Road Transport's Place
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in Empire Development By Mr. Frederick Smith
Précis of an Outstanding Report on Transport in Nigeria.
FROM Mr. F, Smith, Director of Food Transport, has come a particularly interesting report on Transport in Nigeria, which he prepared at the request of the Colonial Office. Our notes concern, mainly, the road aspect of the problem, but certain references to railways, etc., are of interest.
Road services benefit the whole people, not only direct users, and it is not inequitable to expect that if services cannot be provided at rates non-injurious to production, except at a loss, that loss should be borne by the people as a whole, rather than by the primary producer. A system which, by the rigidity of a rates policy designed merely to produce a good' railway balance-sheet, reduces almost to vanishing point the margin available to the producer, stands condemned.
While the British railways were operating under conditions virtually monopolistic, it will be generally acknowledged that they did not display the same degree of efficiency that they have since faced with competition. Mr. Smith is amongst those who believe that, even to-day, the highest degree, of efficiency has not been attempted because of persistent belief in the railway world that the railways will ultimately revert to conditions of monopoly.
• Road-transport Feeder Services. • It is neither necessary nor desirable to replace African methods of transport (head., donkey carriage or bicycle) by
MOTE mechanical means. It is desirable, however, that there should be road-transport services feeding concentration centres and devoted to traffic beyond the range of normal African methods. As road transport becomes known and appreciated it should be of great assistance in opening up more distant areas.
It would be better for road operators to provide the services necessary, but important that in railway-served areas they should contract to feed, not compete with, the railway, receiving in return some consideration in licensing tees.
Mr. Smith makes proposals for the elimination of stations where traffic does not justify them. These apply equally to the main and Eastern lines. Low speed, unnecessary handling, poor wagon and train loading, all result from the use of small stations within the range of primitive methods of handling. 4 The motor vehicle has completely changed the situation in Nigeria, as elsewhere.
The new method advocated will revolutionize previous conceptions of traffic manipulation, double or treble the work obtained for each train-engine hour, speed up the turning of wagons, and will provide such a service at such a low cost as to restore the railway to its proper place in the country.
In dealing with undeveloped areas it is important to decide whether development is to be by rail or road. In any case, a pioneer road system will be built up. It ought to be decided at the outset whether this is with the idea of replacement by railway or by another and better road when traffic reaches a certain volume. If the latter, it will be preferable at the outset to build special motor roads designed -to take heavy loads at high speeds, but linked with the present railway and not designed to compete with it. Motor vehicles and, possibly, road trains should be especially designed for these roads, consideration being given to the possibility of using as fuel native vegetable oiqs.
Looking a long way ahead, it does not appear to be likely that further railways will be necessary. The present railway provides a good backbone, and the sensible thing to do, looking at the problem as a whole, is to design feeder services.
na It should, however, be a feature of railway policy to relinquish that traffic which can most suitably be carried by other means. Many consignments are small and most expensive to handle by rail, which would be better off without them. It is this form of traffic, on railways throughout the world, which obstructs their real prosperity.
Mr. Smith suspects that in Nigeria, as elsewhere, criticism of road transport in respect of conditions of service, wages, fitness, and hours of duty is likely to command more sympathetic hearing from the public than the real cause of complaint, viz., that it is a free and serious competitor with the railway. In Great Britain the same complaints were made about the abuse of transport, with the addition that road competition was unfair because the railways had to build and maintain their permanent way, whereas that of road transport was provided free and it did not pay sufficient for maintenance.
The Government of the day made .what correction it considered necessary to adjust the latter situation, but no sooner had the various abuses which had been criticised been removed, than pressure was brought to bear in another direction—the restraining of competition by licensing. The author is entirely opposed to it both in principle and in the way it has been administered in Great Britain, and regrets to learn that proposals for a similar system appear to be well advanced in Nigeria. It is a grave mistake to limit road transport in any country, particularly one crying out for development. The best policy is co-operation.
This could be achieved by special rebates or allowances of some kind to road operators who will undertake to feed railway services instead of competing with them. Road operators might feed the railway at one end and deliver the goods at the other, the road people paying to the railway for the rail part of the journey.
The Nigerian Railway carries a heavy burden of fixed interest charges. Road transport has no direct burden, except a substantial sum paid for licences. Consideration might be given to merging the capital value of the permanent way and buildings with the capital value of the highways in a common account, served by a levy rn the tonnage carried by rail and road, after a substantial allowance for the community value of transport services which should be borne by the State.
It is desirable that there should be a central co-ordinating authority for all forms of transport, representative of all interests concerned, and with a secretary appointed by the Government, who should be charged with trade development as well as transport, the two being closely linked.
This committee should be responsible for road and river transport public policy, and administer the permanent way, highways and rivers fund, which should be established.
• Excessive Transport Legislation Decried. •
Further regulation of transport offers no satisfactory solution, and can have as its purpose merely the raising of the general level of transport costs hitherto favourable to trade in a country like Nigeria.
The safeguards against this tendency are: .(1) the right of the trader to carry his own goods in his own vehicles, (2) the right of the trader -to carry his own goods in his own ships, (3) the existence of road motor competition. These exert a formidable check on monopoly charges and should be maintained.
He is satisfied that the future of the railways lies in their keeping. They must surrender the hope of a return to monopoly through the imposition of regulation upon their competitors, and turn to a revolutionary reorganisation of their methods of operating traffic. This will involve the relaxation of many regulations which the railways throughout the world must observe to-day: