§ Captain FRASEREarly this week I gave notice that I would call attention to the question which has arisen in relation to omnibus traffic in London, because that matter is causing grave concern to the proprietors of a large number of motor omnibuses, to their employés, and, more important still, to the travelling public. The Labour Government in 1924 passed a Traffic Act for London which sought to get over some of the difficulties which had arisen owing to the large number of omnibuses which had congregated upon the streets and were causing a degree of congestion. I believe that Members of my party supported that Bill, and, as a result, it became law without very much controversy. I am very sorry that support was given to it without considering some of the possible difficulties which might have arisen, and which in fact have arisen, and I fancy, from what I have been able to gather, that many hon. Members sup parted it not dreaming for one moment that it would be used, as it has been used, in one instance for example, to bolster up a tramway service. The main object of that Act was, I take it, to relieve congestion, but I want initially to deal with this question of congestion and try to show that the Minister of Transport, by the orders and regulations which he has made, may be acting in a way which is contrary to the public interest in his desire to relieve congestion.
I suggest that congestion should lie relieved mainly because it impedes people in getting about their business. It makes it difficult for men and women to get to and from their offices, and if it reaches a stage such as that which it reached when this Act was contemplated, then it is up to the Minister of Trans port to do something to relieve it, but he must he very careful, I suggest, lest the method which he adopts for relieving congestion does not, in fact, make it infinitely more difficult for people to get to and from their places of business and to move around the Metropolis. The 2446 suggestion has been made that there are too many omnibuses in London, and the Minister has had a Regulation framed, which has begun to come into force, which has for its object the removing of 600 omnibuses from the streets of London. The Minister states that there are alternative services which are available when these omnibuses have been removed. As a matter of fact, the alternative services to which he refers are tramways, and I suggest that you are not leaving the public adequate facilities unless the alternative service does three things. The first is that they run across the same route as the service which you are taking off or restricting, and in that connection there are actual cases, where restrictions have been made, where on omnibus began a journey before the tram track started, ran along the tram track, and then continued after the tram track had stopped. To take the omnibus away and then to argue that an adequate service is left because the tram is there is, I suggest, rather a difficult position to maintain. Nor is it a true alternative service unless it travels as frequently as the one which you are restricting, and, unless the price is the same, and I understand that, not only in some Of those eases where restrictions are now made, but in many other parts of London, the independent omnibuses, at least, are able to make profits, charging lower fares than do the trams and even lower fares than the Combine, so that I suggest that a great many persons who have to travel about London may be very embarrassed and very inconvenienced by the attempt which the Minister is making to reduce congestion.
If congestion holds up men or women and makes it difficult for them to get where they want to get quickly, it is much worse to have an inadequate facility which will not get them there at all, and there are, I am informed, many omnibus routes which cannot conceivably be supplied by tramways as an alternative. It has been made plain to this House that a. very large number of people in various parts of London, and more especially in the North and North-West, are fearful that, if omnibuses arc taken off, they will find the facilities which are left inadequate. I am not discussing for the moment whether they do or do not want to travel on the trams which are there; I am only 2447 trying to point out that very often the trams are not there, and that these people will find it more difficult to get about their business, so that, on the question of congestion, I am bound to ask the Minister of Labour if he will reconsider the restrictions and regulation's which he has made. I cannot feel convinced, and I know that very large numbers of people in London are not convinced, that he is rendering the people a public service by the action which he has taken.
But congestion is not the only reason which is put forward for these restrictions. In a White Paper which has been issued it is frankly and plainly stated that a very important reason why these restrictions on the numbers of omnibuses have to be made is that the Minister conceives it to be his public duty to make solvent a system of tramways which is unable to stand the strain of competition and probably, otherwise, might go out of business. It seems to me that too frequently it is becoming the function of the Government to make insolvent businesses solvent, and this is only another example. The statement is made quite frankly in this White Paper that certain tramway services might go out of business, to the great detriment of the public welfare, if the Minister were not to protect them by removing the competition which independent and other omnibuses are putting up against them. I suggest that for any Government Department to take such a course is curious, but for a Conservative Minister to take such a course, which involves scrapping an organisation which pays in order to enable one which does not pay to continue, is quite difficult to understand. I cannot help feeling that a very large number of those people not only complain of, but, because they fear inconvenience as a result of these restrictions, are also astonished at, the action which is contemplated, on the ground which I have just suggested.
