I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

I think I need not stress the desirability of statutory provisions dealing with the control and regulation of traffic in or near London, and purposes connected therewith, which have been the subject of recommendations by various Royal Commissions Select Committees, etc., since 1855, including the Royal Commission on London Traffic in 1905, which reported as follows: as is always the case, is when you begin to think what is the best way to do it.

It seems to me, apart from details of the powers to be conferred, which are certainly to a considerable extent, matters for the Committee to which I hope the Bill will be referred, that the most important question is the authority on which powers shall be conferred. The proposal in the Bill is to constitute an advisory committee, as set out in Clause 1, consisting of 12 ordinary members representing local authorities and the appropriate departments, and six additional members, two of them representing labour and four representing transport interests, as shown in Clause 1, Subsection (3), who will join and assist the Committee in their deliberations in connection with the matters with which they are particularly concerned. I do not suppose anyone will be surprised that in a Bill of this kind there should be representation of Labour, and more particularly is it necessary in this case because so much depends on the co-operation of the men who are employed in the industry. They have their point of view, which must be considered, and from my own experience as a representative of Labour on the Port of London Authority although, so far as actually being able to do things, we are in a hopeless minority, we are still able, by advice and as much assistance as we can give, to have the men's point of view always kept before that body. Here the same thing, I hope, will be attained by giving the representation. Then there are four representatives of the transport interest and I hope they will all join together in their deliberations and we shall be able to find some remedy for the evils which have been talked about for so long. This Committee will have no executive power but will advise the Minister. Arguments have been adduced, and I see references to them on the Order Paper, in favour of vesting any control in a democratic authority which I gather in effect means a greater London authority. I am in sympathy with the constitution of a greater London authority to deal with many matters and I should personally perhaps have been happier in moving the Second Reading of such a Bill. But the Government have come to the conclusion that it is not practicable at present and I am anxious that nothing should be done to put any unnecessary difficulties in the way of the constitution of such an authority when it is possible.

I should like for a moment to examine some of the alternatives, such as the appointment of a London traffic authority consisting of a Chairman and two members, all paid, as recommended by the Kennedy Jones Committee, vesting the traffic powers in the London County Council, or the constitution of a new authority on the lines of the Metropolitan Water Board, the Metropolitan Asylums Board or the Port of London Authority. I think there is no doubt that the first suggestion, of an authority consisting of three paid representatives, is clearly not an acceptable solution in the present circumstances. With regard to the London County Council, I do not think they would form a satisfactory authority because they could only act for the London County Council area, and this excludes many of the most difficult areas. Take, for instance, the docks areas of East and West Ham. I know that improved access to the docks through West Ham is an urgent necessity. I met, only a few days ago, a most influential deputation from the City on this matter. The slowing down of traffic there affects a wide area and is reflected many miles away. You cannot talk about controlling traffic, say in Whitehall, without thinking of controlling traffic as far away as East and West Ham. Therefore, it is not a West Ham problem alone. Substantial improvement can only be effected there by the goodwill of the London authorities as a whole. I use the word London in the wide sense, and I am hopeful that with the mutual co-operation of the representatives of these authorities on the Committee, something can be done.

Then there is the City of London, which is outside the County Council area of jurisdiction. The London County Council have no jurisdiction in the area of the Middlesex County Council and the County Councils surrounding inner London, and a proposal to confer powers on the London County Council in those areas would not be accepted. As far as the remaining suggestion is concerned, I do not think London wants another body of the character of the Metropolitan Water Board, the Metropolitan Asylums Board or the Port Authority. I should regard the formation of such an authority as an additional obstacle in the way of the ultimate constitution of a Greater London Authority. Ad hoc authorities are as difficult to get rid of as they are to set up. The third difficulty arises in regard to finance. If a new ad hoc body on the lines of the Metropolitan Water Board were constituted it would require separate offices and an entirely new staff, and, further, it would be necessary to confer upon it rating powers. I do not think there should be any increase in the rating authorities in London.

Since entering upon my present office I have considered many alternative proposals, and I came to the conclusion that in the circumstances of the case the principle of an Advisory Committee to advise the Minister was the best scheme until the setting up of a Greater London Authority. The Committee now proposed will consist only of local government and departmental representatives. Two representatives of labour and four representatives of traffic interests will join the Committee in their deliberations on matters particularly affecting those interests. In the circumstances existing in London, I think it cannot but conduce to sympathy, efficiency and rapid working that they should do so. Further, I think it most desirable that the Committee should be kept as small as practicable. Some of the advantages of the present proposals are that they are temporary in character. The Committee would meet at the Ministry and have the advantages of the services of the Ministry and its technical staff.

I should like at this point to say a few words to some members of my own party as to the danger of being swallowed up by the officialism of Whitehall. I hope I am no fool. Although I knew something of this officialism when I was outside, since I have been inside I have more than ever admired the responsible Civil Servants, to whom one must necessarily turn for expert advice and assistance. We cannot do without them. In a great Department like the one which is wanted to deal with the matter of this kind nobody, especially one who has only been in office a few weeks or a few months, can hope to conduct the business without their assistance. I thought I had better say something on this point, as we shall probably hear something on it before the day is over.

The expense would be comparatively small and this could be financed out of the Road Fund. It would not be possible to make use of the Road Fund for the alternative proposals I have outlined. The powers proposed to be conferred by the Bill could easily be transferred to a Greater London Authority if and when constituted. It should be borne in mind that as the Committee have no executive powers, these being vested solely in the Ministry, all action would have to be taken by him. All regulations made under the Bill will have to be laid before Parliament and consequently for every action taken the Minister will be responsible to Parliament. There will be no power to put any charge upon the ratepayers or the taxpayers, and any substantial money required for improvement could only be obtained by the goodwill and co-operation of the various authorities interested. This goodwill I hope to obtain through the meetings of the local Government representatives upon the proposed Committee as a result of their interchange of views.

