ROAD AND RAIL TRAFFIC BILL.

HC Deb 03 May 1933 vol 277 cc851-977

Order for Second Reading read.

3.31 p.m.

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Oliver Stanley)

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Hon. Members who look at the Short Title of this Bill will see that it is described as the Road and Rail Traffic Bill. I prefer that description very much to one which has grown into common use during the course of the last year, namely, Road versus Rail. That last phase gives one the impression of a combat in which the only interest of this House and of the Government can be to succour one of the combatants, to lift the flagging arm of the vanquished and to restrain the ardour of the victor; and that the most and the best that we can look for is a victorious result for one or other of the fighters. I conceive the interest of this House to be quite different; to be unconcerned with the success or failure of either of the two great protagonists in this struggle, and that it has as its only and ultimate object the provision for the people of this country of the best and most economical form of transport which modern science and technical developments are capable of providing.

We are faced with a situation which to all of us is a new one. All of us remember, and most of us have grown accustomed to, a condition of transport monopoly. Twenty-five years ago, although it is true the railways had to face competition from coastwise traffic and canals, and were limited geographically to their areas, yet, for all practical purposes, the great railway systems of this country held a monopoly of transport. As a matter of fact, I believe that the situation which faces us to-day is not only new but unprecedented. People talk as if something of the same nature occurred nearly 100 years ago when the railways superseded the turnpike roads. But my reading of the events of that period convinces me, at any rate, that the situation then was quite different, and that whenever and wherever a railway was established between two points, its victory over competing forms of transport was immediate and complete. You never had in those days the situation that you have to-day of an equilibrium which varies from time to time between two great providers of transport. If that is the situation to-day, he would be a bold man who would prophesy that in the immediate future that situation is likely to be altered. No one but a fool would think that we could put back the clock, and that the progress which the road transport industry has made in the last few years could be wiped out by any action of ours. Equally, he would be a bold man who would prophesy that at any time within the next few years, perhaps at any time within a much longer distance than that, we could dispense entirely with the great advantages of transport which our railway system provides for us.

We have to face in the future the position that over a vast range of transport, whether of passengers or goods, the individual will have in the individual case the choice between two alternative methods of transport. By the way that choice of the individual in the individual case is decided, will be decided the waxing or the waning of these two great competing industries. No one can deny that if that indeed is the result of the choice of the individual in the individual case, if so important consequences as the decay of the railway or the growth of the road may follow that decision, then it is incumbent upon us to make certain that, at any rate, the choice which the individual is called upon to make is a fair and open one, and is not secretly vitiated by factors which prejudice its equality and induce lack of balance. I do not propose to discuss now whether in fact you will, by simply leaving this question to the individual choice of the individual, satisfactorily solve the problem and reach, by that means, a correct allocation of transport between rail and road. But, at any rate, I think we are all agreed that if and so long as individual choice remains a factor in the decision, we must see to it that that choice is fair, and therefore that the results which flow from it are not biased.

There seem to be three possible factors which may prejudice this choice of the individual. There may be a situation in which the individual's choice say of the road in preference to the rail seems justi- fled by the particular circumstances of the particular case, but where in fact there are certain factors which could not have been taken into account and which make it a wrong choice on true economic grounds. The first factor is the economic one—the possibility that there may be in the choice given between the price of the road and the price of the rail transport a concealed element of public subsidy. Possibly one of the competitors may have to pay for and, therefore, include in its price, certain services for which the public are paying in the case of the other industry and in regard to which, therefore, the other industry has to make no charge in its price to the public. That, of course, is not so much a matter with which we can deal in this Bill, though it was to deal with that potential factor that I introduced the changes in motor taxation which passed through the House yesterday. No doubt when an opportunity recurs upon the Finance Bill the House will wish to discuss that factor.

The second factor is that of restriction, the possibility that in the public interest the State is putting upon one competitor restrictions greater than are necessary in the interests of the State end upon the other competitor restrictions that are less than are necessary in the interests of the public, and in that way one of the competitors has to bear a heavier economic burden than the other is called upon to do. The third factor, and to my mind the most important, and at the same time by far the most difficult to deal with, is what I might call the factor of regularity. Hon. Members will appreciate that the principle of the railways has never been to make to the consumer of transport a charge based on the particular cost of the particular service which is being rendered to him. It has always been the practice so to arrange the whole scale of railway charges that a proper return shall be given on capital invested in railways, and the result is that the consumer of transport, whether passenger or goods, is never in fact paying for exactly what he gets. When an hon. Member opposite goes to Brighton on a Saturday in the summer, he is not really paying just for what it costs the railways to take him to Brighton at the peak of the season. He is also paying some part of what it will cost the railways to take him on the same scale of prices to Wigan in the depths of the winter. [An HON. MEMBER "Why Wigan?"] Out of compliment to the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Parkinson) opposite. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why go to Wigan anyhow?"]

The public has got used to this system, it has got used to paying at a flat rate so that the facilities for whatever it wants to do will always be available for it; but hon. Members will appreciate the difficulty that arises if a competitor comes along who is not prepared and is not going to offer to the public these general facilities, but who is going to pick and choose, and who is going to be prepared to take the hon. Member to Brighton on Saturday in the summer but is not going to be available to take him to Wigan in the winter. It is quite clear that they then will be able to charge for that journey to Brighton in the summer a sum based purely on the cost of transport at that time, end the public, faced with a choice between the charges of the two competitors, will naturally say, "How is it that, for instance, the road can quote me such a much lower rate for this than the rail?" and naturally, seeing these lower rates, will be prepared to accept them. But if that condition is dispensed with, if in fact those who are prepared to provide facilities at the bad times have to compete on level terms at the good, it is clear that in the end the public facilities will in fact he curtailed.

Captain STRICKLAND

Will the hon. Gentleman tell me—

Mr. STANLEY

I have a lot to say, and I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will allow me to continue. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will only be too glad to reply to questions at the end of the Debate. If that factor of regularity enters into the competition between rail and road, it is also a factor which will enter even more in the future into the road industry itself. There you have, as the road industry becomes more and more organised, more and more people prepared to provide regularity of service. They will require—they do require—protection against their competitors who will come in and will take from them the cream of the service by offering to the public lower facilities for those particular transactions, and they will en- danger to the consuming public the provision of the facilities which they need but which are not so attractive to the providers of transport.

For a long time it has been apparent that this problem was ripe. As far back as 1930 the Royal Commission on Transport recommended upon this as upon other aspects of the transport problem, and among their recommendations for dealing with the goods traffic problem was a system of licensing for road haulage. It is true that the actual system which they proposed was to be based only upon what one might call conditions of safety. Those who were to be responsible for the issuing of the licences were not to take into account any element of the transport problem, but the Commission did express an opinion that even this limited amount of licensing was an essential preliminary to the proper organisation of the road traffic industry, and they expressed the hope that that organisation would inevitably lead to a proper co-ordination between the road and the rail.

As hon. Members will recollect, the issue of those recommendations by the Royal Commission was followed by the appointment, by my predecessor, of what has come to be known as the Salter Conference, a committee under the chairmanship of Sir Arthur Salter, consisting of four railway representatives and four men versed in road transport problems, to consider the recommendations of the Royal Commission in so far as they affected the carriage of goods by road. There is a certain amount of misconception and, I think, a certain amount of quite misinformed criticism with regard to that Salter Conference. No one pretends for a minute that it was a delegate conference, that the four distinguished gentlemen who attended on behalf of the roads had any intention or had any authority to bind by their recommendations the providers of road transport in general. The recommendations of that conference were binding upon no one, not even binding upon the Government, and in many respects, as I shall show to-day, we have departed from them, but one cannot ignore the fact that you had there, sitting together, Sir Arthur Salter, a man whose repute it is unnecessary to emphasise to this House, four people in the railway world who can clearly answer for the railway position, and four gentlemen whose personal knowledge of and capacity in the road transport industry cannot be questioned or criticised by anyone; and whether or no the decisions of this conference were binding, they are, everyone will admit, decisions which cannot be ignored.

That Conference reached unanimity in recommending, just as did the Royal Commission on Transport, a system of licensing. The system which they proposed was a great deal more extensive than the system which met with the favour of the Royal Commission. They not only wished to include security, even as the Royal Commission, but they recommended that we should go much further in basing the issue of licences upon the availability of transport facilities and upon The over-crowded state of the roads. Therefore, we have the most recent and most authoritative investigations of the problem which I am outlining to the House, and although they differ from each other on the different points, both these sets of men after the fullest possible investigation agreed that an essential preliminary to any further co-ordination of road and rail was the institution of some system of licensing in the road industry.

Accordingly, I am in this Bill introducing a Measure which will establish a licensing system for goods vehicles on roads and provide for a measure of regulation. It will, I believe, affect those factors which I mentioned earlier in my speech in two directions. It will, of course, have no effect or little effect upon the economic factor. That was a matter for the Budget Resolution. It will, I think, have a very considerable effect upon the security factor required, because the safety conditions in this Bill differ greatly from the safety conditions which are already imposed on the road industry by previous Acts of Parliament or by regulations of the Ministry. Yet I believe that, as a result of this Bill, we shall be able to enforce those conditions in a way in which it has been impossible to enforce them up to now. [The Bill will undoubtedly have an effect on the third factor of regularity in that it will, I believe, provide within the road industry some protection for the man who is prepared to offer a regular service against the pirate who only comes to skim the cream, and will prevent some of the overcrowding in the road traffic industry which otherwise might occur.

I want to make it quite plain that this Measure, differing as it does in many respects both from the report of the Salter Conference and the report of the Royal Commission, is in no sense a compromise. It is in no sense based on a desire simply to find the least that the railways will accept and the most that the road industry is prepared to tolerate. The responsibility for these proposals must, and does, rest, upon the Government. We have had the advantage of studying these two valuable reports, and in the light of those reports we have come to our conclusions as to the method of regulation which offers the best in the national interest. Of course, hon. Members will realise that in some respects in this Bill I have gone beyond the recommendations of either of these two bodies in that I have dealt with the question of existing restrictions upon the roads. Hon. Members will realise that the possibility of excessive restrictions upon railways is just as important a factor as the possibility of too little restriction upon the roads. I should like to explain the general scheme of the Bill, and in doing so I will be as brief as possible. Hon. Members will realise that in order to be brief it will be necessary to summarise and to generalise, and that I shall have to omit a good dead of the detail which is contained in these Clauses, but my hon. and gallant Friend will be only too glad when he closes the Debate to answer any questions on points which it has been necessary for me to omit.

First, in regard to the scope of the Bill. The provisions of Part I, which deals with the whole licensing scheme, apply to goods vehicles which are used on roads for the carriage of goods for hire or reward, or the carriage of goods in connection with trade or business. That in itself is a wide definition, and will bring within the primary scope of the Bill the vast majority of goods vehicles. Hon. Members will see set out in Sub-section (5) of the first Clause the exemptions to the Bill. There is a fairly long list with which I will not trouble the House, but the basis upon which these exemptions have been arrived at is that the vehicles which are specified are not really transport problems at all, that although they might fall within the definition which I have already given as to the scope of the Bill, their primary object is not the carriage of goods by road, and therefore the regulations which we propose are not applicable to them. With those exceptions, all other motor goods vehicles which fall within the scope of the Bill will have to have a licence of one kind or another.

The licences proposed are of three kinds. There is, first, the public licence which will be necessary for the man whose business is to carry goods for hire or reward. That licence is designated throughout the Bill as an "A" licence, and it will be current for a period of two years. There is, secondly, a limited licence. That is a licence applicable to the man who for part of the time is carrying the goods of others for reward, and for part of the time is carrying his own goods. That is referred to as the "B" licence, and will have a currency of one year. Thirdly, there is the private licence applicable to the man carrying goods in connection with his own trade or business and not carrying goods for hire or reward. That is the "C" licence, and will have a currency of three years.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Sir D. Newton) will be glad to see that the word "ancillary," which gained such currency in the Salter Report, has disappeared from this Bill. The hon. Member came to me on behalf of the agricultural industry to urge its omission from any regulations that were made because he said that, although he as a representative of a university town was of course aware of the Latin derivation of this word, many of the farmers had not had the advantage, or had not thought it necessary to have the advantage, of a classical education; that was before my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture brought in his marketing schemes; the farmers would not therefore know what "ancillary" meant. Even those farmers who did understand Latin and would know the derivation of this word would be a little puzzled to understand how a farm lorry could be described as belonging to or appertaining to a housemaid.

There is always a certain provision in Bills to say that in certain cases certain words will not mean what they actually do mean. If hon. Members will look at Clause 1, Sub-section (3), they will see set out certain cases where the words "carried for hire or reward" will not mean "carried for hire or reward." In other words, cases where a person who would normally be expected to have either an "A" or a "B" licence will be entitled to have a "C" licence. These cases are three in number. There is, first, the delivery of goods which are sold in the course of a trade or business. That covers the case of the shopkeeper who sells his goods to a customer and who afterwards delivers them at the customer's house. It may be—I do not say that it is—that property in those goods passes to the customer on settlement, and that it might be strictly held that the delivery was delivery of goods to others for hire or reward. But we have covered that by this exception, and in that case the shopkeeper will be entitled to a "C" licence. Then there is the question of delivery or collection for the purpose of processing. It may be a laundry, repairing, or whatever it is, where the man who is going to carry out the processing act sends out a lorry to collect the goods from a customer and brings them in and sometimes makes a small charge for doing it. That man, too, will be entitled to a "C" licence.

Finally, there is the specific case of agriculture. I was particularly anxious that just at a time when every effort is being made to develop the co-operative marketing of agricultural goods there should be nothing in the Bill to make it more difficult or less effective for farmers to combine to get their goods to market in this way. I have accordingly provided that in certain circumstances, when the goods carried are in connection with agriculture and where they are carried for another person in the same locality, the farmer, even if he does charge a sum for their carriage, shall still be entitled to the benefit of the "C" licence. It might be convenient at this point to summarise the effect of these regulations upon the farming community. To start with, every farmer who is entitled at the present moment to claim for his agricultural vehicle exemption or advantages under the Finance Act, will be able to claim for that same vehicle complete exemption from the provisions of this Bill. Those who are unable to claim complete exemption will, in the case that I have specified, be able to claim the advantages of a "C" as compared with an "A" or "B" licence.

The licensing authority whose duty it will be to determine the applications and issue the licences will be the chairman of the Traffic Commissioners set up in each area by the 1930 Act, and as far as the Metropolitan area is concerned it will be the Commissioner. I should only weary the House if I took hon. Members step by step and Clause by Clause through the Bill. I think the preferable course is to explain exactly the steps which will be taken and the results which will accrue to the individual when he comes, under the provisions of the Bill, to apply for and obtain a licence. Let me deal first with the "A" and "B" applicants, those who want licences either for public use or for limited use. The first question naturally which they will ask themselves is, where do I make my application? The application of each of these men has to be made to the chairman of the Traffic Commissioners for that area in which their permanent base or centre is to be found. I am often told that that cannot be defined, that the case is rather like that of a tramp steamer, that it does not run as a passenger transport vehicle along well defined routes from point to point, but that in pursuit of business it may wander all over the country. But I cannot help feeling that every tramp has its home, and that however far it wanders as business dictates, somewhere or other, in some little corner of England, there is a place that every lorry can call home. Which Commissioner deals with the application will depend upon where that place is.

The particulars which the applicant will have to send in to the licensing authority, are, first of all, the number of vehicles which he wishes licensed, the description of those vehicles, and if the authority so wishes he may he called upon to supply information as to the facilities which he is prepared to provide in the locality in which he normally works. Hon. Members will realise that the use of the word "normal" is intended to cover the difficulty that no provider of road transport is able to say, "I work only in this district." Most of them will be able to say that their normal area is such and such an area. When these applications are received by the licensing authority it will be his duty to publish notice of their receipt, and he will then have to consider any objections which are made to the grant of the licence. He can either consider those objections at a public inquiry, if he thinks fit, or he can consider them in private. The people who are entitled to object to the grant of these "A" or "B" licences are other providers of transport in the same locality, and they are entitled to object on two grounds, either that there is already an excess in the facilities of transport available in the area, or else that the granting of these applications would create an excess, or that the person who is applying for the licence has already had a licence the conditions of which he has failed to comply with. These objectors will be entitled to state to the Commissioner their objection upon either of those two grounds, and in view of their objections and the explanation of the applicant it will be for the Commissioner in the exercise of his complete discretion to decide upon the granting or refusal of the application.

There is, however, one important exception to this. We have made provisions to deal with those who are providing transport at the present moment, and in their case for the first license period the licensing authority will have no such discretion. Provided that within six months after the passing of this Act they make an application to the licensing authority, they will be entitled to have a licence, "A" or "B," for the same weight of transport which they can show that they were running and in possession of on any one day in the year ended on 1st April of this year. Of course, that will ensure them two years of the same facilities. At the end of two years, at the end of the expiration of the "A" licence or "B" licence in one year, they will fall back under the common jurisdiction and be subject to the discretion of the licensing authority.

Once the licensing authority has decided to grant a licence, there are certain conditions which he must attach to every licence that he issues. There is a condition that the vehicles shall be in a fit and serviceable condition. There is a condition that the Regulations with regard to speed and loading shall be com- plied with, that the hours of drivers in the 1930 Act shall be observed, that there shall be the keeping of records in a manner which I will explain later, and that the Fair Wages Clause of the 1930 Act shall apply. Those conditions, which one might call security conditions, have to be attached to every "A" and "B" licence which is issued. But with regard to the "B" licence, that is the limited licence, the Commissioner will have power, if he so desires, to 'attach further conditions. He will not be able to attach these conditions under the provisional arrangements for those who are already providing transport, but in the ordinary course, on the expiration of that provisional period, he will be able to attach, if he desires, to a "B" licence, conditions as to user of the vehicle, as to the locality in which it is to be used, as to classes of goods which are to be carried, and any other conditions, with the one exception that he will not be entitled to attach any conditions with regard to rates. Hon. Members will realise that in so far as the "A" licence, the public licence, is concerned, the Commissioner has no power to attach conditions of use at all. He can use his discretion as to whether or not to grant the licence, but once he decides to grant that licence he is not entitled to attach any conditions as to the use, in the transport sense, to which that vehicle is to be put.

Let me say a few words upon the effect of the scheme on the "A" and "B," the public and limited categories. I will leave for the moment the question of security conditions. Our object, and I believe the object of every hon. Member, is to get some measure of co-ordination between road and rail; and to my mind co-ordination means getting the best out of competition. We have to recognise that in the present situation competition has its value. But it has also its dangers. It has its great value in that this road transport industry is still a developing industry. No one pretends for a moment that we have reached the limit of mechanical knowledge or development in this industry. No doubt competition has great value in preventing any stabilisation, any crystallisation at the present point. On the other hand, competition undoubtedly has its great dangers. The provider of transport ought, from the public point of view, to be prepared to take the rough with the smooth, to provide the facilities which are profitable and easy and desirable, and at the same time be prepared to provide the facilities which are less profitable, less desirable and more difficult to manage. The trouble is that unless you have some system where people who provide transport do take the rough with the smooth, you will have everyone taking the smooth and no one prepared to take the rough.

So I have attached—I do not disguise it—provisions to this Bill to give some advantage to the regular providers, to give the man who is prepared to offer continuous and not sporadic facilities, some advantage over the provider who just "blows in" on the chance of picking up what traffic he can at the expense, and very likely to the detriment, of the man who is prepared to provide regular facilities. Of course alternative methods of arriving at that result could have been suggested. There is nationalisation. I will say a word on that subject. perhaps, on the Amendment of hon. Members later. There, of course, my criticism will at once be that that would lead, at a time of developing industry, to complete stabilisation. There is the possibility of routeing and applying to goods vehicles some system of the same sort as has been applied to the transport industry under the Road Traffic Act. That system has, I believe, been tried in certain countries, but they are countries far less thickly populated than ours, where the centres of population are much more clearly defined and the roads between them are much fewer in number. I do not believe that a system of that kind would be possible in this country.

So we fall back upon this system of regulations. I know that some hon. Members will say that the conditions of this system will be very onerous on the road traffic industry. That is not my view. My fear is that they are going to be quite ineffective. I think there is much more danger that this system will not achieve its end than that, in achieving its end, it will place handicaps and restrictions upon the industry. The only suggestion of real hardship to the industry is in the discretion given to the Commissioner to prevent excess of facili- ties, and it certainly is surprising to me that so many hon. Members whom I have heard vociferating for the prevention of uneconomic competition in other industrial spheres should say that a similar arrangement in the sphere of road transport should be so burdensome to the industry concerned.

With regard to the "B"licence, it is true that I have imposed harder conditions than I have in the case of the "A" licence. That is because the limited carrier provides transport in its most sporadic form, with the least regularity. The transport he is prepared to supply to the public depends primarily upon his own convenience, and the charge which he is going to make to the public depends primarily upon his own costs. If a man who is a limited carrier, that is to say, uses lorries for the purpose of transporting his own goods, and at the same time is prepared to carry the goods of others in those lorries for hire and reward, wants to send a load of his own goods from, say, Birmingham to Manchester, and the lorry has to come back from Manchester to Birmingham empty, it is quite clear that the price he is prepared to accept for a return load has nothing to do with the economic cost of carrying the goods from Manchester back to Birmingham. For his own purposes he has had to send a lorry to Manchester, and sooner than that it should return empty to Birmingham it is better for him to accept anything he can get. That seems to me to be exactly the type of competition which is most unfair to the man who provides regular facilities, and which, from the point of view of the public, is least satisfactory, although at the moment it may seem to give the benefit of cheaper rates. It is the most sporadic form of transport and the least willing to meet not just this one need of the public only, but all their needs as they may arise.

To return to the gentleman who is going to make an application for a "C" or private licence. He will make it to the traffic commissioner of the area in which his principal place of business is situated. All he has to do is to send in to the commissioner particulars of the number of vehicles for which he wishes a licence. There need not be any publication of his application, there is no inquiry and no opportunity for objection. There is no discretion for the traffic commissioner to refuse a licence, except in the one circumstance of the applicant being a man who has previously held a licence which has been either revoked or suspended. Except for that one fact the commissioner has got to grant a licence, and that licence is to be available for three years. Hon. Members will appreciate that so far as the "C" licence is concerned, the system is extremely simply and the result automatic. When that licence is granted it will have attached to it all those security conditions which are obligatory on the "A" and "B" licence holders, except this one, the condition as to fair wages. It is true that the Salter Report recommended that the fair wages condition should apply to the private carrier, but that was recommended in rather a vague way, as the possibilities of its application were to be left to the Minister of Labour and myself to decide, and it is only after considerable discussion with the Ministry of Labour that I have come to the conclusion that it would be impracticable to apply this fair-wage clause to the case of the private carrier.

I came to that decision with considerable regret, because it has its obvious practical advantages. To start with, if we adopt the principle that a man who takes out upon the roads a machine which, in certain circumstances, may be dangerous to the public ought to have conditions of service which ensure that he shall only go out in a proper physical condition, then it is just as important that those conditions should be observed whether he is in the employ of a man who carries goods for others or in the employ of a man who is carrying his own goods. Secondly, it is unfair on the "A" and "B" licence holders to impose a condition of this kind on them and not impose it on people who are, in fact, their competitors, those who provide their own transport. I admit that I started with a desire, if it were practical, to extend this condition to private owners as well, as the Salter Report proposed, but I was met with what appeared to me to be insuperable practical difficulties.

First, there was the case of the small employer. Putting out of one's mind the large organised factory, where the man who drives the motor lorries is a motor driver and nothing else, and turning one's attention to the man who owns a shop or is a farmer, and runs some small lorry or van in connection with business, we find that the man who drives that lorry is not in the real sense of the word a transport driver at all. For the greater part of his time, probably, he is standing behind the counter or working in the fields. The employer says, "Bill, take out the lorry and run into market," and he does so, and when he comes back he goes out into the fields again. The difficulty there is, What is that man's employment and what fair wage conditions are to cover it. We cannot say that he is a transport worker if, with the exception of an hour or two a week, he is working in the fields or behind the counter. That type of sporadic employment would inevitably create difficulties in the small industries.

Mr. KIRKWOOD rose—

Mr. STANLEY

I think I had better get on with my speech. There is an even stronger and more formidable obstacle when we come to the bigger industries, in which the man who drives the lorry does nothing else, and can obviously be regarded as a transport worker and a transport worker only. There we have organised labour and collective bargaining. As I understand it, it has always been the general trend of collective bargaining in this country, and of trade union organisation, that it shall not be on an occupational but upon an industrial basis. The tendency has been to say, "We will bring within the scope of one agreement negotiated by one union all the people employed by the employers in a particlar industry, irrespective of the particular job they happen to be carrying out." Perhaps the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Dobbie) will correct me, but I understand, for instance, that it has always been the contention of the National Union of Railwaymen that men employed by the railway companies, even though employed to drive road vehicles, ought to be members not of the Transport Workers' Union but of one of the railway unions. I believe they have pressed that point of view, not with heat, of course, but, 1et us say, fraternally. It has been, of course, the view also of the employer, who has liked to feel that when he negotiates an agreement with one set of men it is going to cover all the people in his factory, and that he has not to deal with half a dozen different trade unions representing half a dozen different types of jobs which are being done in the factory.

What is the result if we apply to these people, by their occupation, a statutory wage protection? The wage protection given to the people who drive motor vans in those industries will, of course, be based upon an agreement negotiated by the Transport Workers' Union for transport workers. We shall then have a position where the people who happen to drive a motor vehicle for a factory, who are perhaps members of the union which covers their industry, are far more interested in what may be negotiated by another union in another industry than they are in agreements negotiated by their own union in their own industry. I should be interested to hear what hon. Members opposite have to say upon this problem during the course of the Debate, and I hope they will not just give their views showing general sympathy, such as we naturally all should feel for a proposal to ensure fair wages for a certain set of people, and not give them only from the point of view of a certain union whose interests might well be served by the application of a Clause like this, but put the view of organised labour generally as to problems of this kind. I should very much welcome information upon that point during the Debate.

