The Geddes Committee could not be accused of cowardice if they declined . judgment'
Page 86
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
SYlvIPATHY ought to be our natural feeling for the president of the Institute of Transport when the time comes for him to give his presidential address. On any separate branch of transport there is usually something to be said. When the subject is transport as a whole the wisest of men seem unable to avoid producing a profusion of platitudes sprinkled with all the topical fallacies. Mr. Frank Lemass has made a brave attempt this year to break withtradition. He has not been altogether successful. His address on Monday still contained too many selfevident statements such as his conclusion that "the transport problem is something with which we have to learn to live and with which we must come to terms ".
Nor has he steered completely clear of the temptation to praise somewhat indiscriminately whatever has been done in the past year or so to solve "the transport problem ". All activity by definition deserves encouragement, Mr. Lemass may have thought. He was no doubt certain Of warm agreement when he said of the railways' study of road and rail track costs that "whether or not one agrees with its conclusions there can be no doubt that it represents a major step forward and deserves objective consideration ".
This is as much as the railways themselves would claim. They should be delighted that Mr. Lemass has followed the fashion in accepting uncritically their own assumption that a satisfactory formula for track costs will in some mysterious way lead to a better system of transport and that it is the plain duty of the Geddes Committee to come up with the formula. Mr. Lemass has given them full marks for trying and has almost gone so far as to say that, for this reason, even if they are wrong they deserve to be right.
He may have given the railways a few anxious moments when introducing the subject of track costs. Surprise had been expressed " in some quarters.", he said, that only now was the problem of apportioning track costs becoming a major factor in transport policy. He went on to emphasize that what was "theoretically desirable may not be attainable in practice ". He seemed almost on the point of saying' that he himself was surprised, not that the subject had only recently been raised, but that it had been raised at all. No doubt to the relief of the transport establishment he recovered himself in time.
Recent popular interest in track costs is due almost entirely to the publicity given to the railways' study, and to their sleight of hand in bringing it before the Geddes Committee under cover of a much more innocuous memorandum on licensing in general. Exactly how the trick was done is still not entirely clear. The Committee's terms of reference were to examine the operation and effects of the licensing system in the light of present-day conditions and to make recommendations. Most of the organizations giving evidence in advance of the railways took the words at their face value and limited their observations to the licensing system.
The Minister of Transport apparently agreed with this interpretation. When announcing in April of last year that the Committee would be set up. Mr. Ernest Marples made the following observation: "If co-ordination is to develop, 1352 road transport must operate in the right framework of control. We must get an informal view of what part our road transport will have to play in the transport pattern and how it can be made to do so efficiently. We propose to re-examine the fundamental basis and working of the licensing system for road goods transport."
Road operators were left to make what they liked of this statement. Only after the railways' study was published did the Ministry reveal that they also were engaged on an investigation into the proportion of total costs of road construction and maintenance attributable to different classes of road user and that they would in due course make the results available both to the Geddes Committee and generally. The Ministry at least made clear that they had taken no part in what the railways were doing and their subsequent evidence to the Geddes Committee demolished the greater part of the railways' case.
Further attacks on that case have now been launched by the Traders Road Transport Association and the Road Haulage Association and there are more attacks to come.
The railways are not greatly worried. The more sound and fury that can be engendered, the more inevitable will it become that the Geddes Committee reach a definite decision and even fix the appropriate proportion of infrastructure and other costs for each category of road user. On these figures, whatever they are, the railways will be able to build a completely new set of arguments with which to batter the authorities.
Railways to Keep Battering?
The railways still may not have things all their own way. As Mr. Lemass reminded his listeners the allocation of track costs had been mulled over for some considerable time by the transport secretariat of the European Economic Community and by the Economic Commission for Europe. He hoped that .their work would "achieve a high degree of success ". If he had any doubts he kept them to himself. However, if the E.E.C. and E.C.E. and other. organizations with high-sounding initials find difficulty in reaching quick decisions on track costs, the Geddes Committee could not -be accused of cowardice if they declined to give a judgment, They might be bold enough to ask whether a decision is either necessary, possible or of any use, especially when it involves the precise allocation of costs among vehicles according to their weight and size. There is no doubt that a better road system is needed. It is commonsense that the roads should be built to accommodate all the traffic likely to use them, especially commercial traffic. It is equitable that users as a whole should meet the cost of the roads through taxation or by some other means. To fix the exact share that each user should pay is almost as pointless as making separate assessments on pedestrians for the upkeep of the pavements. In some quarters, as Mr. Lemass might say, it seems equally pointless to continue the vain search for some indisputable correlation between what the Government spend on the roads and what the railways spend on their tracks