The Press SATURDAY, JULY 26, 1947. British Railways

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25246, 26 July 1947, Page 8

The Press SATURDAY, JULY 26, 1947. British Railways

The estimate that Britain’s railways will run at a loss of £37,000,000 this year and £28,000,000 next year leaves out of account, as the Minister of Transport told the House of

Commons, the possible effect of recent recommendations approving higher wages and reduced hours for railwaymen. The Treasury must stand such losses, though the railways are not yet nationalised, because the war-time agreement between the Government and the companies is still in effect. When the Transport Bill is enacted, it will supersede this agreement but leave the fact the same. The Treasury, and behind the Treasury the taxpayer, will cover deficits in the railway account. Mr Barnes’s figures, which the excluded factor will increase, therefore indicate that Labour’s nationalisation plans and those who develop and administer them will face an early and severe test. The problem of rail transport policy is that of raising to the highest efficiency the rail section of the national transport system, which is crucially important in the British industrial structure. The Commons debate on the bill disclosed, disturbingly, that the Government was legislating without a transport plan, was not always able to interpret significant clauses clearly or consistently, and was inclined to regard nationalisation as a formula sure to work, since the Minister of Transport would be responsible for making it work and would have plenty of power to make it work.

In this last respect, especially, the progress of the bill through the House of Lords has had great interest. When it passed its third reading, a week ago, Lord Addison, for the Government, acknowledged that, in spite of “ certain blemishes ” imparted to it by the Opposition majority, it was " a greatly improved “ measure ” —remarkable praise, after the hubbub caused by the Government’s many defeats and after Lord Addison’s own stronglyworded protests. It remained to be seen, when the House of Commons again turned to the amended bill, which amendments the Government would excise as “ blemishes ”, which it would retain, and on which' it would now be ready to compromise. The hope that the Lore’s would be found to have moved the

Government to act on second thoughts about the bill instead of on its first, angry impulse to deal with a gang of wreckers centred on those amendments in which the Lords sought to counter or restrain the Government’s desire to rely heavily on Ministerial powers. The bill, for example, setting up a Transport Commission to be generally responsible for policy and the co-ordination of rail, road,

London, and (partly) water transport , within it, also establishes a series of executives, one for each branch of transport; and the bill as it passed the Commons gave the nomination of the executives to the Minister. The

Lords, taking the sound view that those who lay down policy should choose the agents to carry it out, transferred this power from the Minister to the commission. Second, the bill as it passed the Commons gave the Minister very wide power to issue policy directions to the commission; the Lords carried an amendment, restraining him from issuing any which would prevent the commission from making the nationalised system pay its way. The Government resisted this amendment tenaciously, arguing that it was superfluous, since it is already laid down that, taking one year with another, the commission is’to ensure the receipt qf revenues “ not less than “sufficient” to meet all fairly chargeable expenditure. It is obvious, however, that the use of unlimited Ministerial power in the field of policy could drive the commission into an impossible position. If the Minister’s orders were going to increase the charges on the system without evenly raising its capacity

to bear them, the commission would have no choice but to raise transport rates uneconomically. These two, with other important amendments made by the Peers, have however been torn out again by the Commons, as is reported this morning. The Minister is to retain his large directive powers, though they may be used, as the “Economist” said, for purposes non-economic or

uneconomic, “ unrelated to the effici“ency of the transport system as “ a whole ”. The Lords’ amendment would have enabled Parliament to intervene with effect, in such an event; its removal brings back the threat of disastrous confusion in policy. Also, writing back into the bill the Minister’s power to appoint the executives, the Government has insisted that it is more important to arm the Minister to act as he thinks best than to confirm the commission in a defined responsibility, and that the risk of exposing the commis-

sion to interference from above and indifference or obstruction from below is not worth bothering about. On the other hand, the Government agreed, in the Lords, to let the commission be enlarged, as was very necessary; and administrative practice may avoid perils implicit in the measure. If it does, that will not justify the mistake of keeping them there. It is not to be supposed that the Lords, having done their duty and done it well, will now exceed it by defying the reconsidered and re-expressed intentions of the Commons. A measure which, for better or for worse, will give a strong impetus to the British economy is now in its final form. The impetus will soon be measurable; for an amendment accepted by the Government directs the commission to prepare “ charge schemes for all forms “of transport” within two years.