There is one point that I should like to deal with, and that is the proposed area of 25 miles from Charing Cross. The actual enforcement of the control of traffic is a police matter. The London traffic problem is not confined to small area round Charing Cross but it extends far afield. This fact must be appreciated when it is borne in mind that the present area of the Metropolitan police district was fixed as long ago as 1847. The traffic problem in London is distinct from that of other cities where there is only one authority, such as Liverpool or Birmingham. In those places where the area has grown, the authority has grown by means of extensions of their area and any powers obtained by them apply to their whole area.

I do not propose to deal in detail with the provisions of the Bill at this stage. The general principles, as far as the control of passenger services is concerned, is to permit all classes properly to pursue their calling and to endeavour, so to control and co-ordinate this traffic, that all kinds may be able to earn a living and pay their way. The trams, the tubes, the omnibuses whether belonging to muni- cipalities, the combine or to private owners and the taxicabs will all, I hope, derive benefit from the control suggested. The small owner, in my opinion, will derive just as much benefit as the large owner.

This matter cannot be regarded as an emergency matter from the point of view that it is long overdue. The late Government felt this and were pledged to introduce a Bill if they had remained in office. The present Government prior to the strike had decided to introduce a Bill upon the subject. The strike has merely had the effect of expediting the matter by some few weeks. The Bill is baaed upon the recommendations last year of Lord Ullswater's Commission. The urgency of the matter has recently been reiterated by the Court of Inquiry presided over by Sir Arthur Colefax, K.C., into the subject of the London tramway and omnibus services stoppage. Their report, it will be remembered, contained the following paragraph:

The main provisions of the Bill are power to settle the roads on which omnibuses may run; power to require that an omnibus, whether owned by the combination or individual proprietors, running on these roads, shall adhere to a proper schedule of time, and shall, generally, run a regular service: power to limit the breaking up of streets: power to make regulations about fast and slow moving traffic, the times at which diversions may be made and other points of detailed control which in the aggregate will make an enormous difference in the free circulation of traffic I think that this is a temporary measure, and I appeal to the authorities of London and the surrounding districts to get together in a spirit of co-operation and give these proposals a fair chance. The result of their doing so may, and I hope will be, the formulation of some agreed larger scheme which, I am sure, would receive the most sym- pathetic consideration from this Government. In these circumstances I trust that this House will give the Bill a Second Reading.

The hon. Member has made no reference to tramways. The control of tramways is left out of the Bill.

There is no proposal here to interfere with the law in any way. I could not go beyond that. This is for the setting up of an advisory committee, and one wants to get their advice before taking action.

I do not think it is within human possibility for anybody to introduce into this House a Traffic Bill which could be an agreed measure, and the point on which I think we must congratulate the Minister of Transport is that he has introduced a Bill which is less contentious than anybody else could have done. I agree with him that any traffic Bill is necessarily a temporary meansure, because at no time in our history are traffic conditions changing so much as they are at the present day. It is interesting to those who intended to deal with this Bill last Session to see how their successors take up the threads of thought upon the same subject. I am very glad to see that the Minister does not approach this question from any political or party aspect, but deals with the traffic as an impediment to the city of London which must be dealt with as a concrete obstacle to London as a whole, but, as he has referred to the enormous amount of work which has been done on this subject it is obvious that his conclusions are along the same lines as they would have been even if either ourselves or anybody else went into the subject with all the information which is at the disposal of the Ministry. But I think that it is a pity that a Bill, either ours or his, was not introduced last Autumn because of circumstances which we could not control. Had a Bill of this character been introduced then I think that the present trouble would have been at any rate postponed.

I think that it is my duty to draw attention to some of the points in the Bill. I notice that the Minister has not adopted the recommendations of the Kennedy-Jones Committee to have a paid body, but has decided to have an Advisory Committee. For myself, I think that he has taken too many representatives of the municipalities. I think it a pity that in the old days, when Parliament gave power to local authorities to become traffic owning, trading concerns, they did not give them power to run omnibuses as well as trams, because when local authorities are represented on these bodies which he is creating, in view of the fact that their activities are limited to one system of transport, they are liable to look at traffic problems through spectacles which are tinged with tramways and nothing else. There is another point which I do not like. The Minister has not put on the Committee in all its sittings the representatives of owners and of the transport corporations because, although it is very fashionable in these days to have members of local authorities as the representatives of the people, the representatives of labour and the owning corporations probably know a great deal more about the subject than any representatives from local authorities.

Before I pass to a few of the main considerations of the Bill, may I draw attention to two small points? First, the Bill does what any Bill of this character could not miss doing, that is to see that our roads are not pulled up to make temporary golf courses during troubled times. There are, I think, four undertakings which can pull up our roads. The worst offender is the Post Office. The Post Office is the most difficult of all to get at, because, like the Crown, it is very difficult to sue. I would ask the Minister when he replies to give us an assurance that the Post Office have given their consent to collaborating in this Bill, so that they shall be as much under the Ministry of Transport, so far as pulling up our roads is concerned, as any other body having statutory powers to do so. Another small point is the Advisory Committee. That is going to cost a certain amount of money. It is for the benefit of London, and yet you are going to put the charge of that upon the Road Fund. It seems to me that this is a London question, and it is very difficult to understand why people from Liverpool and Manchester should pay for the regulation of our traffic. But it would be justified, I think, if any fund derived from any con- travention were put on the Road Fund, just as are fines derived from ordinary motor offences. But you do not do that. If the fines go into the police fund it is a retrograde step, because you are putting into the hands of the police the power to collect through their activities funds which go into their own coffers. When the Road Act was introduced it broke down the persecution of the motorists, because from that moment fines went to the Road Fund. Up to that time some places were in the habit of paying their rates by motorists' fines. That certainly was not justifiable. There is a tendency, if you give the places these powers, to take the fines. If you allow these fines to go into the Road Fund the two expenses will probably balance.