Next I will say a word with regard to security conditions. Hon. Members will realise that from the very start railway companies have always had certain regulations imposed upon them which were thought to be necessary in the public interest, and therefore no one can complain that there is any lack of fairness if the same principle is applied to their competitors. In view of the terrible figures of accidents, which are more and more stirring the conscience of the country, no one can say there is any lack of necessity for the application of security conditions to the road transport industry. The first condition we impose concerns the condition of the machine itself. It is quite true that under regulations issued under the Act of 1930 a vehicle has to be in a satisfactory physical condition before it goes on the roads, but up to now that condition has been enforced by the police by means of prosecutions. Let us be perfectly frank. The police have not had the time to do it; and wherever there has been a prosecution the penalties imposed have not been worth while. If a penalty is merely a small fine, and the chances of ever being brought to prosecution are trifling, obviously it is worth a man's while to go on running his vehicle in breach of the conditions on the chance of getting off so lightly.

Under this Bill we establish a new system. We shall not demand from the vehicles to be licensed any prior certificate of fitness, as is done in the case of public service vehicles, but we shall have a body of examiners whose duty it will be to take a "spot check" of road vehicles, either on the road or in the garage, to see that, they are, in fact, complying with these conditions of fitness, and we shall, I hope, avoid a great deal of the unnecessary trouble that prosecutions would bring by giving certain powers to these examiners. They will be able to give the owner of the vehicle a specific time, up to 10 days in which he can put those defects right, or if they think that the case is so serious that the defects cannot he put right in 10 days, they can immediately prohibit the use of that vehicle on the road until the necessary repairs have been carried out. The owner of the vehicle will have the right to appeal, first of all to the certifying officer under the 1930 Act, and then to me. I would ask hon. Members to note that disregard of this condition will constitute an offence under the Bill. Penalties are provided for offences under this Bill, but in this case only have I provided imprisonment as one of the penalties. I think that hon. Members will agree with me that if a man is told that, his vehicle is dangerous and, despite that, he takes it out and risks the safety of the public, imprisonment is not too great for such an offence.

The next condition is with regard to speed limits and loading. Here, again, conditions do not differ in any way from the conditions which are now laid down by regulation. The only difference is that I hope in the future we are going to be able to enforce them; at the present we have been unable to do so. Here, again, the police have not been able to spare the time effectively to deal with this problem. I hope that a combination of the records which will be kept and the services of the examiners whom we propose to employ, will enable us to tackle the problem of vehicles that proceed at too great a speed and with an excessive load which must lead to danger to the public. Thirdly, there are the hours of driving. This, too, is laid down in the 1930 Act, but every hon. Member who has read the papers knows that, so far as the goods vehicle is concerned, that Act is an absolute dead letter. When I hear hon. Members say that it is not necessary to impose conditions of this kind because they are already in the 1930 Act, I believe that they know as well as I do that the 1930 Act, so far as this is concerned, has never been enforced, and could not be enforced. Hon. Members will realise—and this is a point with which I will deal later—that what a man has to, face now, if he deliberately sends his drivers out on journeys which must infringe the provisions of this Bill, is not merely the possibility of prosecution and a fine of some trifling sum, but the possibility of the loss of his licence and his definite exclusion from the road transport industry altogether.

Now I come to the case of keeping records. The records which will have to be kept are in regard to the driver and to the times of his work, the journeys and itinerary and the weights, descriptions and destination of goods. The Salter Report attached great importance to the keeping of these records as providing—and I believe that they were right—the only possible check for the real observance of these security conditions. These records must be kept and be available at any moment for the examiners to see and to form the basis of an inquiry. I am told that the keeping of these records is going to place a difficulty upon the owners of motor-vehicles, but I do not believe for a moment that a man who owns a motor-lorry is so helpless and so improvident as some of his supporters would have us believe. The road industry is a very different thing from what it was 15 years ago. I can imagine that there are very few lorry owners in the country who do not, in fact, keep some kind of waybill containing exactly the information which is going to be asked for in these records. I have wide powers of dispensation under the Clause which will enable one, if it is really found that there are practical difficulties, to grant an exemption to certain classes of traffic and, in particular, to agricultural traffic. The answer to those who speak of what they call "the little man" in this case, and who say that he will not be able to keep these records complete, is that this little man has chosen to come into a job which involves certain dangers to the security of the public, and that if he chooses to come into that profession he must be able to meet the obligations as well as to take the advantages which that industry offers.

Finally, I have to point out to hon. Members that the real sting, if I may so call it, in all these conditions, lies in 'the Clause which for the first time gives power to enforce. Under that Clause it will be possible, not only to prosecute and to fine people who break these conditions, but for the Commissioners to revoke or to suspend their licences. They will only be able to do it, not in one individual case where perhaps the offence has not occurred through the fault of the owner at all, but in cases of wilful frequency of breach and where the breach has caused danger to the public. There will be, as I have said, a right of appeal for the man who is affected. Under the Road Traffic Act, 1930, the ultimate appellate court was the Minister. I do not hesitate to say that even in the few months that I have been at the Ministry, that system of having the Minister as the ultimate court of appeal has very great disadvantages. The Road Traffic Act, 1930, laid clown certain conditions, with regard to the granting of licences, which were to be administered judicially, and which the applicants and objectors were entitled to ask should be so done. The Commissioners, when they considered them, as the court of first instance, if I may put it like that, did so conditionally. I have no doubt at all that, to carry out the function intended by Parliament, the Minister also, when it comes to an appeal, ought to consider his function as judicial and not political. There is great difficulty in a Minister being called upon to exercise judicial functions. Hon. Members, quick as they are are not always able to foresee the exact moment when a Minister exchanges the motley of the politician for the ermine of the judge, and it is not beyond my experience that they sometimes address to him requests and put forward considerations which they would never do if they were addressing someone whom they recognised to be in a judicial capacity pen-dente lite. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I thought that that would draw a slight recognition from the classically-minded. I propose in this case not to make the final decision rest with the Minister. I have set up a new appeal tribunal of three entirely independent people, of whom the chairman is to be appointed after consultation with the Lord Chancellor. That is a mystic phrase which I think will be full of significance to hon. Members who are of the legal profession—of significance and perhaps of hope. Hon. Members will also see that, in the arrangement before this court of appeal, I have paid full attention to the national claims of Scotland. That is a brief account of the system of licensing which is proposed. In Part I of the Bill are contained provisions with regard to the powers to close roads, as recommended by the Ray Committee, and various other minor provisions with which I need not trouble the House.

I should like to come now to the second part of the Bill which deals with the other side of the problem, the relieving of railways from restrictions. You will find, in the Press and in conversation, people maintaining that there is a whole mass of unnecessary Regulations imposed by stupid Governments upon the railways, and that it is only necessary for a Government to have one minute, in which it is a little less stupid, to take away those restrictions, for the whole of the traffic problem to be solved, and that nothing else need be done. There need be no division of function and no restriction upon roads—simply take those restrictions from railways and, without offending anyone or without doing anything at all, the whole problem will solve itself. That argument is therefore a very favourite refuge of the lazy and the cowardly. I hope, by the time this Bill has become law, that there will be no possibility left of that argument being advanced any longer. Restrictions were not put upon railways just for the fun of putting on restrictions; they were put on for two definite main purposes, one of which was to secure the safety of the travelling public and of the public who happen to go near the railway, and the second was for the protection of consumers of transport, whether trader or traveller, from the power which the complete monopoly of the last century gave to the railways. Those principles, which I am sure hon. Members wish to maintain, the security of the public and the protection of the trader against the now not monopolistic but quasi-monopolistic power of the railways, are still of vital interest to this House, but apart from that, provided that those two principles are not infringed, there is no proposal for the removal of restrictions from railways to which I am unwilling to listen. I shall welcome any suggestion. The only stipulation I make is that, at the end we should be able to say that every suggestion for the removal of restrictions has been considered and that every suggestion has been decided, and that there can be, and will be, no further ground for talking about this mass of unnecessary restrictions upon railways which alone prevents the easy solution of this problem.

In the second part of the Bill, I present to the House for their consideration my contribution towards the removal of those restrictions, and I invite from them their contribution, for discussion and decision. The only really important Clause to which I need call attention is Clause 29, which sets out what is known as the agreed rate. Hon. Members know that the principle upon which railway rates are built is that of a standard rate on a ton-mile basis, and that the railway companies either without, or in some cases after, application to the Railway Rates Tribunal, quote exceptional rates. There was a recent case before the Railway Rates Tribunal where the railways applied for power to charge an exceptional rate. As this exceptional rate was not based on a ton-mile basis and there was no foundation for it of so much for such a distance, the Railway Rates Tribunal were not prepared to accept it as an exceptional rate.

As a result of that decision, it is clear that, apart from any question of prejudice to other traders, it is impossible for the railways to quote rates on a flat or composite basis, and I have provided in this Clause a new rate, an agreed rate, which may be agreed between the railways and the traders on any basis, apart entirely from the basis of the ton-mile. It will, however, require in all circumstances the approval of the Railway Rates Tribunal. Once that approval is given, the law of undue preference or inequality of toll will no longer be applicable to this particular rate. The protection of the trader will lie, first of all, in the power of either the trader or representative bodies of traders to appear before the Railway Rates Tribunal and object, but, even more than that, the real protection of the trader in the future will lie in the fact that the railways have lost their monopoly, that they are no longer in the position, in which they were 30 or 40 years ago, of being able to say: "If you do not like our terms there is nowhere else that you can go to get better ones." Traders are now, over the vast range of the goods-carrying world, able to make a choice between the two systems.

I do not think it is necessary to call the attention of the House to any of the other minor provisions for the relief of rates. They are mostly quite insignificant in their character, and they are only included so that we shall be able to say, when the discussions on this Bill are ended, that we have left out no possible relief which the House thinks it is able to give to the railways. In Part III of the Bill, power is taken to set up a Transport Advisory Council, which will take the place of the old Roads Advisory Committee. The composition of the council hon. Members will find set out in the First Schedule. The importance of this council was emphasised by the Royal Commission, who said that they attached great importance to it; and undoubtedly, if we are to proceed, as I hope we are, to further coordination between road and rail, some body such as this, which will represent authoritatively the varying transport interests, will be of great importance as a means of inquiry and as a focus of discussion.

I must apologise to the House for having taken up so much time in explaining the Bill. I want now to say a few words in conclusion upon the general problem which is presented to us. I understand from my military and naval friends in the House that, from their point of view, to be under a cross-fire is to be in an uncomfortable and a dangerous position. I am not sure that it is, for a politician, either so uncomfortable or so dangerous, for cross fires have a way of missing the primary target and hitting the other firers. I shall be told, and, indeed, I have been told already, that there is too much Socialism in this Bill, while, on the other hand, I shall be told that there is too little. I shall be told by some that there is too much regulation, while others will say that there is not enough. I shall be told that I have done nothing for the railways, and I shall be told that I have ruined the roads. Let me say a word or two upon those accusations.

In the first place, let me deal with the one accusation to which I plead guilty—the accusation that there is too little Socialism in this Bill. It is, I think, one of the chief claims of the Bill that there is no Socialism in it at all. I notice that, as I expected, hon. Members opposite have put down an Amendment, in what I might call common form, which no doubt they will discuss later, calling for the nationalisation of the whole of the transport of this country. My only hope in that regard is that, when they come to discuss it, the discussion will not be quite so general as such discussions have been of late. I hope we shall not have quite so many of those very powerful, very interesting, but perhaps rather theoretical speeches upon Capitalism and Socialism, and private funds, and other things of that kind such as last week must have taken my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford University (Sir C. Oman), like some kind of bad dream, back to his lecture room in a listening rather than a speaking capacity. I hope that hon. Members will not merely generalise, but that they will tell the House what they really mean to do—not just that it is a good thing for transport to be nationalised, but who is going to do it, where they are going to run it, how it is going to be run, and, particularly, what man they are going to find who will have the genius and energy to run the trams in London and the omnibuses in Caithness. I only hope that they will do it. It will not be of any use to me, because I shall have finished, but I am not selfish, and, if they do it, they will provide for my hon. and gallant Friend one of those debating opportunities for which we are always looking, but which unfortunately, fall to the lot of few of us.

There is one general point that I should like to put to the House. I should like to ask what would have happened if some Motion of this kind had, by some extraordinary malignity of fate, been carried in this House 10 or 15 years ago, and if, as a result, all the transport known at the time had been brought under one unified national control. I wonder what would have happened to road transport in the last 10 years if the losses under the competition of road transport had fallen, not on the railway shareholders, but on the Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if the assets which we now see going to waste had been, not the assets of the railway companies, but the assets of the taxpayers of this country, and if the man who had to stand at this Box every April and explain the losses which arose from this competition were also the man who had it in his power to bring that competition to an end. I wonder what sort of co-ordination we should have seen? It would have been the same sort of thing as happened to that unfortunate young lady from one of the Baltic sea-ports who so incautiously accepted a hiking invitation.

One word to those who say that there is too much Socialism in the Bill. I should say that there could be no Socialism in it unless its provisions in-eluded some element of State ownership or State management, and neither of these will be found in the scheme. That there is State regulation is true, but there was State regulation of railways nearly 100 years ago—State regulations of railways put on by Parliaments in which my hon. Friend the Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) would have appeared a dangerous "red." I do not think that, if 100 years ago they were prepared to do it, we need be frightened of doing it now. There is a much better case for it to-day. Hon. Members and the country as a whole are beginning to realise the importance of the population factor; they are beginning to realise that many things that were possible in an area of gradually and steadily increasing population are no longer possible in an age when populations are either stationary or declining.

I am told that there is too much regulation, and that suggestion is set out in an Amendment to an Amendment which stands in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) and the names of some of his friends. I understand, of 'course, that hon. Members who take different views of this problem from those which I take, may hold those views so sincerely and deeply that they may be forced to oppose me in the Division Lobby, but I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman and his friends should find it necessary to express their opposition by way of an Amendment on the Paper, and particularly, if I may say so, by way of an Amendment in these terms. The right hon. Gentleman, in his Amendment, talks about increasing the cost of living. What a gift that is for opponents of this Government. The right hon. Gentleman is, of course, a man of great reputation in the country, a man who has been a Member of successive Administrations, and whose words must carry great weight. The opponent of the Government who uses these words of his as an argument is not going to inquire what authority the right hon. Gentleman had for using them, or whether his reasons for doing so were good or bad; he is simply going to announce that the right hon. Gentleman said that this National Government has deliberately increased the people's cost of living; and, in the mouth of the agitator, the sober fallacy of the right hon. Gentleman on the Paper will, while remaining equally fallacious, become a good deal more emphatic.

I should like to know what grounds the right hon. Gentleman has for saying that this will increase the cost of living. It is quite true that under the Bill I shall have to ask the House, in a Financial Resolution, to authorise a charge amounting to about £130,000, to be raised from those applying for licences. Is that what is going to increase the cost of living? Yesterday we were discussing a Resolution on the House to impose, upon the same people, taxation amounting to £1,750,000. Did the right hon. Gentleman and his friends then say that that sum was going to increase the cost of living? They never even discussed it, not to mention dividing against it. Am I to understand that this figure, which, as far as I can work it out on the data available, will mean an increase in transport costs of something like ld. per 200 miles, is really going to increase the cost of living of the people? If it is not that, is it the provision that the Commissioners shall have authority, in deciding whether or not they will grant licences, to take into account excess of facilities, and that they will be able to refuse licences where facilities are excessive? I wonder is that the reason for the statement that an increase in the cost of living is going to result I Hon. Members will realise that all that I am doing there is to try to approximate supply and demand—exactly the thing that the Government have been trying to do for the last 18 months in the industrial field by means of tariffs and quotas, and I have never heard of the right hon. Gentleman or any of his supporters putting an Amendment down to any of those proposals on the ground that they would increase the cost of living.

Finally—and here I admit there is a possibility that the right hon. Gentleman may be right—is it suggested that the fact that we are are now going to insist on the observance of conditions as to wages and as to hours is going to increase the cost of living of the community? I have taken it that breaches of these conditions have been the exception, and not the rule; the right hon. Gentleman, being in closer touch with the road interests, will be better able to give the House information on that point. It may be that I am wrong, and that these practices are widespread. But, if that is what he means by increasing the cost of living, I am prepared to debate the point with him, either in this Assembly or in any other assembly in the country, and to ask the people of this country whether they object to their cost of living being increased in order to see that people who have to take dangerous mechanisms out upon the high road shall be secured decent conditions of life. Some people will ask what this Bill will do for the railways. I do not know what it will do. I do not know whether the result will be to force traffic back on to the railways or not. That is not my object nor is it the object of this House. We sympathise with the railway shareholders, just as we sympathise with the shareholders in any of our great basic industries who have lost the money which they invested, and invested for the national interest; but our sole concern is the public interest. Our sole concern is, not the profits of this industry or of that, but to provide proper transport for the people of this country, Then I am told that I shall ruin the roads. I do not believe that to bring order out of chaos is in the long run going to do any harm to the road industry. I do not believe that the present position of unbridled competition is really good for it, nor do I believe that it is really good for industry in general, or that the cheapness available during a war of cutting rates is a cheapness which in the long run is a good thing for the industries of this country.

Hon. Members will ask whether a Bill of this kind, combined,, of course, with the Budget Provisions, will end the matter; whether we can now say that with the passage of this Bill the road and railway problem will he settled. I wish that I could answer that question in the affirmative. The most for which one can hope from this Bill—the most I aim at—is that the individual in individual cases shall be able to exercise a fair choice. It may be, of course, that in the exercise of that fair choice we may arrive at a proper equilibrium between the road and the railway. But if we do, it will be purely by luck. On the other hand, we may get something which is not equilibrium; we may, of course, get a vast change which so helps the railways that the roads disappear, or which so helps the roads that railways become unnecessary. We may get a very dangerous position between the two, and it is no good blinding our eyes to that possibility or refusing to face it. We may quite easily get a condition where the competition of the road industry increases, where it becomes more effective, where it gradually takes more and more traffic away from the railways until at last it leaves them with only those classes of heavy traffic which the road is either unable or unwilling to bear and, at the same time, by having crippled the resources of the railways, leaves them unable to transport those heavy classes of traffic at rates which are reasonable or fair to the industries of this country. That is a situation which nobody would be able to face with equanimity when it arose.

It is, I think, essential that sooner or later we should come to some division of function as between road and rail. That was the earnest desire of the Salter Conference on Road and Rail Transport, which put my point of view much better than I can: We believe that the best division of function will be obtained mainly through the deliberate effort of those engaged in road and rail transport to co-ordinate their services and give the public the full advantages of complementary service…The hauliers on the one hand and the railways on the other are essentially two branches of the nation's common carrier service. More and more we conceive that, while they may still compete with each other, on the fairer basis resulting from the recommendations, they will in future be concerned so to organise their services that in collaboration they can attract the public to resort to them for all classes of traffic in which large-scale organisation has great advantages. Every hon. Member of this House will echo that hope, and most hon. Members will agree, that co-ordination of that kind is best done by the industries themselves. They have the special knowledge; give them the good will which only lack of compulsion gives. But, though it may best be done by the industries concerned, sooner or later it has got to be done by someone. The nation could not remain indifferent to the sort of situation the possibility of which I have just described to the House, and we cannot remain indifferent to the fact that the temporary gains of industry through this cut-throat competition may fiend in a permanent loss to the nation.

I believe that the Bill to which I am now asking the House to give a Second Reading is an essential preliminary to co-ordination of that kind, and I hope that, when the heat and dust of the controversy which this Measure has necessarily aroused have died down, the industries concerned will get together to discuss the real problems which face them, not in the spirit of eternal antagonists, but in that of partners in a great enterprise. I am sure that in their efforts to reach such a solution they will have the good will and the support both of this Government and of this House.

5.5 p.m.

Mr. PARKINSON

I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words: in view of the present chaotic conditions of road and rail transport, the need for a cheap and efficient transport service in the interests of the community, and the establishment of fair wages and conditions of employment for those engaged therein, this House cannot assent to the Second Reading of a Bill which establishes regional instead of national regulation, and fails to recognise that, in the interests of industry and trade, the unification of all transport services under national ownership and control is a vital necessity. Every Member of this House will join with me in complimenting the hon. Gentleman on his speech in support of the Second Reading. He has confined himself very strictly to his case. Nevertheless, I am sure that the arguments adduced by the hon. Gentleman in the beginning of his speech might have been spoken on behalf of our Amendment. He pointed out from very many points of view the unsatisfactory nature of the conditions of transport at the moment; he pointed also to the differences which applied not only in the past but which are bound to apply for a long time to come. We contend, of course, that those differences must for ever remain so long as we have this great transport industry under individual control.

At the close of his speech the hon. Gentleman added many remarks in support of this Amendment, and he put the specific question: What would be the case to-day had the Government adopted this Measure 15 years ago? I hope that he has not forgotten the time when the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Dominions introduced a Bill to nationalise transport in 1921, or the time when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill)—at that time, I believe, Chancellor of the Exchequer, either during or after the War —made a public declaration in favour of nationalisation of the railways. These are things which cannot be forgotten, and they are things which must have a direct bearing on the issue now before the House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping, with his influence in the Government at that time, must of course have had friends in the Cabinet in league with him, and some factor must have come into the affairs of the nation to lead some responsible Members of the Government to realise that the only way out of this difficulty was nationalisation.

No one will deny the chaos which is prevalent in the transport services throughout the country to-day, nor will hon. Members suggest that the time has not arrived when this great tangle of interests ought to be straightened out and undertakings put in the position of being able to render service beneficial to the whole community and not to the sectional interests which are at present operative. One can easily realise that to make matters easier for one section of the transport industry may be to deal a blow at or impose a hardship upon all sections of that industry. The matter, therefore, comes down to this: that so long as the two branches are opposing one another we shall never be able to make that progress which is so necessary to bring stabilisation, unification and nationalisation into the industry the affairs of which are before the House to-day.

It is, of course, understood that the country must have the best services which it is possible to secure, and we all agree that the most efficient form of transport must be economic. It must be so, in the interests of commerce and for the prosperity of the whole community. Attached immediately to this efficiency, of course, must be the establishment of fair wages and conditions of employment, with which the hon. Gentleman dealt so fully this afternoon. It would be fair to say that neither the wages nor the conditions of employment operating to-day are satisfactory or honestly observed by employers of labour. While the Road Traffic Act, 1930, laid down certain Regulations and enacted certain law which ought to be applied throughout the country, those provisions have not been enforced at all. I should like to ask the Minister to give careful consideration and serious thought to the whole of this problem with a' view to making that Act fulfil the functions for which is was passed. On the one hand, we have some employers who are really good employers, and against whom I would not say one word; who do all they possibly can to make their employés comfortable and to get the best service out of them. On the other hand, we have employers who believe that their conditions of labour ought to be, in a sense, like slavery; that their business can only be successful when it is carried out in the midst of strife and dissatisfaction. These are the sort of people with whom the Bill has to deal. Whether it will be able to bring them within its operation or not I do not know; the Road Traffic Act, 1930, was certainly not able to do so. There is plenty of opportunity, by stricter supervision, of compelling these people to do what they ought to do.

This Bill establishes regional instead of national regulation. It does not embrace the greater and wider principle of the unification of all transport services, clearing away the continuous struggle between different interests and bringing together in the interests of all concerned the whole of the transport services of the country, so that they could be unified under national ownership and control. This course would give full service to the country in its struggle to rebuild its trade and commerce, and would render the greatest assistance towards bringing that prosperity which is so much desired.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and, 40 Members being present—

Mr. PARKINSON

The Labour party cannot regard the Bill as a solution of the national transport problem. As the House is aware, this party has on many occasions raised the question of nationalisation, of unification and of socialisation. Consequently, we cannot accept the Bill in all its implications. The Bill, with the Budget proposals, is the Government's action following the report of the Salter Conference, to which the hon. Gentleman referred this afternoon. I quite agree with the portion of the report which he read at the end of his speech. The division of interests that at present obtains ought to give way to good will and well being in the interests not only of the people themselves but of the nation as a whole. The terms of reference to the Salter Conference prevented any real consideration being given to the problem. We do not expect the Government to adopt the terms of the Amendment, but the Bill will be helpful in eliminating many present-day evils such, for instance, as those in regard to the conditions of labour. It will to some extent straighten out the industry and give us a better picture of the problem when the machinery of licensing is built up.

I should like to call attention to some points in the Bill which, I think, should be brought to the notice of the Ministry. It is a long story to tell, and I am not going through the whole Bill. I will simply make a selection of some of the Clauses which I think ought to receive consideration. I do not see any reason why "C" licences should not be included with "A" and "B" licences in Clause 8. I do not see that there is that difference in the position which would warrant the separate issue of licences, particularly in view of the fact that probably the number of "C" licences will be greatly in excess of the number under the other two heads. In Clause 8 (5) the person in my opinion should not only be guilty of an offence but should be liable to lose his licence, which is, of course, provided for in another part of the Bil, in Clauses 6, 9, 10 and 11.

Clause 8 sets out the conditions to be attached to all licences, but Sub-section (2) excludes the holders of "C" licences from the obligation to carry out the provisions of Section 93 of the Road Traffic Act. I believe they ought not to be allowed to evade that portion of the Act. They are employing people to run their machinery, and whether they are real drivers or agricultural labourers or shop servers does not make any difference. The point is that they are called upon to take charge of a motor or lorry or car on the public road. They ought to carry with them the whole responsibility and they ought to be given the full privileges of Section 93, which relates to wages and conditions of employment. It could be argued that the holders of "C" licences would not be covered by the ordinary rail transport agreement. I do not see why they should not be. If they are driving vehicles, I do not see why they should not come under the regulations and under the control of the local authority, like other people. To meet that position I suggest that the Industrial Court shall have the right to take into consideration any other agreement made for the trade in which the vehicles are engaged. I can see a lot of controversy arising over "C" licences, but I will not enter into that now.

