Letters to the Editor
[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. The enact suitable length is that of one of our " News of the Week" paragraphs.—Ed. Tam SPECTATOR.]
THE RAILWAY PROBLEM
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,-Might I reply to Mr.. E. Peter Jones, who, in The Spectator of March 17th, comments on the railway and road problems ? He states that for licence and petrol duties he paid last year on four pneumatic-tyred lorries £1,074, and asks, " who is able to say that these lorries did not pay their full share for the wear and tear they contributed to the roads?" The italics are mine, and I use them to indicate the point of view of a lorry owner- who measures his payments for road usage by wear and tear only. The cost of providing and regu- lating public roads, like that of navigable rivers, canals, railways, tramways, or even the private roadways inside a factory, is not represented by the wear and tear caused by the user. Apart from this the lack of detail in regard to size and use made of the lorries makes his question as meaningless as would be a like one in regard to our telephones.
He further states that " between us we users of the roads are paying, in taxation, the full cost of maintaining and improving the roads." Taxation here appears to mean petrol and licence duties which total £581 millions and " us " includes owners of private cars and motor cycles, 'buses and hackney vehicles, as well as the goods vehicles which paid £21 millions. The heavy vehicles, of 5 tons and upwards, pay only a small proportion of this £21 millions. In 1930-31—the last year for which figures are available—maintenance and major improve- ments of roads represented £59 millions, new construction £6 millions ; administration, policing, cleansing, &c., £91 millions, making the total £741 millions ; these figures in- cluding loan charges on outstanding borrowings. Assuming, however, that " we users " pay the whole cost of roads attributable to them, it does not follow that the incidence of such total costs as between the three main types of motorists and as between heavy and light freight vehicles is a proper one.
We are next informed that two-thirds of that sum (i.e., £581 millions) is devoted to the financial consequences of War profiteering. This appears to be merely a rhetorical way of saying that the whole of the petrol import duty, and part of the licence duties, are included in the National Budget. After this extravagance, the well-worn statement is made that it would be suicidal to continue using an old form of transport if a cheaper and better one has been discovered. The present controversy ranges round the question whether road motors, and in turn each class thereof, pay appropriate amounts for use of the roads, and if any one class of vehicle, such as the heavy lorry, does not do so but is aided by other classes of motors, or by rates and taxes, the suicidal tendency may well be the opposite of that suggested. The tendentious statement is then made that shareholders in cotton mills, ships, and steel works have to go without dividends and are as much entitled to consideration as railway stockholders. That, of course, is true ; but the suggestion is false, as the railways have not suggested that absence of railway dividends warranted the slightest taxation of motor lorries.
Leaving road motors, Mr. Jones criticizes Railway Rates, stating that he is paying 50 per cent. more than pre-War for rail transport while selling steel at pre-War prices to the railways. The word " steel " covers much, and railway rates are not based on one factor alone. Would Mr. Jones suggest that because the Railway Companies are selling large quan- tities of steel scrap at prices substantially below pre-War prices, steel rails should be sold at a correspondingly lower price than pre-War ? In fact, as Mr. Jones appears to be' unaware, a Steel Works controlled by his Company is at the present time selling steel rails at more than pre-War prices, and certain classes of manufactured steel are being sold at prices which have increased over pre-War prices in a greater ratio than railway, rates. I do not suggest, like Mr. Jones, that one isolated factor in costs should govern selling prices, and what applies to railway rates applies also to steel prices. Turning to International affairs : Mr. Jones complains that the railway companies have done nothing to assist the steel trade to meet competition of foreign countries which have inflated their currency and thus reduced their cost of pro- duction. Indirectly, the Railway Companies have assiattd the steel trade in many ways which I need not specify, but the suggestion that the railways should be a Deus ex machina to adjust the effects of foreign currencies on the steel trade, and presumably on all other trades, is a novel one. The Railwals are particularly restricted and regulated by Parliament in many ways : in their profits in good times ; in how they should raise and apply capital ; and even in the use of road transport. That they should be a fairy godmother of trade at a time when they are penalized by the Government aid of road transport is one more of the absurdities of road propaganda.
Having mixed my metaphors, I can appropriately turn to Mr. Jones' final point. Ulster, he states, is getting on quite well to-day without railways. This is incorrect. The railways are operating there to-day but with only a partial service, and the lack of a full service is unfortunately a severe handicap to trade, a further one being the inability of certain factories to use the present railway services for fear of intimidation. It Mr. Jones can obtain some satisfaction out of the present difficulties in Ireland, I can only hope that he writes without knowledge of the facts.—I am, Sir, &c., Euston Station, N.W.1.
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