I want to deal with the questions of the traffic of London in two of its broad aspects. First, there is the physical aspect, traffic as it moves in our streets, and, later, traffic as it affects the public services in the Metropolis. I am a Cockney. I have lived all my life in London, and no one who has done that can avoid becoming fascinated with the problem of traffic. Who of us has not wanted, when small, to be a policeman in order to regulate it? It is a very curious thing that although the speed of vehicles has increased enormously in the last fifteen years the speed of the traffic in London has increased very little. [HON. MEMBERS: "It has gone back."] It has gone up somewhat. The number of vehicles due to the introduction of mechanical motor cars has increased enormously. Not only are more goods carried by road, but it is curious that people who in the old days never thought of owning a dog-cart now own a very big car. It would be of interest if I told the House of instances of the increase in the number of vehicles passing a certain point in London. I am taking them quite haphazard. The point is Euston Road—Tottenham Court Road. In 1912, during 12 hours, 6,000 vehicles passed. In 1919 during the same time 14,000 vehicles passed. Therefore, in a period of seven years the number of vehicles increased by 8,000. Take the period from 1919 to 1923. At Hyde Corner there was an increase in four years of 11,000 vehicles per day.

But one must look at traffic and the difficulties of it from a large point of view. The first trouble in the Metropolis is that all traffic going from North to South or from East to West has to go through the centre of London. That is one of the fundamental problems. There is another physical difficulty. It is that the marshes of the river Lea cause a bottleneck on the East side of London, and in that bottleneck the whole of the traffic going East and West has to concentrate. Probably the worst congestion occurs on the way to Victoria Docks. There is nothing comparable with that in the whole of London. I have heard of lorries taking 24 hours to get from the West End to the London Docks. How can we get over that impasse? The conception of the Ministry of Transport, of circular roads, will in large measure solve the difficulty, because in these days of fast-moving lorries it would pay anyone to take a longer journey on an empty road round London instead of a slow journey through the centre of London.

Then, of course, we have the difficulty of the Thames. All the products of the industrial activity South of the Thames which are to go to the Docks have to take the last bridge, and there the traffic gets crowded into the same neck. In that connection I hope that the Government will be able to go on with what was technically known as the North Circular Road, which joined up with Gravesend. Through it most of the southern traffic could go East, south of the Thames, cross the Thames by the tunnel and approach the docks from the East side rather than from the West. When these two big projects are carried out, automatically a good deal of the trouble in London will be relieved. I understand that the Ministry of Transport also have under consideration the reconstruction of the road to Victoria Dock. We sometimes forget that London is the biggest port in the world. Most of us do not see the docks, but we have to remember that facilities to get into the docks are of the utmost importance and are one of the charges of the Metropolis as a whole. Any rebuilding of a road in that district should not be a charge on that locality; it is a charge which must be borne by the whole of London for the benefit of the capital as a whole.

I have shown in part, I think, why there is congestion in the City. It is not City traffic. It is traffic that, because of geography, is going through the City to get to other places. Take the Mansion House. Many hon. Members might think that more traffic passes the Mansion House in 12 hours up to 8 o'clock in the evening, than any other place in London. It is certainly the most crowded place. But what do we find are the facts? The traffic at Hyde Park Corner is double. Yet no congestion exists there at all. The figures are 31,000 vehicles at the Mansion House, 56,000 vehicles at Hyde Park Corner, representing 116,000 tons burden. I know well that Hyde Park Corner is a good deal bigger than the Mansion House, but that does not come into the matter very much. Take Knightsbridge. It will be found that the traffic there is nearly double that at the Mansion House. If you are to carry an enormous number of vehicles you must keep them moving. That is the essence of the problem. The moment you get blocks, trouble starts and the road becomes inefficient.

On that point I have to pass to the executive control of traffic in London, which, of course, is undertaken by the police. I wish in the first place to pay a tribute to the extraordinary co-operative spirit which exists among the drivers of London. The drivers of omnibuses, taxis and lorries, being English are, to use a horrible term, the greatest gentlemen you could find in the world, and I say that after having myself driven in most of the capitals of Europe. I think in no town in the world is there more consideration for other people or for directions than in London. Everybody is out to help everybody else. In that connection may I tell the House the story of the two foreign policemen who were sent to London to learn how to regulate traffic? After a month in London they returned home fully conversant with our methods, and some of their friends sent to ask how they were getting on, and a curt reply was received to the effect that they were both killed on the first day they undertook their duties. That may not be strictly true, but it illustrates my point that the regulation of the traffic in London is an easy matter because of the compliance of the drivers.

