TRAFFIC IN LONDON.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18441, 6 December 1929, Page 12

TRAFFIC IN LONDON.

UNIFICATION OF SERVICES. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, December 3. Great interest has been aroused by the announcement made in the House of Commons by the Transport Minister, Mr H. Morrison, that the Government is to draft a scheme for the unification of all London traffic services under public ownership. Details of the proposals are keenly awaited, but they are not likely to be available for some time, as the subject is to be explored at once by the Transport Ministry with all the interests concerned in the London traffic services, including municipalities. Mr Morrison, in his statement, said that the Government agreed with the conclusions reached by the Traffic Advisory Committee that uneconomic and unnecessary competition should b» eliminated, and that a far-reaching measure of unification under public control is essential to progress. The Government believes “the ends in view could be fully achieved and the public interest fully safeguarded only if the existing financial interests arc consolidated by the substitution or a single and a simple form of public ownership for the complicated work of separate interests, private and municipal, which now adds so greatly to the difficulties of the situation.” In some, political quarters the view is taken that the Government contemplates creating a public body on ihe lines of the Port of London Authority to co-ordinate and control the urrious passenger services; in others it is assumed that the creation of a public body that would buy out the existing passenger (tramway, omnibus, and tube railway), services is intended.

Comment in the Press and by r raffle experts is reserved, pending further details.