Gout. Do Not Like Criticism
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HAVING authorized the spending of £240m. over the next four years on the greatest road-building programme this country had ever known. the Government had mixed feelings when, in return, they received an even greater volume of criticism than before.
They were committed to spend 15 times as much as their predecessors, said Mr. G. R. H. Nugent, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, at the annual dinner of the Passenger Vehicle Operators' Association in London on Monday.
Referring to an appeal by the chairman of the Association, Mr. A. E. Brewer, that something should be done about high taxation of the road transport industry and the costly time lag in granting fares increases, Mr. Nugent suggested that it was not unreasonable that the industry should make some contribution to the maintenance of the foreign and defence services which ensured that the oil on which transport depended continued to flow into the country.
Stability Needed The transport industry, particularly, desperately needed a period of national stability as a respite from the inflationary spiral. It was the Government's intention to keep to the objectives underlying the changing of the bank rate and they considered it was in the national interest that they saw the job through. That, rather than facilitating fare increases, would be their policy.
The operation of a public transport service was a seven-day-week job and harder even than farming, Mr. Nugent continued. The Ministry appreciated the difficulties many operators had in maintaining uneconomic services in rural areas, and the problem continued to receive their attention. He could not altogether agree, however, with the chairman's remark about the" futility of the utility." Such a vehicle, he considered, might provide a solution to the problem in specific instances.