The New Transport and its Administrative Problems
| Author | Cyril Hurcomb |
| Published date | 01 April 1931 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1931.tb02021.x |
| Date | 01 April 1931 |
The
New
Transport
and
its
Administrative- Problems
By
Sir
CYRIL
HURCOMB,
K.B.E.,
C.B.
[Paper read before the Institute
of
Public Administration,
19th
February,
19311
HIS paper reproduces some remarks which
I
made about
a
T
year ago at one
of
the Institute’s monthly luncheons, prompted
by
a
statement which had fallen a little while before from the lips of
Mr. Gibbon.
“
Public Administration,” he had
said,
“
is not up to
the needs of modem conditions.”
I
was thus led to ask myself how
far the statement was true
in
regard to the particular branch
of
administration with which
I
am concerned. Transport, since the
War, has developed, under the stress of many inventions and changed
economic conditions at
a
pace and in directions bound to create new
administrative problems, and,
in
determining for me the title
of
my
address hlr. Comer can plead some justification for using the phrase
-the New Transport. There has been such a Renaissance of the
Road and such
a
Re-formation of our Railways
as
to produce
a
new
transport era.
How
far
has
public
administration recognised and kept pace
with
the altered state of affairs? In attempting to answer
this
question
I
shall
not attempt at the same time to discuss the whole subject of the
State
in
relation to the administration of transport (on which
Sir
Lynden Macassey has just addressed the Institute
of
Transport) or
to
pursue in detail particular aspects
of
the regulation of Transport.
I
shall confine myself to describing
a
few of the main administrative
developments in relation to transport by rail and by road since the
war and the views of the Royal Commission on Transport, as con-
tained in their recent report, on what,
I
suppose,
is
the problem of
problems in
this
matter, the co-ordination of all the various forms
of
transport
in
Great Britain.
In transport, as
in
other matters, the Great War produced and
precipitated great changes. It left the railways
in
the possession of
the Government, and entailing
a
heavy burden on the Exchequer.
It
left the canals also in
the
possession of the Government under
a
190
The
New
Transport
similar financial guarantee. Nearly every tramway and dock
authority
in
the country was dependent upon emergency orders for
the charging powers essential
if
they were to remain solvent. The
roads had necessarily suffered neglect, and
in
many districts excep-
tional strain, and it was obvious that the highway authorities
of
the
country would be faced
with
growing expenditure and a demand for
new types of road to meet a new traffic
of
increasing volume.
As a contribution towards the reconstruction
of
our economic life,
steps were taken in
1919
to concentrate, in a new
Ministry,
the powers
relating to inland transport previously scattered among
a
number of
departments, of which the Board
of
Trade was the chief. Civil avia-
tion retained and
still
retains
a
home in the
Air
Ministry;
the Board
of Trade retains control
of
coastwise with other shipping, and of
questions relating to navigation, pilotage, and similar matters which
affect harbours and docks. But
all
other powers relating to railways,
light railways, tramways, canals, harbours, docks, femes and roads
throughout Great Britain were transferred under the
Ministry
of
Transport Act,
1919,
to a new Ministry which was entrusted to a
specialist Minister
in
the person of Sir Eric Geddes, who had been
responsible for framing the Act.
It
may be noted in passing that, in the process of collecting
powers, the Ministry of Transport also collected an odd assortment
of
national properties. The harbours
of
Ramsgate and Holyhead,
and the Crinan and Caledonian Canals are nationally owned and
nationally operated. One simple and perhaps sufficient reason (not,
I
venture to think, result) is that they do not pay. Add the Menai
Bridge to the list and
you
have before you the extent to which the
State itself
owns
means
of
inland transport as distinct from regulating
the transport owned and provided by private or local enterprise.
If
we turn now to the problems which arose
in
connection
with
the
various forms
of
transport, the railways first claim attention. Statu-
tory undertakings are normally dependent upon powers
of
charge
limited by statute, and charges based upon pre-war values were
clearly rendered inadequate by the alteration in the value
of
money.
While
passenger fares had been raised
during
the War, with a view
to restricting train mileage rather than increasing revenue, no
increase had been made in freight charges, although the rise
in
wages
and
in
the cost of material had brought railway expenditure to a level
which was involving a heavy burden on the Exchequer to meet the
guarantee of the
19x3
net receipts which had been the financial basis
of
the arrangement for control. Heavy arrears of maintenance had
accrued and capital expenditure had fallen into arrear. It was
obvious, therefore, that
a
drastic revision
of
charging powers could
no
longer
be
deferred
if
ftnancial equilibrium was to be restored.
191
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