“UNDILUTED SOCIALISM!”

Stratford Evening Post, Volume I, Issue 82, 16 March 1931, Page 5

“UNDILUTED SOCIALISM!”

LONDON TRANSPORT BILL LABOUR GOVERNMENT’S PLAN CO-ORDINATION OF SERVICES AN ATTACK ON THE LORDS? % TMIGBY. March 14. Tt is estimated that. £130.000,000 capital is represented in the transport undertakings, including the London underground and other metropolitan railways, tramways, buses and Thames steamboats which, according to a Bill presented to Parliament by the Transport Minister CMr Herbert Morrison 1 are to be co-ordinated under a London Passenger Transport Board to be appointed by the Minister. The Bill provides that, the Board, which will govern London traffic within a radius of 25 miles of Charing Gross, shall have power to secure adequate property to co-ordinate the system of passenger transport; to abandon the. tramways subject to (he approval of the Minister and to make provision for alternative facilities; to improve facilities for avoiding unnecessary competitive services; to acquire other transport undertakings in addition to those transferred to to provide new road services; and to exercise bv arrangement with London Gonntv Council the license possessed by the council to run steamboat services on the Thames within the limits of the conntv of London. The Transport. Bill is described oneside Labour circles as undiluted socialism. Tt is believed in Conservative miarters that Government policy is now directed towards working up a case against the House of Lords and producing measures of a character which the Lords are known to be most likely to reject. The Daily Telegraph savs: Ihe Bill not merelv provides for co-ordina-tion of control of London transport, which is long admitted to be neeessarv, but provides for investing in a single authority the ownership of all London s tubes, buses, trams, steamboats and railways. The Bill is camouflaged nationalisation.