THE RAILWAY BILLS PASSED.
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• The Third Reading of the Bills and the Amendments Introduced. The Bills sent to the House of Lords.
AT a late hour on July 12th the House of Commons, after making several amendments on report, gave a third reading to the road transport Bills of the L.M. and SR., the G.W.R., the L. and N.E.R. and the S.R. Companies. The amendments, with one exception, were of a comparatively unimportant character.
Passenger Transport in London.
Clause 3 as it left the Joint Select Committee was in the following terms:—
" The company may provide, own, work, and use road vehicles to be drawn or moved by animal, electrical or mechanical power in any district to which access is afforded by the system of the company or the system of any railway committee owning or operating a railway, on which committee the company is represented, and may, by means of such vehicles, convey by road, passengers and passengers' luggage, parcels and merchandise:
" Provided that the company shall not, in pursuance of this Act, work or use, within the administrative county of London, any road vehicle for the conveyance of passengers."
The effect of the clause was to shut out entirely from the London County Council area the railway companies' road passenger vehicles. In the interval between the Committee and Report stages of the Bills a good deal of private discussion took place between the parties and the Ministry of Transport regarding the desirability of extending the area to the Metropolitan Police area and City of London and, in return, permitting the railway companies to enter London for the purposes of their long-distance motor coach services. This was ultimately agreed to on the motion of Sir Henry Jackson, a member of the London Traffic Advisory Committee and the proviso was altered to read :—" Provided that the company shall not in pursuance of this Act convey by any road vehicle any passenger who, on any one journey, is both taken up and set down in the area consisting of the Metropolitan Police district and the City of London." A consequential amendment to the same effect was made on Clause H which applies to working agreements, , Municipal Tramways Outwith the Boundary.
Another important amendment was brought forward by the Labour Party but, after much discussion, rejectecl by 192 votes to 84. It sought to protect from the competition of railway road vehicles municipal tramways and omnibuses, not only within the boundaries of the municipality as laid down by the Select Committee in ,Clause 4, but also outside the boundaries of municipalities.
The definition of "local area" in the Bills remains the same, viz., a county, city, borough or urban district, but, by an amendment which was accepted to meet certain cases,of joint-boards which were cited in the debate, the definition of "local authority" was slightly altered, and it now reads :—" Local authority' means the council of a local area and includes a joint board of local authorities.eonstituted by Act of Parliament prior to the passing of this Act, such joint board being deemed (a) to be the local authority of a local area consisting of the loCal areas of the constituent authorities of the board in respect of the tramways or omnibus services of such joint board within that area and (b) to work the tramways or provide the omnibus services of such joint board therein."
A minor sub-section was inserted at the end of Clause 4 providing that, where a local area is altered by any Act passed. in the present session, the altera c30 tion shall be deemed to have been made before the passing of the Railway Road Transport Act. Another sub-section was added to Clause 17 applying the provisions of Section 20 of the Ministry of Transport Act, 1919, to all inquiries held by the Minister under the Railway Road Transport Act.
All four Bills were amended in the manner indicated, and the third reading was agreed to in each case without a division and the Bills passed. They will now be subject to the scrutiny of the House of Lords on report, though it is not anticipated that any alteration of substance will be made by their lordships.
Points in the Debate.
The arguments in favour and against certain aspects of the measures may be briefly indicated.
Major M'Lean and Mr. Lamb presented n new clause providing for the review of exceptional rates by the Railway Rates Tribunal when representations were made to the Minister of Transport by any body of persons properly representative of the interests of nonstatutory road transport proprietors that exceptional rates were being charged which were competitive, detri4 mental to the public interest and inadequate having regard to the cost of affording the services. This proposal was intended to prevent the railway companies from fixing very low rates for certain classes of traffic with the object of driving the independent road transport undertakings off the road.
Sir Henry Cautley, who was a member of the Select Committee, argued that if the clause were accepted the railways would be placed on an entirely different footing from other motor users. As to passenger rates, all fares had to be posted up in every vehicle, and with regard to goods rates there were no exceptional rates, because, hitherto, this traffic had practically been carried on by means of special bargains and there were no standard charges. The clause, would, therefore, put a burden on the railways and the Railway Rates Tribunal would have no means of arriving at a fair decision in any case. He pointed to Clause 13 as giving the widest means of redressing any abuse of power. This clause enables the Minister to hold an inquiry and to report to Parliament.
