Mr. Brown's Britain
Page 33
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WHETHER one personally regards it as fact, fiction or mere pie-in-the-sky is, in a sense, not important; the fact remains that Mr. George Brown's much-vaunted National Plan (reported in last week's issue) anticipates a 26 per cent increase in road movement of freight within the next five years.
The interest in the statement is ill its parentage. Socialists' planners now, apparently, admit the inherent advantages of road transport and foresee its inevitable growth (even With the advent of liner trains). Will this shake their ill-concealed intention to press on anyway with the outmoded and unwanted dogma of 1947—government control at any price? The more cynical might look at Mr. Fraser's pronouncements so far, as Minister of Transport, and cock a doubting eyebrow. Will this fact, along with all the others (such as Geddes) which have not fitted the Party theories on transport. simply•be tucked away in a quiet corner?
Perhaps the trouble is that the Labour Party refuse to be completely honest about transport policy. The surface impression is that they have no grand design. Few people believe that this would still be the case if they had a handsome majority instead of the slenderest of lifelines. But nobody knows for certain. So long as this vacuum exists the Labour Party must remain a potential non-well-wisher in the eyes of road transport.
Then there is the question of non-official union action, an example of which—quite unconstitutional—disrupted Birmingham haulage recently. Although condemning the action as "unofficial ", the Transport and General Workers Union nevertheless did nothing to stop it. How long can Mr. Brown's Britain put up with this type of ridiculous situation?