The conclusion to which I have come is that there is no justification in the public interest for reducing facilities for travelling overground. There are many ways in which congestion in the streets can be relieved. The police authorities are doing a great deal towards relieving congestion by better organisation. If they were to devote a little lees time to pestering owner-drivers and a little more 2448 time to regulating traffic, they might do much more than they have done, but I would say that, so far as my own observation is concerned, some of the journeys one has to take are very much quicker since they have busied themselves so thoughtfully and taken so much trouble as they have done to improve traffic by various schemes of administrative action. More can be done in that direction, and there are many ways in which congestion can he relieved, such as by street widenings and by limiting, perhaps, horse traffic to some extent, without taking away from the ordinary man and woman who have to get to and from their work, very often with the utmost difficulty, the omnibuses which are their means of transport, which they like best, and which are most convenient to them. The point which I have made relates solely to this question that I am trying to put before the Minister of the reduction in the numbers of omnibuses. I have advocated and urged that there is no justification for his reducing these omnibuses at all, and that he would do much better were he to restrict them to the present number and not make further reductions.
3.0 P.M.
There is a further reason why I feel that it may not be in the public interest for the Minister to reduce the omnibuses at the present time. Constant development is going on in housing on the fringes of London, and that mobile form of transport, the omnibus. is going more and more to find paying, routes which run direct from places where people live to places where they want to work. It is the most suitable form of transport for that particular service, and if now he prejudices the interests of a fair number of independent proprietors, they will not he in business to provide that development which London will need when housing schemes on the fringes of London develop, as they must develop. It cannot be in the interests of the London public that this young business, which is capable of growing and spreading when the time comes, should be, so to speak, killed in its infancy. But if the Minister, in spite of the feeling of the public in London, contends that he must reduce the number by 600, I, then, am obliged to complain very strongly against the way in which the Minister is seeking to reduce the number. In the White Paper, to which 2449 I have referred, it is stated that the proposal is to reduce these omnibuses in the proportion of two from the London General Omnibus Company and its associated companies, and one from the independent proprietors, and in this White Paper there are arguments which seek to show that that is a fair arrangement.
As far as I can understand, the only argument to justify that basis is something on these lines: The London General Omnibus Company and its associated companies sent a number of omnibuses to the War, and they were promised that, after the War, they should be allowed to make up their fleet to its pre-War complement. I do not know whether the Combine was paid for the use of those omnibuses, but I can scarcely imagine it was not. I do not think there are many precedents for services, which should be voluntarily rendered by persons and companies to the State in times of emergency, being made conditional. The independent omnibus owners and their men, who, I am glad to know, are mainly ex-service men, did not extort promises before they gave their services, and I cannot feel there was, in fact, very sound justification for making this promise to the Combine. My object is not in any seine to overthrow the promise. I am going to try to show that the suggestion I am about to make to the Minister will leave the promise fulfilled. But even if the promise were made, and is to be fulfilled, or has been fulfilled, I would suggest that the conditions which have now arisen of congestion and difficulty, which we must meet in some way or another, are conditions which were not in the mind of the Home Secretary who gave this promise in the War. The conditions have arisen through altered circumstances, and I do not see how any promise can remain binding on the community in perpetuity when circumstances alter, and when at the time the promise matured, namely, the signing of the Armistice and a year or two afterwards, the promise was, in fact, fulfilled. Therefore, there would be every justification for reducing the Combine omnibuses below the number which was involved in that promise, but this is not necessary.
