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NORTHERN IRELAND'S TRANSPORT PROBLEM.

26th January 1926
Page 15
Page 15, 26th January 1926 — NORTHERN IRELAND'S TRANSPORT PROBLEM.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

The British Minister of Transport in Belfast. His Suggestion that Road and Rail Should "Get Together."

By "Ulsterman.

IN an address delivered at a luncheon meeting of the ,Belfast Chamber of Commerce, on January 12th, Colonel the Right Hon. Wilfrid W. Ashley,..M.P., dealt with traffic problems in an optimistic spirit. The Minister's hopeful treatment of this eternal, and indeed infernal, topic must have been of great assistance to the digestion of the distinguished company assembled in the Ulster Hall. But it is to be feared' that those members of the audience who are financially concerned in the commercial motor traffic of Northern Ireland were scarcely in the right mood for joyous reaction to an optimistic homily. An increase of from 30 to 300 per cent, in the taxation of commercial vehicles is apt to cloud the outlook of their owners and to discount in their minds the cheerful forecasts of official optimism.

Not that Colonel Ashley is not an exceedingly wel-• come guest in Ulster ; his popularity stands high in Belfast and throughout the Imperial Province. But those who have just been "wounded in the house of their friends" find it hard to believe that a period of increased health and vitality is just about to' dawn for them. If trade is reviving, why are taxes increased? If, in ten years' time, there are to be twice as many motor vehicles in Great Britain as there are to-day, why should the Ulster Government, which solemnly and repeatedly promised that the social services and taxation of Ulster should run on parallel lines with those of Great Britain, deliberately, and yet with unseemly haste, levy upon Ulster's coinmercial motor vehicles a burden of taxation which seemS calculated to drive off the roads of the north a great part of the existing motor traffic? Perhaps the British gander will soon get a dose of the Sauce that has just been forcibly fed to the Ulster goose? , -ft will, unless it raises its raucous voice in timely and persistent protest and makes most drastic use of its defensive wings.

Points from Colonel Ashley's Speech.

Among other things, the Transport Minister said that, in his opinion, transportation was the basic industry of the country. Be had faith in British industry and in the revival of British trade. When that revival came, the railways would come back, possibly not to the prosperity of 30 or 40 years ago, but at any rate to a reasonable degree of prosperity. His ideal was to combine road transport and railway transport.

In Colonel Ashley's ideal combination of road and rail transport, the road is visualized as permanently subordinate to the rail, an inversion of the best scientific forecasts of the transport of the future. The Minister said, "Road transport ought to be so directed as to be a feeder of the rail. There were many services which the railways codld not carry on, especially in agricultural districts. They wanted their road transport to bring the farmers and their goods to the railways: they wanted their road transport to enable the inhabitants of backward country villages to get to the towns to shop and for recreation." According to this programme, which was not laid down as a temporary one, tailless traffic is to be tethered to railway lines, free movement must conform to fixity of movement, modern roads are to be married to antiquated "sleepers," It would have been as practical an exercise in prophecy to foretell, in 1830, that railways would have to serve as feeders to stage coach services or to canal routes, although the fact that the railways took over canals, and put them out of commission by deliberate neglect, might seem to render the latter part of this prophecy a trifle too absurd.

"Equal Competition."

" Having stated that " in England the motor omnibus, which now visited practically all parts of the country,• would do More, with wireless, to keep the people on the land than all the legislation ever passed by any Parliament," the Minister went on to say that "what they should, therefore, aim at was equal competition between railways and road transport." The logical force of this: " therefore " seems somewhat obscure. Motor omnibuses have, in a short time, done more to open un rural England than the railways have done in a long. time ; motor omnibuses, with wireless, are reconciling the agricultural population to their rural homes, thus preventing the overcrowding of cities and giving a chance to agriculture ; " therefore " the modern mode of traffic must refrain from deriving any advantage from its modernity and must make a 50/50 arrangement with its rival, an offer which the railways strangely failed to make to the stage coaches or even to the canals!

"Get Together."

How is this ideal combination of rail and road to be effected? Colonel Ashley said, "No doubt there might be, in some instances, cases where the railways, through the rates they paid, subsidised road transport which was believed to be their competitor, but he could not believe that statesmanship was so bankrupt that that difficulty could not be overcome. If both interests got together and arranged some working agreement, it would be best for them and best for the country." But, if road and rail interests are to "get together" on the basis that road transport is merely to serve as a feeder for railway transport, it is pretty hard to see how a formula for "equal competition" is to be found. Nor is it easy to see why the payment of rates by railways for the maintenance of roads along which business, is brought to their lines should be regarded as a subsidy paid to owners of motor vehicles, who not only pay the ordinary rates to .which railways are liable, but a-. special tax fpr the upkeep of the roads which act as feeders to the railway companies as well as to thernselves.

.Free Trade in Traffic Competition.

Whatever is done to protect home industries from unfair foreign competition, it is to be hoped that competition among home industries themselves will continue to be free and unhandicapped by adjustments in favour of other organizations. So that, when rail and road interests "get' together," an arrangement may be made which shall be fair to both, harsh to neither, and not unmindful of the interests of the poor• old public at large.

Ulster Motor Tax Ramp.

Ulster owners of motor buses and lorries, who have been so savagely treated by their own Government; are not inclined to take the prescribed poison "in a recumbent posture." Measures are being taken, including the measures of the M.P.s who, 'dead against the evidence, voted for the new, and literal, " imposition " of taxes. Information as to these measures will be forthcoming at a later date.


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