TRIPTYCH
Page 57
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SIMULTANEOUSLY with the publication of the
pamphlet by Mr. Geoffrey Wilson, M.P., to which 1 referred last week, the Road and Rail Association issued another pamphlet by Mr. Ernest Davies. Both documents are given the title "Britain's. Transport Crisis." Whether the choice of the same initials as the British Transport Commission is deliberatc one cannot say, but certainly the description of the present situation as a crisis is somewhat over-dramatic. Mr. Wilson's pamphlet is sub-titled as a Conservative's view, and the contribution by Mr. Davies has to be. called a Socialist's view to keep the pattern regular, although he makes it reasonably clear that he is suppressing his own left-wing opinions in order to put forward positive proposals based on what he distastefully calls " the transport system as it now is."
The one easy way of distinguishing the two publications is in the choice of the second colour, blue for Mr. Wilson, light brown for Mr. Davies. In identical forewords, Lord Storitham, chairman of the sponsoring organization, promises further publications, and points out slyly that the association are non-party and non-partisan.They believe, he says, that the transport problem has been aggravated by "fruitless discussion of competing priorities," and they aim to present an objective picture of the problem as a contribution towards its solution.
This is ingenious. It is a common practice when two people disagree, especially if they are politicians, to provide a neutral platform and let the public judge between them. Some excellent radio and television programmes are based on this principle, and at first sight it seems ideal for working out an almost scientific solution of the transport problem. The jarring elements would be eliminated, as it were by a chemical reaction. and the remaining items on which both sides agree would crystallize out into pure transport doctrine. Viewed in this light, the eontributiOns to the discussion from Mr. Wilson and Mr.. Davies are the two side panels of a triptych, and the association will no doubt in due course take the opportunity to fill in the central panel themselves. Their considered verdict will be perfectly set off by appearing as the sensible compromise between the two extremes.
Ultimate Conclusions
The illusion is well-nigh perfect and care must be taken to see that it. does not deceive. There is no intrinsic reason why the ultimate conclusions of the association should be any better than the opinions of Mr. Wilson or of Mr. Davies, nor why there should be any merit in a choice made from a number of conflicting ideas. Part of the job the association have set themselves—for reasons that remain obscure—has been done in what one would have thought a more acceptable manner by the select committee on the nationalized industries.
Their recent admirable report on British Railways will no doubt be given the close attention it deserves by the House of Commons when they come to debate it, together with the report of the British Transport Commission for 1959. The individual members of the select committee would hardly claim to be non-political, and not all of them would claim to be non-partisan. Nothing like the same effect would have been achieved if each member or faction on the committee had taken a separate course and left it to an outsider to give the final verdict.
The conclusions that Mr. Wilson and Mr. Davies have in common do not after all amount to a great deal. In general terms they see the need for some control over transport, but the kind of control they envisage is not the same, and their arguments in favour of control are completely different, even opposed to each other. As I noted last week, Mr. Wilson sees and dislikes the prospect of certain sections of the community being left without transport facilities. He believes that the Government should pay for what they as well as the public, may regard as essential services that cannot operate at a profit.
Mr. Davies, on the other hand, is concerned with eliminating excess capacity. Here may be the cue for the association to speak. If there is excess capacity, they might say, it could well be used to fill the gaps in service about which Mr. Wilson has expressed anxiety. The association have so far said little about themselves, but one of their aims is known to be the redistribution of transport resources and of traffic, the idea being to give each form of transport the work it is best suited to do.
Urging in Principle The association find Mr. Davies in advance of them. He is not content with urging in principle the one point the association have so far trusted themselves to make. He is indisc,,-eet enough to give some examples of what he thinks should happen. The railways, he says, are most suited for long-distance passengers and goods, and the roads for short distances. Heavy goods should go to the railways and some types of specialized traffic to road transport. The railways should have commuter traffic to the cities, and traffic within them should go by road.
One feature of this catalogue is obvious. Road operators already carry the major part of what Mr. Davies would like to give them. It is difficult to see how most shortdistance traffic and traffic within cities could travel except by road. Unfortunately, the railways are not so well placed in respect of the items of whidh Mr. Davies would like to make them a present. The simple explanation might be that Mr. Davies is right on some points but not on others. Competition provides the natural means of directing goods and passengers, and under its guidance each form of transport attracts the traffic that suits it best, as, indeed, it always has.
For some reason this conclusion does not appeal to Mr. Davies. He cannot bring himself to the point of expressing as high an opinion of competition as all that. Nevertheless, remembering that he has undertaken to keep within the present framework of transport, he realizes that he cannot be too rude to competition. He must bow down in the House of Rimmon. If there must be freedom of choice and no compulsory direction of traffic—and it is somewhat wistfully that these attractive possibilities are abandoned—" the most likely way to ensure that traffic uses the most economic form is to fix charges on a comparable basis."
He therefore proposes a graduated system of taxation for all road goods vehicles, to discourage the carriage of heavy goods and long-distance traffic by road and encourage their carriage by rail. It is hard to see that this would be very different in practice from brute compulsion. Mr. Davies is arguing in circles, just as Mr. Wilson is in his endeavour to devise a scheme for Government payment to the railways that would not amount to a subsidy.