Father-Figure
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THE present Minister of Transport is deservedly winning some praise as the man who means business instead of politics. Inside Parliament, he is conciliatory towards the Opposition, and seeks to persuade them that the legislation he puts forward is an acceptable compromise that ought to be nearer commonsense the more it neutralizes political passions. In general, Mr. Harold Watkinson aims to be nobody's catspaw. He deals with the railways, British Road Services, hauliers and so on as if they were all concerned equally with him in finding the best solution to their mutual problems. Perhaps without knowing it, he is well on his way to becoming that familiar figment of the psychologists—the father-figure.
At the annual luncheon of the Road Haulage Association last week, Mr. Watkinson was in an even more paternal mood than usual. He welcomed the spirit of compromise that he had found among the leaders of the road haulage industry. Like Prospero, he hoped soon to be able to lay aside his political manual and leave transport to look after itself. If the dissentients would settle their unseemly squabble about who was to have the benefits arising from the lifting of the 20-m.p.h. speed limit on heavy goods vehicles, he would wave his wand and give them what they wanted "tomorrow." Better roads would come to those who deserved them, but there were other calls on the nation's resources, and if the children clamoured for bread should he give them a paving stone?
Mr. Peter Masefield must have listened attentively to all this. When it was his turn to speak at the end of the proceedings, he made use of the name of the Association's national chairman, James Barrie, to introduce the subject of " Peter Pan," and speculated whether the Minister would best play the part of Nana or Captain Hook. There is more than enough symbolism in "Peter Pan" to glut the appetite of the psychoanalysts, so that it was not inappropriate for Mr. Masefield to draw attention to what they would call the ambivalent element in the relationship between the Minister and the road transport industry.
Love and Hate
The psychoanalysts discover a father-figure in anybody in authority, and suggest that the people he controls transfer to him the feeling they have for their own fathers. This feeling, according to the theory, is ambivalent, compounded both of love and hate. The comparison is apt, assuming that hauliers may be said to regard the Minister in the light of a father. In Mr. Barrie's speech last week, replying to the Minister, there were undoubtedly certain ambivalent passages, in which admiration for what the Minister had done to meet the wishes of hauliers struggled with the dislike of certain other actions he had taken, It would be going too far to suggest that psychoanalysis can do much to solve the problems of the transport industry. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, the centenary of whose birth is being • celebrated this month, was more concerned with disorders of the psyche than congestion on the roads. The effect of his work, however, has spread far beyond the treatment of the mentally afflicted, so much so that it does not seem altogether incongruous to turn on to c20 . the Minister and the transport industry the light that Freud himself shone for the most part on to the dark side of the mind. The school of thought he founded has profoundly affected the outlook and the vocabulary even of those people who refuse to believe a word he wrote.
For example, the principle of " displacement" can be used to analyse the.booklet 'Roads and Means" just issued from the Conservative political centre. Man in the Freudian universe is propelled towards his destiny by forces within himself that can be diverted from their primary objects, but cannot be completely dammed up except at grave peril to mental stability. Displacement is one of the mechanisms adopted by the mind to deal with this impasse, which certainly provides a close psychological parallel to the roads problem.
Mr. Geoffrey Block, to whom is attributed in a rather odd phrase the credit for "preparing the text" of the Conservative booklet, is faced with the difficult task of proclaiming the need for better roads, and at the same time explaining why the Conservatives have not built them. Most people in Mr. Block's position would be halfway towards acquiring a literary neurosis, and most of them would also adopt his way out of the difficulty by placing the blame on to shoulders other than those of the Government, where it should rightly rest.
Time the Enemy
It is suggested in the booklet that the fault lies with the roads themselves. They are "extremely expensive and there are many competing claims for the nation's scarce resources." Or perhaps full employment is the villain, making the scarce resources even scarcer, and denuding the supply of labour. Or bad roads are the penalty of living in a democracy. "It is less difficult for a dictator, since he can ruthlessly suppress competing demands." Or time is the enemy. "It would be unreasonable to expect the roads to appear immediately they are announced."
Another and better way of releasing libidinous energy, say the Freudians, is by sublimation,into constructive and creative work or play. Mr. Block is to some extent able to make use of this mechanism also. He compares the Socialist Government's notorious 10-year programme, announced in 1946 and never put into practice, with the 1953 Conservative programme, which there has been at least some effort to carry out.
In announcing the expanded programme in February, 1955, the Minister of Transport at the time said: " It is the Government's firm intention to continue with a substantial programme of road construction and improvement until the roads of this country are adequate for the traffic they have to bear." The booklet quotes with approval this statement and the description of " imperative" given by Mr. R. A. Butler to the task of modernizing the country's road system. But there are reservations. " We all hope that improvements in the nation's economic situation may enable this programme to be expanded still further."
No doubt the Freudians also have a word for this type of argument. It can just as easily be turned inside out. Vastly improved roads would help to bring about the economic improvement that the booklet suggests must come before the roads are built.