Transport Problems SIR,—Mr. Ernest H. Taylor in, your issue of
June 27th states: " Just as the high-way ' is a nationalised or almost national affair, so the rail- way' should be a national affair, and the cost of it borne on the same basis as the cost of the roads." Your correspondent is overlooking the very -important fact that, unlike the railways, road transport pays enormous sums to the Exchequer by way of taxation every year. In
licence duties, fuel tax and purchase tax it will pay £340m, this year, but the Government will only allocate £33m. to roads.
The State must relieve the railways of their out-of-date obligations and, for the same reason as it maintains the armed forces, it must assume financial responsibility for those redundant facilities, includ- ing unremunerative lines, required for defence purposes. There is, however, no justification for the railways to be paid a direct subsidy as your correspondent is, in effect, suggesting.—Yours faithfully,
M. FRANCIS,
Information Officer,
4a Bloomsbury Square, W.C.I. British Road Federation.
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