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Gospel of Negation

23th April 1954, Page 41
23th April 1954
Page 41
Page 41, 23th April 1954 — Gospel of Negation
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

THE latest Labour Party publication on British transport cannot make up its mind whether to be a broadsheet or a broadside, a treatise or a squib. The reader is left guessing how much is to be taken seriously. Perhaps the mystification is deliberate. • The most practical step the Socialists can take at the moment is to throw sand in the machinery for disposal set up by the Transport Act. Their main weapon is the threat to take back what has been sold, and the threat has some force even when one remembers that politicians can change their minds.

The author of the pamphlet has undertaken to write a potted history of mechanical transport which will arrive at the conclusion that the only possible next step (given the vitally necessary Parliamentary majority) is that laid down by the Party at their conference last year. "Labour will remove all restrictions which are aimed at preventing the British Transport Commission from developing a fully integrated public service of road and rail transport. We will ensure that the B.T.C. has adequate powers to reorganize road passenger services."

The task of historical interpreter to the Socialists cannot be easy_ " Labour will remove all restrictions . . ." The wretched author knows that the policy details that follow consist of restrictions to be imposed, and little else. The buyer of a transport unit is going to lose it; or lose his freedom to carry beyond a radius of 25 miles; or lose his licence. The other hauliers will be herded back into their 25-mile pen. The C-licence holder will be restricted.

"Lucky Fellow"

The Party statement, of course, is not referring to these restrictions but to those aimed at preventing the B.T.C. from developing a fully integrated public service." This at least gives the author a little more scope. He can show that nobody else has provided such a service. The haulier, lucky fellow, rarely does anything else but skim the cream, pick and choose, and " concentrate on the main traffic routes." He is "permitted to neglect social considerations and confine his attention to the profit and loss account." It would be useless to remove restrictions from him in the hope that he would go get himself integrated; and there would be the additional disadvantage that he could no longer be condemned for keeping a closed shop.

The C-licence holder is even worse as an integration prospect. His vehicles "frequently run empty in one direction." The pamphlet adds that "this method of carriage involves a serious wastage of petrol and carrying capacity and is costly to operate." Perhaps it is as well that the C-licence holder should know this. At any rate, unlike the haulier, he can hardly be accused of confining his attention to the profit and loss account, although, such is the contrariness of mankind, it is doubtful whether he would regard this tribute as a compliment.

'Where the public carrier offers a standard tariff," to quote the pamphlet again, "there will be cases in which it is cheaper for the trader to carry his own goods." Naturally, in such cases the trader is wrong and not the tariff. There may even be the "socially undesirable result of the C-licence operator carrying those goods which are easy to handle and offering difficult loads to the public transport services." If you look at it in this way, you will agree that the C-licence holder should think himself lucky his socially undesirable practices are to be limited and not abolished.

The author of the pamphlet might have taken a little more trouble to find out who wants an integrated service. The opinions of the customers and of the general public are not given, perhaps because they have never shown much enthusiasm. The pamphlet has to go back to the reports of pre-war committees. The waning of support for the principle since the war seems not to be regarded as important.

Certainly public opinion can be a nuisance and should be dealt with_ more firmly than before. The pamphlet makes it clear, for example, that the Socialists will not repeat the mistake of allowing interested parties to hold up the progress of area schemes for road passenger transport. "Private interests," it is alleged, abused "the elaborate consultative procedure," which will therefore be "simplified."

Financial Backers

The document can be interpreted as primarily a threat to the prospective haulier if he buys a transport unit and to the trader if he encourages the purchase. It would be wrong to leave the impression that the public are entirely ignored. As one would expect, the Govern-' ment has "rigged the sale" in favour of the buyers. "Taxpayers and ratepayers are to be fleeced" by means of the levy "to make a profitable holiday" for the buyers and their financial backers.

There is no suggestion that the Socialists will give the taxpayers and ratepayers their money back. They are there to be fleeced, and the Socialists are not above lending a hand with the shears. The best way to ensure that the job is done thoroughly is to depress the value of the transport units while they are being sold, and nobody can deny that the pamphlet does its best to help in this direction.

The introduction of the taxpayer and the ratepayer, like stock characters needed for the action of a play but not drawn from life, points to the shortcomings of the pamphlet. It looks at everything from the wrong side. The system, it seems to say, is more important than the people who use it. The public are taxpayers and ratepayers, and not creatures of flesh and blood who prefer to have a choice between competing providers of transport. The Socialists, according to the evidence of the pamphlet, are still obsessed by the theory which blossomed in 1947, and was so unkindly nipped in 1953. Nothing else matters but the rehabilitation of the B.T.C. in all its former glory, and more.

The up-to-date version of the Socialist plan for transport offers no Fabian or Utopian vision to inspire the hearts even of readers who are not persuaded in their heads. There is not a single reference to the possibilities opened up by such things as the development of air transport. There is only one answer to the fact that the hauliers have survived the 1947 Act and are now as vigorous as ever. They must be suppressed more savagely than before.


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