TRANSPORT

Waipa Post, Volume 43, Issue 3354, 29 September 1931, Page 6

TRANSPORT

AND HUMAN HABITS. "In this book we have the story of . transport throughout the ages, from the Ark to the Aquitania, presented as a pageant from the standpoint of the impressario. The author has succeeded in giving us a book of absorbing general interest," says Sir Josiah Stamp in an introduction to " The Pagean of Transport Through the Ages," by W. H. Boulton. "If history repeats itself," adds Sir Josiah Stamp, "circumstances change. For instance, the following sentences have a distinctly modern ring:

"' The progress of itelleet, with all deference to those who believe in it, is not quite so obvious as the progress of mechanics now everybody goes everywhere: —going for the sake of going, and rejoicing in the rapidity with which they accomplish nothing. Strenuous idleness drives us on the wings of steam in boats and trains, seeking the art of enjoying life, which, after all, is in the regulation of the mind, and not in the whisking about of the body.'

"No doubt they would have appealed to the Jeremiahs of the time when

" King Solomon drew merchandise Because of his desire For peacocks, apes, and ivory From Tarshish unto Tyre," and fall sweetly on the ears of -.the kill-joy of to-day. , As a matter of fact, they were written in 1856, or tweny-six years after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

"Then, as now, a new and improved mode of transport had changed the habits of the people. Then, as now, the new form had prospered at the expense of the old. But there the similarity ends. History has repeated itself, but circumstances have changed. The railway companies provided their own roads, at .their own expense. To-day, impoverished by the war, they have to meet the competition of the motor car using roads provided by the State. The result is chaos. The solution is co-ordination. " What form co-ordination should take is a problem at present receiving the closest attention of the Government and the immediate interests concerned. Some form of public control should receive the franchise of all members of the community; they should obtain a clear view of the whole question by a study of 'The Pageant of Transport.'" "We have arrived at an interesting stage," says Mr Boulton, the author, "in the affairs of men; the age is an age of transport. Much must happen in the future, but we may rest assured that by good-will and determination the problems of the present day will be adequately solved.

" Transport is a very live subject; it will continue to serve the community and the individual, doing its very best for our necessities, and also for our luxuries. So far as a historian may venture to foretell the future, two things stand out as essential in the well-being of transport, and therefore of the nation. "The first is co-ordination. In some ways this is ebing effected, slowly it may be, but nevertheless surely. Road, rail, sea, and air transport agencies are gradually being drawn together, and this is all to the good. The second thing is an evenhanded treatment of all parties by the State.

" This is by no means easy, for the whole subject is extremely complicated and full of difficulies; yet it can be done —it must be done, for all forms of transport are needed, for transpor is the circulaory system of the bodypolitic, and is just as essential to it as the circulatory system is to the body of every human being, for, just as ' the blood is the life,' so ransport is the life of the community."