Sub-section (1) (c) stipulates that in relation to the authorised vehicles the requirements specified in Section 19 of the Road Traffic Act with respect to the time for which drivers of certain vehicles may remain continuously on duty are observed. These conditions are pretty well known, but they are pretty generally unobserved. They are not being used in the way they ought to be, and advantage is being taken of drivers by employers who are not giving full consideration to the welfare and well-being of their people. There is the question of the duration of intervals of rest. In many cases there are two people on a vehicle and they have to take their periods of rest while the vehicle is going. A man is entitled to take his rest completely away from the employment in which he is engaged. He cannot get the natural rest, which is so necessary, on a lorry. Much more strict supervision of this matter is required.

Clause 10 (2) raises the question whether trade unions certified by the Minister of Labour to represent a substantial number of people who are concerned, should have a right of appearance before the licensing authority and the Appeal Tribunal. Clause 10 (1) provides that the licensing authority may specify persons by whom objections may be made for the grant of a licence when publishing notice of an application. It also stipulates that the authorities shall take into consideration objections made by persons who are already providing transport facilities. It would, therefore, appear that, unless a trade union is specially mentioned by the licensing authority as persons by whom objections may be made, it has no standing whatever, and the authority may refuse to hear its objections. That is a matter to which further consideration should be given by the Minister, because the men rely very much upon it. They always rely on their representatives, and why they should not be given an opportunity under the Bill I do not know.

Regulations are to be made under Clause 14 as to the form of records to be kept. This is a step in the right direction. There ought to be a full record, and we ought not to take much notice of ordinary objections. We shall, no doubt, hear it said that these are uneducated work-men, that this duty ought not to be imposed upon them, and that it will mean the engagement of a special person for the purpose. I hope the Minister will not listen to that kind of argument. I hope he will stick strongly to the point that people who are in charge of a vehicle of this kind ought to have sufficient education to enable them to keep all necessary records. Efficiency ought to be the test of legislation, particularly in connection with road transport. By Clause 15 (10) a person using a goods vehicle acting under the order of his employer may, be prosecuted. This may be unfair in many cases. Many drivers have been prosecuted simply because they are driving a vehicle, as they have been compelled to do by their employers. If a driver can show to the authority that he knew the defects, and that the employer also knew them, but that he was compelled to take out the vehicle, a prosecution ought not to fail upon him. I want the man who is innocent of the misdemeanour but has been compelled by force of circumstances, or by poverty, to do what his employer suggested he ought to do, to be protected.

By Clause 16 it is proposed to give examiners power to stop vehicles in order to examine documents. I do not know whether these men are to go about in their ordinary clothes, simply armed with a paper of authority, or whether they will wear uniform so that the drivers will know that they are examiners. It would certainly be better if that were done, because a driver may be stopped by any Tom, Dick or Harry and will not know whether he is an examiner or not. There ought to be some distinctive dress which would denote that he is an examiner appointed under the Act. Subsection (3) relates to the power of an examiner in the matter of weighing vehicles. It would appear that the powers referred to in the Road Traffic Act are not, in practice, conferred on the police by the highway authorities and, therefore, could not be exercised by the examiner. In this case woirld it not be necessary to amend Section 27 of the Road Traffic Act in such a way as to give to police constables the necessary authority in respect to the weighing of motor vehicles and trailers? Many of these vehicles are in need of weighing. There seem to be tremendously heavy cargoes going through the streets. They may not be as heavy as they look but, on the other hand, it is easy to overload any vehicle with a heavy, compact material. That ought to be carried out more rigorously than it has been in the past.

Coming to Clause 17, there is provision in the London Traffic Act, 1924, and the Road Traffic Act, 1930, that, in the case of purchase by any local or public authority, any value created for the business by the Acts shall not be taken into account in determining compensation. That, of course, applies to any local authority taking over an already working business. I should like to ask whether similar provision cannot be made in this Bill. Clause 19 deals with the Appeal Tribunal. I have wondered whether there is a case for salaries to be paid in all these cases. It is quite likely that the Chairman would have to have a salary, as it is likely that there may be a fair amount of work to be done during the early period of the life of the Act, but it is just a question whether there will be sufficient work for the whole of the three men to be paid salaries. It is quite all right in the case of the Chairman, but it might be payments by fees in the case of the others.

Mr. STANLEY

The Clause says "remuneration or salaries."

Mr. PARKINSON

That makes it worse. It is neither one thing nor the other. It means that you may hit with the right hand or the left, but you do not hit straight. It would be much better if one of those words was taken out and the remaining word was allowed to apply to the Bill as it stands. As to Clause 23 (2), representative organisations might not be willing to confer with the Minister, and in that case the regulation should nevertheless be valid. The Minister would have given the opportunity to the organisations to confer with him, and if they refused to undertake to do so the matter should remain valid. For some, at any rate, of the offences dealt with in Clause 27 (2), I am not sure that imprisonment should not be possible. In many cases which have appeared in the courts all over the country too much leniency has been allowed in certain directions. When a man continuously works against the laws of the country he ought to take full responsibility for his actions.

Clause 25 (1) amends Section 93 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, and therefore affects passenger service vehicles as well as goods vehicles. Sub-section (2) applies only to "A" and "B" licences. Why should not "C" licence holders be brought in, so that it may be made to cover all licence holders? This also applies to Clause 8 (9). In the case of goods vehicles the provisions of Section 93 of the Road Traffic Act, as amended, will apply only to "drivers or statutory attendants," but in the case of passenger service vehicles, the Section applies "in relation to persons employed in connection with the operation of a public service vehicle." For the sake of uniformity why not insert the same words as those which appear in the Road Traffic Act, 1930?

I do not intend to deal at length with Part 2 of the Bill, because there are probably hon. Members here who are better able to deal with it than I and can speak with a full knowledge of railway working. But subject to the suitable protection of labour I do not see very much objection to this part of the Bill. The point arises as to whether the railway companies are to be more meticulous in the observance of their agreements with their workpeople in the future than they have been in the past. I can imagine great objections being raised on that particular point, but I should like to see a statement from the railway companies before any further concessions are given to them. I do not say that they do not deserve, or ought not to have them, but they ought to be prepared to carry out the bargains with their own workpeople, and we ought to have a distinct and definite statement from them upon the matter.

There is a point in connection with the notification of accidents. In Clause 34 they are asking to be relieved of reporting accidents attended with injury to employés which does not disable them for more than three days. All accidents ought to be reported. It is only by having every accident reported that we can know the exact toll paid through employment in every part of the country and in every industry. At least something ought to be done in that direction. We ought to maintain the words which have applied before and the position of reporting every accident. Will the concessions to be given to railways which own docks have the effect of diverting traffic from the private or municipal docks? Is there to be a monopoly in respect of their own docks, or is there any opportunity for dock authorities to appeal to the Minister or to somebody else against any diversion of traffic?

Everybody will agree that there ought to be an Advisory Council, but I think that the unfair division of representation is such that nobody can look at it without feeling that there is a grievance. Labour is only to be given two representatives, while there are to be about 16 representatives of the capitalist or employing section of the community. Users of mechanically-propelled vehicles are to be given five representatives. I suggest to the Minister that he should take at least similar action to that which was taken in regard to the London Passenger Transport Bill and give five representatives to Labour. There is another great organisation which has not been mentioned from any point of view but which ought to be given representation on the Advisory Council, namely, the great cooperative movement, which carries on a tremendous amount of road traffic and is directly interested in the whole of this business. A wide and comprehensive organisation of such standing ought to be considered and given an opportunity of being represented on the Council.

We were all startled last night when we saw the report of the road accidents in the Press. The Bill does not deal with road accidents, but I suggest to the Minister that he ought to have an advisory safety council set up by the people conducting this traffic throughout the country. They should appoint men or women to apply themselves to the task of trying to reduce the terrible death roll upon the roads. Though they would be placed in a unique position they would do their best at least to bring something forward which would justify the Minister in having arranged for the making of such appointments. I throw the suggestion out as a feeler, because this is a matter which ought to be dealt with. We cannot continue to see the massacre taking place on our roads year after year. The slaughter is far too heavy. I am satisfied that with more careful consideration, and the application of intelligence, there would not be anything like the number of accidents which we have at the moment. I suggest that an advisory safety council might consider something in that direction.

No provision is made for the licensing of the drivers of authorised vehicles as is the case with the drivers of road service vehicles under the Road Traffic Act, although the former will have to conform to the same provisions in the matter of continuity of driving and rest periods. Will the Minister consider amending parts of Sections 77 and 82 of the Road Traffic Act to make them apply to the drivers of authorised vehicles? I should like the Minister, if possible, to give consideration to those matters at the earliest opportunity.

As far as we are concerned, the Bill may be regarded as further testimony to the need for national regulation and co-ordination of the transport services of the country. For years the Labour party has been urging the importance of this question to the industrial, commercial, and social life of the country. The wisdom of that contention has been proved beyond doubt. There is not the slightest doubt that the contention which has been held and put forward by the Labour movement is the right one, and that in the end it will win. There was abundant proof during the War years, when the railways and canals were under Government control, so much so that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), when a leading member of the Coalition Government was impelled to declare in favour of nationalisation. But then, as now, vested interests were all-powerful in the councils of the Government, and then, as now, the Government dared not tackle those vested interests and lift from the shoulders of the community the handicaps and hindrances to much needed development which the present chaotic, competitive, and overlapping arrangements impose.

The policy of the Labour movement has long been that transport should be organ-ised on a truly national plan, with national instead of private interests as the impelling motive. The railways, the canals, the road motor services, the coastal services, and even the air services, should all be regarded as parts of a national system of transport, each playing its natural part and working in cooperation instead of in competition as at present. The objection to the Bill is in its limitations and restrictions. The great need of the times, as far as transport is concerned, is for a bold and comprehensive policy. The Government should show that it has vision and purpose, and do for the country as a, whole in the matter of transport facilities, what has already been done in London, in a limited way, under the provisions of the London Passenger Transport Act.

5.43 p.m.

Major RENWICK

Hitherto I have refrained from intervening in Debates pending the opportunity to make my initial contribution upon a subject of which I might claim some knowledge. In so doing, it may be within the re-collection of certain of the older Members of the House that I am really following the tradition of my sire, whose voice at one time was not unfamiliar in this Chamber. For a number of years I have studiously observed the impending challenge to railroads and other methods of internal transport in this country, and that challenge, which I maintain was inevitable, was the direct outcome of the perfecting of the internal combustion engine. But it is only now that a Minister of Transport has summoned courage to deal with the matter by long overdue legislation, and I take the opportunity of congratulating the Minister on the production of the Bill so quickly after having assumed his new office. However, as the period of gestation has been so short, the Minister may perhaps not disagree, that his offspring may develop into a much finer little fellow when it has received attention at the hands of those nurses who are so eagerly awaiting its reception upstairs.

It is probable that at no time have the traders of this country been so urgently in need, not only of efficient transport, but of economic transport, too, but I would suggest that in an effort to obtain both it is not expedient to unduly foster one form of transport at the expense of another. The railway companies, for some unaccountable reason, appear to be the spoilt darlings of the transport industry, for immediately they experience the slightest difficulty or trouble they are clamouring round the doors and the lobbies of this House. I never can quite realise the attitude of the powers that be and the Government of the day, whatever day it may be, why they should regard railway dividends and railway capital as something quite different from any other industrial undertaking, as something quite sacrosanct and quite inviolate.

There are other great commercial undertakings which we have recently seen tackle their difficulties and successfully emerge from them. I will give two examples, the two great arsenals of this country, upon which we have so frequently relied, namely, Vickers', and Armstrong's. These two great concerns, by the sacrifice of millions of capital, have brought themselves, entirely by their own effort and their own persistence, more into accord with the altered circumstances of the day. These great undertakings were national undertakings upon whom we relied, and I suggest that we shall have to rely upon them again. Take as a further example our own Consols. At one time they were the very crème de la crème of our gilt-edged securities. I think I am correct in saying that I recollect Consols in this century standing at 108, and I can remember them standing at something like half that amount, whereas to-ray they stand at, I think, 75 on the Stock Exchange. Those are our own gilt-edged securities.

I am one of those who not only realise the imperative necessity of our railways being preserved, but I further maintain that they should be preserved in a condition of virility, in order that they may compete with the other forms of internal transport. My mentality was entirely in sympathy with the railways up to the time of the publication of the Salter Report, but whether I can honestly say that since I have seen Part II of the Bill my mind is just the same, I should very considerably hesitate to stay. When the Minister invited the road representatives to meet the railway representatives to discuss their difficulties, I think the road representatives only acquiesced after having made considerable sacrifice. I believe that, in their very great anxiety to achieve accord with the railway representatives, the road people went very far beyond the expectations of their own constituent members. As a direct result of that sacrifice the liberties of the road people are now in process of curtailment at the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was likewise generally anticipated that the road interest would be compelled to conform to some such similar arrangement of licensing as we have already experienced with passenger vehicles. Those I maintain were the two recommendations, the fundamental principles of the Report.

For the purpose of obtaining accord it was realised in certain quarters that in exchange for some security for the future a price was to be paid, but Part II of the Bill, or that portion relieving the railway companies of what is known as undue preference, has come as a positive bombshell to the industry and the public generally. No such suggestion, so far as I can see, is contained in the Salter Report; indeed, quite the contrary. I should like to refer the House to paragraph 96 of the Salter Report, which reads as follows: Even in the matter of rates, where it might seem prima facie that the existence of effective competition over the whole area of the railways' work makes the system in force as regards railway rates unnecessary, we do not recommend any fundamental change. Capricious discrimination in rates, while it may in some cases secure extra receipts and in others extra traffic not otherwise obtainable, is no satisfactory principle for common carriers to work upon, either from the point of view of the transport industry itself or of the trade and commerce served. Indeed when a common carrier service is organised in large units, the commercial obligation of fair treatment towards customers must in practice prevent such discrimination. It is the fact that the railways are so organised, and not the existence of statutory regulation, which mainly accounts for the handicap of the railways in this respect; and this handicap would not be substantially reduced by any change in law or administration; nor would traders generally be likely to accept willingly such a change. I should like to ask the Minister what subsequently transpired or what circumstances, or combination of circumstances, influenced him to ignore such a definite expression of opinion from the acknowledged experts in their respective industries. In seeking to place such unprecedented powers in the bands of these chosen people, has the Minister given the fullest consideration to other alternative forms of internal transport which may be mortally hit by this shaft which he has forged? For instance, have the coasting trade and the inland waterways been taken into consideration? Have their opinions been sought as to the probable effect of this legislation upon their industries? The Minister need not have any apprehension as to this Bill being regarded in any way as a Socialistic Measure. We heard him refer to the now celebrated Bristol case, which has become quite famous. Under this Bill the Railway Tribunal are to have the opportunity of conferring upon the railways liberty to quote a flat rate. I would say, with respect, to those hon. Members who may be, perhaps, a little less initiated in these matters than I am, that when the railway companies quote these flat rates they quote them for the whole of the traffic which the particular trader is handling, to the complete exclusion of any alternative means of transport. Therefore, although the Minister referred to the power of the railway companies as being either monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic, in future under Part II their powers are going to be completely monopolistic, and I hope that during the various stages through which the Bill is to pass he will bear that in mind. I suggest to the Minister that in his great anxiety to repel a common enemy he is probably, if great care is not taken, dealing a mortal blow at various other alternative means of internal transport.

I am not entirely opposed to the Bill, by any means. It is my intention to support the Government in the Lobby, but I do hope that when the Bill goes upstairs, the Minister, particularly in regard to Part II, will be receptive to the point of positive generosity. This Bill should reflect the outcome of an honest attempt at co-operation between the two rival industries, which everybody has known for years, have been at each other's throat. Despite what the Minister has said, compromise it is. It is a compromise which has not been lightly arrived at. It has not been secured without the utmost patience and self-sacrifice. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will, in his honesty of purpose, retain the confidence of those industries which have trusted him so far, and that he may be content to confine his activities entirely to the recommendations of the Salter Report.

5.58 p.m.

Sir ARTHUR STEEL-MAITLAND

I am sure that the House has listened to the maiden speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Stretford (Major Renwick) with that pleasure which it always accords to those who make their appearance in Debate here for the first time. I am quite sure also that those who remember the hon. Member's father as a Member of this House, know quite well that in his father there was a man whose considered opinions always gained full attention and weight whenever he rose to address the House. There may well be controversy among people of different opinions as to whether descent by itself should give a title to a seat in the Legislature, but there is no question whatsoever that when the son of a respected father comes here to give us his opinions in a maiden speech we welcome him, and we hope that throughout our Debates in the future he will make the same valued contributions to our discussions which his father did in his time.

Some of my hon. Friends and I have put down an Amendment to the official Opposition Amendment. At one time we thought of simply proposing that the Bill should be read this day six months, but as a reasoned Amendment had been put down by the official Opposition Amendment it was quite clear that any discussion must take place on that Amendment. We believe that no good can come from the principles embodied in this Bill. We have grave misgivings with regard to it, and, therefore, we thought it right, as our reasons for disagreeing were entirely different from those of the Front Opposition Bench, that it was as well to place on record our reasons for disagreeing so that the difference may be manifest. I regret sincerely to have to move or speak in opposition to the Bill. I regret it for this reason: I still think that the crisis which confronts this country is as serious now as it was when the Government took office, and I should never wish to do anything which might lessen their authority. The best way of dealing with a question of this kind was by Debate on the subject first before the Government were committed to a particular policy by the introduction of a Bill. That course has been followed before on occasions, and on the present occasion it was a particularly suitable proceeding.

We have had a Royal Commission on Transport and the Salter Conference, the report of which was an extremely attractive document on first reading. Then, as weeks passed and it was scrutinised, doubts began to be expressed about the authority or wisdom of the proposals it made. In these circumstances a general Debate on the subject in this House first of all would have obviated many troubles. I asked whether such a Debate might be considered, and when I was met with a complete refusal the only course left to my hon. Friends and me was to state quite frankly our objections to the Bill on the Second Heading. It is true that the grounds of our disagreement are different from those of the Opposition. The Minister of Transport has said that a cross-fire is sometimes welcome, that he can set the two sides against one another, he can argue that they cancel each other out. But that is not necessarily the case. I remember the case of a barrister who at the end of a long and successful career, said that he had been the means of getting many a guilty man acquitted and many an innocent man convicted, and that, therefore, on the whole he had got substantial justice done. Because there are differences of criticism it does not follow that the principles of the Bill, which meet neither criticism fully, are therefore justified.

Let me just refer for a moment to some of the remarks which the Minister of Transport addressed to me personally. I did not take down all the interrogatories he administered to me; they came too thick and fast. But I remember two of them. He asked me why, if I object to this Bill, I have not in public expressed my objections with regard to import quotas. I will tell him the reason. I think that import quotas, as part of a permanent measure of Protection, are the most objectionable form which Protection can possibly take, but in abnormal times like the present they may be absolutely necessary to meet a temporary situation. I said nothing with regard to import quotas because I did not want to embarrass the Government, and in regard to the matters in which import quotas have been established they are temporary measures, whereas his Bill is a permanent Bill. The Minister of Transport also referred to the phrase "the cost of living," in our Amendment to the Amendment. He said that one way in which the cost of living might be increased was through improvements in the working conditions of the men employed, and that possibly if I regretted an increase in the cost of living it was because I disliked improvements in the conditions of the men employed. That is what the Minister suggested—and I am within the memory of hon. Members.

The Minister of Transport has an extremely fine and honourable record in the social work he has done and the interest he has taken in social problems. I trust, however acutely I may differ from him on a particular point, that I shall never insinuate that he has been insincere or untrue to the spirit he has shown in his social work or to the attitude he has taken towards social problems. While I do not pretend to vie with him, I also have a record of being interested in these questions, and on re- flection I think he will not look back with satisfaction to a remark which cannot be interpreted otherwise than as I have suggested.

I saw in a newspaper this morning a statement that I belong to the Parliamentary road group I received a Whip from the Parliamentary railway group this morning. When I met some of those who are interested in road matters yesterday evening the first thing I said to them—as it is the first thing I say to the House now—was, "I do not stand here as an advocate of any sectional interests, road or rail." There is an interest which far transcends these sectional interests, the general interest of the country as a whole. In this case the general interest of the country as a whole is the interest of industry throughout the country.

Industry and transport and all other parts of the national life, are interconnected and interdependent, but they are distinguishable. No one will deny that the prosperity of this country and the employment of its citizens depend primarily and predominantly on the success of industry, and on its being able to maintain itself in competition with other countries in the export trade. That does not mean that those who think first and foremost and all the time of the general interest of the country and of industry have no sympathy with either of the transport interests which are affected by the Bill. I say at once that we have.

The plight of the railways is one which demands attention. The difficulties they have to face are enormous. They arise primarily from the depression in trade, but also from the competition of road transport. I have no doubt the railways feel, first and foremost, that they have to carry the heavy minerals and heavy traffic of the country at unremunerative rates, and that hitherto they have been able to recoup themselves by carrying the higher classes of merchandise. I have no doubt they feel that road transport has taken from them precisely the classes of merchandise from which they used to recoup themselves. I have no doubt also they have a feeling that road transport has not only taken this traffic from them, but that it is a subsidised form of competition, using the roads without paying a fair sum for the user; not subject to rates, except to an infinitesimal degree, and not subject to the rules and restrictions to which the railways are subject. I know that they feel that contention acutely.

I have heard also of some of the difficulties of road transport. I hope they will get justice; no more than justice, but at the same time full justice. But I am not primarily concerned with these interests, I am primarily concerned with the general interest of the country and the effect upon British industry. There is no business man, least of all the Lord President of the Council, who does not realise what an important part the cost of transport has in the success or failure of any business. In some cases it comes almost next to the cost of raw materials. The importance of transport is, of course, far greater in some industries than in others. In the case of the industry with which I was connected the cost of transport was sometimes not only equivalent to the whole of the pithead price of the article but half as much again. You may have one or two trades, like the jewellery trade, where costly articles are carried in very small bulk, in which the cost of transport is negligible, but they are not many compared with the whole range of industries, and when margins are cut fine and competition is keen any increase in the cost of transport, however slight, reflects itself.

If the Minister thinks that in referring to the cost of living we have used a phrase which could be misinterpreted or misquoted, I would say to him that we have in mind what we believe will be the whole effect of this policy on industry in this country by preventing transport rates being as low as they would otherwise be. That is why some of us have such misgivings in regard to this Bill. I am sure hon. Members will agree that it is not possible to take this Bill by itself when we are considering the question as a whole, and perhaps without being out of order I might make a reference to the actual rates of licence duty. The policy enshrined in the Bill is twofold. It consists both of the increased rates of duty, and also of the system under which the licences are to be given, and it is the combined effect of the two which we have to consider. It was obvious that on the Budget Resolution we could not debate the whole question, and it is also clear that this is the occasion on which a Debate on their combined effect eau take place.

I do not propose to go into details on the question of the licence duties because I am sure it would be out of order to do so. I wish to refer simply to the fact that the increase in the case of some of the larger vehicles would be enormous. It would be an increase of the duties to three and a-half times what they were before. I admit at once that there ought to be some change in the scale, hut these huge increases now proposed mean that there is going to be a very burdensome addition to the licence duty, coming after the increase of the petrol tax first from 4d. to 6d. and then again to 8d. The combination of all these is undoubtedly going to be a heavy expense added, to haulage by road. It is going to increase the rates at which it will be possible for road hauliers to carry the merchandise and manufactures of the industries of this country. On top of that we have the system of licensing set up by the Bill. The Minister, I think, referred to the fact that the Royal Commission on Transport had said that some method of regulation was right and I agree at once. I think the Royal Commission and the Salter Conference and indeed everyone agrees that some regulation is right but the question is what kind of regulation and what degree of regulation. I admit that the conditions as regards safety and behaviour on the roads are right, and also that there should be tolerable conditions of work among those employed. I admit all that at once, but these are quite different from some of the restrictions and conditions contained in the Bill which can only have a hampering and restrictive effect on the use and development of the industry as a whole.

Let me refer briefly to one or two of these conditions. When the new system has come into force and a new entrant wants to come into the industry, the Traffic Commissioner can refuse him a, mew licence at his discretion. Included in the information which the Traffic Commissioner can require, are the rates which the applicant proposes to charge. Why should he want to know the rates which the man is going to charge unless his grant or refusal of the licence is going to be influenced by them? I Again, supposing objection is taken to the licence the Traffic Commissioner is to have regard to whether a licence in a particular case is in excess of requirements and whether the means of transport already in a locality are sufficient. I ask the House to note that in that case the cheapness of the rates in the locality is not mentioned. The Traffic Commissioner is not asked to have regard to those, although other things are mentioned. One wonders, is the real endeavour to get the rates fixed so that there shall be no rate cutting? I fancy it will probably be admitted that that is the case.

I take next the treatment meted out to those who may be called "ancillary users." I agree fully with the Minister's characterisation of that phrase, but I use it as a convenient portmanteau word. Whether you are dealing with a big company like Messrs. Lyons who have a large fleet of motors or with a small man who has perhaps just one lorry, everything is to be done to prevent any such person being able to take return loads. The possession of a "B" licence is not going to mean a bed of roses to the person who possesses it. I will not go into the matter in any detail, but the whole object is to discourage any kind of return journeys. I do not think that the other road hauliers would wish to see that. If these provisions are intended for their protection, it is a protection for which they did not ask. It is a boon thrust upon them against their wishes.

In passing, may I mention what its effect may be in a particular case? I only take a casual instance. Take the case of a small man who has a lorry with which he delivers fish and, coming back from the railway station, he may pick up, say, a load of artificial manure for a farmer. I presume that such a man would require to have a "B" licence in the future. That sort of thing in countless instances and in different places is bound to have a hampering effect on trade. Take, again, the procedure in the case of objections. If objection is taken to the small haulier, he will have to go through all the procedure outlined in Clause 13 with its 16 Sub-sections. He will have to leave his work and perhaps meet a solicitor representing the larger interest which has raised objection to his licence. I cannot conceive of any comparatively small haulier who will not be extraordinarily hampered by this, among the other troubles which will fall upon him. In this respect I can only give the Minister the opinion that has been genuinely expressed to me. The ancillary user will be squeezed out. The small haulier will be squeezed out, and in the end you will get a continual tendency to amalgamation and monopoly among these bigger concerns. On top of an increase in other charges, licence duties will also be increased; competition will be eliminated; rates will rise, and in the end it will facilitate the railways taking over the road companies.

