The Trader's Van
During the debate on the second reading of the Transport Bill Mr. Barnes held out some hope that material amendments might be made during the committee stage. The decision to withdraw from the Bill the clauses dealing with "C" licences has done something to fulfil that promise. It has lifted a weight from those traders who were faced with the threat of having to restrict the operations of their own vehicles carrying their own goods to within a radius of forty miles from the operating centre. But relief rather than jubila- tion remains the appropriate reaction, and even relief must be quali- fied. The clauses concerned were probably unworkable in any case, and their withdrawal is the recognition of a difficulty rather than a modification of the Government's purpose to go ahead with nationali- sation. Moreover, the Minister of Transport, maintaining the remarkable standard of ineptitude which he has shown throughout, immediately destroyed any improvement in the atmosphere which the concession might have made by issuing a warning that any abuse of the " facility " would be punished. Both the note of suspicion and the description of the decision not to interfere with business as a " facility " are sufficiently in keeping with the Government's atti- tude to discourage hope of further concessions. Apparently the economic life of the country has not yet reached such a low ebb as to convince the Government that an attempt to secure the co- operation of the whole country is necessary. Nothing would be more likely to revive the waning public confidence in the Government than a major gesture such as the indefinite postponement of the Transport Bill, which is an over-hasty measure anyway, and could well do with a complete overhaul. But it seems that this is too much to expect.
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