On this point, I am going to say something which I am store will be very unpopular. I do not think the police are getting better every day at traffic regulation. I think they are getting worse. It is a curious reflection upon traffic regulation, that it is universally admitted that the traffic of London never went better than during the police strike. That is the universal opinion. What we have to get into the heads of the police is that their fundamental duty is to get the traffic along not to stop it and what is more to leave it alone whenever they can to work out its own salvation. Modern traffic is extraordinarily mobile and extraordinarily manœuvrable and if you do not stop it, but leave it alone, that is infinitely better than putting up the standard hand and stopping it. When I went to the Ministry this is a question to which I gave a great deal of time and attention. I stood for hours at Piccadilly Circus and other places, investigating how the traffic was regulated. At Piccadilly I have seen the traffic being completely locked by direction so that nothing could move in any direction. At Sloane Street I have seen the east and west traffic stopped in order to allow the north and south traffic through, but when the policeman looked for the north and south traffic there was none coming. Every Member of Parliament, I am sure, is familiar with that part of London where St. James Street gives on the Mall. This is never regulated and the traffic goes on there the whole day without any trouble at all. Only the other day a young policeman thought he would regulate it, with the result that there were piles of cars waiting to be allowed through in both directions. As soon as he went off the beat somebody who knew that particular beat better came on duty and left the traffic alone, with the result that the congestion melted away and everything went on quite peacefully.

We all love our London policemen. With all his defects he is a charming person, and one cannot help loving him. Let us remember that we are by this Bill giving him very great new powers. A number of those powers are very belated, but some of them are quite big powers which he has never had before. I know that the problem of regulating the traffic of London only starts when this Bill has been passed. I take it that Scotland Yard will be part of, or will be very nearly allied with the Ministry of Transport for this purpose, and I hope the police will take a new view of the traffic of London and will adopt more modern methods which aim at speeding up and not stopping traffic. I also hope that when they are working in conjunction with the Ministry we may see some new device or new schemes brought into operation.

I pass from what I call the physical side of the problem to the problem of the transport services of the Metropolis, and here, of course, I am on dangerous ground. I think it is imperative that one should approach this part of the problem not as one who is in favour of tubes or in favour of omnibuses or in favour of trams. Anybody who approaches the problem with a bias in favour of any one of these forms of locomotion should be ruled out. At the risk of boring the House, I must read one paragraph from the report of the Advisory Committee on London traffic, which was presided over by Mr. Kennedy Jones. This valuable Report states:

What is the number of the paragraph?

It is paragraph 23, page 10 of the Report. This Bill attempts to carry out that ideal and I congratulate the Minister on that fact. The heart of the Bill, the key to the Bill, is to be found in Clause 7. In Sub-section 1, ( a ) there is a power to regulate the number of omnibuses, having regard to the congestion existing in a road. No one will object to that because it is a fundamental principal that if you overcrowd a particular road you bring about the retardation rather than the speeding up of traffic. It is in Sub-section 1, ( b ) however that the point of the Bill lies. The words of the Sub-section seem to be harmless, but what do they mean? They mean that the Minister has the power to stop buses running against trams. That is a very big power. I do not say it is wrong. I think if I had charge of this Bill I should try to put that in, but I think it right to point out that the power exists, because it was along those lines of having power to prohibit the bus running against the tram, that the thought and hope of co-ordinating the London traffic lay, according to the report I have just quoted. There is no good in avoiding facing the facts and several of our tram systems are very nearly down and out—not all of them, but some. They suffer from very difficult physical disadvantages. Any kind of bus can come and attack them but they cannot retaliate in any way. It is, I think, a wise thing to have the power to stop that competition when it is not doing any good to the public, because otherwise you are eventually going to knock the tram out, and that is not going to be for the good of the public.

But there is another point. I think it is dangerous to think you will solve the problem along those lines—for, mark you, this is a restrictive measure—and although I say myself that I would put that provision in, I do not think it will work as efficiently as the Minister thinks, because actually the travelling public will not be pushed into whatever form of transport you want to push them into. They will go exactly where they want, and if they cannot go the way they want to go, they will not go at all. That is really the curious thing about the ordinary traveller in London. To give an example, if you took all the buses off Oxford Street, you would not force everybody into the tubes. All that would happen would be that there would be fewer people in Oxford Street. There are, I understand, in London to-day 150 bus routes, and they have a variable earning power. Most of them are, I admit, owned by what is called the Combine, but I do not think we ought to take up a Very antagonistic view of the Combine — [An HON. MEMBER: Why not?]—because, I think, they have done their duty as a big trading concern in a very admirable and public-spirited way. I am not a shareholder, and I know very little about the Combine, but that is my feeling after having given very considerable study to this question of London traffic, but, with 150 bus routes, would anybody suggest that the employés on each route should be paid separate wages according to the earning power of the particular route? That seems to me to be the most farcical idea. The whole lot together pay, and surely the comparison of the tram relative to the bus is absolutely analogous. There you have the rich side of your traffic organisation in your buses, and the poor side in your trams. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Well, in some of them; I do not say in all, but some of them are in a poor way, and I think that, just as the rich busmen should help the poor busmen, so the rich form of transport, namely, the buses, should help to pay for the trams. The fat must support the lean.

This is not at all a new problem, for we had a very similar thing during the War. At that particular time the omnibuses were in a very bad way. Most of them were taken off the streets for war purposes, and it was difficult to conduct the services, and whereas the tubes then paid, the omnibuses were very nearly "broken," and we were threatened with very nearly the same trouble over wages with regard to the omnibusmen then as we are with regard to the tram men to-day. How was the difficulty got over? It was got over by the 1915 Act, which allowed a pooling system to be indulged in between the omnibuses and the Underground. That has worked very well, and there has been no objection to it ever since. Both those organisations have paid fair wages and have given adequate and cheap fares, and also the financial stability of the Combine has been very satisfactory.

