Nationalised Buses
This is hardly an opportune moment for the British Transport Commission to publish a scheme for the State acquisition of the passenger road transport undertakings of Northumberland, Durham and part of the North Riding of Yorkshire. It is true that the Com- mission is empowered by the Transport Bill to prepare such schemes, and it may be that, having prepared one for this region, it automa- tically went ahead and published it, with that indifference to cir- cumstances which is characteristic of bureaucracy in action. But has nationalisation of the railways proved such a success as to justify its automatic extension to the roads ? The structure of area board, district managers, powers reserved to the Commission and the inevitable vague arrangements for the expression of local opinion (which at present expresses itself quite freely without special arrange- ments)—all this paraphernalia is drearily familiar, and there is no part of the growing field of nationalisation in which it has been proved a success. The provision for decentralisation is either eyewash or an unnecessary official provision for what exists already. There is, in fact, little to be said in favour of schemes of this kind. Yet this one has been steadily ground out during a period of national emergency and now makes its appearance at the peak of a crisis.
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