The facts are that, after the War, when a certain time had elapsed, the Combine had replaced the full complement of its 2450 fleet. Others began to come into the field, and the Combine increased its number of omnibuses in order to try to freeze these new competitors out. The result, according to the statement made by the Minister, in answer to a question I put to him early this week, is that the number of omnibuses which the London General Omnibus Company and its associated companies had was something over 1,000 more last July, I think it was, than was necessary to bring it up to its pre-War complement, which was the subject of this promise. If the whole 600 omnibuses were taken from the fleet of the Combine, it would still leave the Combine with that promise fulfilled, and I cannot see that the promise can be any conceivable reason for basing the proportion quite arbitrarily at two to one. It seems to me that promise was fulfilled and finished with, and now a new set of circumstances arises, and we find that the proportion of Combine omnibuses to independent omnibuses is as eight to one. I suggest that no other basis for cutting, if there must be cutting, is a fair one than eight to one, and I would ask the Minister if he would not reconsider the very arbitrary figure he has chosen, and which his Advisory Committee and he have sought to justify by arguments, taking us back to War time promises, which were fulfilled long before this difficulty arose and the Traffic Act was passed.
I know the Minister will say he has a very strong and an influential Advisory Committee, and that it is unanimous. I know that members of the Advisory Committee, if they have stayed here, will say I am pleading for a special interest, and that I have ignored the problem which was set them of curing some of the difficulties from which London traffic was suffering. The Minister, I am sure, will not want to shelter behind the Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee may well devote the whole of its time, and probably should, to trying to cure this traffic difficulty, and it may advise the Minister what it thinks is the best way to do it. But the Minister cannot confine himself to such a narrow term of reference. He cannot be concerned solely with the very narrow question of how to relieve traffic congestion in London, and he cannot accept recommendations which are based solely upon that narrow field of inquiry. He must 2451 have regard to the public policy. He must have regard to the feelings in and outside the House, and I suggest he must have regard to Conservative principles. I cannot help feeling that the action which is being taken to strengthen the Combine—I do not say that was its object, but that is its effect — and to secure more control for his Department, is contrary to the principle to which the majority of his supporters adhere, and to which they would desire, if possible, that he should adhere. Rather would they see him support the private enterprise of the smaller man who stakes all he has got in his business, who runs it more efficiently, who gives the public a better service, and a service at lower fares.
I hope very much that the Minister will find it possible to allay a very great deal of dissatisfaction which exists in the minds of the travelling public in regard to this matter, and will, at the same time, prevent the possibility, which is getting nearer and nearer, of the Combine in London traffic becoming absolute. Any inconvenience which may be suffered by making alterations in the scheme which he has so elaborately prepared, will be nothing in comparison with the inconvenience and inefficiency which may arise, and to which the public will be subjected, if the Combine and the monopoly really become absolute The one protection which the community has from the possibility that this Combine should become absolute either in the hands of private enterprise or in the hands of the State, is that small men shall, to the largest possible extent, be able to compete, and use their own initiative to serve the public and keep down the fares.
§ Mr. COUPERI beg to call your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that there is not a quorum present.
§ Mr. SPEAKERThere was an honourable understanding that the House was not to be counted out on this Motion.
§ Mr. MAXTONI do not want to interfere with your suggestion on this matter, but it seems to me to be rather a serious matter that an honourable understanding of this nature should suspend, as it were, the Standing Order of this House. I am asking you, Sir, if you are not abrogating 2452 the rule of this House that allows any Member to call attention to the fact that 40 Members are not present?
§ Mr. SPEAKERIt was in the interests of Private Members, and at the request of Private Members, that the Government undertook, so far as they could, not to allow the House to be counted out on this Adjournment Motion, so that Members might have an opportunity of bringing forward their grievances. It is quite true that this is a departure on my part, but it is in the interests of back-bench Members, and I would ask that Members should not move that the House be counted out.
