JANUS The familiar picture of a road WRITES haulage lobby . . cannot be
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accurate for Northern Ireland'
OPTIMISTIC indeed would be the road operator who imagines that the transport policy of the Labour Party is likely to be affected by the dismal experience with State ownership in Northern Ireland, culminating in the decision of the Government to break the monopoly of the Ulster Transport Authority and allow competition from independent operators both in the goods and the passenger fields. In Northern Ireland itself the reaction from the left has run true to form. The secretary of the Labour Party there has complained that the decision introduces uncertainty and the trade unions have prophesied complete disintegration of public transport.
When they were planning nationalization just after the war, the British Labour Party had before them the example of what had been happening for a dozen years or so across the Irish Sea. The facts and figures were brought to their attention in case they had overlooked them. Apparently they took no notice, and there is no reason to suppose that the latest news from Ireland will have any greater effect. They are justified to the extent that conditions differ and that what happens in one country is not necessarily a safe guide to what should be done in another. All the same, the Socialists might benefit from examining how far the process of denationalization in Ulster is likely to reflect what happened in Britain 10 years ago.
The familiar picture of a road haulage lobby persuading a Conservative government possibly against its better judgment cannot be accurate for Northern Ireland. For three decades there have been virtually no independent road operators. Their arrival will be similar to the creation of a new industry. As the Minister of Home Affairs, Mr. William Craig, said in the House of Commons when announcing his Government's proposals, "it would be advantageous to the public if there could be developed a competitive road freight service of private operators ". It appears that Ministers are capable of working this out for themselves without the prompting of supposedly powerful road transport interests.
EXTENSION OF ACTIVITIES?
British operators already have in mind the possibility of extending their activities in a country where hitherto even those of them who use the ferry services have been limited to the dispatch of semi-trailers to be hauled by U.T.A. tractors. Other operators also will be eager, if the new legislation allows them, to put their knowledge and resources to good account in fulfilling Mr. Craig's aim. There seems no reason why British companies should not have associates Or subsidiaries in Ireland. It would be a fine stroke of irony if such a development enabled the operators to continue to practise their calling even if their main business were taken over by a future Labour government.
The new structure promised by Mr. Craig has many points in common with the transport situation in Britain today. There should be set up a holding body, the Northern Ireland Transport Commission. It would own all the assets at present in the possession of the U.T.A., but would have to keep separate accounts for its various activities. The railways, for example, which would be run under Government direction, would be required to show clearly the full extent of their loss. The hotels and the workshops would each be hived off into a separate division, to be run on "strictly commercial principles ".
Completely detached from the Commission, but still publicly owned, would be a bus company and a road haulage company. They would hire accommodation and other fixed assets from the Commission at commercial rents, and they would be able to use the Commission's workshops, again at economic prices. The same facilities would be available to private passenger operators and hauliers, who would be put as nearly as possible on terms of equality with their nationalized competitors. Apart from the railways, each section of the Commission and the associated organizations would have to "justify its exis. tence by making sufficient income, taking one year witl another, to balance its outgoings ".
FREE FROM INHIBITIONS
Mr. Craig appears to be. completely free from preconceived ideas or inhibitions, at least as far as transport is concerned. He went so far as to say that the Government might be "forced, however reluctantly, in the light of continuing and increasing losses, to face the position whereby through successive closures of services we are left without any railways ". This state of affairs, he pointed out, would indicate that the railways no longer provided a public transport service compatible with their cost of operation. He even laid it down that, if financial assistance had to be given to ensure the continuance of an essential service, the policy of the Government would be to give the subsidy to the form of transport which could provide the service most cheaply and most efficiently.
What Mr. Craig had to say on the reorganization of services was part of a general statement in the course of which he also promised a substantially increased trunk roads programme and announced that the U.T.A. would be permitted to close a number of railway lines and services in conformity with an earlier report to the Government, The first priority, he said, was to provide a road system adequate for the anticipated Continuing increase in the volume of road traffic.
Apart from the activities of the U.T.A., the past increase has been due solely to the motorists and the traders operating their own vehicles. Mr. Craig showed no disposition to suggest that this development was undesirable, much less that it ou.ht to be checked. "The great bulk of the transport needs of the Province," he said, "is in fact met by personal or private transport." This was in no way a criticism of the operators, but merely a pointer to the correct Government policy. Taken as a whole, Mr. Craig's statement might well be read with profit by many people at present disposed to air their views on what should be • done with transport in Britain.