'No Road Survey Could Reprieve Rail Cuts'
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FROM OUR INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT
11/I1JC1-1 of the Beeching Plan for bringing Britain's railways up to date will be carried out whatever Government is in
power. This is becoming increasingly clear, in spite of all the angry trade union and Labour Party noises off.
In fact, so far as Labour leader. Mr. Harold Wilson is concerned, the longer the general election is_put off—and it may not be held until" October of next year— the easier it will be for him to cope with the problem without upsetting the rail unions.
For this will give Dr. Beeching a chance to put many of his proposals into effect before there can be any change of Government.
Dr. Beeching himself is certainly not allowing political considerations to stop his drive to implement the plan. Closure proposals are being pushed ahead through the regions as quickly as possible. They are being published in local papers at the rate of a dozen or more a week and the first of them should reach the next stage of the procedure. hearings before the Transport Users' Consultative Committees, by the end of next month or early September.
By next spring--the earliest likely date for an election—a good proportion should be an accomplished fact.
Unlike the union leaders, Mr. Wilson has never gone on record as saying that he would reverse the plan. The most he has ever pledged is that he would halt further closures until there had been a comprehensive review of other forms of transport as well.
As Dr. Beeching was at pains to point out when he attended a meeting of the National Production Advisory Council for Industry last week, presided over by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, even the "most diligent further research" into other forms of transport was unlikely to alter the logic of his plan. He stressed that in formulating the plan they had made a careful study of roads and their use. In fact, it had been a more careful study than any other made for some time.