§ Mr. COUPERIf you wish it, Sir, I desire to withdraw my Motion.
§ Sir HARRY BRITTAINI will promise that the House will not be kept more than a few minutes by what I have to say.
§ Mr. COUPERI wish to ask you, Mr. Speaker, if it is in Order for an hon. Member on the other side to say in regard to my request, "Have I been put up to it by the Combine "?
§ Mr. SPEAKERI did not hear any such remark. If such an expression was used, it was very improper.
§ Mr. COUPERThe hon. Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) addressed that remark to me.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI hope the hon. Member for Argyllshire will withdraw that suggestion.
§ Mr. MACQUISTENI merely asked who put the hon. Member up to it, and if that remark offended the hon. Member, I withdraw it.
§ Mr. COUPERThe words were, "Did the Combine put you up to that." I desire an apology here and now.
§ Captain FRASERI think that the hon. Member for Argyllshire said jokingly, "Who put you up to that"? I followed with the remark, "Was it the Combine"? If that caused offence to the hon. Member, I withdraw it.
§ Sir H. BRITTAINI would like to endorse almost everything the hon. and gallant Member for North St. Pancras (Captain Fraser) has said. In making any criticism of the London Traffic Advisory Committee, one must appreciate the enormous difficulty they have had to 2453 contend against in attempting to deal with one of the most complicated traffic systems it the greatest city of the world. I do not propose to cover the general question which has been so adequately covered already, but I would like to say a word or two with regard to my own district, that is the West side of London in Middlesex. We are naturally more interested in our own part of the world than in any other part. With regard to trains, I have no doubt that in many parts of the country and of London they serve a good purpose. They can take away larger loads of people than any other kind of transport, but Middlesex and the Acton district have a bad tram system. The trams are I am told dirty, badly looked after, and run on an extremely uneven track.
§ Mr. KIRKWOODWhere is that?
§ Sir H. BRITTAINIt is in the most important constituency in England. People in that part of London have formed the "omnibus habit." We have a first-rate service of excellent clean omnibuses which run to time. I know I speak for the great majority when I say that they prefer to travel in the omnibuses rather than in the trams. There is no question of overcrowding in these streets. I have looked into this matter since first it was mooted in the House, and I am sure that the type of men who are running these independent omnibuses is exactly the type that the Minister of Transport would like to support. They are as good a type of individuals, who believe in individual enterprise, as it would be possible to find anywhere. I do not want to stress the suggestion that nearly all of them are ex-service men, because I readily agree that the men who run the trams and the great majority of those engaged in transport work are also ex-service men, but they are men who have had the pluck to invest their money, in some cases their all, in their omnibuses, and if their living is taken away, it means for many of them absolute ruin. There is so much feeling on the matter in my constituency that the Mayor and Corporation of Acton have pasted a resolution asking me to do all I possibly can to keep this service on the roads.
I would refer specially to Route 526, which has proved an absolute God-send to people in that part of London. It runs 2454 north from Acton before it swings back later into London. This part of Middlesex is one of the most rapidly growing districts in London. It was formerly an open space. It is said that 15 years ago partridges were shot there; now it is covered by factories. A rapid and regular omnibus service is of great value to the people there. I understand from the Minister of Transport that this particular route is being reduced, and that an eight minutes' regular service is to be turned into a 30 minutes' service. I am assured by the men running the service—and it is self-evident—that it is perfectly impossible to make that route pay and these men must go under. They will lose their business and those who have been well served by the omnibuses will have to resort to different forms of travel to cover the same ground, for there is no one line of trams or omnibuses which covers the route now covered by these omnibuses. I realise to the full the difficulties that the Minister is under with regard to London's traffic, but I do urge him to do all he can for this part of the world, and for this great and rapidly-growing community on the West side of London. We create, with the exception of Coventry, more motor business than any other division of the Kingdom, so that we arc very good to him. We do not ask anything unfair. We ask for the right to have the best form of travelling facilities which can be given to this largely inhabited district.
