Daydreams
Page 71
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By JANUS
rHAT made the National Union of Railwaymen publish their plan for transport just before the General Election may never be satisfactorily ned. To the authors and instigators the document have seemed irresistibly convincing, and some ers of the Union would agree with a plan that was to work to their advantage. Most other people not fail to see that the facts and arguments were arranged so as to point in one direction only, object of the proposals is described by the N.U.R. as -ordinated transport system, efficient and economical, ot merely financially to sustain itself but also able to e its own future technical development." Except for ht hesitation over the word "co-ordinated," there be fairly general agreement that the object is worth especially if it were taken to mean that the transport ry ought to be both efficient and self-supporting. The ruthless point of view might be that any section of the ry that did not reach the required standards should rhaps not eliminated, but certainly discouraged.
1ently, the N.U.R. could not permit themselves to such a conclusion. The specific proposals they put rd show them to be more interested in finance than ciency. They consider that a number of financial ssions should be made to the British Transport iission, in addition to the loans on easy terms already or promised, amounting in all to something like
m.
se loans, and any others that might be needed, should de free of interest, in the opinion of the N.U.R. The yer should also pay some or all of the interest, about a year, on the stock issued by way of compensation the 1947 Act. "The right place for this liability is National Debt." The Commission should not bear Nt of services for strategic or defence purposes, nor lst of maintaining road bridges over railways and re canals. There should be compensation for the lission if they were expected to keep fares and
below the economic cost of providing them.
Simple Remedy :re is more to come. Money is not everything, in 3inion of the N.U.R. They also think that the railought to be given traffic. At present, they complain, of the traffic that goes by road should go by rail, he bulk of long-distance general traffic should be me. The remedy is simple. Control should be osed on long-distance road haulage, and operators A and B licences should be confined to a specific as under the 1947 Act. C licences should be )111ed by stipulating proof of need for operations d a certain radius.
ydreams of this kind can be dangerous if they are seriously. There is no difficulty in planning for the on the N.U.R. system. It is only necessary to ne that whatever money is required is made freely ble without interest, that debts are cancelled, taxation ed, and competitors suppressed. There is no indicahat the N.U.R, realize their proposals are fantasies, undoubtedly intend to look for support from other s and from the Labour party, and to some extent, if 3mpletely, that support will be forthcoming.
sibly, the various items in the N.U.R. plan have not iusly been assembled in one document. There is no letely new point, and the underlying theory of integration and co-ordination is all too familiar. It was part of the left-wing stock-in-trade before the war, and during the period of nationalization, when there may have been far more people ready to believe it than there are now. Experience has dealt a number of hard knocks to the theory, without demolishing it.
At least the N.U.R. cannot be accused of inconsistency. In the past their argument was that transport efficiency and well-being could best be secured by subsidizing the railways and restricting road operators. Their argument remains unchanged, and they even maintain that it has been vindicated by events, According to their latest statement, the 1947 Act actually provided the efficient, adequate, economic and properly integrated service that most people have supposed went no further than the over-optimistic intention. Also contrary to the general belief, the document claims that substantial progress was made in the co-ordination of road and rail passenger services and the development of area schemes.
Violent Criticisms The verdict of the N.U.R. on the years between the two Transport Acts of 1947 and 1953 is that Britain's transport system was then the best the country had seen. Trade and industry, and the authorities concerned with the provision of travel facilities, would not express the same opinion. The violent and frequent criticisms that have been made of nationalized transport mean nothing to the N.U.R. They maintain that their own view has the general agreement of" impartial transport experts and many big business users." It is not stated whether these anonymous experts and users would also approve of the specific N.U.R. proposals.
If the proposals ever made sense, it was in the days when the railways were still the predominant section of the transport industry. Even then, the argument that they must be kept going at all costs soon wore thin, for it was difficult to understand why, if the service they provided was so valuable and essential, it was liable to disintegrate at the first breath of competition. Subsequently the supremacy of the railways has gradually been whittled away. particularly on the goods side. The statistical surveys made by the Ministry of Transport in 1952 and 1958 show a falling tonnage by rail and a rapidly rising tonnage by road. Even on the basis of ton mileage, which tends to favour the railways, road transport is now clfarly ahead.
The N.U.R. may have to learn to use more discretion in putting forward their claims. They are no longer living in the days when a "square deal " campaign could earn the sympathy of the public. If the wind was a little in their favour 25 years ago, it is now against them. They must learn to tack instead of plunging straight forward.
As far as one can tell, the B.T.C. have long ago abandoned the frontal attack, and now prefer to make their points obliquely. For example, the paper on transport economics presented to the British Association by Sir Reginald Wilson, a member of the B.T.C., although not a propaganda document such as the N.U.R. booklet, may yet provide an object lesson. Sir Reginald more than once disclaimed any intention of drawing conclusions from the facts, figures, opinions and theories with which his paper is overflowing; but the impression left after reading it is that he might well be prepared to subscribe privately to many of the N.U.R. proposals.