12 N.

Why, at that time, were not the trams included? That is a thing that I have never been able to understand. When this Bill goes upstairs to Committee—if it does go upstairs—I hope to move an Amendment to grant powers to the various transport undertakings, with proper safeguards, to enter into agreements to set up a combined pool, so that we may look at the transport of the whole of this City as being one problem, in which the rich should help the poor. I am convinced that whereas separately these undertakings will be unable to carry on, and although you may think that by this Bill you will solve this difficulty, it will only be a temporary solution, and you will get troubles and strikes later on, simply because some of these companies will never be earning enough money to pay. After I have given notice of this Amendment to the Minister, I hope he will go into it, anyhow before we get into Committee, to see if he cannot accept it, because, on broad principles, we, on this side, accept his Bill, and although it is not ours—it differs from ours in many particulars—we will do our best to see it through, because it is a measure which is based on trying to help, and not on any party lines.

I look upon London, the greatest port, the greatest city in the world, and the great heart of the whole Empire, as a living entity, throbbing with life. Traffic is actually its life-blood, coursing through its veins, but it is a man-made entity. It is very frail. It wants all the help that we can give, and all the watching also, to keep it alive and well. To-day, if we pass the Second Reading of this Bill, we put into the Minister's hands, as if he were a doctor, at any rate for a certain length of time, this patient to look after. If he is to be the doctor in charge, we on these benches will play the part of nurse, so that together we may cure the patient. We wish him well.

I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words and said that it proceeded largely on the same lines as his own Bill. I could not help thinking, when he was speaking, that this would have been the speech he would have made if he had brought in his Bill last Autumn, if we had had an Autumn Session, and that my hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is really carrying his baby. [An HON. MEMBER; "A changeling!"] It has a very strong likeness to the original child which would have been brought in if there had not been a change of Government.

Personally, I am very sorry that I have to criticise the first Measure brought in by the new Minister of Transport. He is a very old friend, and I hope he will forgive me if I say that I treasure his friendship more than that of any man with whom I worked on the London County Council. We all have the greatest admiration, both for his character and for his personality, and I think I can almost say that for the 17 years during which I worked with him on that body, I very rarely, if ever, went into a different Lobby. We were working on very much the same lines in public matters during all those years. I hope that Members on this side may persuade him—I am not sure he wants so very much persuading—if not to introduce another Measure, at any rate to modify this one. My hon. Friend can rest assured, however, that in moving this Amendment we are purely instigated by the desire to get this reform carried through on the right lines, and we move it very reluctantly, because it is his particular Bill. We contend that this Bill is going to give the Minister of Transport very autocratic powers. My hon. Friend becomes a sort of traffic Mussolini, or superman, with tremendous powers over the whole movement of traffic in the London area. If I were quite sure that the details of this work were to be carried on under his benevolent supervision, I do not know that much harm would be done, but, inevitably, this work must get into the hands of officials, and, after all, Ministers come and go. It may be that my hon. Friend may become a Member of the Cabinet with higher office, and we may have a less benevolent autocrat given these powers. Then, of course, there is a possibility of a change of Government, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Chatham might have office, and I am not sure whether he would prove as benevolent.

These powers are immense. The area, I take it, from reading the First Schedule, extends from Windsor in the West, Guild-ford in the South-West, Sevenoaks in the South and St. Albans in the North. I wonder what the attitude of the hon. and gallant Gentleman would have been if Chatham had been included. I do not know whether it was due to the hon. and gallant Gentleman's influence that Chatham was excluded. I wonder why the Department have stopped short at Royal Windsor. Why should they not have gone for a very much larger area? Omnibuses, it would appear, are to be taken all the way to Cornwall. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not the Scilly Isles?"] An hon. Member opposite suggests the Scilly Isles. It is, no doubt, only the sea which prevents the imagination of the Ministry of Transport extending their influence so far. I think it is the business of Parliament to view with great suspicion the setting up of an authority, or giving to a Government Department, such immense powers over the very large area in the Bill. It is true there is some attempt made to meet the popular clamour for a democratic authority in the setting up of an Advisory Committee with a semblance of representation. If you look at it superficially, the Committee has a democratic tinge, but when you look at the electoral colleges, you soon find that that is an illusion. Only three are directly to represent an elected body. Two are to represent the London County Council and one the privileged City Corporation. Then there are two to be appointed from nominees selected by 28 borough councils. I do not envy the Minister his responsibility of selecting those two. Are they to come from the West End, the East End, South or North London? You cannot have all those represented with only two representatives. It seems that he will have a very invidious job, and no one can say that, if he chooses two representatives out of 28 nominations, it will secure any real contact with popular opinion and the electorate. Then seven counties are to be represented by two Members. It is going to be a very difficult matter to make a selection, and it certainly does not secure for the counties concerned any real representation.

I come to the additional members—a novel proposal. They are to be a kind of in-and-out members, sometimes in and sometimes out, but the Minister keeps great powers in his hands, because at any time he can intervene, and say they are to be in-members and to be entitled to attend the Committee. Then there are to be four representatives—also a most novel proposal—of the interests of persons providing means of transport and users of vehicles within this immense area. I do not quite know how these are to be selected. I do not think it is unfair to say that preference will be given to the Combine. We are entitled to ask how they are going to be selected. It will be a very difficult thing to get effective representation of these various interests. I think it is unfortunate. We do not want on our public bodies interests represented. It seems to me that we should have enough trust in public authorities and Government Departments to leave the control of our traffic and of our public services to a really public body, and it is a bad precedent to introduce representatives of interests on a Committee of this kind.