§ Colonel APPLINI need not assure the House that I shall not keep them for more than a few moments, but I wish to associate myself very strongly with what both the hon. Members who have preceded me have said, and to point out that I am not speaking for a mere hundred thousand or so of people who are living in my own district. I am speaking for literally millions of the inhabitants of Greater London, when I say that if the private omnibuses are taken off in favour of the Combine, and if the Combine is allowed, as it is doing, to buy up the private omnibuses, then all I can say is that when that is accomplished the travelling public will lose their greatest facilities for travel. Before the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Transport finally decides this question perhaps he will consider some of the points that have been put forward, 2455 not on behalf of the owners of the omnibuses, but the travelling public who demand and require these omnibuses for their use. It may be that if the proposals put forward are carried out we shall render the streets possibly a little less congested, but we shall render literally millions of people uncomfortable by depriving them of a cheap means of travel.
§ The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Colonel Ashley) rose—
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe hon. and learned Gentleman has exhausted his right to speak, as he has already spoken on the Motion before the House.
§ Mr. MACQUISTENNo, Sir.
§ Mr. SPEAKERYes, the Motion before the House is, "That this House do now adjourn." The hon. Member has spoken to that.
§ Colonel ASHLEYI am prepared to give way to the hon. and learned Gentleman.
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Argyllshire may, by leave of the House, speak again.
§ Mr. MACQUISTENI am much obliged for that kindness and courtesy. I have spoken on the matter of the taxis, and this is omnibuses. I thought they were different, but when I come to the House I find they are the same. The fares are different! However, the position of this matter, I think, is to be found in the White Paper, page 6, where the Minister of Transport tells us:
Immediately prior to the War the London General Omnibus Company and its associate companies had a virtual monopoly of omnibus services in the Metropolitan Police area, and at this time, so far as operation on tramway routes was concerned, at any rate on the routes operated by those tramway undertakings in which the combine were interested, omnibuses were only run as supplementary and complementary to the tramways.The Combine had created nearly a, monopoly. After the War a number of men set up independent omnibuses, and, of course, that might occasionally congest the streets.
§ Mr. MAXTONThat is private enterprise.
§ Mr. MACQUISTENYes, private enterprise. I am in favour of the small enterprise, but not of monopoly. I am not blaming the Combine for the action they took as a Combine, by which ultimately the private people should disappear, but this sort of thing means monopoly ultimately, and the public have to pay in the long run. Having created a certain situation the Combine were the very people who complained about it. They got terribly concerned about the overcrowded streets of London, and this after had put on thousands of vehicles. If the matter had been left to the ordinary economic laws you would have got the Combine losing so much money with their extra omnibuses that they would have taken them off. They deliberately created the situation, which shows how occasionally you can get capital and labour to work hand in hand putting their heads together for the purpose of arranging a matter.
The extraordinary situation created reminds one of nothing so much as what happens sometimes in a South American Republic. It would appear that the tubes and the district railways do not, or did not, pay, and that really unless omnibuses were there to assist the tubes that a very large amount of money would be lost and the tubes would have to be shut down. The air in the tubes is stuffy—ask any of those engaged there. It is much the same here, but that is the fault of hon. Members for making speeches. The Traffic Committee seems to think they have a right to interfere and that the Combine must be made a paying concern. I have a great respect for the Combine, and for the ability with which it has been managed, they do extraordinarily well, but there are alterations they might make in the means of access to the tube platforms, so that nobody has to take a single step. The escalators terrify all the middle-aged people who go down them.
§ Mr. B. SMITHOn a point of Order. Are we discussing the Traffic Act and omnibuses, or tubes and escalators?
§ Mr. SPEAKERWe certainly must not discuss an Act of Parliament; we must discuss only the Minister's administration under the Act.
