27 DECEMBER 1946, Page 1

The Transport Bill

The last day of the debate on the Second Reading of the Transport Bill in the House of Commons brought more credit on the measure's critics than to its defenders, Mr. Eden and Captain Thomeycroft showing themselves particularly effective in their strictures. As Mr., Eden observed, Mr. Dalton's designation of the railways as some- thing the country should be thoroughly ashamed of was peculiarly unworthy in view of the astonishing efficiency shown in the face of the unprecedented war strain. He conceded that it might be per- fectly right to be exporting locomotives that are urgently needed here, or to devote to other uses steel without which the railways can hardly carry on, but it is neither right nor just for the Government to ordain both these things and at the same time to condemn the railways for the very deficiencies it has itself imposed on them. To such criticisms, and others equally pertinent, regarding the re- strictions to be placed on road transport, the Government speakers provided little effective answer, and it is of some note that the minorities against the Government on the divisions in which the Second Reading culminated were, for the first time in this Parlia- ment, over 200. It is a grave defect in Parliamentary procedure that a measure which touches directly the life and activity of every citizen in the country now disappears for months from the purview of the House as a whole, to be hammered out in detail in a committee on which no more than 5o members sit. It may in due course emerge improved in some respects, but the radical defects in structure, and there are many of them, are likely to remain.