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That Parrot Again
Page 43
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DR. RICHARD BEECHING'S first annual report and accounts for the British Transport Commission are the 14th in the series. Any hope that they might have been substantially different is squashed. And the net result is that, despite thumping big surpluses from all the road activities, the year's loss is again a record; it was £122m., as compared with £1.01m. in 1960. British Railways lost £87m. If the Pakistan cricketers currently touring this country could achieve similar totals, in runs, they would undoubtedly be in transports of delight. But then, they only have five days at most in which to try for their runs; Dr. Beeching's Commission has 365 and a bonus day on every fourth outing in which to lose their millions.
The Pakistanis are much more gallant losers, too, than Dr. Beeching, who merely gives vent to the same old parrot-cry heard virtually every year. "The growth of C-licensed goods transport," and the well-known horror-struck throwing up of the hands and the coy invitation to "nonnationalized public inland carriers of goods" (independent hauliers, to you) to come and join the outcry against this.
Whatever hauliers think, they can take care of themselves in any competition with C-licensed transport. They don't want to join the bandwagon. And what do C-licensees, who give Dr. Beeching the odd job or two each year, think about the non-stop parrot-cry?