Does the hon. Member include labour as an interest?

I am talking about the four representatives of particular interests. The only example we have had of this kind of thing is the Port of London Authority. I do not think that has brought peace to the Port, and it certainly has not ensured the confidence of the users of the Port and the traders. It has been one of the most unpopular bodies we have ever had, and I think most of us will agree that it is not a precedent to be followed. Clause 2 governs the duties of this Committee, and it is quite clear that the duties of the Committee are to be advisory, that they are not to have real powers, but only the right to give advice. I think we have had quite enough advice on London traffic during the last 20 years, with dozens of reports, dozens of committees, dozens of persons putting their finger in the pie and not improving matters. What we want is executive power. If a public body cannot be devised to do its work, we would rather have the work in the hands of the Minister and make him directly responsible to this House.

As the hon. Member for Chatham has pointed out, another important and interesting thing is to be found in Clause 6. It gives the Minister powers in respect to the licensing authority. I think I have a right to assume that the final licensing authority in London is likely to be the Commissioner of Police. For many years he has been the licensing authority in London. He gets immense power over all means of locomotion. He has the right to attach conditions to any licence as to the routes the vehicles are to ply for hire, and to insist that they shall maintain a regular service on the routes. I think I am not unfair in assuming that this is a direct attack on the pirate omnibuses and on small companies. I contend that the London travelling public has never had enough means of convenient locomotion. The private omnibus has provided at certain times of the day direct facilities for the people to get home after work. Go down about 5.15 to Liverpool Street and see the terrible struggle there of men and women for the 'bus in their attempt to get home, and consider what relief the small companies have given in coming to the rescue and relieving the congestion.

An adequate plea for the Combine was put in by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Chatham. I am not prejudiced against the Combine. I recognise that it is most efficient in its organisation and most powerful in its effect; but I do not think we need have very great sympathy for this powerful organisation. I remember the time before the Combine was born, when we had the competition to convey passengers of several companies, the Vanguard, and others, in London. The Combine deliberately set to work to wipe these small companies off the streets of London and to form a big combine with the Underground. The same attempt was made against the London tramways. Attempts were made to jeopardise the success, if not to ruin, these undertakings by unreasonable and foolish competition. These efforts failed—as they were bound to fail. Now to come along and fix up a yarn about the need of Parliamentary powers, in order to bolster up this undertaking is not only unsound, but is going beyond the limits of argument.

Finally, I should like to call the attention of the House to Clause 7. This gives the Minister power to declare certain streets prohibited or restricted streets. It gives him the power to turn to certain omnibus owners and say that they alone may ply for hire. What is the significance of this Clause? One of the four representatives on the Committee will represent the Combine. But whoever is the lucky representative on the Committee, human nature being what it is, he is not likely to advise the Minister, or the licensing authority, that his particular company shall not be one of those who shall have the right to ply for hire. That is the suggestion in the Bill. It may have very serious consequences, because it ultimately means a vested interest—that is, an interest where, when you alter your system of traffic in London, will have very strong claims to come to Parliament, or to the local authority, and ask for compensation for losing its rights. Unless this Clause is deleted from the Bill, I do think we ought to press my Amendment to a Division.

The House has three alternatives for running the traffic. There is running it as a municipal monopoly or you may have free competition, or as a third alternative, you may have the franchise system that prevails in America. You may have a monopoly as in Manchester, a municipal monopoly, the service run entirely by an efficient monopoly with all means of transport under one control. There you get the great advantage of unity, and you prevent duplication. Alternatively you have the American system, where you get the monopoly for the advantage of the ratepayer and taxpayer. I am not sure, however, that it is not best to have free competition, and to allow anybody who is prepared to offer a service that will fulfil the conditions of the licensing authority to run these vehicles, so that the public can have a choice.

You have in London the Municipal Tramways. With the supplemental services you may get a really efficient system of transport along the streets of of London. For these various reasons I do say that this Bill is built up on thoroughly unsound lines. My view is that sooner or later we will have to recognise that London must come into line with other municipalities throughout the country, in fact throughout the world. The local authorities, the municipalities, should be the authority to control the streets and regulate the traffic. You never can get a satisfactory solution to the matter without recognising that principle. The argument against, of course, is the peculiar circumstances of London. To get over this difficulty the Metropolitan Board of Works was set up for service over the whole area. This was replaced by the L.C.C. There is under its supervision the Fire Brigade, Main Drainage, Parks, and lastly, and not least, Improvements. And I would remind the House that the real secret of getting over the difficulty of London traffic is in the direction of making improved streets, of widening existing roads and streets. Where you have nice wide thoroughfares like Kingsway, there is no congestion, there is really no difficulty in moving vehicles along roads like that speedily, and well. The hon. and gallant Member for Chatham compared Hyde Park Corner and the Mansion House. He pointed out the great difference in the movement of traffic at the Mansion House with the movement of traffic at Hyde Park Corner. The explanation is this: the Mansion House is a very small area for vehicles to pass along, while Hyde Park Corner is a magnificent improvement made by the foresight of the London County Council.

I also mention that Knightsbridge, which is scarcely wider than the Mansion House, also carries a great deal of traffic without frequent stoppages.

