PIRATES!
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Not Everyone who may Care to Try His Luck with Motorbus Operation in the Metropolis is a Pirate (says "The Inspector ") if he Doesn't Happen to Call Himself
a "General."
1 MUST confess that I was lost in admiration for what appeared to me to be the subtle optimism of Lord Ashfield and of the interests that he so ably represents when he recently suggested to the Government that the Underground group, in return for their undertaking very considerable extensions to their existing railway and tube network, should be legally protected from the consequences of any competition on the highroads against their motorbus organization over a period of at least ten years.
It was a little difficult at first to follow Lord Ashfield's argument or to put any other construction on the suggestion that the price at which the Undergroundgroup was prepared to extend London's subterranean travelling facilities was that of guaranteed monopoly over the public-service passenger-carrying facilities by motorbus on Greater London's roads for a. given period. So far as could be seen, there did not appear to be any very direct connection between the tubes of Ealing and, let us say, the " pirates" of Putney. But. a little later on we felt gratified to have at least some explanation accorded to us--as a matter of fact, after it was found that the public did not welcome the first announcement with open arms. This was to the effect that, although the Underground group always takes such pains by poster to explain, how very kind and good it is to the general public of London, it wished to be relieved of the anxiety of having, at some future date, to take steps to remove competition against their motorbus undertakings.
Lord Ashfield, in delivering himself of this rather ingenious suggestion, found himself unable to refer to any other public company who should dare to consider itself competitive to his own public motorbus facilities in Greater London other than as " Pirates." These piratical enterprises, he thought, should not be allowed to exist ! No competition should be allowed, as he considered all such competition piratical. But, Lord Ashfield should remember that -he holds no actual monopoly in the London streets, and, indeed, since the new powers of the Ministry of Transport came into being he holds even less monopoly than he did before. It is open to anyone who can place a thoroughly practical motorbus in service to the satisfaction of the Public Carriage Office so far as licensing is concerned, to run a fleet to-morrow and to challenge the London General Omnibus Co. for the favours of the public and their penny fares just as the old Road Car Co. did with the L.G.O. and the Vanguard and the Arrow and the Great Eastern, and lots of other companies did in the older days They have all been eaten by the tiger, and by the tiger that was the last of the horse bus companies to adopt motorbuses, it should be remembered. The London General Omnibus Co. bought no motorbuses until forced to do so by the pressure of public competition, and, although, to-day, they certainly have a remarkably efficient organization, that does not prove that other authorities could not do equally well with the same facilities, nor that competition or the fear of it is not a good rod in pickle to hold over them. No, it is good in all directions that Lord Ashfield's latest suggestion has been turned down by the Government. It is rumoured that the London County Council, with its own vast passenger transport eiganisation, had not a little to do with this tefusal. The Underground authorities have long coveted a practical zoonopoly of London's transport, in order to consolidate the wonderful goodwill they have won by absorption of other interests and by the promotion of efficiency in their enlarged organization, but they would naturally feel a great deal more comfortable and less liable to the attacks of those. who do not necessarily agree that they are quite so perfect public servants as they themselves think they are, if they could be definitely assured under Government guarantee that there should be no opposition for "merely ten years," as Lord Ashfield put it. But once monopoly had been granted it would be difficult to refuse renewal.
Not only would this monopoly re-act unfavourably against any other form of mechanical transport throughout Greater London—and there are still plenty of opportunities for other road-transport interests even if they be not in Cheapside or Oxford Street ; Greater Loneon is a vast area and a glowing one—but it has to be remembered that the monopoly of the road services carries with it the monopoly of vehicle construction and that this, in the present state of the industry, is also not sound. There should be no closing of a. great area to c,inpetitive tendering.
I have been 1-d to write on the above lines because I felt justified in resenting Lord Aslifield's suggestion that all others but the red Generals were "pirates." He surely cannot have in so short a space forgotten how the name "pirates" first came to be applied to horse omnibuses. The old London General and the old London Road Car Companies had to contend with them up to the very last. The pirate had precious, little regard for route and was very little more concerned as to the fare he charged. He made what he could and ran when he liked. He picked up fares between the regular services of the more established companies, and-he seldom, if ever' worked other than singly. He had very little at stake, but he was a thorn in the side of the bigger operating omnibus concerns. There were never many motorbus pirates. The vehicles cost too much to purchase and to run in the early days for there to be much money in their operation unless the services were conducted on respectable and regular lines.
There is no chance whatever of the old pirate appearing in future in the case of the motorbus, but there is the opportunity and the possibility still of effective competition on businesslike and up-to-date lines with the fleet of the London General Omnibus Co., and it is, in the writer's opinion, withoutthe slightest doubt, desirable that such opportunity should continue to exist. Certainly, no immunity from the possibility of such competition should be purchasable at the price of a proposed big scheme fo relieve unemployment, a scheme which, however, is primarily in 'the best interests of the Underground. Its only possible public advantage—and this is not a definitely ascertained one—would be that of anticipating the start of operations. But it is likely that we shall see this relief work started just as soon now that we definitely knoW that the Government and a good many other people have fought very shy of handing over another great share of the travelling facilities of London to the all-embracing, if admittedly efficient, Underground group.