TRANSPORT, GLASGOW. (Hansard, 1 April 1926)

§ Mr. BUCHANAN
I wish to raise the question of omnibus congestion in Glasgow, and would like to ask a few questions with regard to the situation in that city. I want the Minister of Transport to consider the position in Glasgow in order to see if something ear not be done at an early date. The position there is becoming very serious. I understand that last week a deputation approached the Minister of Trans-pot t on this question. That deputation consisted of certain representatives of the Magistrates of Glasgow, together with the general manager of the tramways. I understand that a very distinguished servant of the Ministry, Sir Henry Maybury, is considering this matter. I want to urge upon the right 2462 hon. Gentleman the urgency of this problem in Glasgow. The capital of Glasgow people has been invested in tramways to the extent of about £6,500,000. We provide a cheap service of trams and in the situation which has arisen that service is in great danger.
There is another thing I am even more anxious about than that, and it is the alarming increase in regard to the fatalities connected with children in the Glasgow streets. The figures were given recently by the town clerk. In the east end of Glasgow the child death-rate in connection with omnibuses and the general traffic is alarming, in fact it is worse in Glasgow than in London because the streets are much narrower in Glasgow. The result is that the consequences are much more serious. Apart from the problem of the ratepayers' money being sunk in these municipal tramway enterprises, we have to consider the appalling death rate arising from accidents owing to the mad and reckless competition which exists in Glasgow between the trams and the omnibuses. I hope that the Minister will urgently take this matter up and deal with the problem of the Glasgow streets. It is one of the most acute problems arising at the moment and is tending to become worse every day. One of the tragic features is that Glasgow needs to build houses fact, and that the faster Glasgow provides houses, the greater and the more terrible is the congestion and the fatalities in the centre of our city. The moment we build a new suburb, new omnibuses are put on to ply on that very route, and, therefore, cause tremendous congestion. I do not know Sir Henry Maybury, but I understand he is held in high regard by large numbers of my Labour colleagues in Glasgow. I hope that he, along with the Minister will apply their minds to this problem and get something done.
The men who own the omnibuses employ a good deal of female labour, and. youths' labour. They pay any kind of wage, and employ their workpeople under any kind of conditions, making them work shocking hours in some cases, and they are therefore competing with the trains under most unfair conditions. That is an aspect which I hope will he considered, but the main question is to see if something cannot be done to 2463 mitigate in our Glasgow streets the terrible fatalities which are increasing. In Glasgow parents dread to send their children out to cross any of the main streets. I am not exaggerating when I say that. The school children in the east end of the city are very badly hit in that way. Hon. Members who defend private enterprise will know that what I am saying in regard to fatalities is true. I hope the Minister and his officials will use their capacity and their knowledge to solve the problem.

§ Mr. KIRKWOOD
I raised this question of the omnibuses plying on the streets of Glasgow about eight months ago with the Secretary of State for Scotland. At that time I appealed to the right hon. Gentleman, who is also the Minister of Transport in Scotland, and I told him that if any accident happened in the Tollcross Road I would impeach him at the Bar of the House of Commons for the murder of anyone who was killed. Since that time there have been about a dozen people killed on that road by those omnibuses, plying between Hamilton, Motherwell, Lanark and the other Lanarkshire towns outside Glasgow. I pointed out at that time that there were 45 different companies all competing for the traffic of the City of Glasgow, in addition to the tramways. In the Toll-cross road a fortnight after I raised the matter, there were two little children killed, I am not exaggerating when I say that there have been a dozen people killed since I raised the question. Nothing has been done; they are still going on. What my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) has said is perfectly true.
When I was going to the recent by-election, in which we lashed the Tories from Dan to Beersheba, and returned my colleague here with a 6,000 majority, I travelled in an omnibus which was stopped by the police. The driver was 19 and the conductor was a boy of 14, so that they would be paid according to their age. The proprietors are running these omnibuses on cheap labour, and those two boys would not have got as much as a man's wage. This is a very serious matter, and the trouble has been increasing the whole of the winter. The tramway department in Glasgow has been widening that road right out to 2464 Uddingston, and that made it worse for traffic. These omnibuses are flying at 20 and 30 miles an hour along that road. I would appeal to the Minister of Transport to see if something cannot be done. Certainly, we shall have to do something to raise it in some other form, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals has stated, parents are afraid to send their children down on to the main streets. In my own case we dread sending our children on a message to the Tollcross Road because it means crossing the road; my wife would not send them. My mother, who is 80 years of age, has to cross that road to go to the Kirk. Everyone of us has a dread of that road. It is all because of private enterprise. The Glasgow Corporation is handicapped, because its Tramway Department has to maintain the road 18 inches on either side of the rails and has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on doing so. Again; the Tramway Department are building a new bridge and going to all that expense. Yet those omnibuses pay nothing. Of course, they pay a petrol tax—

§ Colonel ASHLEY
They pay £84 a year.