The hon. Gentleman gave an amusing instance of co-ordination. In this case it may be the co-ordination between the boa-constrictor and the rabbit. It may be said that this is exaggeration but we know what has happened in the case of passenger transport on the roads. We have that as an example. The conditions are somewhat different, but the policy is the same and the means are there, and it is probable that what has already happened in the case of passenger transport on the roads will begin to be accomplished with regard to goods as well. In the case of passenger transport we got occurrences like this—and again I give an instance, picked out at random, which is typical of many. The rate given by the omnibuses for Reading to London return, before the last Traffic Act was 6s. As the result of competition among themselves the omnibuses reduced the price of that return ticket to 4s. The railway company then started cheap trips at 4s. 6d. return, on one or two days of the week. Then came the Traffic Act and under the influence of the Traffic Commissioners the omnibuses were forced to raise their price to 5s., but the railway continued to run the cheap trips at 4s. 6d. and increased the number of days per week on which such trips were run. That is the kind of thing which is happening and it is not confined to one district but applies to a great many. That is why we are apprehensive of the effect of these proposals.

The Minister also spoke about the evils of excessive competition. I agree that there are cases in which competition can be excessive but I ask that the conditions should be made known under which competition ought to be restrained. For example, where you find two great steel works with large amounts of fixed capital close together and where there is not enough business for the two, it may be that there is excessive competition there and that the competition ought to be restricted. But when you come to the road transport of goods, you come to an entirely different set of circumstances. The units are small and mobile and can be changed from one point to another. I have been told by people whose natural inclination is in favour of co-ordination that this is just the kind of industry in which free development should be allowed to the largest extent possible. These are some of the reasons why we fear that under this Bill the rates charged to industry will be higher than they would have been otherwise, owing to the restrictive measures which are proposed and also to the other half of the policy which consists of the raising of the licence duties.

We do not ask and would never dream of asking that road transport should not be called upon to pay its full share. I think it ought to pay every penny properly due for its proper user of the road but what I think should really be asked for is that the question of the extent of the user and the amount should he considered judicially. We have the Salter Report brought up before us as if it was gospel. There have been objections raised to the personnel of the Salter Committee. I do not share them personally, but at any rate they were not fully representative, and their conclusions are not accepted if they be taken as an agreed result as between two great industries. In the report of the Royal Commission on Transport there was an entirely different recommendation with regard to licensing. It looked to a maximum possible duty of £120.

Mr. STANLEY

On a point of Order. I should like to have your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, as to how far it will be possible to discuss this question of taxation on this Bill. It obviously puts me and my hon. and gallant Friend in a very difficult position. These duties were under discussion on the Budget Resolution, and I submit that, except by way of reference, it is not posible to discuss them in detail on this Bill to-day.

Mr. SPEAKER

Certainly the proper time to discuss these duties would have been on the Budget Resolution. On the Second Reading of this Bill hon. Members must confine themselves to the main principles of the Bill itself.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

Further to that point of Order. Is it not within our rights to-day to raise the point raised by the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland)? The Budget discussion yesterday covered a great many things, but we are dealing to-day with a specific Bill, and have we not the right to discuss what is included in the Bill?

Mr. SPEAKER

That is exactly what I intended to convey to the House. What we should do to-day is to confine ourselves to a, discussion of what is in the Bill. Yesterday would have been the time to discuss the question of these duties, and that was the specific occasion on which they ought to have been discussed.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND

Of course, I will obey your Ruling, Sir, though I may make this observation, that it is for Parliamentary and legislative convenience that the two parts of one project are brought forward in different Measures. I am sure that what the House would wish is that somehow or other there should be a discussion of the policy as a whole. No discussion of one bit without the other can be really effective, and that is why I may have strayed too far. I had no wish to stray, nor did I wish to take any unfair advantage, but my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Coventry (Captain Strickland) did, I believe, ask you whether it would be possible to refer to the licence duties. It is because he did so that I have referred to them to-day, as indeed the Minister did, though perhaps rather less than I should have liked.

Mr. SPEAKER

Obviously, it would be in order to refer to these duties, because they have a bearing on the whole Bill. The only point is that they should not be discussed in detail.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND

Then I will refrain from mentioning any particular rate, but we wish that the whole of this matter could be considered in detail, be- cause the cost that will be imposed on industry by the combined effect of this policy will be very considerable and one that ought to be taken into account. It may be said that while there may be force in the arguments that one uses, the condition of the railways is acute and, moreover, that they have a real claim that their remunerative traffic should not be taken from them. If I may repeat the argument, coal and heavy traffic has to be carried by the railways; it can only be carried by the railways, therefore, they are taking unremunerative traffic in coal and what are known as "heavies" and recouping themselves from the other merchandise, and that it is only fair that there should not be taken from them.

The whole crux of the question lies in this question, whether indeed, as has always been said, the heavy traffic is unremunerative, that the railways have to recoup themselves from other classes of merchandise, and that they make the traffic pay what it can bear. That statement is quite fundamental; it has always been treated as gospel, and if that is not the fact, then the whole justification for this kind of policy must be reconsidered. What I say here and now is that I believe that that statement is wrong and is not true to the facts. I do not believe that the transport by the railways of coal and heavy traffic is unremunerative and that it has to be subsidised by other merchandise. If there is any subsidisation, it is the other way round, and it is the carriage of the coal and the heavy traffic that subsidises the railway carriage of merchandise. I do not know whether there may be other railway directors in the House at this time, who may dispute what I say, but at any rate I would ask the Minister to consider this point, because it is fundamental to the whole question.

The facts are these: To convey a ton of merchandise for a mile takes a great deal more in wagon-miles than to convey a ton of coal for a mile. The reason is that wagons with merchandise in them are on the average not loaded up to more than two and three-quarter tons to a wagon, whereas the average load of a 10-ton coal wagon is over nine and a-half tons of coal. In other words, many more wagon-miles have to run to produce a given number of ton-miles of merchandise than is needed for the same ton-miles of coal. The result is that although the receipts per ton-mile of merchandise are two and one-fifth times the receipts from coal and "heavies" per ton-mile, yet the expense of the merchandise is three and one-fifth times that of carrying a ton-mile of coal. The net result is even more remarkable. It may cost slightly more to drag a wagon-load of coal than a wagon-load of merchandise, but the actual extra cost is only a minute decimal point of a penny a ton. On the other hand, the carriage of merchandise involves the extra shunting, changing, cost of clerking, and other expenses which are not included in the figures I have quoted.

I put that forward because it is a point which has been put and proved to me by figures, which I believe. If it is true, consider the inferences that follow. It affects the whole conception of the proper functions of railways and roads respectively. It involves a reconsideration of the Government's policy, of which that is the fundamental crux. I hope the Minister will really go into that question. As it is, the wheel has turned full circle to-day. A century ago we had the railway industry struggling for a right to develop. To-day we have another industry struggling for a right not to be really crippled. It is a blessing for this country that the railway industry could develop nearly a century ago. —"Each new act strikes root into a far fore-time, and our own acts, for good or ill, are mightier powers. I would ask that the same care should be taken with regard to the road industry today, and I hope that further consideration will be given to the question before this policy is too lightly proceeded with.

6.41 p.m.

Mr. FIELDEN

As a member of the Railway Companies Association, I have been asked by them to put the position with regard to this Bill as the railways see it I should like to express my own personal agreement, and, I believe, that of the railway directors and managers, with the expression of opinion that the Minister gave towards the close of his speech as to the desirability, in the interests of the country, of co-ordination between the transport on the roads and on the railways. I would ask hon. Members to throw their minds back to the early summer of last year, when the Committee under Sir Arthur Salter sat. They took considerable time in considering the question that was put before them, and in July they made their report. It was a unanimous report, but it was not what the railway companies thought they were entitled to. They accepted something less than they thought they ought to have. The report went to the Ministry of Transport, and from July to March the report was considered and discussed, and finally this Bill was produced. Last week we had the Budget, and the duties proposed in the Budget were again less than those that were proposed in the Salter Report.

Therefore, in this Bill the railways are getting something less than it was suggested they should have in the report of the Salter Committee, and the House will understand that the railway companies do not look upon this Bill as something that is going to give them very great assistance. On the other hand, they have carefully examined the Clauses of the Bill, and they feel that the structure of the Bill is such as to allow of Amendments being moved in Committee that will very much improve the Bill, from their point of view. Therefore, they do not propose to offer on Second Reading any opposition to the passage of this Bill. In Committee they will be able to put their case and they hope that the Committee will accept Amendments which they think that the railway companies are justified in asking.

I will give one or two points on which we think that Amendments to the Bill will be of importance. There seems no valid reason why agricultural motor vehicles should be excluded from Subsection (1) of Clause 8. Why should short-term licences be granted without any right of objection being conferred on other providers of regular transport facilities? Again, licensing authorities, in the public interest, should be required when considering the grant or refusal of existing "A" and "B" licences to have regard to the adequacy of existing transport facilities, including transport by rail. There seems to be an important omission in that no provision is made for the control and publication of road transport rates. I hope that the Minister will consider the desirability of referring this matter as one of urgency to the Transport Advisory Council which he pro- poses to set up under the Bill. These are some of the points on which railway companies think that the Bill should be amended.

The railway companies are quite in sympathy with the principles of the Bill in so far as it relates to the regulation of goods by road transport. They also welcome the power which the Bill is designed to confer upon them in the matter of making agreed charges with traders for the conveyance of goods by railway as long as they are not bound by restrictions which render those powers nugatory. They welcome, too, the proposal to set up a. Transport Advisory Council to assist the Minister in dealing with transport problems generally, subject to it being so constituted as to give the railway companies adequate representation on that council. The companies do not propose, as I have said, to offer any opposition on the Second Reading, but they do not consider that the Bill as presented gives them possession of the powers that they feel they ought to have, and they hope to obtain those powers, or some of them, in Committee.

6.50 p.m.

Mr. DOBBIE

I rise to support the Amendment. I want to congratulate the Minister on the way in which he stated the case for the Bill, and to say that had the Bill been as good as the speech he made and the case he stated, I might have felt constrained to vote for it. I would also like to say to the Minister, in response to his request to the Opposition that we should not go into details in regard to our case against the Bill and in regard to the policy which we desire to put before the House, that on the present and on every occasion on which we have an opportunity, we will endeavour to pierce the opposition in this House against the principle of national ownership for which we stand. I will deal with the question in connection with the Amendment in the hope that we will be able even to-day to get the House to see that private ownership in regard to rail and road transport has failed, and that that is the reason why the Bill is before the House. If we are unable to persuade the House that this Bill is wrong and that our proposition is right, we will continue to try on every opportunity that we have until we do persuade the House on those lines. If, however, the House agrees with the Bill, we will take the opportunity of dealing with it by Amendments when it comes before Committee.

We challenge the continuity of private ownership of rail and road transport because, in our opinion, it has failed to give to the nation the things that I believe the Minister desires to give. He is, however, in the wrong party and is advocating the wrong policy and has got the wrong Bill in which to do it. We stand, as I believe the nation stands, for a cheap, efficient and safe transport, coupled with human conditions of life and labour and decent wages to the people who work in the industry. Private ownership both of road and rail transport has failed up to the moment to give those things. I can speak from a long and varied experience in regard especially to the railroad section of the transport industry. The road section is notorious for bad conditions, low wages and inhuman conditions for the drivers on the long-distance journeys; and the accident record is a disgrace to civilisation and no credit to the people who are responsible for the development of road transport in this country. The railways, on the other hand, are subject to many conflicting opinions. I am one of those who believe that there is a great future for the railroad industry in this country. I do not believe that they are played out, but I believe that they can be more effectively developed under national ownership and control than ever they will be under private control.

I do not want to throw too many bouquets to the Minister because I have no hope of converting him, at any rate to-night; I have hopes of converting him enventually. But I was glad to hear that this was a road and railway Bill, and not a road versus railway Bill. I was glad to hear that he believed in co-operation of road and rail, but we will never get that necessary co-operation as long as these systems are owned by private individuals, and as long as transport is run for profit rather than for service to the nation. My experience as a working railwayman on the wages board dealing with conditions of the railway workers and reviewing the whole position of the railways, has compelled me, as it has compelled every representative of the workers on that board, to express that opinion very clearly and decisively. Two years ago, with regard to a report presented by the men's side of the wages board, we endeavoured to meet the Prime Minister. He always seems to be Prime Minister whatever Government is in power, and, as I am reminded, he is nearly always out of the country. We nearly had a deputation to him, but with his usual elusiveness at the last moment he handed us over to the Minister of Transport.

We then definitely laid it down as our opinion, as the opinion of the labour representatives of this country, and as the opinion of hon. Members who are occupying the Opposition benches, that, based on our experience and on evidence presented by the railway companies themselves at the wages board, the only solution was the co-ordination of road and rail under national ownership and control. At the wages board the railway companies have continually complained about diminishing revenue owing to unfair road competition, and I would couple with that the bad legislation of the Government in power at the present time. At one time we were told that the railways were the arteries through which the lifeblood of the nation flowed in the shape of trade and commerce, but in view of the two facts I have mentioned they are getting rather anaemic. The owners and controllers of the railway system, just as the owners and controllers of the road transport system, only look upon transport, not as a service to the nation or to the people, but rather as a means of getting profit. We believe that as transport is needful to every person in the nation and a necessity for the country, the time has arrived when it should be taken out of the hands of the people who run it for profit alone, and be taken over by the nation and run in the interests of the whole people with the idea of getting cheap, efficient and safe transport with human conditions of life and labour for those who work in the industries.

When we examine the complaints of the railway companies, we unhesitatingly challenge them for their inefficiency with regard to the way that the railways are run. We know that on the railways of the country to-day there are 700,000 privately-owned wagons that run hun- dreds of thousands of miles empty and unremunerative. We impeach the rail-ray companies, or those responsible for this maladministration, for the so-called failure of the railways of the country with regard to profit-making. We say that, if the railways had been owned, controlled and run by the nation, they would have been a great financial asset at the moment. They would have been a greater success under the ownership of the nation than under private ownership.

Mr. LESLIE BOYCE

Like they are in other countries.

Mr. DOBBIE

The hon. Member opposite may think to put me off by that. We will look at some of the other countries if we have time. If we have not time to-night, we will look at them some other day. I impeach the railroad owners for the supposed failure of the railroads. If it was needful, and necessary, to take the railways out of the hands of these people in the hour of the nation's crisis, when it was struggling for its life, and run them in the interests of the people during the time of war—

Mr. BOYCE

Were not the railways operated and managed by these people during the War?

Mr. DOBBIE

The railways were taken over by the Government during the War. They were unified, and we were getting from the railways then service for the nation, instead of service for profit-making. That is the principle we stand for now. It is the principle adopted by the Government, represented by the Members who are in power just now, when there was a war. We believe that if it was necessary for the purposes of prosecuting war that the railways should be taken over by the nation then, for the purpose of prosecuting peace, and carrying on the transport of the country, it is equally necessary that the railways should be owned and controlled by the nation. The railways are something like 100 years old, and the money invested at the beginning of the railways has been dividend-bearing all the time. It is dividend-bearing now. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh because they do not know, or think we do not know. There was enough dividend earned on the railways last year to pay 2½ per cent. on the whole of the invested capital of the railways of this country, and, had those with gilt-edged securities been prepared to share their dividends with their less fortunate brethren, then there would have been a dividend equivalent to 2½ per cent. on the invested capital of the railways. With those who gamble on the railways on the Stock Exchange, and get no dividend, we have no sympathy. We want to make that clear and definite. At the moment we are told there is a plentiful supply of cheap money. I have yet to find that the railway companies have been endeavouring to raise any money for the purpose of paying out their big interest-bearing investments. If the railways were run in the way they should be run, there would be no necessity for them to get assistance from a Bill like this.

We ask the House to face up to the situation. The multiplicity of directors on the railways only leads to inefficiency and waste, and from that standpoint we would say that if the railways were owned and controlled by the nation they would be more efficiently conducted. Compare the Post Office with the railways. What do we find? The net revenue of the railways, in 1931, was 21 per cent. of the gross receipts, and the net revenue of the Post Office was 20 per cent. That reveals that both in the case of the Post Office and that of the railways one-fifth of the gross receipts is clear profit. In the case of the Post Office that is looked upon as being a wonderfully paying proposition. With the railways in the same position we are told that they are hopeless from the standpoint of profit-making, or dividend-paying. It is quite obvious that the railways are not the bad proposition many people would endeavour to make us believe. From every standpoint we believe that our Amendment is the only way to face up to this problem of road and rail transport. You will not deal with it by beating down the Amendment to-night. If this Amendment is defeated, it only means that at some time in the near future this House will be confronted with the same problem, and confronted with the same Amendment.

Someone has said, "What about other countries?" Let us look at the Southern State of Ireland. There there is a Government that is doing something unique, and something new, in the in- terests of its people in regard to transport. There has been a Bill introduced there which provides for the reconstruction of the capital of the Great Southern Railway, and £25,000,000 of existing capital will be reduced to £11,000,000. All denominations of stock are affected, and every £100 of ordinary stock will be reduced to £10. The Bill also makes provision for a reduction in the board of directors. Every other industry in the country has had to write off capital, and the railways of the country, either themselves, or I hope by compulsion—although it will not be by this Government—will be compelled in the near future to adopt the same method, or the Government will have to take over the control of the railways.

In view of all the things we have said, I want the House to give some attention and consideration to the Amendment. I have not dealt with the Bill as presented by the Minister, because the way for dealing with road and rail transport lies in the Amendment. If the Amendment is defeated then, when the Bill is in Committee, we shall be prepared to submit Amendments to meet the position as laid down in the Bill. Hon. Members should recognise that if they defeat the Amendment to-night they are only delaying the evil day. From the standpoint of the people who work in the transport industry, and that of the country itself, the Amendment should be adopted. It would bring to the nation cheap, efficient, and safe transport, and human conditions of life and labour to those employed in the transport industry.

7.10 p.m.

Sir HERBERT SAMUEL

My hon. Friends desire that a statement should be made as to the course we propose to take in the Division on this Bill. I can do so with much brevity. Brevity is always welcome to the House of Commons, but never more welcome than when the House consists, as it does practically at this moment, less of an audience than a body of potential speakers. We shall vote for the Second Reading of the Bill, and against the Amendment. It is clear that there is a problem which needs the immediate attention of the legislature—a problem that arises partly from the competition between road interests and railway interests, and partly from the question of what is the fair charge to be levied for the use of public highways by commercial interests. The whole subject has been most carefully considered, first by the Salter Conference, next by the Ministry of Transport, and then by the Government. The Bill presented to the House to-night ought, in our view, to receive a Second Reading.

In Committee, no doubt, there will be criticisms from various quarters, and some of my friends feel that the Bill is unduly restrictive to the new road industry, which is necessary for the commercial advantage of the nation. They will express their own views in Committee when the opportunity arises. Some of them may express their views in general this afternoon. I think we feel, in all parts of the House, that it is unfortunate that it should be necessary to have such an elaborate system of licensing imposed upon the transport industry. Apparently that is inevitable, if measures are to be taken along the lines required. Speaking neither from the point of view of the railway interests, nor from that of the road interests, but having in mind the public interest, which includes the two, we can have no doubt that this Bill ought to receive a Second Reading this afternoon, and we shall vote accordingly.

May I be allowed to congratulate the Minister of Transport on the reception of his Bill by many, and on the reception of its presentation by all? I had the honour to co-operate with the hon. Member in the Home Office for 12 months, in the earlier phases of this Government. Since then we have both left the Home Office. He has crossed Whitehall to the Ministry of Transport, and I have crossed the Gangway. From this position I would venture to tender to him my most cordial congratulations on his promotion to be the head of a Department, and on his presentation of this Bill, the passage of which, I am sure, will conduce to the public advantage as well as the advancement of his own reputation.

7.14 p.m.

Mr. GEOFFREY PETO

I wish I could welcome this Bill as the right hon. Gentleman has just welcomed it. I am more convinced than he is that the National Government has produced again and again the best of all possible Bills. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the Bill could not have been presented with greater skill, or charm, by the Minister. These very facts, however, make it more important that we should scrutinise the Bill with great care, because every now and then the best of Governments and Ministers make mistakes and, to my mind, this Bill is a very serious mistake. The Minister said there was no Socialism in the Bill. In fact, it is the very form of Socialism to which I most object. There is a good deal that is attractive in Socialism, but the one thing I do not like about it is this idea of levelling. Because we cannot level up, therefore we are constrained to level clown; that is what this Bill does. It does not attempt to improve the position of the railways, but sets out to drag the roads, if that can be done, down to the level which the railways have now reached.

We have just heard speeches from a railway director and the leader of a great railway trade union. I always knew that railway directors were great and noble-hearted people, but I must say that that speech was overwhelming in its generosity. The railways do not propose to oppose the Bill, only to move some Amendments to add further burdens to the road industry. That is a point of view to which I strongly object. We have in road transport a new industry, of great importance and of great value to manufacturers and traders, and we ought not to overlook that fact. There was too much in the Minister's speech about the position of the roads and the railways, and too little about "John Citizen" and the ordinary traders and manufacturers. If we can get cheap transport, why should we deliberately penalise ourselves by preventing our manufacturers and traders availing themselves of it? Other nations subsidise their railway traffic, especially for export purposes. We do not do that. We say, "Yes, we know that heavy goods traffic does not pay and that it is subsidised by the light traffic. The light traffic is now finding a better and cheaper way of reaching its destination. We will so penalise that light traffic that we will compel it to go back to the railway, and continue to subsidise the heavy traffic." That is an utterly uneconomic proceeding. Not even the National Government can make water flow uphill, though that is what they are attempting to do. Economic laws will assert themselves, and I maintain that this Bill is opposed to economic laws. It not only multiplies officials, but it will enormously reduce employment in these industries, and the number of officials it creates will not compensate for the number of men it throws out of employment.

The Bill will also multiply crime. It contains a whole list of new penalties for all sorts of crimes which are only invented to be shoved into the Bill. Under Clause lb or 16 a man is compelled to stop his vehicle whenever an examiner requires him to do so. How in the world is he going to tell an examiner from a motor bandit? Will it not be cheaper to go on and pay a fine of £20 or £50 than to stop and perhaps find that one has been held up by a motor bandit I Any ununiformed man—unless we are going to design some uniform for these examiners—will be able to hold a driver up. The other day a man came to me who had saved a little money and with that and his war gratuity bought a lorry. Then he bought another lorry and eventually four lorries. After the Salter Report came out, but before this legislation was introduced, he said to me, "What have I done that is wrong? It is evident from the whole attitude of the Salter Report and, I am afraid, of the Government, that I have committed some crime and I am going to be heavily punished. I have worked hard. The money I draw out of my business is not as much as my drivers get out of it. I put all my savings back. I have found that 7- or 8-ton lorries would pay better than 5-ton lorries and I therefore scrapped my smaller lorries and bought larger ones." Why should a man like that suddenly have his tax increased by 300 or 400 per cent.? It is utterly unfair. It puts that individual out of competition, and prevents him from carrying on a trade which he has built up by the sweat of his brow and by saving and scraping as he has done ever since the War. He is the kind of man we want to encourage. The tendency of the Ministry of Transport however, as we have seen in other Bills, is towards creating tremendous amalgamations. Everything has to be larger and larger and out goes the smaller man, out goes individual enterprise.

This is getting dangerously near the views of Members of the Labour party, who would nationalise all transport. There is very little difference between nationalising transport and forcing on us these enormous combinations in which the Ministry of Transport believes. What the ordinary manufacturer and trader wants is to get his goods delivered quickly and cheaply from door to door, and that is a reasonable requirement. Why should he not have his goods delivered from door to door instead of having to break bulk, to put them on the railway, and take them off again at the other end? The Federation of British Industries have sent out a circular pointing out that the material interest is not that of the roads or the railways but that of the ordinary citizen. Then we are going to restrict the areas of operation of road transport. If a man wants an "A" licence he has to say in what area he proposes to operate. How can he do so, and what object is there in his doing so unless it is to be put on the licence? Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will explain that point. Why should a man have to declare in what areas he is going to work with his lorry? It says in the Bill that an "A" licence will be free of restrictions when once granted. Take the case of a furniture remover. How on earth can he be expected to say in what part of the country he is going to operate? Naturally he will have to go to wherever the furniture has to be removed to, and if possible he will want to bring back a return load. Furniture removers cannot be expected to confine themselves to a particular area or to forecast where their vehicles will have to go. The Minister said that every lorry must have its home and I quite agree, but it is not its home that it is asked to declare, but where it is going visiting, and it is almost impossible for a contractor to do that.

In Clauses 3 and 8 we find the words "uneconomic competition." There is too much in modern legislation about preventing uneconomic competition. It is a very easy creed and is an extremely dangerous creed to put before unreliable or inefficient concerns. Any concern which finds itself in difficulties will claim that it is uneconomic competition that is doing it harm. By bolstering up the railways, which may or may not be efficiently managed, we may be checking other industries which are better managed. Again, this Bill destroys all security for the haulage contractor's business. There is no business which I can think of in which good will is not one of the assets, but there will be no good will attaching to a haulage contractor's business. Like my friend, a man may build up his fleet of lorries and establish himself in various places, but if he wants to retire he cannot sell the good will of that business, because the Minister or his officials, without giving any reason except, possibly, that of uneconomic competition, may rule that whole business out and shut it down. That is a very unfair feature of the Bill.

