THE RAILWAY BILLS IN COMMITTEE.
Page 56
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The Conclusion of the Case for the Promoters and the Opening of the Case for the Opposition.
pRESSURE of space in our Special Municipal Number prevented us from dealing with the proceedings before the Standing Joint Committee of the two Houses of Parliament on the railway application for extended road powers and we propose to deal on this page with the proceedings for the past fortnight.
Ths assistant general manager of the Great Western Railway admitted in cross-examination that the company had recently reduced its charge for the carriage of milk, because milk was being carried by road in special glasslined tanks or containers, and unless the company had done something it would have lost traffic. On a 3,000-gallon tank the reduction in rate by rail was as much as 331 per cent. With regard to the carriage of sugar beet, his company wanted the power to carry it straight from field to factory. He admitted that there was no provision in the Bill to prevent the railway companies from refusing to carry the goods of the farmer to the station when he wished to send them by rail, should the farmer not give the railway the whole of his traffic by road.
An important undertaking from this witness was that all restriction; applying to privately owned motor vehicles in respect of the use of bridges should apply to the railway company's own vehicles.
Mr. It. H. Selbie, general manager of the Metropolitan Railway, gave evidence on many points and said that the loss of passenger traffic from which his company had suffered had been on short routes Where there was omnibus competition and not on long-distances where such competition did not exist. Be described the tramways in London as inefficient and out of date. They were doomed, he said, but could not be abolished at present because they carried a vast number of people. The fare charges on the tram1 ways were 'far, too low and quite uneconomic.
He asserted that whilst the railways did not intend to run redundant services, they themselves would be the judges of what was a redundant service: He said that the area his company intended to serve under the new road powers was four to five miles on either side of the railway.
One of the arguments in the evidence of Mr. Byrom, the chief general superintendent of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, was, whilst the railways had no intention of creating a transport monopoly, and could not do so even if they had any such intention, a virtual monopoly on road services was growing up, a large part of the motor omnibus .services being controlled by two groups, the British Electric Traction Co. and the London General Omnibus Co., which were in working association. The bus services which bad grown up all over the area covered by the L.M. and S. Railway were tantamount to a fifth railway group not contemplated by the Railways Act. However, he would not agree that the road transport companies had obtained so predominant a Position that additional services would be redundant. The railway companies would not accept that situation; in fact, he said, they would not accept it anywhere.
Dealing With the question of omnibus competition, Mr. Byrom said that he was looking forward not to a fight, but to to-ordination which would best serve the public interest.
Members of the Committee suggested to the witness that fares could be put up if agreements were made between the railways and the road companies, so that. a virtual monopoly on transport would be set up in any area, and Cannel Ferry, on the West Coast of Scotland, was given as'an instance of the effect of monopoly, where the railway company for a toll over a short bridge charged 2d. for a foot passenger, 105. for a motorcar, and even as much as 2s. for a sheep. Here there wag a complete monopoly, and the witness was asked if he considered that the company was behaving reasonably to the public, a question which he evaded.
Mr. Ballantyne, the chief goods manager of the L.M. and S. Railway, was the last witness for the promoters of the Bills.
The case for the petitioners against the Bills was opened on Monday of last week by Mr. Tyldersley Jones, K.C., who spoke on behalf of the London and Provincial Omnibus Owners' Association. . B38
In the course of his speech he said that, whilst they could sympathize with the railway companies in the loss of revenue, the remedy they were now seeking was not the right one. The internal-combustion engine had come into daily use within the past 25 years and the question was under whose auspices it was to be developed. That was at the bottom of the whole thing.
In the past the railway companies bad been empowered to provide certain road facilities, but they did not provide them because their interests were adverse to road transport. The railway companies had not received powers to run any kind of transport services except such as were necessary for the working of their lines and throughout they had been kept within Parliamentary limitations. They were transport dom. panics only within specially defined limits.
He contended that if coal, in the carriage of which there was no road competition, were excluded, the goods traffic of • the railway companies in 1927 was greater than that of 1923.
The amount of passenger traffic abstracted from the railways by the private motor vehicle was underestimated by the railway companies, whilst that abstracted by public service vehicles was subsequently overestimated. Cheapness or travelling in the open air was the motive with people who travelled long distances in coaches and this class of traffic would not be affected if the Bills were passed. It was unthinkable that people should be compelled to travel by railway when a less expensive and more convenient method was available.
Mr. S. E. Gareke, examined by Mr. F. J. Wrottesley, K.C., said that the association represented almost all the undertakings which were providing regular bus services in Great Britain. It was' estimated that the number of busmiles run by them annually was over 400,000,000, there being about 10,600 buses. Statistics returned by 45 of the larger associated companies showed that during 1927 they carried 634,876,739 passengers. Competition by the railway companies would seriously affect this business.
The effect of the omnibus on the railways had been grossly exaggerated. He had no doubt that the chief competitor of the railways was not the omnibus but the private car, 'which was also a serious competitor with the buses themselves. Generally speaking, bus passengers were shortdistance riders, 94 per cents of the tickets issued being for 6d or less, at the rate of a little over a penny a mile.
A Brighton Road Census.
To illustrate the cdnepetition of the private car, witness gave the results of observations that had been taken on the London-Brighton road on a Wednesday and a Sunday recently. These showed that on the Wednesday 71.2 per cent, of the passengers passing a given spot were carried by private motorcar and motorcycle, 9.7 per cent, by omnibus, and 14.4 per cent, by chars-a-hence. On the Sunday, passengers carried by private car and motorcycle were 83.7 per cent., by omnibus 3-2 per cent., and by chars-A-bancs 6.9 per cent.
He said that the margin of net profit earned by the bus companies was so narrow that, if they lost one passenger in ten, there would be no return on the capital invested. Competition on the part of the railways would mean that neither party would make a penny-piece. He did not quite understand what was meant by co-ordination. It was , possible for a lot to be done in the way of co-operation between the railways and the road transport associations, but he did not see how it could benefit either the railwerys or the Public for the railways to come on to the roads and duplicate services. It was not possible to put the railways and the present omnibuses on equal terms in road transport competition. The railways had the advantage of the control of the rails and, if they made a loss on their buses equal to the profit made by the existing bus companies, it would amount to only one-twentieth of one per cent, on the capital invested in the railway companies. The latter could afford to go on making many times thet loss for an indefinite period. Be claimed that his association gave an efficient road trankport service and had opened up villages and routes which formerly had no means of transport except the horse ahd trap.