Dam Busters
Page 83
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Utica' Commentary By JANUS
' HERE is a good deal of truth in the neat jibe coined by the Minister of Transport that the Socialists would have done a good deal better when they were in power hey had worried more about modernization and less ut nationalization. In the years immediately after the , far too much time was wasted in reorganizing indus ■ from above instead of giving them the means to ■ rm themselves from within. Because the argument s the Government, there is a danger of pushing it too especially when it is applied to the special case of the 'sport industry.
Ir. Watkinson has the railways particularly in mind. has carried to a point from which there can be no easy back a policy of providing substantial sums of money the double object of bringing the railways up to date of bridging their yawning annual deficits until the itable years return. On this matter the Labour Party e no desire to thwart the Minister, and have allowed the nsport (Borrowing Powers) Bill to pass through all its es without opposition.
The Scapegoat
hey realize, as well as Mr. Watkinson, however, what a he is taking. If his gallant attempt is a failure, they to be in a position to lay the blame on him or on his y. They are claiming that the task of the British Trans, Commission, formidable in any circumstances, is made ler if not impossible by the action of the Conservatives eturning to free enterprise part of the profitable road lage section, and, perhaps, also in giving greater autoiy to the railway regions.
is to forestall this kind of criticism that the Minister is .11ing what, as the years pass, seems the increasingly odd of priorities laid down by the first post-war Labour r ernment. Road operators are bound to agree with him I of the way. The danger is that the argument can be I to promote a railway legend. The public may be .e than turned against the theory of nationalization eh, in any event, they have largely rejected already. y may come to believe that Socialist policy frustrated eat railway revival.
he B.T.C., while delicately steering clear of politics, are averse to spreading the legend. They say with truth the railways were used more extensively during the than ever before or since, in spite of which there was possibility of renewing equipment or track, and the plus revenue went to the Government. The railway em nationalized by the 1947 Transport Act, was :ribed even by the Socialists who took it over as a or bag of assets." The modernization plan has provided railways with the first opportunity of self-improvement they have had for many decades.
(hat is easily forgotten is that the railways were in a no e unfortunate position than most other industries, uding road transport. There was no road building ing the war, and very little after the war until, within past year or so, the expanded road programme has in to take effect. Vehicles for civilian use were scarce Jar-time and made to a strict austerity pattern.
eace did not bring an immediate flow of supplies, and shortages were emphasized by the Labour Governit's policy of retaining an elaborate system of controls. instructive to note at what points the system failed to k, for these places indicate where public demand was ng enough to break through the efforts made to dam it.
From the point of view of Socialist austerity, the railways were a model industry. They carried less traffic from year to year, particularly after being nationalized, and their replacement programme for rolling stock was extremely modest. The Government were able to control the railways more closely than an independent undertaking, but there is no reason to suppose that more wagons and carriages would have been put on to the rails if the railways had escaped nationalization. In a time of general scarcity, there was no overwhelming outcry for a more up-to-date railway system.
The story is different for road vehicles, in spite of Labour's deliberate policy. Their Economic Survey for 1947 called for strict controls on certain industries. "It is desirable," said the survey, "that the expansion of the labour force engaged in transport, distribution and consumers' services should, as far as possible, be limited." This principle was given more definite and statistical form in the survey for the following year.
A sympathetic account of the difficulties of the railways was followed by the statement that authority had been given for the production in 1948 of 600 locomotives, 48,000 wagons and 1,000 coaches. It was reported, on the other hand, that substantial increases had already been made in the national fleet of goods vehicles. "The sale of new vehicles on the home market," said the 1948 survey, "which was at the rate of 100,000 a year at the end of 1947, will be reduced to about 50,000 vehicles during 1948."
In fact, the railways did not increase their stock to anything like the extent permitted. For 1948 the figures were 410 locomotives, 1,339 coaches and 40,814 wagons, and they were no higher for the following two years. The goods vehicle statistics were nothing like so amenable. There were 85,000 supplied to the home market in 1948, as against the 50,000 categorically laid down in that year's survey. A reduction during 1949 was said to be "necessary."
Sighs of Relief
The survey for 1950 stated without qualification that " the goods vehicle fleet is now numerically sufficient to meet the country's basic needs," but at the same time admitted that vehicles were being delivered to home users at "an annual rate of well over 100,000." Somewhdt pathetically, the report for the following year clung to the relics of control, maintaining that there "is to be " a fall in home supplies of commercial vehicles from 105,000 to 80,000. One may imagine the relief with which the subject was subsequently abandoned in the annual surveys, no doubt following the change of government.
The moral seems to be that, if trade and industry need something sufficiently badly, they will get it even in a time of shortage when the government specifically deny that the need exists. Had there been a demand for rail facilities as Mrong as the need for road transport, it is certain that the Socialists would have been compelled to allow the B.T.C. to buy equipment to meet the demand. There would have been no question of cutting down the allocation to the railways, as actually happened between 1948 and 1951.
In times of comparative prosperity, there is not the same compulsion to follow the harsh laws of supply and demand. The Conservatives have thought it worth the risk to indulge in what the Socialists, when they were in power, might have thought the unwarranted extravagance of lending the railways nearly f2,000m., in the hope that there may be a turn of the tide somewhere round about 1962.