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GANGING UP
Page 87
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COMMENTARY by JANUS
ASSUMING that the Government's Transport Bill becomes law and is implemented, Dr. Beeching is likely to put his name to no moce than two annual reports from the British Transport Commission. The second will cover the current year and will end with the dissolution of the Commission, at least in name. The first, for 1961, has just been issued, and despite its general resemblance to its predecessors, bears ample evidence of Dr. Beeching's ideas and personality.
His assessment of the situation and his plans for the future are set out confidently in the first chapter. The studies that he inaugurated into various aspects of the transport problem are still not complete, but he seems to be in no doubt about what ought to be done. As he sees it, the main difficulties of the railways have arisen from the maintenance of the comprehensive service that was economically possible in the days of monopoly, but that ought not still to be expected now that there is powerful competition from road transport. The railways ought to concentrate on the work they can do best, which includes long-distance passenger traffic, coal traffic, mineral traffic, and commuter services around London and a few other large centres of population.
PLAINLY, although the report does.not stress the point, such a policy must mean cutting down the railways to a size more in keeping with their present status. This inevitable consequence of Dr. Beeching's plan explains why the trade unions concerned, departing from their usual practice, judged it necessary to comment on the report at the time it was published. What they had to say was not particularly relevant. The general secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, for example, criticized the threat of increased fares, and expressed sympathy with the commuter, who would be compelled to pay whether he liked • it or not. What was more significant, perhaps, was that Mr. Sidney Greene thought it appropriate to make any statement at all.
• He may possibly have been giving effect to a recommendation from his union's negotiating committee that public support should be sought to oppose the present policy of the B.T.C., in particular the contention that the railways must be operated as a commercial enterprise. A properly integrated transport system was the only way to solve Britain's transport problems, said the committee, who called for immediate negotiation on such things as redundancy and compensation, and expressed their opposition to changes or elimination of standard practices which resulted in violation or the breaking down of national agreements.
The union's official organ, the Railway Review, has gone further. An article in the current issue suggests action by the Government to compel trade and industry to use the railways. "The expansion of road transport never was good sense from the national interest point of view," says the article. "The stage is rapidly being reached where a serious cut-back in road haulage will have to be made. And it's no good relying on Voluntary measures."
It is clear from the context that the reference to road haulage is intended to include the C licence holder. The comment in the Railway Review may therefore be linked with the customary attack on the trader's own vehicles that
is to be found in the B.T.C. report. The growth of C licensed fleets of heavy vehicles is described as the most important continuing influence on public inland carriers of goods, whether nationalized or not." On the page facing this comment is the usual graph showing that, between 1952 and 1961, the vehicles of hauliers increased by about 15 per cent., C licensed vehicles up to 2+ tons by about 40 per cent., but C licensed vehicles over 21 tons by about 80 per cent., while there was a decline of about 15 per cent. in the number of railway wagons.
THE report explains in more than the customary detail why C licensed competition is such a major problem. Inevitably, it is pointed out, the rates charged by public carriers contain an element of averaging. Operators have to accept the rough with the smooth. "The continuous erosion of the easier transits by transfer to C licence
vehicles necessarily raises their average costs." Further, says the report, "when trade falls off the reduction in traffic usually falls mainly on the public carriers."
Earlier reports from the B.T.C., it is worth noting, have contented themselves with a reference to the continued increase in C licensed vehicles and its inevitable effect in
intensifying competition. The suggestion has not previously been made that the competition is also unfair.
There is no doubt that trade and industry should take this seriously. Dr. Beeching is dedicated to making the railways pay. He is not likely, to be deterred by his industrial links. The jibes from the unions that he is taking too narrow a view of his problem are oddly beside the point. The evidence is, on the contrary, that he is trying to see the problem in as wide a setting as possible.
LEGISLATION is already helping him come to grips with many of the restrictions and obligations that are alleged to have hampered the railways unfairly in their efforts to compete. If Dr. Beeching believes that the right or the privilege (according to the way one looks at it) of the C licence holder comes into the same category, he will almost certainly try to do something about it. His influence is considerable. He was appointed by the Government, and to a large extent his fortunes will affect theirs. Moreover, there is little likelihood that a 'proposal to restrict the right of the trader to carry his own traffic would provoke any opposition from the Labour Party, whatever effect it might have on the Liberals.
Above all, the unions would welcome it. As we have seen, they are more or less putting forward the idea themselves. On many other points they are building up a situation where there will be a head-on collision with Dr. Beeching. In the maneetivres that follow it might be found a considerable advantage to have at least one point in common. The possible consequences should be enough to warn the trader of the continuing need to protect his rights. He cannot be unmoved at the prospect of a joint attack on him by the B.T.C. and the unions, each of them reluctantly sponsored or openly backed by one of the two main political parties.