'Compensation for Nationalization
Page 25
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APARTICULARLY interesting lead ing article on transport nationalization was published in 'The Financial Times" of November 2. It points out that it is tolerably certain that the Bill for the nationalization of internal transport will be introduced within a few months, and that it has been suggested that the total compensation payable will be in the region of £1,000,000,000.
This would have to cover the railways, canals, road passenger-transport undertakings, and long-distance road haulage. It compares this sum with the nominal capitalization of the railways alons, which is £1,143,000,000. The railways' own estimate of the assets replacement value of their concerns is approximately the sum of £2,000,000,000.
If an appeal were made to arbitration and an increase were to be achieved, the total might be raised to, say, 0,250,000,000. It must be remembered, too, that as a result of the Chancellor's cheap-money policy, it seems highly unlikely that the compensation stock would bear even 3 per cent. It would probably be 2+ per cent., and might be reduced later to 21 per cent.
These views of this important financial paper show clearly that road-transport operators are not only in grave danger of losing their businesses, but the amount that they are likely to obtain for them will be only a tithe of their real value,