Where you have broad streets, you really do not have any serious congestion. When you come to the bedrock, the real remedy for London traffic congestion is to improve and widen the streets. All this Bill does is to give the Minister the right to advise local authorities. It gives no compulsory powers to force the local authorities to carry out improvements. My experience of local authorities is that they are very sensitive to outside advice. They much prefer to work out their own scheme, especially when they have to provide the money out of the rates. You are not going to get these improvements carried out unless the responsibility rests on the shoulders of those who directly represent the district concerned. The worst place to deal with is the centre of London, but if the London County Council had the obligation placed upon it to carry out the duties laid down in this Bill, and had the advice of the Commissioner of Police, much good could be done in the direction of making these improvements.

It may be argued that this is really a Greater London question, but I think that difficulty can easily be got over. I should like the same powers given to all the seven counties concerned, and they should all be required to set up a Statutory Committee to deal with these difficult traffic problems, the carrying out of the bye-laws, and all the other points referred to in this Bill. If that is objected to then let us have a Joint Committee representing all those authorities, and let that Committee be elected from the county councils in those areas according to their assessable value, and the number of their population. I believe that is the only practical solution that will bring about good results. After all it is a question of finding the money to carry out street improvements and the making of new roads.

The Minister of Transport referred to the difficulty of the docks, and the necessity for the making of a new road in connection with the docks. In this particular there is a real need for a new road to relieve congestion, if we are to get the goods quickly away from the ports. Again that is entirely a question of money, and the poor districts outside London in which the docks are situated cannot afford to foot the bill. Therefore this new road from the docks, if it is made, will have to be paid for largely by the whole of the ratepayers of London. You cannot get public authorities to provide the money for this purpose unless the responsibility for the control rests upon their own shoulders. I have had sent to me the report of a discussion and resolutions passed by the- London County Council on the 31st July, 1923. On that occasion my hon. Friend the Member for South Hackney (Mr. H. Morrison) moved the following Amendment:

I beg to second the Amendment.

I join with the Mover of this Amendment in expressing regret that I have to second an Amendment to a Bill brought in by a great personal friend of mine, the Minister of Transport, who for some 25 years has been associated with me in the public life of London. I think we have differed on very few occasions on the London County Council where we have worked together, and also on the Port of London Authority. When I read this Bill I really was amazed that it should have been brought in by a Labour Government which comprises members with whom I have had the honour of working for some years past in London, namely the Prime Minister himself, who was a member of the London County Council and a member of the party to which I belong; there was also the President of the Board of Trade, who was a distinguished member of the London County Council, and the Minister of Transport is still a member of that Council.

I also claim the present Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty as having been associated with the London County Council. In addition to all these we have the Minister for War, who was one of the members of the Ullswater Commission, and who signed the Minority Report and was against the Majority Report of that Committee, upon which this Bill is mainly based. With my experience of municipal politics in London for a good many years past I have always understood that the matters which are proposed to be dealt with in this Bill are questions which are mainly and only municipal in character, and they are not powers which should be put into the hands of a Minister of State.

One of the strong reasons why I am seconding this Amendment is because I believe this Bill proposes to take away from London municipal authorities a duty which by right belongs to them, and which is carried out by all other municipal authorities in the country, and I do not believe the Minister for one moment would propose to introduce such a Bill to apply to Glasgow, Manchester or Liverpool on the same lines. The control of traffic in the streets of London, I admit, is in a peculiar position because of the strange conditions under which we have local government in this great metropolis. We have not in London the same powers for dealing with traffic as they have in the provinces. While the London County Council has power to run trams, it only possesses that power to a limited extent, because the road authority is the local borough council, and that places the County Council in the peculiar position that if they want to promote a tramway they have to get the consent of the Road Authority. [HON MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I know that some of my hon. Friends on the other side of the House are very keen that that power should be retained. During recent weeks the London County Council has been unable to obtain the consent of the road authorities or of two-thirds of the road authorities, and they have lost the promotion of a Tramway Bill under Standing Orders. I only mention this fact in order to point out to Hon. Members, who perhaps do not understand London politics like some of us who have been connected with them, the difficulties under which we work so far as municipal tramway traffic exists in London.

The Metropolitan Police are the controlling traffic authority for the streets of London. That is quite a different police force from that in any provincial town. The Metropolitan Police Force is a Government-controlled force, with the exception that in the City it is municipally controlled, and the City Police manage the local traffic. That accounts for some of the difficulties of dealing with the traffic in London. The main trouble at the present moment is the fact that a motor bus or any other motor passenger vehicle can obtain a licence from the police, who are the licensing authority and run on any of the streets of London, and the local authorities, either the Central County Council or the borough councils, have no voice or power to deal with that particular omnibus or vehicle. It means that the local authorities in London provide and make up the streets and special roads required for motor traffic, but they have no voice or power in controlling that traffic.

One thing that has recently added to the difficulty has been the competition which has arisen between what are called the pirate omnibuses and what are called the Combine omnibuses. Yesterday, I asked a question of the Home Secretary, and he gave me figures which are very significant, and which will bring home to hon. Members why we are getting these peculiar difficulties so far as London traffic is concerned. The Home Secretary said that the number of Combine omnibuses registered in 1922 was 3,451, and the number registered in 1923 was 4,472, an increase of 1,021. Of non-Combine omnibuses, or what are usually called pirate omnibuses, there were 281 registered in 1922 and 643 in 1923, an increase of 364. There was, therefore, a total increase of omnibuses put on the streets of London and Greater London of 1,385 in one year. I might add, although the Home Secretary did not state it in his answer, that the majority of the new omnibuses that have been licensed during recent years are of the larger type, which take up far more room on the streets of London. If hon. Members will go to any of the streets in the central parts of London where there is no tramway competition, and where the motor omnibuses are the only method of conveyance on the road's surface, they will find that it is the large motor omnibuses which are the cause of some of the obstruction in those streets at the present time.