§ Mr. MACQUISTENThe administration is directed to making the Combine and all its enterprises solvent; they are sacrificing these small omnibuses, these independent omnibuses in the pursuit of that object. There has been nothing like it since Robespierre, in his particular game of dividing everything all round, discovered that there were too many French people for each of them to get any substantial sum, and so determined to exterminate two-thirds of them in of order that there might be something to divide up. In the same way the Minister of Transport, along with the Traffic Committee, has decided that he has to set the Combine on its feet, and instead of telling the Combine to go and buy the in men out in a respectable fashion, he is taking these omnibuses off the road.
The Transport Act ought not to be administered in this partial and unjust fashion. The Minister has no right to use it as an economic weapon, and that is what it is being used as. Hon. Members can read all about it in the Report of the Committee. There it is shown how the different enterprises pay. [An How. MEMBER: "And he is chairman of the Anti-Socialist Union."] Yes, that is the extraordinary thing. It just shows how, when we "get down to brass tacks," even the chairman of the Anti-Socialist Union seems to wander away into what I may call Socialistic tactics. It is the most extraordinary thing I have seen. Millions of people concur in what I am saying—we have had a petition from a million and a-half people—and the whole public of London are wondering what has gone wrong with the Imperial Parliament that it should commit such an injustice and allow the public interest to be so grossly and crudely sacrificed.
§ Colonel ASHLEYsometimes wonder why the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire. (Mr. Macquisten) shows such great interest in London traffic. If he had attacked me for not giving him enough money for his rural roads in Argyllshire, or for the building of a pier in some out of the way village in his constituency, I could understand it; but. I cannot understand why he has made a sort of speciality of the London traffic question almost to the exclusion of many hon. Members who are more intimately concerned with it. But be that as it may; every hon. Member has 2458 a right to talk on any subject in this House, and I do not in the least complain of his having brought forward this question. May I say to the House at once, and 1 am sure that in this I am speaking on behalf of the London Traffic Advisory Committee as well, that none of us like this job? It is most distasteful to us to have to take away licences from anybody, particularly from men who, in the desire to make an honest living, have, in some cases, sunk their all in this particular form of enterprise and are making an honest living at it.
I would, however, ask hon. Members to put themselves in the position of the Minister and of his advisers. The London Traffic Act is on the Statute Book and the Minister and his advisory committee have got to work it; that is their statutory duty, and they cannot shirk it. It was put on the Statute Book in order, among other things, that the Minister should do what he could to relieve the congestion in this great city, and that, consistently with the public interest, he should see that all the various means of transport have a chance of living together, and so help in the solution of the difficulty of getting the mass of the working people to and from their work in the morning and evening. It sounds an obvious thing to say, but I think hon. Members have forgotten, that if there be congestion the only way to reduce it is to limit the number of vehicles on the street. We cannot do it in any other possible way.
§ Sir H. BRITTAINTake off the horses.
§ Mr. MACQUISTENIt will cure itself, if you leave it alone.
§ Colonel ASHLEYWhen it is remembered that something like 4,000 mechanically-propelled vehicles are coming upon the roads of the country every week, I am afraid it is not likely to cure itself, but is more likely to get much worse.
§ Mr. MACQUISTENLimit private motor cars.
§ Colonel ASHLEYI will not say that is impossible—perhaps private motorists will have to be interfered with in no distant future; it may well come. But the attention of the Ministry of Transport was drawn first of all to the omnibuses because they are mentioned in the Act, and it was my duty, and the duty 2459 of the Traffic Advisory Committee who advise me, to take action in this direction—not only to reduce the traffic congestion, that is important, but, further—I am not the least ashamed of it—in order that the trains of this great metropolis may continue to exist. As a motorist I do not like trains, they get in my way, they are a nuisance to me, but it is obvious to anybody who has studied this question for five minutes, that it would be physically impossible to get the working people to and from work unless the trams of the metropolis were allowed to exist. Under present conditions they cannot exist. Privately-owned tramways are verging on bankruptcy, and I am informed that unless something is done at once some of them will actually cease to function. Then where will be your workmen's fares? There will be no workmen's fares at all. Unless something is done, the amount of money which the ratepayers of London have to find for the London County Council tramways will rise from £250,000 to, probably, £500,000 or £750,000 in two or three years. It these trams go out of the picture, who is going to pay for the upkeep of the roads for which they now find the money—the upkeep of the track and 18 inches of road on each side of it? The ratepayers. If they go out of the picture, who is going to make up the rates on their equipment and buildings? The ratepayers. I put it to the House that it is not such a simple thing to leave things alone.
