Nationalization by Subsidization
Page 35
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IN JANUARY, 1966, BRS (Parcels) Ltd. pleaded with the Minister of Transport, Mrs. Barbara Castle, for a 10 per cent rates increase because Government actions had forced up costs beyond all reason (e.g. road tax +50 per cent, fuel tax 3s 9d per gallon, abolition of investment allowances on commercial vehicles, etc.). They have pleaded frequently since because they are operating at a substantial loss. Mrs. Castle has turned down their commercially sound arguments every time. She has done this for one reason only, and that reason is that it does not tie in with the overall loathsome "kill private enterprise" plans.
Her overall plan for the transport industry is that the private sector should be forced to compete with a nationalized sector whose inevitable losses are met by the taxpayer. The private sector, having no taxpayer to bleed white, inevitably has to stand its own losses, which it can only do for a very limited time. When the private sector is lying strangled and nearly dead on the floor, Mrs. Castle, if she feels there might be some life left, may offer to pick up the bones "at a price" or kick them into the grave. Having successfully achieved this massacre Mrs. Castle's National Freight Authority will then be able to make up for lost time and money by increasing carriage rates substantially as there will be no competition left to provide a good economical service to industry. This, as she rightly exclaims, is not nationalization in the accepted sense. It is worse.
The tragedy is that the transport industry will definitely not be the only industry to suffer from this Socialist murder by torture. When Mrs. Castle and the Government have succeeded once, they will double their sadistic efforts.
Let us not allow them to succeed once; but to stop them we must shout loud and clear for help, for the transport industry is already severely tortured and Mrs. Castle's murder is three-quarters completed.
J. T. RISSBROOK Director and Secretary, J. Brevitt Ltd., Willenhall, Staffs.