In two years time nobody will be able to implement a haulage contract. In two years time every "A" licence will expire. No manufacturer or trader can enter into a contract with a haulage contractor for more than two years, because nobody can say that at the end of that time the contractor will have his licence renewed. There will be a dead stop in the haulage arrangements of this country, because all these licences expire together at the end of two years. I would like to know what provision the Government are making for that situation, because it is going to b a tremendous hindrance to trade when, on this appointed day, all the licences expire.

As to the "C" licences why should a man have to get a licence to use his own lorry for his own purposes? Over a quarter of a million of them will have to be applied for. How does what a man is putting into his own lorry and where he is taking it concern the Government or their officials? The Bill means the creation of more officials to inquire into other people's business. We talk of reducing our Budget expenditure, but this Bill is going to force up that expenditure. It is a typical "Friday morning Bill," such as is introduced by a Member of the Labour party, and hon. Members like the Minister of Transport tear to pieces with great skill, to the delight of the whole House. I do not want to go into the question of taxation to-day, but we cannot get away from the fact that two barrels are being fired at the motorist, one by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the other by the Minister of Transport, and if one barrel misses a man the other will hit him. I hope we shall get an opportunity of discussing the two aspects of the case together, and that the Minister of Transport will en- deavour to get the burden of the taxes removed and also get more reasonable provisions put into his own Bill. If control and regulation are necessary, let them be on common-sense and business lines. Do let us remember that it is not only the concern of road and rail trans- port, important though those two industries are, but that we are dealing with the interests of the whole of this country. I hope that the Minister of Transport will bear that in mind in future, and that when this Bill goes into Committee he will consider Amendments—I am sure that a great many are likely to be moved—to make the Bill less officious and less interfering, and to give much greater freedom for the subjects of this country.

7.31 p.m.

Sir REGINALD BANKS

It would be very unfortunate—in this, I think, the House will agree with me—if this discussion were to resolve itself into a conflict of contending vested interests. Naturally, representing Swindon, where practically all my constituents depend for their livelihood upon the railways, I have a very deep concern in the welfare of the railways. In answer to some of the observations made by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Dobbie) I would observe that it may be that one of these days his ideals will be realised and that the railways will be conducted under public ownership and control. Up to the present day, the vast majority of the electors have not favoured that suggestion, and we have to assume that for some time to come the railways will be run by private enterprise, and that the capitalist system, whatever its troubles may be, is not yet extinct. I have always said to my constituents: "Belong to your trade unions. It is absolutely essential that you should have the power of collective bargaining, but do remember that the time when you can exercise that power effectually is not when no profits are being earned and things are in a condition of depression, but when prosperity returns. The more the railways prosper, the stronger will be your case when you ask for your fair share of the increasing prosperity."

Deep as my concern for the welfare of the railways may be, I still hold to the opinion, which was expressed by that great constitutional statesman Edmund Burke, that a Member of Parliament is not a delegate for any constituency, and when he is returned to this House he is a Member of Parliament. Burke put it in a very magnificent phrase in his famous speech to the electors of Bristol, when he said: If we do not permit our members to act on a very enlarged view of things, we shall at length infallibly degrade our national representation into a confused and scuffling bustle of local agency. The Minister has avoided that, and therefore my mind is considerably relieved. In supporting this Bill, I sincerely entertain the belief that I am consulting not only the welfare of my constituents but the welfare of the trade and industry of Great Britain at large. It is clearly understood that no industry can ever ask Parliament for a perpetual monopoly. One hundred years ago, the stage-coach and the wagon had to give place to the rail. Now the railways again have to face a resurrected road transport, risen from the dead and transformed by the internal-combustion engine. It may very well be, in the future, that both rail and road will have to give way to the hosts of the air. The Minister was quite right in one thing. A false analogy has been drawn between the condition of affairs to-day and 100 years ago. When the stage-coach had to give way to the railways, it gave way to something which could do all that it could do, better and more cheaply. That is not the situation to-day. If the railways were to be destroyed to-morrow, it would be quite impossible for road transport within any measurable time to act as a perfect and efficient substitute for the railways. Road tranport might conceivably, if not reasonably regulated, ruin the railways, but is far from being able to perform their function.

The railroad system, which has taken a century to develop, and which has cost over £1,000,000,000, is being undermined by a haphazard system of road transport which, in the words of Mr. Ashley Brown, for all-round utility and economy cannot compare with the railways which are creatures of Statute. The railways enjoyed statutory privileges. They had a statutory monopoly and, in the interests of the railways themselves and of the public, they had to be subjected to complicated statutory restrictions, from which their present competitors are free. While the railways are still struggling with the tribunal set up to ensure a reasonable rate of profit to the railways, the motor lorry snaps up the traffic and goes thundering off along the highway which its unfortunate competitor assists to repair. In spite of what has been said by the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. G. Peto) I affirm that it is in the ultimate interests of transport that conditions should be made more regular, otherwise a common disaster to road and rail transport will destroy them both together.

There is a suggestion coming from those quarters which are most interested in railways, as the Minister said, that a simple solution of the problem is to abolish all the restrictions under which railways at present lie. I gravely doubt the advisability of any such course, because I feel convinced that to do that and nothing else would simply be to aggravate cut-throat competition, and that would make things worse rather than better. It is quite plain that road transport performs certain services much better than the railways can do. It is not to penalise either road transport or the railways that one aims, but, so far as one can, under the present economic system, to co-ordinate them, and to make them complementary to one another. The natural course is to do something to regulate road transport to keep it within reasonable limits, to subject it to perfectly reasonable conditions and to permit the railways to do what they very well could do, if it were not for statutory restrictions which are now unnecessary and obsolete. It is a misuse of language to suggest that this Bill penalises the road hauliers. The public are concerned not only to get a cheap, but to get a proper, service. The Bill only says to road hauliers: "If you propose to embark upon this enterprise, you must satisfy us first of all that your vehicle is safe and sound and, secondly, that you are not going to tear along the roads like some great Juggernaut"—which is what they too frequently do—"endangering pedestrians and shoving every private motor-car into the ditch. You must have a proper limit to your weight and to your speed, and you must pay fair wages to your men." How can those be said to constitute a grave handicap upon the road haulier? The hon. Member thinks that the licensing authority is going to act in some capricious and arbitrary manner, so that the people who apply two years from now will not have any good will, because they may all be wiped out at the whim of the licensing authority. If there is anything in this Bill calculated to bring about such a state of affairs I hope that it will be removed in Committee. I cannot find it, in a cursory reading of the Bill. The licensing authority must use his discretion, and in doing so he will apply his mind to certain very proper considerations.

Mr. PETO

There is no certainty upon which a man can enter into a contract.

Sir R. BANKS

I am afraid that there would be very few contracts entered into in these days, if there was an absolute certainty. The Bill provides that at the end of two years they shall apply for a licence, and it is plain that the Minister will exercise his discretion, keeping proper considerations in view. If the applicants disagree, there is an appeal tribunal, a judicial tribunal, which will certainly see that they get justice. The only danger of a road haulier's business being extinguished at the end of two years is if he fails to satisfy the licensing authority that he, or his vehicle, are fit and proper to carry passengers on the roads. I have not been in the House throughout the whole of this Debate, and I do not know whether any hon. Member has quoted a few figures, which are staggering, to show the amazing rapidity with which this form of competition has grown. In 1926 there were 257,000 vehicles of all classes on the roads; in 1932 there were 370,000. Taking the same year, and confining our attention to goods vehicles of five tons unladen weight or over—that is the most serious form of competition—in 1926 they numbered 1,379, and in 1932, 7,398. They had increased six-fold in that comparatively short period.

Those conditions have led to a state of affairs which is very detrimental to trade and industry. One only asks for fair play—no more. Think of the favoured situation of the unfortunate road transport man for whom the hon. Member is so solicitous. Bound hand and foot as the railways are by statutory restriction, they have to face the competition of a man who, in the first place, has to fulfil no regulations with regard to punctuality of service. Railways have to run to schedule. He can run wherever and as he likes. He is not, as a general rule, a common carrier, and therefore he is not subject to the very onerous and legal liabilities which attach to the common carrier. He can pick and choose his clients, can charge whatever he likes and is in a position to quote secret and discriminative rates.

Mr. McKEAG

Does the hon. and learned Gentleman imply that the railway companies are under some obligation as to punctuality in delivering goods?

Sir R. BANKS

I said regularity of service. The railway companies have to run certain trains at certain times; the road-haulier man can make his own programme to suit himself. He is under no requirement to run, or to attempt to run, to a time-table. If I may vary the expression of "getting the cream of the traffic," he gets the green end of the asparagus. It is thoroughly unsound, and the trade of the whole country is bound to suffer if this is carried on too long. I do not like, as a lawyer, to make statements without citing some evidence in support of them. There is one passage of the report of the Royal Commission on Road Transport which I do not think has yet been cited, and I commend it to my hon. Friend's attention. The commission said, in their final report: We find that the goods branch of the Road Transport industry is in a condition which lacks all unity and is operated by a number of independent firms and individuals who, while endeavouring to compete with other forms of transport, are at the same time engaged in bitter and uneconomic strife with each other in their own particular branch … We believe that it would be greatly to the advantage of the road haulage industry itself if it were placed on an organised basis. That is not the ex parte statement of someone interested in railways; it is the report of the Royal Commission, whose final and considered judgment it was that this internecine strife, unorganised and unregulated, within the road transport industry itself, was gradually undermining the stability of that industry. The Opposition, from their Amendment, appear to think that nothing will ever get right until the railways are transferred to public ownership and control. I am one of those—I hope I shall not be considered conceited if I say that I wish there were more of us—who do not think in slogans and catchwords. It does not matter to me at all whether a thing is called individualism, or Socialism, or nationalisation.

We have, as practical men to-day, to consider each case upon its own merits. We have to ask, is this a case which is better left untouched, or is it a matter in which the State should, to some extent, interfere? It may even be that, if the State has to interfere, it has to interfere to a very large extent. It might even be, and I am perfectly prepared to discuss it on its merits, that nationalisation would be the best expedient. But I noticed that the hon. Member for Rotherham, the touching confusion of whose mind almost disarms me—to quote a phrase of Robert Louis Stevenson—when ho was asked whether he could show some success under nationalisation in other countries, did not deal with past or present successes in the matter of the nationalisation of railways in other countries, but told us, with a burst of enthusiasm, that Southern Ireland was proposing to water down the stock of its railway companies. I do not care what it is called, but I do not think that abolishing competition will be of any use, and I take the view that this Bill does not attempt to abolish competition, but only seeks to remedy it. If I may quote some words of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), in his Budget speech in 1928, he said, and said wisely: It is the duty of the State to hold the balance even between road and rail and let the best form of transport win on its merits."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th April, 1928; col. 855, Vol. 216.] I say to opponents of this Bill—not official opponents of the Bill, but opponents from the point of view, it may be, of extreme advocacy of railways or extreme advocacy of road transport—that, if they decline reasonable regulation, nationalisation may sooner or later be the disagreeable alternative that they will have to face, because the present position is unendurable. Whatever the facts may be about the ability of our lines to pay dividends, whatever the figure may be which it is said they can afford to pay, we are face to face with the stark fact that the gross earnings of the railways in 1923 were £219,000,000, and in 1932 they had dropped by 25 per cent. to £164,000,000. Only one of the four companies nowadays constitutes a trustee security, which would not seem to indicate that their position is entirely due to the juggling and speculation of the Stock Exchange. Only one is a full trustee security at the present time. Two have ceased to be full trustee securities, and one is now in the Chancery list. I commend, to those who are responsible for friendly societies and trade unions, the consideration that they have to depend very largely upon trustee securities for their investments and for their income.

The position at Swindon is absolutely dismal. We have been lucky up to the present. I have been Member there now, with a short hiatus, subsequently providentially remedied, for some 11 years. I have never attempted to sit for any other constituency, and I shall never attempt to sit for any other constituency. I feel the position of my constituents, who are now old friends by this time, most keenly. Although up to the present there has not been very much unemployment in Swindon, only recently, unavoidably, the Great Western Railway have had to dismiss some 800 men from the works, and, when one considers the figures which I have just quoted, partly no doubt due to the general depression—because nobody is going to deny that all industries are suffering from general depression—I have no doubt, and I believe it is demonstrable, that they are suffering from this unregulated form of competition, and one feels that, even if it came to nationalisation in the long run, it would be better than leaving matters as they are at present. If anything is going to be done, it should be done now. One of the strongest appeals against this or any other Measure of the same sort is the case of the man who has put his savings into the industry, as in the case quoted by my hon. Friend, and now finds that the conditions imposed upon him are different from what they were when he made that investment. He has acquired a vested interest. I would ask the House to remember the growth in the number of these wagons to which I referred a little while ago, and consider that every month, every year, vested interests are growing and increasing, and, the longer we delay, the greater the injustice, if any, will be.

If I may sum up briefly, this is not a proposal spontaneously generated by the present iniquitous Government. It implements the advice of the Royal Commission on Transport, and it especially bears in mind that passage of the Royal Commission's final report which says that, in the interests of road transport itself, some regulation is advisable. We have often heard that it is based on the unanimous recommendation of the Salter Committee. It is certainly not a Bill brought in in response to undue pressure from either one interest or the other. It is a step towards the equitable solution of a problem which has become acute, and it will, I do not say enable the railways, but it will help the railways, to get all that they want, that is to say, their fair share, neither more nor less, of that coming prosperity for which we hope and pray.

7.51 p.m.

Mr. ALED ROBERTS

I am rather glad to have the opportunity of intervening in this Debate immediately after the hon. and learned Member for Swindon (Sir R. Banks), because he has rather attacked people who do not like this Bill from the point of view that they think it will interfere with road interests generally, and he tries to bully us by telling us that, if we do not accept reasonable regulation, we may have to accept nationalisation.

Sir R. BANKS

If the hon. Member will allow me, I was not bullying him alone; I was bullying the extreme people on the other side. Anyone who opposes regulation at the present time may be faced with nationalisation later.

Mr. ROBERTS

Yes, but in point of fact that is no threat at all to hon. Members above the Gangway opposite, because that is what they want; but, to some of us who do not believe in nationalisation, it is what I consider to be a bullying threat. The words used were "reasonable regulation." I have listened to the speeches that have been made here to-day, and I have not yet heard anyone dispute that they are prepared to accept reasonable regulation of road traffic up and down the country. The question is, what is reasonable regulation? Most people think that the recommendations of the Royal Commis- sion, who sat for two years or more, very carefully sifted all the evidence that was available to them, and brought in regulations as regards regulation which might be applied to road transport, could fairly be called reasonable regulation.

The Minister of Transport this afternoon, in taking us through the Bill—I do not know whether it is presumptuous on the part of a very new Member to congratulate him on it—certainly did it in such a way that, although I have been through the Bill times without number since it was published, I really did not recognise it from his description. It sounded this afternoon like a very pleasant, nice, easy way of imposing just a few temporary regulations that would not hurt anyone, after which everything would go on quite well; and the object of doing that, apparently, was some co-ordination of transport at some near or distant date. Some reference was made to the question of division of functions, which is mentioned in the terms of reference of the Salter Committee.

I listened also this afternoon to the hon. Member for the Exchange Division of Manchester (Mr. Fielden), whose speech has already been referred to. He spoke as a railway director. I do not think I have ever beard a railway director speak in that capacity in this House before, and it really was a revelation to me. It indicated that perhaps there is something in the motive behind the Bill, that perhaps there may be some reason why the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Transport were not embodied in legislation so far as the road carriage of goods was concerned, why it was necessary for the railway companies to publish a statement as to what they wanted three or four months before the Salter Committee was appointed, how the Salter Committee recommended almost exactly what the railway companies then advocated, and how it is that we are now getting that almost pure and undiluted in this Bill. There is only one other reason that I can imagine for that happening, and that is that the railway companies, as we are told, are threatened with extinction through competition, and this Bill is introduced by a Ministry which has been similarly threatened on many occasions. The passage of the Bill into law will certainly make secure the position of the Ministry of Transport for many a long day, and those who have anything to do with it, if they get their officials and the regulations they have asked for in this Bill, are going, in common phraseology, to know all about it.

I do not propose to trespass upon the time of the House by going through the Bill, but I want to refer to one or two things which the Minister mentioned this afternoon. There does not seem to me to be any very good case for asking what is known as an ancillary user to obtain a licence of any kind. The Minister told us this afternoon that all that such an ancillary user has to do is to fill up a form and go to the Traffic Commissioner, and—I think these were his words—the procedure then would be simple and automatic, and he would get his licence. On the face of it there does not seem to be any very great objection to that, but, if we look at Clause 5 of the Bill—(Procedure on applications for licenses)—we see that Sub-section (2) prescribes what the licensing authority may require, and I see no reason why these requirements should be put into the Bill if the licensing authority was not going to require them somehow or other. It is obvious that the licensing authority, being human, like the rest of us, might have an "off-day" on the occasion in question, and, in his discretion, he might say to some wretched man who has one small vehicle delivering his groceries out in the country, "Look here, I want particulars of all the financial interests in connection with your business. I want to know whether there is anyone who has any interest in your business who has any money in any other business. I want to know whether your brother, who is the part owner of a wagon in Bristol, lent you £100 to start this business. I should like to know whether you, in endeavouring to get your son a post as motor driver, put up £250 to help to buy a wagon in the town."

Inquiries of this kind may be made, if the licensing authority, in his discretion, decides to make them, not merely of a haulier, a man who is applying for an "A" licence—in whose case, possibly, these particulars might be required in the public interest, to see who was getting control of the business—but in the case of a man who is merely applying for a licence to run his own vehicle for delivering his own goods. There is nothing here that prevents the licensing authority from asking them that. What on earth has it got to do with the licensing authority or—with the greatest respect—with the Ministry either, whether the man who is delivering groceries in the country has got his wagon on the hire-purchase system or not? According to the terms of this Clause, the licensing authority may require that information, and the information is to be disclosed to the local licensing commission—not somebody a long way off, but right in the middle of the man's own district where he lives. That is going a little too far. It is becoming rather inquisitorial. If the Minister does not intend those inquisitions to be made in the case of a private trader who is applying for a "C" licence, I hope that he will tell us straightaway to-night that he will introduce some limiting Clause into the Bill so that they cannot be so applied.

In the case of the people who are applying for "A" and "B" licences, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Swindon brought us some figures. It is a very curious thing how one can make the same sets of figures—I have the same sets of figures as he has—show two totally different things. The hon. and learned Member told us that in 1926 there were 227,000 vehicles on the road, and that in 1932 there were 370,100. Then he told us that the vehicles over a certain weight had multiplied by—I forget how many times. In point of fact those figures, if they are divided—as they would be divided—into categories by people who are acquainted with the haulage trade generally, would fall automatically into two classes. One is the vehicle of three tons and under; that is a type of vehicle not as a rule used by a haulage contractor or by anybody making his living out of the business. The vehicle up to three tons has increased from 197,714 in 1926 to 316,873 in 1931; an enormous increase. On the other hand, the class of vehicle which is used by a haulage contractor—that is to say, the vehicle of three tons and upwards, the heavier vehicle—has declined in that period by 10 per cent.; from 59,000 odd.to 53,000 odd.

Sir R. BANKS

I think that the hon. Member must be wrong in saying that we have the same figures. My last pair referred to vehicles of five tons unladen and over; they had increased, if I am right, by six times.

Mr. ROBERTS

That is exactly what I thought; but the figures that my hon. and learned Friend has quoted are for vehicles of five tons and under and of five tons and over. The haulage contracting class does not start at five tons but at three tons, and the type of vehicles that is not generally used by the haulage contractor but is used almost solely by private firms is the vehicle of three tons. The haulage contracting type of vehicle during those years has decreased by 10 per cent.; from 59,000 to 53,000. The increase of motor vehicles on the road to-day is not in that class of vehicle at all, but in the two-ton and 50-cwt. type of vehicle, which is not competing with the railways or anybody else, but replacing horse transport and other forms of transport as people extend their areas of delivery. We are not entitled to base on the figures that have been given us the assumption that road transport is growing at a time when railway traffic is dropping; from these figures that is in point of fact not the case.

In dealing with the case of the "A" and "B" licence man I feel some diffidence, for the reason that, in addition to the regulations—to which, as I have already said, I personally cannot object—these restrictive regulations are being put on. The Minister himself referred to a class of man whom he described as a sort of pirate, who might "blow in"—those are the exact words he used. I know something of pirates in this business, and I know something about the type of man who, the Minister says, might "blow in." It is impossible to run road haulage unless you have return loads, and it is impossible for a road haulier who works, perhaps, to an unusual destination, a place to which he has not been before, to have an organisation waiting in that place able to give him a return load. He is a pirate; of course he is a pirate. He is the man who "blows in." There is an organisation—what are called "clearing-houses"—all over the country, providing loads for that type of man. These clearing-houses were originally set up by the Chambers of Commerce, when they found the need for such an organisation, in order to supply it. There are not very many pirates; as far as I know there are very few in the sense indicated by the Minister. If common phrases of that kind—"pirates,"cutters of rates," "droppers-in"—are to be used when a haulier comes in to renew his licence, to prevent him from having it renewed, considerable hardship will be caused.

One of the great surprises I have had to-day was to find a Minister of the hon. Gentleman's party and in this Government coming to this House and introducing a Bill which, in effect, contains Clauses which may confiscate private property. I have heard time and again arguments—I do not know whether they are right or wrong—against the principle of confiscation of private property. But here the Minister, in Clause 18, is definitely prohibiting the transfer of a licence from one person to another. As my hon. and learned Friend opposite has just said, he is taking away the good will from a haulage contractor. I do not object to a road haulier having to go up for renewal of a licence and having that licence refused him if he has committed some act or refrained from doing something he should have done, and so has disqualified himself from holding a licence. But be may have been a man who has conducted his business throughout the period of the currency of his licence without blame and without offence to anyone and who has charged none but the lawful rates. He may find himself at the end of two years thrown out of business. He may find his business of no value—because he cannot run without a licence; the capital which he has invested in it gone; the good will gone, because he cannot transfer the licence and some railway company—I do not say this in any offensive sense—may have come along in that area and may say: "We have now provided sufficient facilities here, and you must go out of business."

That is what these provisions come to. I do not like the idea of having this—as the hon. and learned Member for Swindon has said—partisan battle between road and rail. It is the proper regulation and control of transport that we all want—reasonable regulation. So far as the railways are open to criticism at all, I give them full marks for the way in which they have handled their case.

The only other remark I have to make is on the requests of the hon. Member fur the Exchange Division of Manchester. I hope that the Minister will not feel himself compelled to give way any further. He has been asked for the right to object to the short-term licences. I think that every man engaged in the transport industry, railway or road, has plenty of right to make all the objections he wishes in a Commissioner's court. He does not need to have any farther powers of objection, either to short-term licences or to anything else. I certainly do not think that the Minister ought to give way to any request that he should insist upon knowing, or propound, or publish the rates of those hauliers.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. LESLIE BOYCE

I have no doubt that a considerable majority of the Members of this House will welcome this as a good Bill. I should like, if I may, to associate myself with the other Members who have preceded me in congratulating the Minister on both the tone and the substance of the speech in which he commended this Bill to the acceptance of the House. The necessity for setting up a proper system of licensing and regulating goods road transport in a manner similar to, if not identical with, the regulation and licensing of passenger road transport under the Road Traffic Act 1930, and for establishing some statutory machinery such as the Transport Advisory Council which is envisaged in Part III of this Bill, has long been recognised. During the last two or three years, and particularly during the last 18 months, the need for legislation such as is proposed in this Bill has been regarded both inside and outside this House as a matter of vital and national importance and of daily increasing urgency.

What is the position of rail and road transport in its regulatory aspect to-day? As the Minister has rightly reminded the House, from their inception a hundred years ago, the railways have always been regulated by Parliament in the public interest, and the trade and industry of the country has always favoured that regulation. Three years ago, by the Road Traffic Act, 1930, passenger road transport was regulated in a manner appropriate to its needs. Under that Act an operator of an omnibus or a motor coach must obtain a road service licence in order to run a regular service over a definite route. His vehicles must be maintained in a proper condition of fitness in the public interest. The drivers and conductors must be licensed, and the hours of duty of the drivers are restricted in the interests both of the driver himself and of the public safety. Before the Act of 1930 was passed into law, and when the Bill was before the House, the very objections which are being raised to-day were precisely these objectlions which were raised on that occasion—objections which events since the passage of that Bill have completely falsified.

If the House will permit me, I should like to quote a few remarks made by some of the leaders of the road transport industry during the past two months with regard to the Act of 1930. Mr. O. C. Power, traffic manager of the Midland and Birmingham Motor Omnibus Company, Limited, addressing the Rotary Club at Birmingham, is reported in the "Birmingham Post" of 23rd March last to have said: The Road Traffic Act was needed, and it has considerably improved the status of the industry. The larger omnibus companies had undoubtedly benefited in certain directions by the new system. In his opinion, however"— and perhaps the House will be good enough to note this— the smaller operator was the greatest gainer by the new system. Again, Mr. Clifford Thomas, secretary of the Motor Omnibus Proprietors' Association, in an article on the operation of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, which appeared in the "Western Mail" on 3rd April, said: When the Road Traffic Act came into operation the independent road operators in South Wales thought of it as a challenge to their livelihood, and the combine companies the opportunity for the expansion of their business. Events proved both to have been mistaken.… The impartiality of the administration of the Act has done inestimable good. We have heard fears expressed to-day by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) and the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. G. Peto) that the effect of these proposals will be to assist the large operator and that the small operator will suffer hardship, and possibly extinction. The experience since the Road Traffic Act in relation to passenger transport has not borne out those fears. That argument, which was used three years ago, has admittedly been proved to be entirely without foundation. From the first annual reports of the Traffic Commissioners under the 1930 Act we see that at the end of the first year the total number of operators was 6,434. Of this total no fewer than 4,096, or 70 per cent., owned not more than two vehicles each. There is no reason to believe that the present gloomy prophets will not be similarly confounded and their predictions likewise falsified.

