 1947 Act and would very likely be even more faithfully copied in Transport Act No. 3 if it ever comes to the Statute Book.
Appeal to the Young •
In 1932 the Labour Party issued a document entitled "The National Planning of Transport," and its appeal to the young and virile must have been considerable. It said worse things about the railways than ever Mr. Alfred Barnes or Dr. Hugh Dalton dared to say in 1947. " The failure of the unwieldy and unimaginative railway directorates" is the promising opening of one section, and is followed up by references to " over-capitalization, bad organization and serious weaknesses in management."
Other forms of transport were criticized in the document. It was admitted that the Road Traffic Act, 1930, was "steadily systematizing" road, passenger transport, "but the ownership of the undertakings wilt remain mixed," which was apparently a fault. Road goods transport was even worse. It had few regulations, very little co-ordination and a multiplicity of owners. Canals, docks and harbours, coastwise shipping and air transport all made the mistake of existing independently of each other.
The central proposal in the document was the formation of a national transport board, which would begin by taking over the railways and certain other sectiOns of the transport industry, and would swallow up the remainder "as and when found administratively practicable and convenient." For the time being this remnant would be regulated, possibly by licensing, "in order to secure the co-ordination of transport as a whole."
Political Promises Not all political promises are broken. The Labour Party had to wait a long time before it could carry out this one. When at length the opportunity came the plan was put into operation almost unchanged, in spite of the intervention of the 1933 Act and of the war. Such consistency is the sign either of remarkable foresight or of lack of imagination.
The Labour Party plan was published at a time when the fashionable problem was over-production coupled with unemployment. The position was reversed in 1947. Twenty years ago there was every excuse for regarding
the railways as the senior partner in transport and devising plans in which the railWay system was the focal point. To-day far more traffic goes by road than by rail. It is possible to argue that a good scheme would be able to cope even with changes so drastic as these, but there is no evidence that the Socialists made any attempt to think their policy out afresh. They were surprised by their victory in 1945. The most they seemed able to do was to blow the dust off their old plans, put them in the shop window and hope for the best. • Economics First
One of four principles enunciated in the document stated that "public tastes, preferences and even prejudices, especially in passenger transport, should be catered for within reason, but not to an extent involving serious economic loss." Apart from this rather grudging concession, the public scarcely rated a mention. One significant paragraph dealt with the "private businesses running their own transport entirely or largely for their own use." Apparently such a method of operation ranked as a prejudice, for "it would be impossible to establish a really satisfactory national system so long as this section of road transport was allowed to continue an independent unco-ordinated existence."
Until these private operations could be stopped, a system of licensing was proposed, Evidently the C licence was not considered sufficiently restrictive, for the first draft of the 1947 Act proposed to limit the radius of operation to 40 miles. It would not be wise to assume that the subsequent change of mind represented a permanent change of policy. The 1932 plan drew attention to the fact that between the end of August, 1922, and 1931, goods vehicles increased from 150.995 to 348,969 and hackney passenger vehicles from 77,614 to 86,208. These figures were to some extent offset by the decrease in the number of horse. drawn vehicles from 232.865 to 41,363. Had the planners been able to look into the future and see nearly 1 m. goods vehicles on the roads at the present time, in spite of the licensing system, there is no knowing what system of drastic control they would have recommended.
A Lucky Escape
-Had they been in power in 1932, the Socialists would have done very much what they did 15 years later, with the addition of a licensing system more rigorous and comprehensive than at present. As a result, road transport would have been unable to expand and the benefits it has subsequently brought to people in all parts of the country would never have been permitted.
Time and again one finds to-morrow's problems being tackled with yesterday's plans, but the process is seldom so deliberate as in the Labour Party's handling of transport. One can now see what would have been the result of introducing the Transport Act in 1932, andone can compare that result with the actual events. Had nationalization taken place 20 years ago, it would now be accepted as natural. The few partisans who were biased enough to maintain still that road transport should be developed would have been silenced by the reminder that there were already far too many vehicles for the roads.