Shuffling the Pack
Page 33
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Political Commentary By JANUS
NOT for the first time has the suggestion been put forward that users should share the pooled cost of providing and maintaining roads, railways and 'canals. It says much for the courtesy of the British Transport Commission that it should allow Sir H. Osborne Mance to outline in one of its publications .proposals which include the setting up a a "track pool authority " able to play an important part in the development of transport because of its 'power to allocate‘money for the building and upkeep of tracks.
..Sir Osborne sets great store on the use of logic to solve the transport problem. He scarcely needs me Aia tell -him that the attempt has cast down many stout hearts in the past, but in the confused field of transport anybody with a taste for logic and a desire to -establish principles is at least deserving of a hearing. Not' that.' Sir Osborne's basic principles are startling. He Maintains in the first place that. continued competition between providers of transport must be accepted, and in the second place that transport as a whole must.pay its way'. Both principles,' as he acknowledges, are embodied in the Transport Act.
. The ideal division of functions between road and rail, Sir Osborne continues, on best be reached by the manipulation of rates and service so that the customer can be guided to send his oat& by the method that best. suits the transport undertaking as a whole. To achieve this result, operating costs should be separated from track costs, which should be pooled. The railways, road users—including C-liccnce holders—and the State on behalf of pedestrians, cyclists, horses, cattle, public • utilities and so on, would make payments in various ways to the track pool authority, and the authority would then be responsible for all tracks. As a result, all providers of transport would be paying the same track charges, and variations in their rates would reflect-only the costs of operation.
Permissible Expenditure Although Sir Osborne does not say so, his plan has little relevance at the present time when expenditure on both roads and railways has been drastically cut. Of recent years, the Government has constituted itself the authority for determining how much should be spent. The Economic Surveys issued during the life of the previous Government have each specified what should (or, perhaps more appropriately, should not) be done, and have even given figures to indicate the expenditure permissible on the roads.
If more prosperous times return, it is difficult to see what useful purpose would be served by setting up the authority favoured by Sir Osborne Mance. Its clashes with the B.T.C. may provide amusement for the onlookers, but to the independent operators of goods and passenger vehicles it will be another dictator. Its unpopularity will. become proverbial. Each form of transport will complain at being treated unfairly, and the public will regard the authority as another example of bureaucratic interference. Sir Osborne believes that the authority should. be able to decide without fear or favour "which track facilities should be extended, improved or abandoned; in accordance with the general trend of transport develop mem." Apart from the difficulty of estimating this general trend, there is a danger that criticism would tempt the authority to follow a neutral policy and share expenditure more or less equally among the claimants_ There is no doubt that one Of the first things to be done when money and materials are More plentiful is to modernize the road system, perhaps in. accordance with the 10-year plan announced by Mr. Alfred Barnes five years ago and not yet begun. It is a little hard to expect the railways to hear part of the cost of the plan which will, greatly, increase the profitable scope of their chief 'competitors. .
Is it really logical to even out track costs as Sir Osborne suggests? Admittedly, the present system is cOnfusing and owes nothing to logic; it just .happened that way. But pooling of track costs does not necessarily help in deciding the correct division of fainction. Aircraft have no tracks except the runways on airfields, and the use Of helicopters might eliminate even these. Air transport might become aserious rival to road and rail even -within this country. In accordance with Sir Osborne's scheme it would logically be called upon to pay its share of track charges, although presumably in practice this would not happen.
Unfairness of Taxation .Sir Osborne points out many of the anomalies in the system as it exists to-day. In particular he stresses the unfairness of taxation on road users which bears no relation to expenditure on the maintenance and development of roads. He deprecates the "decision in 1950 to double the fuel tax and credit budgetary revenue with the proceeds, thereby incidentally taxing transport to the extent of about twice the estimated railway deficit before last year's increase in rates." He is resigned to the fact that, even if his scheme were adopted, the Government would probably still insist that the road transport industry sh,ould contribute to general taxation. The one thing gained would be that." this taxation should not be jumbled up with the charges for defraying the cost of the road, but should be kept separate and clearly recognizable."
Whether this increase in clarity would be much appreciated by the road User is open to doubt. He is irked mainly by the fact that he Jas to pay a tax of is. 11:gd. on each gallon of Petrol he buys. Sir Osborne likes precision for its own sake. He is properly appalled at the untidy mess into which transport has drifted, in other countries as well as this, and has set out his own curative suggestions.
• His proposals do not go to the root Of the matter. Mere manipulation of costs does not take us far towards a solution of the transport problem. It is little better than shuffling a pack of cards in the hope that an extra ace or two will turn up. Nevertheless, Sir Osborne is right to stress that nobody has yet found a satisfactory solution. "We must hark back "to find the point where a new departure in practice is necessary." These words might constitute an appropriate motto for the new Government. They call to mind the Prime Minister's eve-of-Christmas broadcast when he compared his task with that of a signalman called to deal with the problem of a "train running on the' Wrong line downhill at 60 miles an hour."