Transport Freedom Vital
Page 35
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AFUNDAMENTAL condition for national prosperity is the availability of ample means for transport of the most up-todate kind. Efficient transportation is part of the equipment of industry and, when nation is competing against nation, that which gives most encouragement to all the forms of transport which are open to its use is the one which is going to win out. Freedom to utilize that form of transport which is best adapted to the immediate end in view is essential, particularly in respect of overseas districts now in process of development. The same principle holds good, however, when it is applied to the older-established countries, where there has existed for some time such a difficult situation, created, to a great extent, by vested interests which continue to consider only their own prospects instead of realizing the paramount importance of ensuring the welfare of their respective countries.
Anything which hinders the free flow of traffic or interferes with the employment of transport in the most suitable way is a drag upon progress and reacts to the detriment of .industry as a whole. Proof that that is so, if proof be required, is available from South Africa, where the repression of road transport in order to bolster up the railways has so depressed industry that the detrimental effect on rail traffics is more pronounced than that which was considered to be the outcome of road competition.
The solution of the national transport problem lies, not in harassing road operators, but in the recognition of the superiority of the road for certain classes of traffic, and in the complete reorganization of the railways so that they may efficiently and economically deal with the work which, in the altered conditions brought about by the progress made in roadtransport methods, is now most economically dealt with by rail, using the word economically in its broadest sense..