As I have said the railways have since their commencement been subjected to Parliamentary regulation as a great public transport service. In the 10 years following the War, road passenger transport also developed until it attained the status of a public service and the result was that it, too, was regulated in the manner I have indicated. The time has now arrived when goods road transport, which has developed so rapidly in the course of the past few years, should also be recognised as a public service and regulated in the form best suited to its needs. As the Minister has stated, that is the main purpose of the Bill.

This problem of the regulation of goods road transport is not confined solely to this country. Regulations relating to the same subject have been enacted by Governments in our Dominions and in foreign countries. We find that in the case of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa such legislation has been enacted. In Europe we find the same, particularly in the case of Germany and the Scandinavian countries, and again in South America, notably in the case of the Argentine. In the North American continent the problem is receiving the very closest attention. Towards the end of last year the Canadian Royal Commission on Transport, of which Lord Ashfield was a member, recommended the adoption of certain measures. They included: the publication of rates for traffic carried by road coupled with the obligation on common carriers by road to accept without discrimination all freight offered to them; compulsory insurance against third party risks; the adoption of a uniform system of accounts and returns; the im- position of minimum standards in regard to conditions of employment and in regard to fitness of vehicles; restrictions of minimum size and weight of vehicles according to the nature of the roads used; the taxation payable by road transport to be made to cover a proper proportion of the road costs and the introduction of a uniform system of licensing through out the Dominion applicable to hauliers and ancillary users.

These recommendations of the Canadian Royal Commission cover the proposals contained in this Bill and in some respects go far beyond them. In the case of the United States, the position with regard to the regulation of goods transport by road is also one of particular interest. The report of the Joint Committee of Railroads and Highway users, which was the United States counterpart of our Salter Conference, was published about two months ago. Like the Salter Conference, that Joint Committee was equally representative of road and railway interests. In their report they stated as an agreed principle that all users of highways for commercial purposes should be subject to regulation. Their recommendations go much further than the unanimous recommendations of the Salter Conference and certainly very far beyond the modest proposals contained in this Bill. Therefore, it may fairly be said that experience in North and South America, in the Dominions and on the Continent of Europe confirms the necessity, under modern transport conditions, of regulating goods road transport by some system of licensing such as is proposed by the Bill.

I have quoted what certain leading road operators have said during the last two or three months with regard to the successful operation of the Road Traffic Act. When the Salter Report was published, one of its most vocal critics was Mr. E. C. Marston, chairman of the Road Hauliers Association. I have here a copy of "Motor Transport," published on 29th April, containing the report of an address by Mr. Marston at Liverpool on 24th April under the heading, "Bill will better industry." He said: When we have got over the first jolt. probably within two years, or may be less, I think the road haulage industry will be better for the Bill. The report ends: I do not think there is much with which we can quarrel. If Mr. Marston says that, which is reported in one of the leading motor trade papers, the House may take it that this is certainly not a Bill to bolster up the railways or to place any undue burden on commercial road transport. As I see it, it is primarily and essentially a national Measure which the public interest demands and which is long overdue. If, incidentally, the provisions of Parts I and III of the Bill should prove beneficial to the railways to the extent that the competition between railways and road transport will become fairer, more equitable and more economical, then I submit that the railways are fully entitled to any such benefit that might accrue to them.

Perhaps it is not altogether incomprehensible, when they contemplate the almost incredibly rapid development of the internal combustion engine and the genius with which this new form of power has been harnessed for the service of the roads, that the spokesmen for road transport should be led away and so deluded by their enthusiasm as to imagine that the railways are obsolete, or that Parliament should connive at their destruction by allowing this more youthful form of transport to continue indefinitely in a privileged competitive position. The railways are not obsolete. If one form of transport more than another has a moral claim to the consideration of Parliament on the grounds of national service—either past or present—it is not road transport but the railways. It is within the knowledge of the House that the railways were the main single factor which enabled this country to achieve the position of the greatest industrial Power in the world before the War. The railways linked the industrial areas with the ports, and with one another, and were, therefore, responsible for the very rapid development of our export trade and the tremendous growth of our home trade. It was under the influence of the railways that villages became towns, and towns became cities, and new centres of population were created. Great industrial areas grew up, and large pleasure resorts, which are annually the Mecca of millions of our people, came into being.

What might have been the fate of our nation during the War if we had not been blessed with an efficient railway system? I do not wish to dwell at great length upon the magnificent part which the railways played in the War. Hon. and right hon. Members are doubtless mindful of the despatch of our Expeditionary Force between the 10th and 31st August, 1914, which involved the running of 670 trains, with a daily average of 73 at intervals of about 12 to the hour, and also of the great national service which was rendered by the railways in the provision of troop and hospital trains and the conveyance of every conceivable kind of naval and military traffic throughout the War, while at that time, carrying out the ordinary transport services of the nation. I agree with previous speakers who said that we do not want this Debate to become a controversy of road versus rail, but, at the same time, are we supposed to forget or to overlook the great national services such as these which the railways have rendered to the country in the past, when Parliament is asked to accord to them fair treatment, and no more, in order that they may continue to exist? It might be argued that this is ancient history and that it belongs to a bygone age before the subsequent development of road transport took place or had even been foreseen, and that we are dealing now, not with the past, but with the internal transport system of the country as it exists to-day and as it may develop in the future.

It might be argued that it is inadmissible and irrelevant to consider this important problem except solely on the basis of the present and future requirements of the nation. In that case I submit that the railways are every whit as vital and as indispensable to-day as they were at any time before or during the War, and that within the limits of human foresight they must continue to be indispensable. No other form of transport could possibly take their place in the national economy. Our heavy industries, iron, coal and steel, are entirely dependent upon them. No other known form of transport could conceivably convey over 200,000,000 tons of coal which they haul in the course of a single year. If the passengers which our railways carry for long and short journeys, particularly at the peak hours of the day, were transferred to road, nothing short of hopeless congestion and incredible chaos could result. The rapid conveyance of mails, and of goods and packages of all kinds, and the distribution of newspapers, are a few of countless services which the public have come to take for granted, but which, nevertheless, make an efficient railway system absolutely indispensable to the nation.

The Royal Commission on Transport, after surveying the whole field of the internal transport of this country, was moved to record its opinion on this subject in the following terms: We do not fail to recognise the great services the railways have rendered and are rendering to the country. We are profoundly conscious of the importance of maintaining an efficient and prosperous railway system. For many purposes—in fact for the main business of transport—they are indispensable. Therefore, I submit, that, on the very practical grounds of indispensability, the railways are fully entitled to share with the road transport and with the public any benefits which may accrue from the enactment of this Bill, and the more so, when we have regard to the fact that the British railways are universally regarded as being the most efficient railways in the world, and that they have never shown greater consideration for the convenience and safety of the public than they are doing at the present time.

The Bill is clearly based upon the conception of transport as a public service. Undoubtedly, the effect of the Bill will be to enhance the quality of the goods transport services which will be available both by road and by rail. The provisions of Part I will lead to more reliable, more regular and more efficient services by road. Part II of the Bill recognises the unduly restrictive nature of certain matters affecting the railways, and the remedy which it provides is merely a measure of justice. The power to make agreed charges for the carriage of merchandise by rail is in conformity with modern conditions, and it is so contrived in the Bill as to concede the necessary elasticity without abandoning the principle of rate control. To have permitted the abandonment of the principle of rate control would have been disastrous, not only to the railways themselves, but to the trade and industry of the country. It has been the complete freedom of the road haulier in the past from any system of rate control which has been responsible for the iniquitous system which exists to-day whereby the road hauliers can pick and choose the high grade and high-rated traffics for themselves and leave the low grade and the lowlated traffics to the railways, which are bound by law to accept those traffics. The hon. Member for the Exchange division of Manchester (Mr. Fielden) referred to the fact that the Bill made no provision to remedy that serious state of affairs. Personally, I regard that as a most unfortunate omission from the Bill. It is a problem which, sooner or later, will have to be dealt with, and until it is dealt with in a satisfactory way the railways will continue to be placed in an unfavourable and unjust competitive position in relation to the roads. The House is aware that the Salter Commission made no definite recommendations upon the subject, but that it suggested that the Minister should give it his most careful consideration. I hope, if the necessary remedy is not embodied in the Bill when it reaches the Statute Book, that the Minister will take the first opportunity of consulting with the newly-formed Transport Advisory Council as to how the matter can properly and speedily be dealt with.

Part III of the Bill, which sets up a Transport Advisory Council, to advise and assist the Minister in matters relating to the means and facilities of transport and their co-ordination, improvement and development, is a very welcome feature and should be warmly approved not only by the different forms of transport, and by trade and industry, but by the general public. The right hon. Member for Tam-worth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) appeared to consider that the Bill imposed unnecessary and penal restrictions upon road transport. No one can fairly claim that the Bill has been conceived in a penal spirit. Railways have always been regulated by Parliament in the public interest. Road transport, so far as the passenger side is concerned, is at present so regulated, and what this Bill seeks to do is to regulate the goods side of road transport in a manner very similar to that in which the passenger side is now regulated. There is nothing penal in the provisions of the Bill. In the past there has undoubtedly been an excess of transport facilities which have sooner or later to be paid for by the industry. It is, therefore, in the public interest that there should be some measure of regulation, and there is no reason to believe that the discretion of the licensing authorities in this matter will be used in an arbitrary manner. It will be the duty both of the Minister and of the Transport Advisory Council which is to advise him, to see that an arbitrary misuse of their discretion is not exercised by the licensing authorities.

The hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. G. Peto) seemed to be of opinion that the conditions which are to be attached to the licences cannot fail to hamper the proper provision of services by road transport. What are those conditions? The Bill requires that a vehicle shall be maintained in a fit and serviceable condition, that the limits of speed and loading of vehicles shall be complied with, that the statutory provision with regard to drivers' hours and rest period shall be observed, that certain records which are absolutely essential to the due observance of the law shall be kept and that reasonable rates of wages shall be paid by the employers. I ask the hon. Member for Bilston which of these conditions was in his mind when he suggested that they would hamper road transport? The conditions are reasonable and in the public interest and should not be onerous to any responsible road operator or any firm which properly conducts a road transport business.

The hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. Aled Roberts) said that no case had been made out for the ancillary users' vehicles to be licensed. I submit that not only ought they to be licensed but that under the Bill the ancillary user will still get the best of both worlds. The use which has been made of return journeys of ancillary users' vehicles in the past for conveying loads at uneconomic rates has undoubtedly been one of the most flagrant and most serious abuses of road transport. It has had a most unsteadying effect upon trade and has been very damaging to the regular carrier, whether road or rail. The ancillary user should be licensed in the interests of trade and industry no less than in the interests of other hauliers. It is essential to ensure that the ancillary user's vehicles should be maintained in a proper state of fitness, and that the law relating to hours of duty, weights and speed should be obeyed, and the best way to secure this is by the simple process of licensing proposed by this Bill.

When the right hon. Member for Tamworth expresses fear that too much discretion was left to the licensing authorities, may I remind him that the licensing authorities will be subject to regulations issued from time to time by the Minister, and that the Minister is not likely to accept or to adopt schemes or recommendations which are calculated to be intolerable in practice? Moreover, the Transport Advisory Council will exist to advise the Minister upon matters which arise out of the functioning of the licensing authorities, and with this further safeguard against the abuse of their discretion there is no likelihood that the right hon. Gentleman's fears will be realised.

I welcome the Bill, first, because it establishes a measure of equity between road and rail transport and will tend to restore security to 600,000 railway employes and their wives and families who are dependent for their livelihood upon the prosperity of the railways. I welcome it in the second place because I regard it as a real and statesmanlike attempt on the part of the Government to control and regulate goods transport by road in the widest public interest.

8.42 p.m.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

Let me begin by making reference to the very able speech delivered by the hon. and learned Member for Swindon (Sir R. Banks). He twitted my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. Dobbie) because he had said that the Government of Southern Ireland in order to get over their difficulties with the railways had written down the capital from £20,000,000 to £11,000,000. The hon. and learned Member for Swindon inferred that that was confiscation, and that we could not expect anything else from Southern Ireland, just as if it had been a bad thing that Southern Ireland had done, and that the Irish were a people with whom we should have nothing to do. The fact of the matter is that that sort of thing has been done here in this country by some of the greatest industrialists and the most powerful concerns. The Dunlop Rubber Company wrote down their capital from £18,000,000 to £10,000,000 and Beardmore's wrote down their shares from £1 to 1s. 6d. That was done because their capitalism was a failure, and they were unable to carry on. The Minister of Transport made a very able speedh. I do not want to compliment him, because everybody compliments him when he makes a speech. They do that because he is who,he is. There are no two ways about that, and I have said so before. He is undoubtedly one of the ablest young men that the Tory party has got.

Mr. EDWARD WILLIAMS

You are complimenting him now.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

Wait until I tell you the way that I am doing it. I predict that, with all his ability and with all the Tory Government backing him, and with the support of the draftsman who drafted the Bill, this Measure will be a gigantic failure, like everything else that this Government sets out to do. They are trying to run capitalism, and it cannot be done. In his introductory remarks the Minister appealed to us that when we rose to speak, and, by the way, we do not get many opportunities of doing that. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Well, I am the first speaker from these benches, and it is now a quarter to nine. That is unprecedented in my experience of 12 years in this House.

The Minister of Transport appealed to hon. Members not to deliver Socialist speeches, but to deal with the Bill as it is. I take exception to the Minister of Transport telling the House the lines upon which the Debate should be conducted. He not only intimated to us the lines we should take but he took strong exception to the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) because he had had the hardihood to put down an Amendment to the Bill. He went further and said that the Bill did not create antagonism as between the road and rail systems of this country. If any neutral person had come in and listened to the Debate it would be borne in upon him that there were two conflicting elements in the House. Apart from the official opposition, Liberals and Tories are divided between road and rail interests. It is a matter as to where their money is invested, as to where their interests lie. Our interest lies in defending the working classes, whether on the road or on the railways. That is the difference. We are against both exploiters of our class. The railway shareholders are in the railways in order to exploit the working class, and in the same way those interested in the road business are out to exploit the working class.

I desire to ask the Minister of. Transport whether, when we come to the Committee stage, he will consider the inclusion of a fair-wages clause? I hold no brief for the railways or the roads, I am speaking on behalf of thousands of engineers who build the locomotives and the motor cars and the motor lorries, and run them. The wages which are paid to those who drive our omnibuses on the roads are a standing disgrace. They are not anything like the wages of the men who drive our locomotives on the railways, and the men who drive motor omnibuses have a far more trying job than those who drive our locomotives. The wages paid to drivers and conductors are a scandal. I want to know what is going to happen under Clause 5. It appears to me that in the case of Class "C" licences they will not require to pay a fair wage; even if we get a fair-wages clause inserted it will not operate so far as these Class "C" licences are concerned.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam)

The Minister explained that at some length. He said that under the Bill as presented it was impossible to introduce a fair wage clause with reference to class "C" licences, but that does not mean that the matter cannot be raised by the hon. Member.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will convey the information I am about to give to the Minister of Transport, and that it may be possible even now to insert some Amendment in the Committee stage. A bout 80 per cent. of the motor drivens of this country will be in class "C." It means that big firms like Harrods and Lyons are going to escape. That is why members of the legal fraternity are taking such a keen interest in this Bill. They will get plenty of kudos by proving that firms like Harrods and Lyons escape the fair wages clause. I am sure the Minister of Transport has no intention of doing anything of the kind. My experience is that if we make a good case for the workers, he will see that they get a fair and square deal. That is all we are asking in the matter of these licences; and the Salter Conference recommended a fair wages clause. Evidently pressure has been brought 'to bear on the Minister in this matter.

The next point I want to put to the Government is that those who are to examine vehicles, in the same way as examiners now examine our locomotives, must be skilled men. There should be no differentiation. I told the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) when he came to the Clyde in 1913 that there was no such thing as unskilled labour, that all labour was skilled; the only individuals who were not skilled were those who did not labour, and I was not interested in them. We support the teachers who graduate in our universities and give them preference because we believe our children should get the best teachers the country can give, and in the same way the examiners who are to be responsible for examining the running plant and parts of the vehicles which traverse our highways ought to be skilled men. Up to now that bas not been the case. The examiners who have been appointed have not been skilled, according to the standards of the engineering world, and I hope the Minister will go into the matter and give us some satisfaction.

Another point to which I wish to draw attention in connection with this matter is that these examiners are, apparently, to go round and make inspections just as sanitary inspectors go round to examine slum houses. When a sanitary inspector discovers houses which are not fit for human habitation he condemns those houses and these examiners, I gather, are going to condemn those vehicles which they find to be unfit. The owner of a vehicle is first cautioned and perhaps fined, but the second time he is brought up, if the necessary repairs are not made, he is to be imprisoned. I have no objection to that but there is a strange thing about this which appeals to me. As a member of the working class I always keep clear my working-class point of view even in this House. It seems curious to me that for years and years we have asked that this should be done with the owners of slum property in which our folk are condemned to live. We have asked that owners who refused to put their houses into a proper state of repair should be imprisoned but the idea was laughed at as ridiculous. We were told that it would be harsh to send property-owners to prison merely because they did not put their property into proper repair even though they condemned thousands of men and women and little children to live under hellish conditions.

Why the differentiation of treatment in this case? Because the great and the wealthy use our highways and they are afraid of having their motor cars knocked into mincemeat by running into some other vehicle that has broken down on the highway. If we could bring smallpox in among the rich they would see to it that the workers who caught smallpox got every consideration. Every effort is made to eradicate smallpox, but when a worker gets a broken leg or arm he is sent to the infirmary to be treated as a matter of charity, because there is no fear of the rich being smitten by a broken arm or leg. We have evidence here of that kind of thing. People will tell you that there is no class struggle but it comes out in everything that this Government put forward. In Clause 29 I find that: any trader who considers that his business will be detrimentally affected if the agreed charge is approved and is made by the railway company, or that his business has been detrimentally affected as a result of the making of the charge by virtue of a previous approval. is to have a right of appeal. I wish to know will a dock authority be included in the category of "trader" and have a right of appeal in these cases, just the same as any other trader? If dock authorities are not to have this right of appeal the same as traders, we shall put down an Amendment at the proper time and in the proper place in order to secure to those dock authorities their just rights. I am perfectly satisfied that although this Government is trying everything, just as the Prime Minister has tried everything, except the principle which he propounded all his life, there is no way out of the difficulties which confront this country to-day except Socialism. There is no way out of the chaos in which our transport system is at the moment except nationalisation. We see evidence of it here to-day when the Government attempt by this Bill to co-ordinate these great national services—because the road is just as much a national service as the railway. But the Government may try to keep back progress and with all the able men they have they will miserably fail. They will be pushed aside by the great developments which are bound to take place in the immediate future.

The Government have failed to grasp their opportunity in this case because they have not accepted the idea of nationalisation in its widest sense. The railways have already been forced to recognise the impossibility of continuing under old methods. They have had to federate. We used to have many different railway companies in this country but through sheer force of circumstances they have been forced to amalgamate. Formerly when we were going to Scotland if we went to Euston and took a ticket there, we had to travel to Scotland and back by the London Midland and Scottish Railway. We could not go by the London and North Eastern Railway. A number of different railway systems were united into those two great companies, for the service between London and the North, and now even those two are amalgamated to the extent that the same railway ticket is available on either system. For all that education that the Government have had at their disposal to make use of, they say that the conditions laid down in this Bill are of an original character—certain conditions for London and other conditions outside of London, for a vehicle that is travelling through all those different regions, just the same as a locomotive going from London to Glasgow will go through all those different regions. But what holds good in London on the railway system holds good in Glasgow, and the same ought to hold good on the roads; it ought not to be broken up.

This is a game. The far-seeing individuals in this Government do not want a unification, because every tendency towards unification widens its scope. If there is unification of a service, it means that there will be unification of the men and women employed in that service, as has been the case with the railways. I can remember 45 years ago, the first time that I came to work in Manchester, as an apprentice engineer, that when we were finished and going home we had trouble in getting home because there was a strike on the railway. That was the first railway strike. It was in Scotland, and the Englishmen were working. That would not happen to-day, but at that time we had the railwaymen organised into the Scottish railwaymen's union and the Englishmen organised into the Englishmen's railway union, or into several railway unions. Now they are all in one union, and that is the trend of development to-day.

Instead of trying to get round the corner, instead of trying to assist progress in its legitimate development and change, they are using every subtle means—because this is a subtle idea, this original idea—of dividing the country up into regions and districts. I hope the Minister will see the fallacy of this, because if there is anything that this Bill has been brought forward to do, it is to do away with the chaos. It is another means of trying to make our country more efficient, to make use of the outstanding ability and ingenuity with which our race is endowed, but instead of making use of those advantages, their first consideration is for the individuals who have their money invested in these different gigantic undertakings. That is why we stand here at all times for nationalisation, because until we get road and rail transport nationalised, under the control of the Government, and run for the good of the people, for all the people, not run in order that certain individuals shall make profits out of it, there will be nothing but trouble and chaos in our road and rail transport.

9.9 p.m.

Captain LUMLEY

I admit that I approach this complicated problem of road and rail transport with a certain amount of bias. The constituency which I represent has for a long time, in fact, ever since railways were invented, been one of the most important railway centres in the kingdom, and in consequence a large proportion of my constituents depend directly for their livelihood on the prosperity of the railways; and to them must also be added an unknown but considerable number of people whose sal, ings, although in small quantities, are invested in stocks and shares of railway companies. In this matter it seems to me that the interests of the workers engaged in the industry and the interests of the investors are identical. For those reasons, I want to see something done to help the railways in the serious position in which, as is common knowledge, they find themselves to-day, but I recognise that whatever is done to help the railway industry must be consistent with the broader national interest. It would be no service to the railways to press unreasonable demands, to ask that the clock be put back, or to suggest that the railways should be placed in a privileged position. Demands of that kind would clearly be contrary to the interests of the community, which require, and must have, the most efficient and the most modern system of transport which can be devised. Such demands would be as fruitless as crying for the moon, which is, I think, what hon. Members opposite are doing when they are asking for nationalisation.

I also recognise that the main causes of the depression in the railway world cannot be touched by a Bill of this kind. The chief cause, we all agree probably, is the general trade depression, and this Bill does not pretend to deal with that. I should like to say, however, in passing, that I am glad to see that the trade agreements which have been talked about recently aim at the promotion of our exports in the heavier trades—coal, iron, and steel. If the exports in those trades are increased, it is bound to be reflected in an increase in the traffic on the railways. The second principal cause of railway depression is, of course, the remarkable development of motor transport in the present century, and naturally that has affected the railways, but no sane person will ask that on that account motor transport should be penalised or suppressed. It has come to stay, and it has come to play a very important part in our national economy, and the railways must make the best of it. Therefore, I do not look in these proposals for anything which penalises the competitors of the railways.

If the Bill cannot deal with the two principal causes of the difficulties of the railways, its scope in helping the railways is very much limited. It can only deal with what the Salter Report called the third principal cause of the loss to the railways, and that is the competition of the roads, in so far as it is unfair com- petition. It was to that problem that the attention of the Salter Conference was mainly directed. There are two important points about the Salter Report. In the first place, it was unanimous, and when we see representatives of the rail and road interests agreeing on those recommendations, I think that is a good reason why they should not be rejected without very strong arguments indeed.

The second remarkable point about that report was that it was, I believe, the first time that the interests of each side made an attempt to view the problem of transport as a whole. The representatives of both sides came to an agreement and I think their recommendations, therefore, should be given the most serious attention. It does seem as if in the main this Bill carries out the recommendations of the Salter Conference, but I observe that in some points there are variations. The most important, of course, is the difference between the proposed licence duties in that report and those which were proposed in the Budget. I can make only passing reference to that, and it is to say that I do not suppose the road representatives who agreed to that recommendation liked them, but they agreed to present these recommendations as a whole: and it is clear that one of the principal elements of their scheme was that in their opinion those duties ought to be paid if the road vehicles were to pay their fair share of the upkeep of their permanent way. It requires a good deal of explanation to show why proposals made by representatives of both interests should be cut down in that important part of the scheme by as much as one-third.

There are similar points in which I notice the Bill does not follow the recommendations of the conference. One of them is the recommendation in which they said that the upkeep of the highways on bridges which cross the railways ought no longer to be borne by the railways. I hope that in Committee the Minister will be prepared to carry out the recommendations of the Salter Conference in that regard. I look round to see if there are any other methods by which the railways could be helped and which would be consistent with the national interests. The Minister asked for suggestions. I should like briefly to put three to him. One on which I will spend no time has already been mentioned, that is, the publication of the rates of road transport. If we are seeking for equality between road and rail we must require road transport undertakings to publish their rates in the same way as railways are required to do.

The second suggestion I have to make refers to public carriers' licences. Railways are obliged to accept all the traffic which is offered to them, but there is nothing in this Bill which requires that with the licence which road transport vehicles will obtain the same obligation is placed upon them. I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to consider that point, and if there is no insuperable objection to it from the point of view of the national interest, to introduce it. The third suggestion I should like to make is this: Good ideas sometimes come from foreign countries. Quite a number of other countries are finding that their railways are in the same kind of difficulty as ours. Some of them have already started to face the problem. Germany has, and one of the methods which has been in operation there for the past 18 months for dealing with the problem of road and rail transport is to require motor transport vehicles, if they carry goods for a distance longer than 50 kilometres, which I believe is 31 miles, to charge a rate which is calculated to be equivalent to the rate which the railways would charge for a similar journey.

The Minister said that his fear was that the proposals in this Bill might not be effective enough to carry out his purpose. The method which Germany is trying out is one that should be considered. It seems a simple method for gaining the object, which I believe that we all want to achieve, of creating equality between road and rail interests. I put forward these suggestions because of my desire to see the railways helped. I also believe that they would not be inconsistent with the broader national interests. We must not forget that one of our most important national assets is the railway industry itself, and that with all the wonderful developments in motor transport since the War the railway has remained the safest and most reliable, and in many ways the most comfortable, method of transport, and we must not forget how industry depends upon it. If we allow railways to decline much fur- ther, we may be creating very serious difficulties for many of our industries. Of course, the railways cannot go on for ever giving uneconomic rates to the heavier trades. This Bill, I believe, goes some way to give fair treatment to the railways, and for that reason I hope that it will receive a Second Reading.