§ Mr. BUCHANAN
I understand that that £84 is paid to the Road Fund. Does any proportion at all come back to the streets and roads within the City of Glasgow? I believe that none of it comes back, and it is therefore perfectly true for my hon. Friend to say that they pay nothing.

§ Mr. KIRKWOOD
The Minister, in saying that they paid so much, inferred that it came back to the streets of Glasgow.

§ Colonel ASHLEY
I think the hon. Member is not quite fair to me. He said they paid nothing. and I simply remarked that they had to pay £84.

§ Mr. MACQUISTEN
They are on pneumatic tyres, and will not wear the streets much.

§ Mr. KIRKWOOD
My hon. Friend says they are on pneumatic tyres. I know most of them are on rubber tyres The hon. Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) does not know much about it, although he may have got money in- 2465 vested in the motor car industry. I was telling the House how the tramway department in Glasgow was handicapped as against this motor traction transport method, because the Glasgow tramway has a tremendously heavy upkeep on the roads and the motors have not that heavy upkeep. I hope the Minister will go into this, because it is a very serious business, and we have several schools right on the main road. On three or four different occasions children have been killed since I raised this on the Floor of the House. Unless something is done the inhabitants will have to take drastic action themselves to safeguard those little children who are placed in such jeopardy with there cars flying past them.

§ Mr. MAXTON
I should have liked to call attention to the very bad transport facilities there are in Argyllshire and the West of Scotland. If the Minister has not visited that part of the country it is a pleasure he has to look forward to. Perhaps my hon. and learned Friend would give him an opportunity in one of his election campaigns to see in what very bad condition the roads are and how very few the facilities are.

§ Mr. MACQUISTEN
I have made representations over and over again to the Minister, so far without any definite result. I shall be very glad if the hon. Member will assist me.

§ Mr. MAXTON
There is ample opportunity for private enterprise. The hon. Member need not wait for the Minister, or even for the General Omnibus Company, to operate. He is in close and intimate touch with many private omnibus owners, and he can point out the great mileage there is for anyone with courage, initiative and a small amount of capital, and there are some of the most interesting and exciting roads that any motorist could possibly desire. I should have liked to cal attention to that matter, but really I think it is quite unfair to the few Members who are left in the House, but more particularly to the many officials, humble and important, who have been on duty for practically two days, that we should be discussing minor things of this description, and therefore I will not call attention to the lark of transport facility in Argyllshire.

§ Colonel ASHLEY
Perhaps, by the leave of the House, I may say one sentence as a matter of courtesy to the hon. Members. A deputation did come from the Corporation of Glasgow last week, and laid their views before me, and I understand that they are coming again to put forward their considered opinion at no distant date. What they asked would, apart from whether it is good or bad, require legislation, and I must say that the trouble I have had over London traffic, and the grey hairs that have appeared in my head in connection with it, do not encourage me very much to accede to Glasgow's request; but Cie hon. Members may rely upon me, when the deputation comes again, to listen most attentively to what they have to say.

§ Mr. JOHNSTON
Will the right hon. Gentleman say why it is that, in speaking of this offer which he has made to receive a deputation from Glasgow, he does not add that he would be equally willing to receive the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) as a deputation representing that great county? We have just heard from the hon. and learned Member that he has made repeated appeals in vain—that he has endeavoured to soften the hard heart of the Minister of Transport, but has failed. Is not to-day, when we have got the Minister in a chastened and softened mood, the time for the hon. and learned Member to repeat his appeal, and to use his opportunities for getting in and endeavouring to tack himself on to the Glasgow Corporation deputation?

§ Mr. BUCHANAN
May I ask the Minister, as we are interested, as Members of Parliament, in this Glasgow matter, when we shall get to know his ideas as to what is to be done?

§ Colonel ASHLEY
I do not think I can give any real idea to the hon. Member. It depends so much upon what I hear when the deputation comes again. Perhaps he will communicate with me privately.