Railways and Roads
TN considering the present controversy between the -11- railway companies and those who speak for the roads it is necessary above all things to remember that there is room, and indeed an essential need, for both railways and roads. They ought to be perfect partners.
The railways have been going through a bad time and during it the traffic of the roads has profited at their expense. The semi-collapse of the railways has been due to several causes, of which the chief is, of course, the great increase in the cost of running and maintaining them. The railways, however, have undoubtedly also suffered from the post-War concentration and recon- struction which has not as yet been worked out completely. They have lost their old sense of allegiance. This phase of groping and fumbling will no doubt pass in time into a new and larger consciousness of allegiance.
In order to understand what must be the feelings of the railway staffs during the transition one may make use of a simple analogy from the Army and Navy. In the Army the regiment means everything to the officer. His esprit de corps is an esprit of the regiment. In the Navy, on the other hand, there is an esprit of the whole Service, for an officer is frequently moved from ship to ship. He may and does identify himself with a par- ticular ship while he is serving in it, but his criterion of competence and pride must necessarily be that of the Service as a whole. If an Army officer were suddenly transferred to naval conditions he would be utterly lost till he had assimilated the new code, the new ideas, the new atmosphere. So it is with railway staffs who find their company transmuted into a group organization. But nothing is more certain than that the railways will win through in the end unless we are to suppose that British industrial life is going to fail altogether.
What is required is a thorough co-ordination of the transport work of the railways and that of the roads. If this all-important principle is lost sight of in the dust- storm of controversy the railways may gain a little over the roads, or the roads may gain a little over the railways, but British industry and the British public will suffer. Keen controversy over the Bills which the railway companies are promoting in Parliament is, indeed, inevitable, but it is the duty of everybody who understands what is at stake to try to make the controversy constructive.
The railway companies, which are statutory bodies, have, of course, to apply for Parliamentary permission to enlarge the scope of their enterprises. In the early days they bought up most of the canals and it is said that they condemned them to uselessness in order to put a rival out of action. We shall not enter into that historical incident but shall merely mention—in order to accept it—the working doctrine that it is right and necessary for the railways to invade spheres which are not strictly part of the business of running a railway when such invasions are necessary for their efficiency. Thus the railway Companies run steamers, own hotels and to a certain extent already own road traffic. The Bills which are now coming before Parliament aim in brief at making the railway companies free of the roads. The companies point out, justly as we think, that they are at present bound by limitations which prevent them earning as much money as they might. As the Railways Act of 1921 limits the distribution of profits by the companies and stipulates that all excess of profits shall go to the reduction of charges to the public it is clearly to the public advantage that the railways should prosper. But how can they prosper, the companies ask, when private enterprise on the roads, unfairly exercised, eats into their earnings ?
The argument of unfairness is based on the fact that the taxation of the railway companies goes partly to the support of the roads which the companies are not allowed to use for transporting goods and passengers. The companies argue, in fine, that they are condemned to look on with their hands tied while they suffer losses from successful competition, and that all the time they are in effect subsidizing their successful competitors. They do not ask (they are careful to say) for any privilege over the private undertakings on the roads. They merely ask for equity. They demand that they shall be allowed to trade on the roads on the same conditions as other people.
Those who oppose the proposals of the railway companies say that what the companies are really aiming at is a monopoly. They believe that the com- panies will open a rate-cutting campaign and that having killed most of the private motor transport enter.
prises they will raise their charges, both by road and rail. The answer of the companies is that the powers of the Ministry of Transport, and the obligation on the Railways Tribunal to protect the standard revenue, will absolutely prevent uneconomic rates being accepted. Rate-cutting prices could be put into force only if it were possible to make up temporary losses on the road out of the general railway revenue. But that would be impossible because it would not be lawful. Even if a rate-cutting campaign on the roads were feasible (the railway companies go on to argue) higher rates could not be the sequel because the railway Bills provide a regular machinery for appeal. If the railway companies get leave to use the roads they will have to conduct their services under certain statutory restrictions that do not apply to any private undertaking.
Another criticism is that the railway companies want to invade the roads merely to save their position because they have frightened traders away from the railways by unnecessarily high freights. This is a subject on which we are unable to judge, but we have no reason to doubt the word of the railway companies that although a reduction of freights pays in some cases there are a great many cases, and those the most important, in which a reduction has been tried with wretched results. If the Jeremiahs are right and the roads, owing to the grant of new powers to the railway companies, should become impossibly congested, surely the result would be a " back to the railways " movement: Perhaps only by trial and error shall we be able to attain the proper economic equilibrium between railways and roads.
The ideal is that long-distance haulage should be done by the railways and short-distance haulage by motor power on the roads. There is no true comparison between the extinction of the canals and the predicted extinction of private motor enterprises on the roads, for the ownership of canals represented a vast capital, whereas on the roads the small trader could always put up a gallant competition.
Nobody wants to see the railways given privileges less than we do. All we desire is a common-sense solution of a problem which touches at every point the life of British industry. If the safeguards for the public in the railway Bills are inadequate they must be strengthened.
But the one clear thing is that there is a great future for the co-ordination of railway and road services, and that anyone who approaches the problem in other than a national spirit will serve his country very badly.
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