Efficient Transport a Key to Victory
Page 18
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AN interesting little exhibition which tells the story of transport at war, and is entitled "Gangway Please! " was opened last Friday at Charing Cross Underground Station by Mr. P. Noel-Baker, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the M. of W.T.
Mr. Noel-Baker thanked the Ministry of Information lot its organization of the exhibition. He added that the purpose of the exhibition was to bring home to the public what war transport means to-day, and why it is that on our transport system all our hopes of victory must depend. It showed also how every citizen can help to make .transport give the maximum possible return.
We need much more transport than in times of peace, but, in fact, we have not more, but less. Cocomotives have been sent overseas, the number of our buses has fallen by at least a twelfth, and many of our expert transport workers are in the Forces, whilst we have a heavier traffic of both passengers and goods, much of it being urgent. For the individual, travel now means discomfort, but we accept it because we know that " Standing room only '• is better than a place behind the barbed wire of a concentration camp.
Retail-delivery schemes and localizing production help to save 12,000,000 ton-miles of transport per year. By giving up his Green Line buses, the suburban Londoner is saving 1,000,000 miles of running a month, but the public may be asked to give still. further help.
It has been the Ministry's task to bring every part of the transport system under a single control, cutting out useless competition and overlap-. ping. Never have our lorry drivers and our railwaymen, working in winter weather, fog and black-out, had so great a strain; never have they given better service than they are to-day.
Save transport, save shipping space by salvage, keep off the buses and trains at peak hours, walk short distances; in these and other ways you can play your part in the decisive battles which loom not so far ahead.