LONDON'S TRANSPORT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20823, 16 March 1931, Page 9

LONDON'S TRANSPORT.

BILL BEFORE COMMONS.

CO-ORDINATION OF CONTROL.

STRONG CRITICISM AROUSED.

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received March 15, 5.5 p.m.)

LONDON,March 14,

It is estimated that a combined capital of £130,000,000 is represented in the transport undertakings (including the London underground and other 'metropolitan railways, tramways, buses and Thames steamboats), which under the bill presented to Parliament by the Minister of Transport, Mr. Herbert Morrison, it is proposed to co-ordinate under a Ltndon passenger transport board to be appointed by the Minister.

The measure provides that the board which would govern London traffic within a radius of 25 miles of Charing Cross, should have power to secure an adequate and properly co-ordinated system of passenger transport; to abandon the tramways, subject to the approval of the Minister and the provision of alternative facilities; to improve the facilities for avoiding an unnecessary competitive service; to acquire other transport undertakings in addition to those transferred to it; to provide new road services; to exercise, by arrangement with the London County Council, the licence possessed by the council; and to run steamboat services on the Thames within the limits of the county of London.

The bill is described outside Labour circles as undiluted socialism. It is believed in -Conservative quarters that the Government's policy now is directed toward working up a case against the House of Lords by producing measures of a character which that House is known to be most likely to reject. The Daily Telegraph says the bill not merely provides for the co-ordination and control of London transport which for a long time has been admitted to be necessary, but for the vesting in a single authority of the ownership of all London's tube railways, buses, trams, steamboats and railways. The paper says the measure is camouflaged nationalisation.