TWENTY YEARS AFTER
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things now seems one of the strangest of many strange things about the Transport Act 1947 was the lack of any
truly objective research preceding its introduction. It was a dream fabric woven in the minds of the Labour Party over the course of many years. There was little or no attempt either to investigate whether the proposed structure would suit the transport needs of the time or to estimate how those needs would alter with the development even of the existing forms of transport.
The lesson has been learned. Mrs. Barbara Castle still takes for granted —and goes out of her way to emphasize the point—certain fundamental issues such as integration, the continuing need for a railway system and the concept of the conurbation authority, although other people believe that on some of these items there might be scope for argument. On many of the details, and on many other important matters including the ownership of road transport undertakings, she claims to have no preconceived ideas or prejudices.
Benefit of research
Mrs. Castle has had the benefit of research undertaken independently or officially under her own administration and that of her predecessors. It brings her to conclusions not remarkable in themselves but completely at variance with the assumptions underlying the legislation of 1947. For example, last year's White Paper on transport policy avers that, "whatever is done over the next two decades to improve our railways, roads will continue to have the dominant role in the movement of passengers and goods".
It required no more than an unprejudiced and reasonably well-informed mind in 1947 to discover very much the same thing although the relative importance of the railways was greater at that time. If the post-war Government had been properly advised and had carried out the proper enquiries before making their plans the national economy would have been spared much of the subsequent transport upheaval—and a good many operators would have avoided an unnecessary disturbance in their way of life.
Echoes from this disturbance are still being heard. In a newspaper interview only the other day Mrs. Grace Rothwell, of J. and G. Rothwell Ltd., Accrington, spoke with some bitterness of the nationalization of the business founded by her and her husband, the return to free enterprise a few years later and the renewed uncertainty arising from doubts about the present Government's policy. The undertaking is thriving but would surely have been even more prosperous without political interference.
The first Transport Act is dated August 1947. How does it look nearly 20 years later when another Transport Act will almost certainly soon be on the Statute Book? At least we are likely to be spared the opening words of the earlier measure describing its main purpose as the establishment of a British Transport Commission to take over practically the whole of the country's transport system.
Whatever bodies are set up this time may also be glad to do without the extraordinary declaration of faith masquerading in the 1947 Act as a definition of the general duty of the Commission. This was set out as the provision or promotion of "an efficient, adequate, economical and properly integrated system of public inland transport". The ability of the Commission to do all these things was obviously taken for granted but the phrase rang more and more hollow as time went on and the Commission conspicuously failed to carry Out its assignment.
Some of the other obligations of the Commission seem, with hindsight, to have been formulated with no clear idea of the road transport revolution already taking place. A careful procedure was laid down for notifying the public whenever it was intended "to discontinue permanently the provision of any regular goods transport service by road between any particular points". It is difficult to imagine that this particular clause was ever invoked and not easy to understand why it should ever have been thought necessary.
No penalties
More familiar was the instruction that the Commission should not make a loss "taking one year with another". Fortunately for the Commission no penalties were prescribed for the losses which in fact were made. The taxpayer was the sufferer, although the Act attempted to restrict his liability. The Commission was allowed to borrow by way of overdraft or otherwise no more than £25m. and to issue transport stock as a means of obtaining loans up to a limit of £250m. "Save as aforesaid", the Act proclaims, "the Commission shall not borrow any money". Comment on this would be superfluous.
Symptomatic of the absence of proper forward thinking was the definition of "ordinary long-distance carriage" as in effect the carriage of goods for more than 25 miles from the operator's base. Even in 1947 the restriction to this limit was unrealistic. Intended to protect the railways from competition it has become increasingly absurd as the distance above which the railways hope to run profitable services increases first to 100 miles and then even higher to 200 miles.
Lack of research
Absence of research was shown most clearly in the provisions for passenger road transport apart from the services automatically taken over. Elaborate area schemes were envisaged with no conception of the likely effect on public opinion within the areas. Fortunately the Act could hardly avoid laying down machinery also for consultation and objections. The first schemes provoked such strong opposition that they were unceremoniously abandoned and the relevant sections of the Act have remained a dead letter.
Whether Mrs. Castle will have better fortune with her Conurbation Transport Authorities remains to be seen. At least her approach is more cautious than that of her predecessor in the first fine careless rapture of the post-war Labour Government. Freely sprinkled with her favourite epithets such as "imaginative" and "exciting", her speeches on the subject emphasize her anxiety to "retain local democratic control", as she put it Iasi week to representatives of local authoritie: and public transport undertakings or Tyneside.
In 1947 as today many of the loca authorities are Socialist controlled. Thi: did not prevent them from attacking tht area passenger schemes and their attituch will be the same if they dislike the plant which Mrs. Castle is preparing. She ha: already discovered that the trade union also, however strong their political opinion may be, can be as intransigent now as the were in the years following 1947 if an steps are taken which they consider agains the interests of their members.
Janus