National Exchequer Should Subsidize Railways
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THE suggestion that the British Railways should be made a charge on the national exchequer, as. an alternative to the present system of " integrating" all forms of transport, was made by Mr. A. G. Marsden, transport adviser to Lever Brothers and Unilever, Ltd., in a paper, "Traders and the Transport Act, 1947," read last week before the metropolitan section of the Institute of Transport.
Each form of transport should be allowed to make its special contribution, said Mr. Marsden, and be encouraged to progress on the merits of its own efficiency. Could this end be achieved in any real sense if a major branch of the family, by reason of its heavy capital structure and its high proportion of fixed charges, had to be sustained by imposing upon the others limitations with the object of urging traffic back to that major branch?
No Artificial Restriction
Nothing should be done • to prevent each form of transport from developing its natural advantages and inherent possibilities, so that industry and the travelling public could benefit from improvements in service and cost. integration and charges were the vital issues of the Act, and upon the manner in which they were dealt with must surely depend the success or failure of that great experiment.
Time, in Mr. Marsden's submission, should be the order of the day. Much reorganization of each form of transport would_ be required before any degree of general integration could be achieved.
Further, before any new charges structure could be devised, the question would have to be settled as to whether the time had or had not come when Britain should revise its practice, so far as the railways were concerned, of basing charges on the arbitrary principle of what the traffic would bear, rather than on the cost of service.
Assessing Track Costs In any event, he would suggest that in the future rates structure, more consideration should be given to the factor of " loadability," and that the assessment of track costs for each form of transport, together with a plan of allocation, should form a part.
• At the present time, various international bodies Were studying the question of transport co-ordination in many countries. Their research was in its initial stages, but it was not without significance that attention had already been drawn to the fact that " national committees are unanimous in stating that the reason and origin of co-ordination measures are, in all countries, the unsatisfactory financial state of the railways."
Returning to the question of the
rates structure, Mr. Marsden said that despite the trader's freedom of choice in the use of transport, it had been suggested that the Commission should attempt to "influence "—to use no stronger a word—traffic into its most – economic channels by means of a carefully planned rates structure.
"Who," he asked, "is to decide the economic advantages of one form of transport over another for different flows and types of traffic; and what really was meant by the word economic' in this connection? " In choosing a service, the trader was necessarily influenced by the two main factors— cost and convenience. Assuming con
venient and satisfactory service, the cost of performing the job by any form of transport should surely be the basis of the charge,
Once this principle was departed from and something in the nature of a " scientific " rates structure devised. then, he feared, trouble was inevitable. Changing national circumstances might well cause such a structure to be amended from time to time to meet new conditions, until all original relationship between cost and the job was lost to view. That, surely, could not be a sound state of affairs?
Mr. Marsden did not think that the mere numbers of C-licence vehicles necessarily constituted a menace to the Commission: " Border-line" C-licence operations would no doubt settle themselves upon the level and types of service which, together with their cost, the Commission could offer to traders for these kinds of work.
He hoped that the Road Transport Executive would appreciate the importance of extending road contract services to traders. The contract A licence had, in the past, proved to be both the answer to many a doubtful C-licence case and a valuable link between haulier and trader. This field should be explored more fully than in the past.
Mr. Marsden then came to the problems facing "our newly created transport national machine." The B.T.C., he said, was controlled largely by men of wide administrative and transport experience. One could but imagine that fresh and exacting tasks would at the outset be accepted as nothing less than a challenge and be approached with much enthusiasm.
He then asked these three' questions: As time went on, how was thisenthusiasm to be maintained? How was the soporific effect of realization that formerly competing units were safely garnered under one controlling roof to
be resisted? How could so great a
machine be kept constantly responsive and alert to the urgent and legitimate needs of industry and the travelling public, so that it provided a truly "commercial" response to a " commercial " request or opportunity?
Mr. Marsden continued: "Consider, also, the issue of the many avenues of economy which await exploration under centralized ownership — standardization of equipment, plant and rolling stock; economies in administration and staffing; and better use by various forms of transport of the total facilities now available."
Benefits from these and many other achievements—all of which should be reflected in a lowering of transport charges—were surely what industry and the travelling public were entitled to expect, hut how was this search for, and ceaseless drive towards, better and more economic practices to be maintained as months and years went by?
The Commission must surely be well aware of these questions whichstood as a constant challenge four-square in its path. Industry, not unnaturally, expectantly awaited results in these spheres of activity, but extended a measure of understanding to those who were charged with the heavy responsibility of obtaining them.