Nationalizers Should See Psychiatrist
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"WHAT sort of a man is it who would want to inflict on the national economy, by creating a State monopoly of road haulage, another burden of waste and inflationary inefficiency like that represented by the existing nationalized monopolies?" asked Mr. R. N. Ingram, national chairman of the Road Haulage Association, at the South Yorkshire Area's annual dinner at Sheffield on Tuesday.
"If he is not a madman, he must be either wicked or irresponsible. The conclusion might be that anyone who cannot fail to see all the squandering of the nation's resources that goes on in the nationalized industries, and yet can still say road haulage must be a candidate for nationalization because it is a waste of national resources, must be gripped by an obsession so overriding that only a psychiatrist would offer hope to him—and to the community."
Mr. Ingram said a sharp contrast between the advantages of the present situation in road haulage and the disadvantages of a nationalized monopoly had just been provided by a report on the internal affairs of one of the State-owned air corporations. The report suggested that the undertaking carried grossly inflated overheads and suffered from low productivity of nearly every possible kind.
OLD TRAM ROUTE GOES
WHAT is claimed to have been the first IT overhead-wire tram system in Britain, the Briggate-Moortown route in Leeds, is to be abandoned by the middle of next month. Leeds Transport Department have successfully applied to the Yorkshire Traffic Commissioners to introduce motor-buses.
The Middleton and Hunslet routes are also to be converted.