The "Co-ops." Want Best of Both Worlds
Page 37
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PEAKING at the annual meeting of 5J the Scottish Co-operative Transport Association, in Glasgow, Mr. C. W. Fulker, secretary of the Parliamentary Committee of the Co-operative Union, suggested improvements that should be effected in Britain's transport with the co-ordination of rail and road services by the British Transport Commission.
Whereas few railways in the world now operated at a profit, he said, road transport operators were gaining handsome yields, because the railways were being left to handle goods that provided little remuneration. It was obvious that future policy would take the line of joint control of road and rail transport,
so that the present unfair competition" would be adjusted.
One trend of the future would be to encourage traders to send goods by rail in bulk, and Mr. Fulker suggested that the Co-operative movement might emulate a private manufacturing company which chartered special overnight trains, and then distributed goods from railheads by road vehicles. It was important for the Co-operative movement to retain the right of running its own vehicles and carrying its own goods, if only for enforcing efficiency upon the railways and nationalized road services.