9.23 p.m.

Mrs. TATE

I should like to add my congratulations to those of the many hon. Members who have already spoken, to the Minister for having introduced, so shortly after taking office, a comprehensive Measure dealing with the regulation and control of goods transport by road. From their very inception the railways have been hedged about with restrictions and regulations passed by this House. I am not one of those who believe in sweeping away all those regulations, but I do think that we have been lamentably and wilfully short-sighted in not having dealt long ago with the rapid development of the road transport services. The thing that I regret about this Bill is that it did not come before this House at least 15 years ago. I do not pretend to be unbiased in regard to this Bill, for I have in my constituency large numbers of people who depend for their livelihood upon the financial stability of the railways; but I take it that the main provisions of the Bill are not intended to further the interests of the railways as such or the interests of the road transport services as such, but to safeguard the true interests of the community as a whole. In my opinion, the real interests of the community are not served by enabling individuals to travel, say, from here to Land's End and back by omnibus for about half the single railway fare; they are served by enabling our railways, which are a vital and integral part of our industrial life, to be run on an economic basis, and to continue to be able to offer, as they have in the past, fair freight rates to industry. I believe this Bill could in certain respects go still further towards helping the railways in their very unequal struggle.

Under Part I of the Bill extraordinarily wide powers—too wide, in my opinion—are given to the licensing authorities (the Traffic Commissioners) to issue licences. Clause 7 provides that every haulier will, without question, receive a licence for any tonnage which he operated for the year ended March, 1933. This seems to point, not to a modification of the present position, but to a perpetuation of the present chaotic condition of the road services under licence for a period of at least another two years. While it might not be possible at once to apply the test of "public necessity" to the "A" and "B" licences issued when this Bill becomes law, I would suggest that the first period of the currency of these licences, two years, which personally I would like to see reduced to one year, might be used by the Traffic Commissioners for an intensive survey of the traffic requirements in their area, taking into consideration, of course, the facilities provided by the railways. Subsequently the licences should only be granted or renewed on the ground of public necessity as shown by the results of the survey. Public requirements tend to increase rather than diminish, and therefore such a position would not militate against road transport service, and in any case they would be able to consult the results of the survey before embarking on any extension of their services.

Under Clause 29 of the Bill the railway companies, with the approval of the Railway Rates Tribunal, are to be allowed to alter their charges for the carriage of merchandise. This should prove of a certain assistance to the railways, but it still leaves them controlled as regards rates and charges when compared with the road transport services, which can offer absolutely indiscriminate prices. I doubt whether this Clause, therefore, will go far in stopping road transport from taking the most remunerative form, of goods. The right hon. Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) said the fundamental question was whether it paid our railways to take a heavy class of goods traffic and whether that traffic, if it die not pay, had to be subsidised by a more remunerative class of traffic. That is not the whole point. The railways are obliged to take heavy traffic as it cannot be taken on the roads, but they could not possibly exist for another year if they were confined to taking only that traffic, which has to be taken, if not at an unremunerative rate, at least at a comparatively unremunerative rate.

I wish to ask the Minister whether it would be possible to build up an organi- sation similar to the Railway Rates Tribunal for the control of rates with regard to goods transported by road. If it is in the interest of the country to keep our railways running—and I believe it is imperative for industry to keep our railways running—it is surely not too much to ask that restrictions applied to them should also be applied to their most, formidable competitor. I am absolutely convinced that every trade in the country would rise in uproar if it were suggested that all restrictions on railway rates and charges should be removed. I believe it is because of the uneconomic rates at present prevailing for road transport, which are so attractive to industry, that we hear so little of the necessity for a uniformity of rates throughout the country.

There is one omission I regret. I should like to see further limitations placed on the total tonnage of road vehicles. If that is not to be inserted, I would like the Minister to make greater use of the powers he now holds under the 1930 Act. None of us who travel on the road can possibly pretend to believe that the powers given under that Act are enforced. It is not fair to the public, to the railways, or to the roads that they should be used for the immensely heavy traffic at present put upon them. The Royal Commission on Transport said in its final report, paragraph 267: It is not in the nation's interest to encourage further diversion of heavy goods traffic from the railways to the roads. It should not be a case of further diversion but of definite prohibition of certain classes of goods, and of goods over a certain weight. Certain people consider the day of the railway is over and urge that railway tracks should be removed and roads laid in their place. That is not the general feeling of the country or of industry as a whole. The proposals of the Bill, together with the new taxation under the Finance Bill, do form the main recommendations which the Salter Report considered necessary to put road and rail on an equal footing. The hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. A. Roberts) in his very delightful speech in favour of the roads, which I enjoyed and entirely disagreed with, informed us that this Bill embodied all the recommendations of the Salter Report. He ignored with extraordinary skill the fact that the taxation under the Budget for heavy vehicles is on a much lower scale than that suggested in the Salter Report. In most cases the legislation is milder than that which the report recommended. I do not see how, without some legislation fixing some definite scale of charges for goods carried by road and without a limit on the permitted tonnage of road wagons being enforced, we can ever have real equality between road and rail.

9.34 p.m.

Mr. BARCLAY-HARVEY

I, like the hon. Lady who has just spoken, wish to give my support to this Bill and I do so principally on three grounds. In the first place, I welcome the provision that this Bill contains for further regulation and inspection of motor transport. The appalling condition of the traffic on the road fully justifies the Government in taking some steps to see that vehicles, before they are put on the road, are in a fit state to go on it. While we may not agree with the particular system of inspection proposed, still some inspection is clearly necessary, and that is one of the best features in the Bill. We have heard a good deal about fair play for the roads, but it is the railways, and not the roads, which for the past 10 years have been suffering from unfair play. Ever since they have been in existence the railways have been hemmed round by restrictions, and even as late as 1921 the Government of that day apparently considered that the railways were still going to maintain a monopoly. They passed in that year the Railways Act, which appeared to be based on that idea, still limiting their powers of charging, and treating them as if they were going to be a monopoly. No sooner had the Government done that than they embarked on a system of road construction which itself went a very long way to break that monopoly. During the succeeding 10 years, between 1921 and 1931, the State spent, according to the "Times," something like £300,000,000 in addition to that which was spent by motor car taxation on the roads. Not only did that expenditure enable better roads to be made for road transport, but it also enabled the road transport people to get the use of all the millions of pounds of capital which had been invested in roads prior to that, and towards which they paid neither a penny of capital nor of income.

The railways are only at last getting something like fair play from the Government for what has gone before. What has been the result to the railways? They have been brought to within a measurable distance of complete disaster. I am rather interested to hear hon. Members opposite say there is only one way of getting round the difficulty. They say, as they have said many times before, that nationalisation alone can produce a better state of affairs. They appear to be under the impression that if they say a thing three times it must be true, because while hon. Members make that assertion they have never, so far as I hae been able to hear, brought forward any proof of how nationalisation will improve the position of the railways.

Mr. E. WILLIAMS

The hon. Gentleman is complaining about the present position of the railawy system, which is under private enterprise. If it is in such a bad state, surely that indicates that we should change to another system.

Mr. BARCLAY-HARVEY

The hon. Member has missed my point, which is that hon. Members say that nationalisation will improve the position but do not say how. They assert that nationalisation will improve the position, but make not the slightest effort to prove it.

Mr. WILLIAMS

Hand them over. Give us a chance.

Mr. BARCLAY-HARVEY

Another reason why I welcome this Bill is that I believe it has in it the germs of a better policy under which we shall be able to establish a transport system which will avoid the perils of nationalisation and at the same time give us a more efficient system of transport. I do not think we should look upon this as a question either of road or rail, but look upon it as a question of transport. What we want is a better co-ordination of the two systems of transport. I very much welcome the statement of the Minister that he is looking for co-ordination between the different branches of transport in the future, because I believe that in that way, and in that way only, can we get salvation not only for the railways but, in the long run, for the roads as well, and for every industry in this country. We are told that we must not put further burdens upon road transport, because a trader should be able to use the cheapest possible means of transport for his goods. That may be so, but what is the cheapest to-day may not be by any means the cheapest in the long run. In my experience I have bought something which I have thought was cheap, but though I saved money to-day I have lost it in the long run; and if by enabling people to use means of transport which to-day can give them exceptionally cheap rates we wreck the great railroad system of this country, which is still the basis of the whole transport of the country, that will cost the country a great. deal more, over a period of years, than if the individual trader now has to pay a certain amount more and does not get quite such absurdly cheap rates as he has been getting from pirate motor concerns.

One other feature in the Bill which I welcome is the Traffic Advisory Council. I see in that the germ of a far better co-ordination of transport in the future than we have had in the past. It is now commonly admitted that people who use the roads have got, to pay for them, but there are two corollaries. First, the people who pay for the roads are going to ask for a much larger say in the way in which their money is spent, and quite rightly so; and therefore it seems to me that this new body may well be the genesis of a body which will have far more control in the spending of the money on the roads of the country. It is illogical in the extreme that money which is collected out of industry to be used for a section of that industry—and the money collected from road users is being used for making the roads—should be put through the Treasury at all. Nobody suggests that the money which is being collected from ships using the Port of London should be transferred to the Port of London Authority by way of the Treasury. Once we get that point admitted we also get this, that the railway companies will also be brought in as well as the road hauliers, because they have large interests in the roads both as part owners of some of the motor omnibus concerns and road transport concerns. Therefore, we shall get a real co-ordination between the two different branches of the industry and I believe that in that way we shall tend to come to some scheme, which I believe is inevitable, on the lines indicated not long ago by Lord Daryngton, under which there will be a common owner of the tracks, whether they are road or rail tracks, of the country.

I believe that in that way and that way only shall we see the transport of this country put upon a fair and proper basis. I hope the Minister will not think that when he has passed this Bill his labours are at an end: If we are to get further real co-ordination it cannot come only from the activities of the two sections of transport in this country but will require active assistance from the Government at each stage. Therefore, I hope the Minister will not think this is the end of his labours, but look upon it as only the beginning. I hope that before the end of the life of this Government we shall have gone a long way further than this Bill contemplates to restore prosperity to all branches of the transport industry, because unless we take drastic steps we shall be faced at the end of three years with an even more grave and serious situation than we are in to-day, and what the outcome of that will be to the country I hesitate to predict. Transport is essential to the country, a national transport system is what we want, and therefore I hope the Government will not turn aside but will pursue that policy and bring it to what I believe to be its logical conclusion.

9.45 p.m.

Mr. McKEAG

We have just listened to another of the many eulogies of the railway companies. The hon. Member for West Willesden (Mrs. Tate) indulged in a eulogy of the railway companies. It is generally admitted that the railway companies are benefiting very considerably under this Bill, but the hon. Member for West Willesden is a kind of feminine Oliver Twist; she is asking for more. I cannot remember what the fate of Oliver Twist was, but I hope that no additional benefits will be conferred upon the railway companies at the expense of the road transport industry. No one desires that the railway companies should not be given every possible benefit, but not at the expense of a competitive industry.

Listening to the very admirable speech of the Minister in introducing the Bill, I could not help feeling that hon. Members were gradually permitting their vision to be obscured by the anaesthesia of plausible words, skilfully administered by the hon. Gentleman. It is essential that the House should realise that this Bill imposes more regulations than the Minister cared to admit. I would make my position perfectly clear, and would be honest. I do not like this Bill, and I am not going to mince my words about it. In my view, it is one of the most retrograde, repressive and restrictive Measures that has ever been introduced in this House. There is no evidence of a public demand for it, and it is perfectly clear that it has as its object the assistance of the railway companies at the expense of road transport; in other words, to bolster up concerns which chose to slumber for years in a moribund condition, by penalising a new and progressive industry.

The Bill will mean the gradual stifling of road transport. It seeks to effect the strangulation of this new industry precisely in the way that the railway companies secured the strangulation of the canal industry years ago. It is a Socialistic Measure, without any of the redeeming features of Socialism. We have had a hectic time on the Budget Resolutions, and no proper consideration has been given to this subject. A Measure of this kind requires much more time for detailed consideration than can be given in a single day upon Second Reading. It strikes at transport in two places, quite apart from the Resolutions of the Budget which were introduced last week, and about which I understand I am not permitted to speak. The Government's policy is shooting at road transport with both barrels. The duties which are being imposed are penal, and this Bill is also penal. It is almost as though carriage of goods by road is regarded as a kind of regrettable incident in our economic life which should either be stamped out or severely curtailed. That is the spirit in which this Bill has been conceived. The Bill can only result in the discouragement of enterprise and the destruction of competition.

Motor transport does not flinch from competition, but it asks that that competition shall be fair and square. The road transport industry has no complaint to make about the removal of irksome restrictions upon the railway companies, but it is unfair to free the one and at the same time to hamper the other. Healthy competition, which the road transport industry is prepared to face, can only re- dound to the benefit of the community as a whole. It is admitted that there should be proper steps for securing public safety and fair remuneration for those employed in the industry, and that road transport should pay its fair share of the cost of the roads. The Bill goes far beyond those objects, because it creates a cumbrous and costly system of licences and imposes an intolerable burden on road-haulage concerns. It creates a horde of new officials, and it consolidates the position of the bureaucrats. Moreover, it creates an imposing list of new crimes, to the number of which I would like to draw the attention of the House.

Upon my reading, the Bill would appear to create at least 30 or 40 new crimes. There is the question of imprisonment. I would like to ask how it is proposed to deal with a haulage concern which is a limited company. Is the Minister going to imprison the office boy, or the managing-director? I have some sympathy with the point of view put forward by the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood). If the imprisonment Clause is operated, it will be against the smallest type of haulage contractor. Another consideration is the delegation of power to the Minister. In Clause 27, Sub-section (3), I read that the Bill gives power to the Minister to prescribe what penalties shall be imposed, upon summary conviction for breaking any Regulations that the Minister may issue. I ask the House to consider that very carefully. This is a delegation of power which should only be exercised by Parliament, because we might not always have such a benevolent Minister of Transport.

Another aspect to which I would call the specific attention of the House is in relation to legislation by reference. In this Bill, there is reference after reference to the Act of 1930, which is of comparatively recent times. Why should it be necessary to refer to it? Why not give the actual facts in the Bill itself, instead of indulging in this legislation by reference? Then we have the Regulations which the Minister is authorised to issue, and we have all the references to the prescribed form, the prescribed fee, the prescribed this and the prescribed that. The word "prescribed" occurs in the Bill at least 100 times. There are so many formalities, and so many licences which have to be taken out, that I suggest that an additional Clause should be inserted to read something like this: That each owner should be compelled to attach to his vehicle a prescribed receptacle, of the prescribed size in the prescribed place and of the prescribed quality, to carry all his prescribed licences, records and itineraries.

If hon. Members read the Bill, they will realise that what I am saying is no exaggeration of what is going to happen under it. Despite the recent admirable book of the Lord Chief Justice on "The New Despotism," we now have the Government perpetrating that sort of thing. I am unable, in the short time at my disposal, to deal with the other points to which I should have liked to refer, but would simply say, in conclusion, that I take it that this Bill will be committed to one of the Standing Committees, and, if I may borrow a phrase which was used some time ago by the, right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), I could wish that it would be possible to take the Bill and cut its dirty throat upstairs. In any case, I hope the Minister will see the wisdom of subjecting it in Committee to a major operation, or, at any rate, to a series of minor operations, in order to rid of its many defects and imperfections what I can only describe as a monumental work of interference.

9.56 p.m.

Mr. LINDSAY

In rising at this late hour, I do not wish to stand between the House and the hon. Gentleman who is to respond for the Opposition, but only to put one specific point of importance which has not been touched upon, except for a few minutes in the excellent maiden speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Stretford (Major Renwick). We have heard the voice of the road and the voice of the railway, but we have only heard in a very limited degree the voice of industry. I am not now going to enter into the licensing provisions of the Bill, or anything of that sort. I think that the Bill is in many respects unsatisfactory, but, if there is any justification for it at all, that justification must be found in the Salter Report. My lion Friend the Member for the Exchange Division of Manchester (Mr. Fielden) said that the railways wanted much more than was in the Bill, but, by some extraordinary pro- cess, the railway companies have got in this Bill something for which they never asked, which is not in the Salter Report, and which the Salter Report definitely advised against. I refer to the provisions in Clauses 29 and 30 which allow railway companies to charge agreed rates. I have no time to go into the question of the structure of railway rates, but this House has always been very careful, in dealing with monopolies, to protect the interests of the general public.

The Minister says that the railway companies are no longer a monopoly, but they are still a monopoly to a very great extent, and this Bill makes them even more so. The first part of the Bill arrests the process which has been going on, and which has been making railway companies less of a monopoly. When the railway companies were a monopoly, the House laid it down very clearly and definitely that, when they had that position, they must not use it to the detriment of any particular individual or any particular locality, and that when the railway companies granted charges they must not make an undue preference for any individual or locality, but must give fair and equal treatment to everyone. The whole strength of the railway companies' case to-day is that they are demanding fair and equal treatment as between themselves and the roads, but, at the same time, they are getting in this Bill the power to take away from traders fair and equal treatment. If this House and the country only realised the fundamental blow which is struck by the provisions of these two Clauses in the Bill at the whole railway rates structure and the whole of the provisions which have grown up around the railway companies, I do not believe that they would ever be allowed to pass into law. The railway companies have not asked for them; the Salter Conference definitely recommended against them, and they alter the whole existing structure.

There are two ways in which this problem can be dealt with. It can be said that there shall be free competition over the whole field—that there shall be no restrictions on the roads and no restrictions on rail; or it may be said that there are certain existing restrictions on the railway companies, and further restrictions will be put on the roads. But you ought not, as in this Bill, to take the half-way measure of giving an advantage to the railway companies and imposing restrictions on the roads, and at the same time take away the safeguards which Parliament in its wisdom in 1921 provided against the power of the railway companies to charge unfair prices. There will be an opportunity later of dealing with the matter, but I want, if I may, to impress upon the House, in all humility, the extreme importance of that part of the Bill by which this power is given to the railway companies. There are in this Bill provisions the effect of which will be to do away with the provisions in the Acts of 1854 and 1884 which say that there shall be no undue preference, but fair and equal treatment, and, once those provisions are done away with, the whole of the railway rates structure will be gone. It will remain there apparently; there is nothing in this particular Bill actually repealing those Acts; but, once these safeguards are gone, the whole structure might as well not he there, and it will be possible for the railway companies to favour one trader as against another, or one locality as against another.

I am particularly concerned in this matter because I happen to represent, in common with some of my hon. Friends, the city of Bristol. Bristol has a powerful and flourishing port, a municipally owned port—a very fine example of municipal enterprise. Just across the water there is the railway-owned dock at Cardiff, and, under these provisions, it will be possible for the Great Western Railway Company to divert to Cardiff the whole of the traffic which at present goes to Bristol. The Bristol municipal dock has to earn its living; the railway dock has not. The railway dock is subsidised out of the general earnings of the railway company. Last year, the £66,000,000 of capital invested in the railway companies' docks earned less than 1 per cent., namely, 0.58 per cent., of the total capital. I am sure the hon. and gallant Gentleman will agree with me, if he has studied these provisions, that they would enable a railway dock to make such agreements with traders as would ensure that the whole of the traffic which at present goes to Bristol or any other private or municipal docks, should be diverted to the railway company. I am not going to vote against the Bill. I think it is unsatisfactory in many ways, but, in view of the nature of the Amendment, I cannot vote against it on Second Reading. But I know that my hon. and gallant Friend is perfectly willing to meet all reasonable points of view that are put forward. There are many, and I think that when this point becomes understood there will be still more, who feel that it would be disastrous to allow these two Clauses to pass into law without very drastic amendment in Committee.

10.3 p.m.

Mr. GEORGE HALL

Before I proceed to deal with the Bill, I want to inform the Minister that, as far as we on this side of the House are concerned, we do not propose to have any discussion on, the Money Resolution to-night. We have had very little time to consider the matter, and we propose to reserve all that we have to say, if we have anything to say, until the Report stage.

In common with every other Member who has spoken, I want to extend my congratulations to the Minister on the very able and lucid manner in which he introduced the Second Reading of the Bill. He put the House at ease, and explained some of the very difficult Clauses with such clearness that we all felt that we had a very much better grasp of the Bill when he finished than before he commenced. He said, of course, that the one object that he had in mind in introducing the Bill was that we should have the best and most efficient transport that could be provided in this country. He referred to the position which the railways take in the national life, as, of course, he was justly entitled to do, and we very largely agree with him in what he said. He also referred to the fact that some 25 years ago there was the competition of the canal and coastwise trade; but he did not deal with the revolution of 100 years ago, caused by the introduction of the railways in the first place, which diverted the traffic from the roads on to the railways.

I was very interested in the book which was written by Mr. Sidney and Mrs. Beatrice Webb, in which they gave an account of what happened to the turnpikes some 100 years ago. Those hon. Members who are complaining, and complaining bitterly, about the competition of rail versus road ought to understand the situation which was created in this country as a result of the introduction of the railways, which made the old turnpikes bankrupt and caused what may be regarded as a national system of roads in this country. If the owners of the turnpikes and the turnpike gates had adopted the same attitude as sonic of the railway interests are adopting at the present time, and attempted to stifle by restriction or heavier taxation the progress of the railway as an attempt is being made now to stifle road transport, I wonder whether the progress of railways would have been as rapid as it was at that time. The Minister also chaffed my hon. Friend who followed him on the question of railway facilities; he spoke of his taking a journey to Brighton in the summer and a journey to Wigan in the winter, and said that while he might have to pay a little more for the journey to Brighton in the summer, that excess was charged to make up for the loss which might be incurred in the journey which my hon. Friend would take to his home in the winter.

Sir COOPER RAWSON

On a point of Order. The fare to Brighton is very much cheaper than the fare to Wigan.

Mr. HALL

I did not suggest that the fares were the same. I was simply referring to the statement made by my hon. Friend the Minister of Transport in which he indicated that if my hon. Friend went to Brighton—I do not know whether he ever went to Brighton or not—he paid an additional sum, because the Brighton railway was profitable, whereas during the winter the railway journey to Wigan was unprofitable, and therefore he did not pay quite sufficient to compensate the railway company for conveying him from London to Wigan during the winter months.

In our Amendment we do not, of course, suggest that my hon. Friend should pay the same for going to Brighton in the summer as he would pay for going to Wigan in the winter, but my hon. Friend must remember that under the system of nationalised post-offices in this country, if you post a letter to a suburb of London, or John o' Groats, or Land's End, or Australia, the State will see that upon the payment of the same amount the letter will be conveyed to that part of this country or of the Empire to which it is addressed. We wonder if we can get the Government to agree to the Amend- ment which we have upon the Paper and to consider whether the same system could not be adopted under a nationalised system of railways and road transport as has been adopted by the Post Office.

The Minister also asked us to state what we meant by a national system under national ownership. I would suggest that the hon. Gentleman should consult with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Dominions, because in 1921 the right hon. Gentleman introduced a Bill into this House for the purpose of the national unification, ownership and control of the railways. At that time, of course, the road transport services had not been developed, but had that Bill been carried it is very likely that we should not have the chaotic conditions which exist in the transport services of this country at the present time. If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Dominions cannot convince the Minister of Transport, then perhaps the Minister will consult the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill). As far as railways were concerned, he was convinced in 1918 and 1919 that the only system which would admit of any measure of efficiency was a system of national ownership and control. At that time, of course, there was no road competition such as we have to-day.

I was very interested to hear the speech of the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. McKeag). His was the only speech in opposition to this Bill. The right hon. Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland), indeed, commenced his speech by offering some opposition, but by the time he concluded it he had almost come down and thrown his arms round the Minister of Transport and wished him well, for by that time he did not know whether he was in favour of the Bill or opposed to it The hon. Member for Durham, on the other hand, did say that he was opposed to the Bill. He believes in competition unadulterated and unashamed. He said that, as far as he was concerned, he hoped that this Bill would have its dirty throat cut when it reached the Committee Room upstairs. I do not know whether that is the new Liberal policy, or whether all the Members of the Liberal party would agree with the sentiment which was expressed by the hon. Gentleman.

The hon. Member for the Exchange Division of Manchester (Mr. Fielden) put the railway point of view regarding this Bill. He told us that, whatever this Bill contained, the railways expected something more, and that they would move in Committee Amendments with a view to strengthening this Bill from the point of view of giving greater advantages to the railway companies. I think we may say that the railway companies have won not only the first round in this controversy which has waged round the Salter Conference, but that they have won the full three rounds. In the first place, here are the Budget proposals for the heavier taxation of heavy motor vehicles, a taxation which, I understand from the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is likely to yield something like £1,750,000 in the full year, and in the year 1933 the yield is expected to amount to no less than £1,100,000. That in itself is sufficient to indicate that there is going to be a very large increase in the taxation paid on these heavy motor vehicles. I should be out of order if I attempted to enlarge any more upon this Bill; there will be opportunities of doing so when the matter comes before the House again.

This Bill cannot by any manner of means be regarded by those of us who sit on these benches as a solution of the national transport problem. We say that it is only another patch put on an already over-patched coat. It is for that reason that the Amendment which we have upon the Order Paper has been moved by my hon. Friends. Much could be said upon the Bill together with the proposals in the Budget for the raising of additional taxation on heavy vehicles. They are really the Government proposals for carrying out to some extent the report of the Salter Conference, the terms of reference to which prevented any real fundamental consideration of the problem of transport. The primary purpose of the Salter Conference, as the title and the first sentence of the terms of reference indicate, was the consideration of what would he a fair basis of competition and division of functions between road and rail transport.