§ Captain FRASERMay I ask whether the ratepayers really have anything to do with the matter in this case, seeing that the trams affected belong to private companies associated with the combine?
§ Colonel ASHLEYI am afraid the hon. and gallant Member is, to a large extent, misinformed. May I tell him what is the position of the trains? £28,000,000 is sunk in trams in the Metropolitan area. Of that £28,000,000, £17,000,000 represents the amount sunk by the London County Council.
§ Captain FRASERI am well aware of that. But the point is that the trams with which the independent omnibus proprietors are competing are not council trams. Those which are immediately concerned are trains associated with the combine.
§ Colonel ASHLEYHad the hon. and gallant Member allowed me to finish my sentence, I should have come to that. £17,000,000 has been put into the tramway system of London by the London County Council, about £5,000,000 has been put in by various borough councils and the other £5,000,000 has been found by private enterprise. It is quite true, as the hon. and gallant Member says, that in the Uxbridge Road the trams are privately owned, but it is a pure chance that the first order concerns private tramways There is £28,000,000 sterling sunk in the trams of London, and, on the other hand, only £7,000,000 sunk in omnibuses. I am advised, not only by my technical advisers, but by the Advisory Committee that if the trams cease to function the people cannot get to their daily work. That is something which must override all other considerations. I listened to the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for North St. Pancras (Captain Fraser) with great pleasure. His point was that it was unfair to withdraw these omnibuses in the proportion of two owned by the London General Omnibus Company and its associated companies to one owned by the independent companies, and he argued that the proportion should be more like nine to one.
I may say on this matter that I was guided by the advice of the Traffic Advisory Committee, which consists of a number of very able representative gentlemen. They unanimously came to the conclusion that the date of 1923 should be taken as the datum line on which the decrease should be made, and they fixed the proportion of the reduction at two to one. The reason they gave seems to me to be an irresistible one. They said that at that date the London General Omnibus Company had got hack to its pre-War strength, and that the decrease should lie based on the increase since that date. On this basis the decrease worked out in the proportion of two to one. Hon. Members who have spoken in this Debate do not seem to have appreciated the logic of the situation and the arguments which induced the Traffic Advisory Committee to come to that decision. The difficulties seem to have been exaggerated through a want of knowledge of the actual situation. May I point out that there are some 5,000 motor omnibuses in London, 2461 and not more than about 600 or 700 will be taken off in all over a period of two years.
Of course I do not bind myself to 600 or 700, but. I am trying to give a picture of the problem with which we are faced. If you take the proportion at two to one, that means 400 taken off the Combine and its associated companies and some 200 by the other proprietors. I put it to the House that no great injustice can arise if the London General Omnibus Company, through its activities outside the metropolis, is able to absorb the men taken off certain areas, and if about 180 or 200 of the omnibuses owned by the rest. of the companies are taken off during the next two years. I am not a hard-hearted man, nor are the members of the Advisory Committee, and we ate doing our best to help these men. We have suggested that should be a compensation fund and 80 per cent. of those interested have already consented to come into it. It seems to me that we are largely responsible for the trouble which has arisen because when we considered this matter in March last year we were too soft-hearted. We are now doing all we can to find alternative routes for these men. After all it is only a small matter, but we shall continue to do our best, and I think hon. Members will find that in the end very little injustice will really be done. I ran promise that as far as the Committee and myself are concerned, we will give unremitting attention to this matter, and try and help the men all we can.