The proposed new clause was negatived without a Alleged Anomalies.
Sir Joseph Nall moved a new clause which, briefly, sought to give the Minister of Transport power to sanction the running of the railway companies' road vehicles along the route of, or in competition with, " any " tramway or light railway or trolley vehicle system constructed or operated under an Act of Parliament or Order, and enabling the Minister to hold an inquiry. It further provided that the consent of the Minister should not be given if he was satisfied that an adequate and satisfactory service was already provided. The mover contended that the Joint Committee had created more striking anomalies than had been created by any private Bill Committee in the last ten years. The Metropolitan Company's Bill had been rejected in spite of the fact that the other four companies were given power to run all over the -Metropolitan Company's area outside the London zone. The second anomaly was that the Committee had given special and very definite protection to the London Underground Combine by excluding from the London area the four companies. He did not object to that protection to services which were operated by companies, but why should the Committee cut out protection to the provincial towns except in regard to the
limits of the particular municipality? The third anomaly he indicated was where a borough operated the lines of an „adjacent authority and had protection within its own borders but no Protection for the lines of the adjacent authority, although where each authority operated separately each separate authority was covered, A further anomaly was that, whilst local municipal services were to be protected, the existing company services were to have no protection, even in the case of statutory companies. In this respect the tramway companies had the same case for protection as the railway companies, having raised substantial capital under the cover of Acts of Parliament.
The proposed new clause was opposed by Mr. J. H. Thomas and negatived without a division.
The London Arrangements.
With regard to the extension of the London area of protection, under Sir Henry Jackson's amendment referred to above, the chief argument in favour of it was that the Administrative County of London (as the area of protection fixed by the Committee) was not a recognized traffic area at all and the L.C.C. was not itself a traffic authority. Therefore, the Committee had introduced into the complex problem of London traffic an entirely new authority in the management and organization of that traffic. In view of the proposed scheme for common management for London passenger traffic, the introduction of a restricted area would introduce a new and uncertain factor into the negotiations and delay the scheme. The extension of the London area of protection against railway road competition would be met by the concession allowing the railway long-distance coaches to enter London.
The Minister of Transport agreed with the proposal 'moved by Sir Henry Jackson, and Mr. J. H. Thomas said that the alteration in regard to the London area • was not inconsistent with the Committee's decisions.
Sir J. Nall repeated his protest against the anomalous exclusion of the Metropolitan Railway Company from these arrangements.
As already stated Sir Henry Jacksen'.s amendment Was agreed to without a division. A great many arguments were advanced in favour of the amendments extending the protection of municipal tramway undertakings beyond the boundaries of the municipality. The chief contention of Mr. T. Kennedy was that extensive developments of housing schemes had recently taken place around industrial centres and big towns and progressive authorities had extended their tramway services to meet the needs of the people, serious financial commitments having been involved. Municipalities had statutory obligations and were working under difficulties as real as those which beset the railways. The interests of the ratepayers were 'seriously involved.
Colonel Ashley in opposing the amendment maintained that municipal enterprise in its own proper sphere had up to now received legitimate protection from the Minister of Transport, but he gladly accepted the decision of the Committee that absolute protection inside the municipal area should be given. When a municipality went outside its area it lost its distinctive municipal character. It waS not necessarily obliged . to carry on this form of undertaking but did so because it was a paying proposition. He disagreed with the contention that the municipality should be given absolute protection 'outside its area and that no private enterprise should be allowed to come in and compete with it. That would be unfairly loading the dice against private enterprise. The amendment would largely defeat the whole object of the Rills. In the midlands and the north there were chains of municipal undertakings and the effect would be entirely to prevent the railway companies from operating at all over stretches of country 40 or 60 miles long. Many hundreds of thousands of square miles would be put outside the operation of the railway companies if the amendment was agreed to. He hoped that before the end of the session an announcement of the appointment of a Royal Commission on road traffic would be made and he asked the Opposition to wait a year or two before going any farther than the concession already made to municipalities.
The House after further discussion decided by 192 votes to 84 to abide by the committee's decision.