It is to be regretted that when a Government, whatever its complexion, desired to deal with such an important question as transport it should proceed on the assumption that important sections, espe- cially those employed in the industry, through their representatives in the trade unions, were not even worthy of being consulted or asked to give evidence. We on this side of the House know that in years past it was the common belief that industry was the sole prorogative of management and capital, but we thought that such a position had been left behind long ago. It is also to be regretted that the Government seem to regard the problem of transport as one of competition as between road and rail. Indeed, the Salter Conference was asked to view it from that angle. In our opinion that is not the way to deal with the problem as, by so doing, there is always the danger of playing on the fears of persons interested, especially those employed in the industry, and setting them one against the other instead of getting the best out of them and so helping to secure a satisfactory solution of the problem. In our view transport should be regarded as a service, considering it not on the basis of how much profit it would yield to individuals but on the basis of how great the public service, for transport is one of the fundamental services of modern life upon which the success and happiness of the nation depend. We think that the complete unification of all means of transport would prevent waste, with a cheap and efficient service to the public and a decent standard of life for the person engaged in it. On that we take our stand, and it is for that reason that we ask the House to accept our Amendment.

Very little time has been occupied in the Debate in dealing with the question of the employment of those engaged in the transport industry. I do not know whether the House is aware of the actual number of men engaged. It is difficult to obtain it from the Minister of Labour, because in the returns which he issues he seems to lump together those engaged in the distributive trades and those engaged in the transport services. I find that between 1923 and 1932 there has been an increase in the group of workers engaged in the distributive trades and in the transport services from 1,812,000 to 2,413,000. I am not suggesting that it is as the result of the development of the motor transport industry, but that group of workpeople accounts for no less than 24.2 per cent. of the total number of insured persons. I would ask the Minister of Transport to give some consideration to what the effect of the Bill is likely to be upon the employment of those engaged in the transport service of the country.

The figures which have been supplied to me during the course of the last two days show that in the transport industry alone something like 1,800,000 persons are employed, and they are divided up in this way: On the railways, taking company staff, the manufacturing of rail equipment, coal production for the railways, there are 679,000 workers. The workers engaged in connection with motor transport number some 1,105,000, divided up into various categories of drivers and conductors of public vehicles, chauffeurs, lorry drivers, motor manufacture, oil industry, garage industry, road construction and maintenance. I asked the Minister of Transport whether, if the Bill is carried and put into operation as it has been presented, his Department have worked out the likely effect upon the persons employed upon the production or the manipulation of the vehicles which may be put out of operation as a result of the proposals contained in Part I of the Bill, which deals with restrictions It is only right that we should have that information.

Much has been said to-day regarding the functions of the railways. I do not think that there is an hon. Member who will say that the railways as carriers can be dispensed with. The railways are absolutely essential to the well-being of the nation. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tamworth said that the heavy industries of the country could not be carried on without the railways. The coal industry, in which I am mainly interested, is vitally dependent upon the railways. I do not think there is any proportion of the coal which is carried from one district to another or from pit to port conveyed by motor vehicles. We are absolutely dependent upon the railways for the conveying of coal to the markets, and, if they are overseas, for conveying it to the docks. We deplore the unfortunate condition of the railways, but I do not think that it can be argued that the competition of heavy motor vehicles or even motor omnibuses or motor cars is entirely responsible for that condition. Much can be said regarding the effect of the depression, and the low spending power of the workers of the country is almost the chief cause of the difficulty with which the railways are confronted. In 1929 the traffic receipts of the railways rose by over £1,000,000, and it was only when the depression took place in 1930 and 1931 that the receipts of the railways fell off, and there was a rather heavy deficit in both those years.

That is not peculiar to this country. There is scarcely an industrial country in the world whose railway systems did not suffer in exactly the same way as a result of the depression as the railway companies of this country suffered. The French railways in 1931 declined in their receipts by something like 17 per cent. In Germany there was a decline of about 28 per cent. The figures for the Danish, Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish railways tell the same tale. In America, where they have very much heavier motor competition than we have with regard very largely to passenger vehicles, the receipts of their railways in that year fell by something like 24.5 per cent. Therefore, the condition of the railway system in this country from the point of view of depression is not peculiar to this country. While every industrial country is suffering in the same way, I know of no industrial country which is at the same time applying restrictions such as we are applying in this country and imposing heavier taxation upon motor vehicles which are in competition with the railways.

Mr. STANLEY

France.

Mr. HALL

My hon. Friend says France. I will accept that. We on these benches are not going to agree for a moment that the railways are on the verge of bankruptcy. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. Dobbie), who is specially qualified to deal with the question of the railways, made a statement this afternoon, which has not been challenged or contradicted, that if there was a pooling of profit even last year, during the period of acute depression, there was sufficient return to make a profit. Not only that, but the railway companies in this country have very large reserves. What other industry in the country can show the reserves which the railway companies can show? Notwithstanding the depression of last year they drew upon their reserves to the extent of something less than £4,000,000, whereas the reserves at their disposal amount to about £64,000,000. Therefore, that does not indicate that the competition of road transport is such that it is driving the railway companies into bankruptcy. The railway companies have tightened up their administration during the last few years, and no opportunity has been lost by them to make application for reduction in the wages of the workpeople employed upon the railways. Because the railway companies cannot get all their own way they are threatening to interrupt the work of the National Industrial Council, simply because they cannot enforce what may be regarded as their claims through the Council.

Not only on branch railways have the companies withdrawn their services, but a number of Private Bills have been dealt with during this Session where railway companies are abandoning railways or branch lines altogether. There is one in my own division, affecting two miles of railway. I am not suggesting that the railway companies are not justified in seeking these powers, but I would point out that the district served by the two miles of railway in question, which is going to be labandoned, is to be served by motor lorry, a motor lorry not owned by the railway company but by a carrier. Among those who are dependent upon the railway to be abandoned is the local authority, who will have to pay some shillings a ton more for getting material to and from their waterworks, because it will have to 'be conveyed by motor lorry instead of by the railway system.

Are not the railway companies largely responsible for the development of the road competition with which they are faced at the present time? There has been nothing to prevent them seeking powers from this House to establish road services for themselves. It is true that one railway company promoted a Bill in 1922 for powers to engage in motor transport, but it abandoned it in a very halfhearted way, and nothing more was heard of it until 1928. But since 1928 the railway companies have taken every advantage of the development of road services. You have only to look at the returns to find that three of the railway companies have now financial interests in road concerns amounting to £7,000,000; that is motor services for the conveyance of pas- sengers, and they are still developing that branch of the service. Only last week the "Road Transport Journal" referred to an important merger of road passenger transport which took place on 1st May, Monday of this week, and they said: The Crosville Motor Services, Limited, of Chester, will take over the services hitherto operated by the Western Transport Company, of Wrexham. This amalgamation, which was the subject of an application made before the North Western Traffic Commissioners at Manchester, on 22nd April, is claimed to be the biggest that has taken place since the Road Traffic Act carne into operation. That is a concern which is valued at more than £1,000,000, and the Great Western Railway Company and the London Midland and Scottish Railway Company own between them more than 50 per cent. of the capital. The railway companies, in asking for these restrictive powers and in pressing for the Salter Report to be put into operation in its entirety, are asking for a whip to beat themselves. If they are going to develop on these lines there may very soon be a monopoly of road and rail transport, owned and controlled by the railway companies of this country. No one can complain about the enterprise of some railway companies. They are not quite so apathetic in regard to the development of air services as they were in regard to the development of road transport. In my own part of the country the Great Western Railway Company have already established an air service between Cardiff and Torquay and Plymouth, and as a result of this development passengers can be conveyed from Cardiff to Plymouth in one-third of the time taken by using the railway system. That is a development on proper lines. The only thing we complain about is that if this monopoly, becomes a complete monopoly all the transport services will be left in the hands of the railway companies; and that is not going to be A in the best interests of the State.

Our Amendment asks that a service so vital to the well-being of the nation as the transport service, whether by rail, road or air, should be owned and controlled by the State. I am not going to deal with the Bill in detail. My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Mr. Parkinson) went carefully into the points on which we feel we sire at variance with the Government. We are concerned about some of the new restrictions on motor vehicles. We do not suggest that some system of licensing is not necessary. It is necessary, but we feel that there is some inconsistency in the matter of duration as between the "A," "B" and "C" licences; one licence is to be for three years, another for two years, and a third for a year. We have not yet had an explanation of this point, but perhaps it will be dealt with when we reach the Committee stage.

I wish to emphasise this point. We cannot see why certain provisions of the Road Transport Act should not be imposed upon the vehicles which come within Class "C." We think those ought to be treated in the same way as vehicles which come under the "A" and "B" heads. As far as Part II of the Bill is concerned, we are as much alarmed about this matter as the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Lindsay). We feel that the Government are giving too much power into the hands of the railway companies, and that there is not only the possibility of the diversion of trade on some railway systems from one dock to another, but that the opportunity is given to the railway companies to crush some of the smaller concerns at the expense of the larger concerns. We shall deal with that matter very fully when the Bill is in Committee. Clauses 29, 30 are among the most vital parts of the Bill because of the power which is being given to the railway companies.

I conclude as I commenced. On this side we stand for a unified system of transport under national ownership and control. We stand where the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas) stood in 1921. We have not changed. We stand where the Prime Minister has stood all his life—at least judging from the lip service which he has given on this transport problem. We cannot understand why the Prime Minister, leading the Government and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby as a prominent Member of the Government, should allow a Bill of this kind to be introduced. Here is an opportunity for a complete unification of the transport service of the country. This Bill is only a patch upon an already overpatched coat. The coat is gradually wearing out, and the time must come when the views which we hold on this side of the House will have to be carried into effect if we are to have a good and efficient transport service in this country.

10.40 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM

We have had a very interesting Debate. I have listened to it practically the whole time and I have no complaint, and I am sure my hon. Friend has none either, of the way in which the Bill has been received by the House. There has been a certain amount of criticism, as was inevitable, but, I can say honestly, nothing like the amount of criticism that I had anticipated. Indeed, the only hon. Member who really was root and branch against the Bill was the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. McKeag). I do not know really if he was so severe against the Bill as he would have us believe, and I am certain that when he brings in his Amendments in the Committee, if he has any, we shall listen to them, as we shall to all Amendments, with the greatest attention, because our object is to make this an agreed Measure as far as we can. As my hon. Friend pointed out in his opening remarks, it is not our intention to do anything but to promote the best interests of the transport services of this country for one purpose and one purpose alone, and that is the benefit of the people as a whole.

I am sorry that hon. Members opposite should think it necessary to move the rejection of the Bill, or at any rate to move this reasoned Amendment against the Bill. I have been listening very attentively the whole evening to the alternative that they would offer for this Bill and all that I have had thrust upon me is what the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Dominions proposed in nineteen hundred and something, which is rather like what Mr. Gladstone said in eighteen hundred and something. What the Dominions Secretary said in those days was said in his unregenerate days, and I am very much relieved to find that the Ministry of Transport cannot be accused of introducing a Socialist Measure this time.

I cannot understand the attitude of mind of hon. Members opposite, who, because they are not presented with the whole loaf of State ownership, which I can assure them they might find very indigestible, refuse this half loaf of traffic regulations, which are in the best interests not only of the industry but of the workers concerned in it. They are prepared to reject a Measure which, I think, carries out the three main points brought out in the first part of their Amendment. They complain that we are not establishing a national system of transport and that our control is regional. It is obvious that any sort of control as regards traffic must be regional, inasmuch as if you are having control at all, it must be carried out to suit the particular areas in the country that are affected. After all, it was exactly the system adopted by Mr. Morrison, when he was Minister of Transport, in his Road Traffic Act, when he set up 13 area commissions. But because you have a regional system of control, it does not mean that the whole system by which the control of traffic is carried out in the country is not national. Indeed, it must be national. The principles by which the commissioners will be guided will be uniform, and they will be virtually controlled by an appeal tribunal which will operate over the whole country, so that in effect hon. Members opposite may consider that, although they have not State control, they have a form of State management, inasmuch as the areas will be regulated upon the same principles.

The Amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) is more surprising in many ways than that proposed from the benches opposite. He objects to our establishing a greater bureaucracy than before. I would remind him that the railways have been under the strictest control and regulation by the State for nearly 100 years. That control has been entirely for the interests of the public as a whole. If you can admit, as the right hon. Gentleman does—because he accepts the first part of the Opposition Amendment—that the conditions of transport are chaotic, how can you improve them except by some system of regulation? I venture to suggest that there has been an immense improvement in the passenger transport system of the country as a result of regulation, and that there is no reason to expect that the form of regulation set out now for goods traffic will not equally be in the interests of industry as a whole and of the public at large. It is always said about any Bill introduced in the House at this time that it creates an additional staff, but if Parliament desires the provisions of the law to be enforced, it cannot reasonably refuse the staff essential for that purpose.

Hon. Members are rightly always complaining, and in this Debate allusion has been made to this particular point by several speakers, of the number of road accidents that are taking place and of the various faults on the road. They are due very largely to over-speeding, to overworking of drivers and to overloading of vehicles, and all these subjects will now be brought under a much closer supervision as a result of the proposals in this Bill. It may be that the view that we are retarding the development of the efficiency of transport may be held by some hon. Members, but I think that it is an entirely wrong idea. I am certain that if you leave the goods transport industry as it is in its present condition, you are not making it more efficient, and what the Royal Commission reported was perfectly true with regard to the industry at the present time. In their Final Report, paragraph 342, they say: Much of the competition between road hauliers and between the road haulage industry and railways and other forms of transport is unquestionably open to severe criticism on the ground that the wages and general conditions of service in the industry leave much to be desired. Although we have no doubt that there are many firms to whom this criticism is not applicable, we cannot but feel that there are others whose profits, if there be any, represent to a considerable extent the difference, expressed in terms of money, between the wages paid and the conditions obtaining, and the wages which should be paid and the conditions which should obtain, if proper standards were maintained. Improvements in these directions will go far to weed out the less desirable operators and to place the industry on a sounder basis by removing the element of uneconomic operation which undoubtedly exists. What the Royal Commission reported is true, and if you want this industry to become efficient, it must depend very largely upon the methods of control and regulation which are adopted in this Bill. There are, of course, objections that I can see to some of the suggestions which we make in this Bill, especially with regard to some of the points that have been brought up by various speakers to-night, but I think that these are all points, not of principle, but of procedure or prac- tice, which we can consider in Committee. I can assure the House that my hon. Friend is prepared in every way to agree to altering details, provided the main principles of the Bill remain as they are.

There was one point which was brought up by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. A. Roberts) and was alluded to by other speakers, with regard to "C" licences. He seemed to think that the holders of "C" licences would be required to give particulars of any financial agreement or arrangement relating to the control of their business. In the case of holders of "A" or "B" licences, it is right that the Commissioners should know with whom they are dealing, but it is not intended that this particular requirement should apply to "C" licences, and we do not think that that is the effect of the Clause as it stands. We shall look into the point very carefully, and if there is any ambiguity in the matter, we shall put it right in Committee. With regard to another question which has attracted some attention, that of the fair wages resolution, my hon. Friend in his opening speech asked the Opposition, when they were alluding to this matter of the fair wages resolution in connection with "C" licences to make some suggestion as to the trade union difficulties that. arise in the matter. He referred to it very carefully in his opening speech, but to one in the course of the Debate has offered any solution of the great difficulties which he outlined in his speech. Therefore the points put forward by the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Parkinson) and the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) are really not exactly apposite, as we have not had explained by them the difficulties to which my hon. Friend alluded.

The other questions that were raised in the course of the Debate were mainly matters which can be dealt with in Committee. The objection which is made to Clause 29 requires considerable attention, and it has not perhaps been properly appreciated by Members who have referred to it to-night. We consider that the safeguards we have put in the Clause are sufficient to do away with any risk of an undue preference having evil consequences. It is a point that will require very close attention, and we are prepared to defend it when it comes to Committee.

The main point, however, of this Bill, as I see it and as it is put forward by the Government, is that it is a serious attempt to regulate the transport services of this country. At the present time there is no doubt that the competition which has been going on between road and rail has not been in the best interests of either of those two great services, and certainly not in the best interests of the country as a whole. We do not for one moment suppose that the proposals we put forward in this Bill are the end of the story. They are a beginning, the first attempt to co-ordinate the transport services in the general interests of the public. Whether or not we shall succeed in helping the rail, or whether we shall be damaging the road, remains to be seen, but one thing is certain, that unless we adopt some policy of this kind at the present time the competition going

on between the two kinds of transport must end in disaster either to the road or to the rail.

Therefore, I ask the House to give a Second Reading to this Bill, firmly convinced in my own mind that in doing so the House will be doing a wise thing, and that the proposal put forward by the Opposition would not prove a practicable policy and would not be effective in any way to carry out the purpose intended. It is only by some system of regulation such as we are proposing that we shall enable these two great industries to develop to the full extent for the benefit of the whole people.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 302; Noes, 38.

Division No. 156.]	AYES.	[10.58 p.m.
Acland-Troyte, Lleut.-Colonel	Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)	Glucksteln, Louis Halle
Agnew, Lleut,-Com. P. G.	Chorlton, Alan Ernest Leotric	Glyn, Major Ralph G. C.
Altchison, Rt. Hon. Craigle M.	Clayton, Dr. George C.	Goff, Sir Park
Albery, Irving James	Cobb, Sir Cyril	Goldie, Noel B.
Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.	Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.	Gower, Sir Robert
Aske, Sir Robert William	Colman, N. C. D.	Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd, N.)
Astor, MaJ. Hn. John J.(Kent.Dover)	Conant, R. J. E.	Granville, Edgar
Atholl, Duchess of	Cook, Thomas A.	Greene, William p. C.
Atkinson, Cyril	Cooke, Douglas	Grenfell, E. C. (City of London)
Baldwin-Webb, Colonel J.	Craddock, Sir Reginald Henry	Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)	Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.	Griffith, F. Klngsley (Mlddlesbro'.W.)
Bainiel, Lord	Crooke, J. Smedley	Grlmston, R. V.
Banks, Sir Reginald Mitchell	Croom-Johnson, R. P.	Gritten, W. G. Howard
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.	Crossley, A. C.	Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
Barrie, Sir Charles Coupar	Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard	Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Barton, Capt. Basil Kelsey	Culverwell, Cyril Tom	Guy, J. C. Morrison
Bateman, A. L.	Davles, MaJ. Geo. F.(Somerset,Yeovil)	Hall, Capt. W. D'Arcy (Brecon)
Beaumont, Hon. R.E.B. (Portsm'th,C.)	Dawson, Sir Philip	Hanley, Dennis A.
Belt, Sir Alfred L.	Denman, Hon. R D.	Harbord, Arthur
Bevan, Stuart James (Holborn)	Donner, P. W.	Hartland, George A.
Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman	Drewe, Cedric	Harvey, George (Lambeth,Kenningt'n)
Bird, Ernest Roy (Yorks., Skipton)	Duckworth, George A. V.	Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Bllndell, James	Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel	Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Boothby, Robert John Graham	Duggan, Hubert John	Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Borodale, Viscount	Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)	Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Cheimsford)
Boulton, W. W.	Eastwood, John Francis	Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton	Edge, Sir William	Herbert, Capt. S. (Abbey Division)
Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.	Elliot, Major Rt. Hon. Walter E.	Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller
Boyce, H. Leslie	Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey	Hornby, Frank
Boyd-Carpenter, Sir Archibald	Elliston, Captain George Sampson	Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.
Bralthwalte, J. G. (Hillsborough)	Elmley, Viscount	Horobln, Ian M.
Briscoe, Capt. Richard George	Emmott, Charles E. G. C.	Horsbrugh, Florence
Broadbent, Colonel John	Emrys-Evans, P. V.	Howltt, Dr. Alfred B.
Brocklebank, C. E. R.	Essenhigh, Reginald Clare	Hudson, Capt. A. u. M. (Hackney, N.)
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd., Hexham)	Evans, Capt. Arthur (Cardiff, S.)	Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)
Brown, Brig.-G en. H.C.(Berks..Newb'y)	Evans, R. T. (Carmarthen)	Hume, Sir George Hopwood
Browne, Captain A. C.	Flelden, Edward Brocklehurst	Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brigg)
Buchan, John	Foot, Dingle (Dundee)	Hurd, Sir Percy
Buchan-Hepburn. P. G. T.	Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)	Hutchison, W. D. (Essex, Romford)
Burnett, John George	Ford, Sir Patrick J.	Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.
Cadogan, Hon. Edward	Forestler-Walker, Sir Leolin	Iveagh, Countess of
Caine, G. R. Hall	Fox, Sir Gifford	Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)
Campbell, Edward Taswell (Bromley)	Fraser, Captain Ian	James, Wing-Com. A. W. H.
Campbell, Vice-Admiral G. (Burnley)	Fremantle, Sir Francis	Jamleson, Douglas
Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm	Fuller, Captain A. G.	Jennings, Roland
Caporn, Arthur Cecil	Ganzoni, Sir John	Jesson, Major Thomas E.
Carver, Major William H.	Gillett, Sir George Masterman	Johnston, J. W. (Clackmannan)
Casllereagh, Viscount	Gllmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John	Johnstone, Harcourt (S. Shields)
Cayzer, Sir Charles (Chester, City)	Glossop, C. W. H.	Jones, Sir G.W.H. (Stoke New'gton)
Jonet, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh	Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)	Ormsby-Gore. Rt. Hon. William G. A.	Somerset, Thomas
Ker, J. Campbell	Palmer, Francis Noel	Somervell, Donald Bradley
Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton	Pearson, William G.	Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)
Latham, Sir Herbert Paul	Peat, Charles U.	Soper, Richard
Law, Sir Alfred	Percy, Lord Eustace	Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.
Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)	Perkins, Walter R. D.	Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.
Leighton, Major B. E. P.	Petherick, M.	Spencer, Captain Richard A.
Liddall, Walter S.	Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)	Spender-Clay, Rt. Hon. Herbert H.
Lindsay, Noel Ker	Peto, Geoffrey K.(W'verh'pt'n, Bllst'n)	Spens, William Patrick
Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip Cunllffe-	Pike, Cecil F.	Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)
Liewellyn-Jones, Frederick	Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.	Stevenson, James
Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hn. G. (Wd.Gr'n)	Pownall, Sir Assheton	Stourton, Hon. John J.
Lockwood, John C. (Hackney, C.)	Procter, Major Henry Adam	Strauss, Edward A.
Loder, Captain J. de Vere	Raikes, Henry V. A. M.	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Lovat-Frater, James Alexander	Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)	Stuart, Lord C. Crlchton-
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.	Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)	Sugden. Sir Wilfrid Hart
Lyons, Abraham Montagu	Ramsden, Sir Eugene	Summertby, Charles H.
Mabane, William	Rathbone, Eleanor	Sutcliffe, Harold
Mac Andrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G.(Partick)	Ray, Sir William	Tate, Mavis Constance
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)	Rea, Walter Russell	Thompson, Luke
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)	Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)	Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles
McEwen, Captain J. H. F.	Reld, David D. (County Down)	Thorp, Linton Theodore
McKie, John Hamilton	Reid, William Allan (Derby)	Todd, Capt. A. J. K. (B'wick-on-T.)
McLean, Major Sir Alan	Remer, John R.	Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)	Rentoul, Sir Gervais S.	Turton, Robert Hugh
Macmillan, Maurice Harold	Renwick, Major Gustav A.	Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon
Makins, Brigadier-General Ernest	Rhys, Hon. Charles Arthur U.	Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)
Mailalieu, Edward Lancelot	Ropner, Colonel L.	Ward. Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.	Ross, Ronald D.	Ward. Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)
Martin, Thomas B.	Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)	Wardlaw-Milne, Sir John S.
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John	Runge, Norah Cecil	Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.
Merriman, Sir F. Boyd	Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)	Waterhouse, Captain Charles
Mills, Sir Frederick (Leyton, E.)	Russell, Richard John (Eddisbury)	Watt, Capiatn George Steven H.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)	Rutherford, John (Edmonton)	Wedderburn, Henry James Scrymgeour-
Milne, Charles	Rutherford, Sir John Hugo (Liverp'l)	Wells, Sydney Richard
Molson, A. Hugh Eisdale	Salmon, Sir Isidore	Weymouth, Viscount
Moore, Lt.-Col. Thomas C. R. (Ayr)	Salt, Edward W.	White, Henry Graham
Moreing, Adrian C.	Samuel, Sir Arthur Michael (F'nham)	Whiteside, Borras Noel H.
Morgan. Robert H.	Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)	Whyte, Jardine Bell
Morris, Owen Temple (Cardiff, E.)	Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart	Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)	Sanderson, Sir Frank Barnard	Wills, Wilfrid D.
Morrison, William Shepherd	Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.	Wilson, Clyde T. (West Toxteth)
Moss, Captain H. J.	Savery, Samuel Servington	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Mulrhead, Major A. J.	Scone, Lord	Wise, Alfred R.
Murray-Phllipson, Hylton Ralph	Selley. Harry R.	Womersley, Walter James
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.	Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.	Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzle (Banff)
Nicholson, Godfrey (Morpeth)	Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)	Worthington, Dr. John V.
Normand, Wilfrid Guild	Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)	Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (S'v'noaks)
North, Captain Edward T.	Simmonds, Oliver Edwin
O'Connor, Terence James	Smiles, Lieut.-Col. Sir Walter D.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES —
O'Donovan, Dr. William James	Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)	Sir George Penny and Lord Erskine.
Oman, Sir Charles William C.	Smith, Sir Jonah W. (Barrow-ln-F.)
NOES.
Attlee, Clement Richard	Grundy, Thomas W.	Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)
Banfield, John William	Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Malnwaring, William Henry
Batey, Joseph	Hicks, Ernest George	Milner, Major James
Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)	Hirst, George Henry	Parkinson, John Allen
Buchanan, George	Jenkins. Sir William	Price, Gabriel
Cape, Thomas	Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Sllvertown)	Salter, Dr. Alfred
Cripps, Sir Stafford	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Tinker, John Joseph
Daggar, George	Kirk wood, David	Williams, David (Swansea, East)
Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)	Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George	Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)
Dobbie, William	Lawson, John James	Williams, Or. John H. (Lianelly)
Edwards, Charles	Leonard, William
Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)	Lunn, William	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur	Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)	Mr. John and Mr. Groves.
Grentell, David Rees (Glamorgan)	McEntee, Valentine L.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.