I am opposed to this Bill. My hon. Friend has referred to that fact that the representation is to be in the hands of the Ministry. It seems to me that the Ministry of Transport is practically going to control this Committee altogether. My hon. Friend said that there were only three elected members, but I think there are four, because there are two members to be elected by the London County Council. Of all the areas that are included in the Bill, that of the London County Council is certainly the largest and the most highly rated. Yet the only representation that you are going to give to the London County Council on this Committee is two members. As I said just now, the borough councils are the road authorities, and you can do very little in improving traffic methods in London unless you carry the road authorities with you. You are going to give only two representatives to the road authorities in London, including such important districts as Kensington, Westminster, and Holborn, three of the principal central parts of London, and extra suburban districts like Woolwich and Lewisham on the south and Poplar in the east, with miles of street surface; and those two representatives are not to be elected by the road authorities, but are to be selected by the Minister of Transport, I presume, from names to be sent in by the 28 authorities. The same argument applies to the 7 county councils outside, and I do respectfully suggest to the House that it is wrong and not in the interests of good municipal government in a great centre like London, to take these duties away from these muni- cipal authorities, who conduct their business efficiently and well, and hand them over in this manner to the Minister of Transport.

Some of us who have taken an interest in the traffic problem—and I have served on various Committees—are very much afraid that this Bill means helping the Combine to obtain a monopoly, and I want to get a categorical answer from the Minister of Transport as to what the Bill exactly means as regards the Combine omnibuses. Those of us who were Members of this House in the Parliament of 1918 to 1922 will remember that we had many meetings of all parties upstairs and at various times, we received the representatives of the Combine omnibuses on traffic matters, and they will bear me out when I say that a proposal was made to us more than once that what was wanted was a monopoly so far as omnibuses were concerned in the streets of London. In fact—and I am speaking now in front of one Member who was present—we had a very insidious proposal put forward to us at one time in order that the Combine might obtain this monopoly.

Like other Members of the House, I have received this morning, from one of what may be called the "pirate" companies, a letter in which they point out what the Combine has done in order to drive these independent omnibuses off the road. They give facts and figures, which I need not quote, because I think other Members have copies of them, showing what the Combine has done, particularly on the central routes in London, and also on some suburban routes, in order to drive these non-Combine omnibuses off the road. As I was saying, the representatives of the Combine came and said in this House that they wanted to get a monopoly, that they wanted to get statutory power. That means, as I understand it, that they want to get a franchise on the streets of London to run their omnibuses. If they get that franchise, or if they get statutory power, that will mean that it will never be possible to get rid of those omnibuses without buying them out and compensating them in respect of any routes from which they are taken.

I would ask the Minister of Transport, when he replies, if he will say whether there is any Clause in this Bill that can by any means be interpreted as indicating that he means to give a monopoly either to the Combine or to the non-Combine omnibuses. Personally I am against either of them having any such right, because I know it will mean that the ratepayers will have to buy them out at a very big price in the future, and I think we are entitled to have from the Minister an answer to that question. If, as under Clause 7, which has been referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Mr. P. Harris), the Minister is to have the power to pick the routes on which certain omnibuses are to run, I take it that that will mean that a certain number of omnibuses that belong to the Combine, and a certain number that do not belong to the Combine, will be allotted certain routes. What is going to happen if that it done? I take it, from my knowledge of the traffic Combine in London, that immediately attempts will be made to buy up those few non-Combine omnibuses, and I feel convinced that if that allotment is carried out, as I believe it will be, perfectly fairly by the Minister of Transport, in deciding the number of omnibuses, in a very few months' time we shall be dealing with one omnibus company only, which has a monopoly.

I have read this Bill most carefully, and it is peculiar that it includes no Clause dealing at all with the fares to be charged to the people of London. It was proposed by previous traffic committees that, when a committee on traffic was set up, one of the things that it should control was fares. There is no power in this Bill to control fares in any way whatsoever. If there is, as I believe there will be, a monopoly in a few months' time, I would ask the Minister what is his Department going to do as regards controlling the fares which the Combine omnibuses may then charge to passengers in London? Let it not be forgotten that there will, no doubt, be a good deal of extra traffic in London, in connection with the British Empire Exhibition, during this summer, and I think it is very desirable that our friends and cousins who come from overseas and foreign countries to visit that Exhibition should have some protection, and should not be in the hands of a monopoly which can charge them excessive fares if they want to go to that Exhibition.

As regards the practical part of the Bill, another point that I should like to raise is that of the future construction of tramways. There is no power in this Bill, as far as I can see, to deal in any way with what is called the veto on tramway construction. If the County Council want to construct a tramway, they will still have to go through the same old procedure which they have to go through to-day. Some of my Friends on the other side of the House may agree with that, but some of us who take the other view are very anxious that tramway accommodation should be improved equally with other forms of traffic; but, so far as the development of tramways in the County Council area is concerned, this Bill is not going to make the slightest difference—the conditions will be exactly the same as those which obtain to-day. I do not know if hon. Members have read the Schedules to the Bill, but if they will read the Third Schedule they will see the powers which the Minister of Transport is going to take for

I am very keen, and always have been keen, that something should be done to improve the traffic conditions in London, but I do not believe that anything very effective will be done by a Bill of this kind. The hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green has pointed out that this Committee has no executive power. If you want to get something done, you have to set up a body which has executive power, and I personally am in favour of the second proposal put forward by the Mover of the Amendment. I do not see why there should not be a joint statutory committee composed of representatives of the county councils of the area affected, with the power that it is proposed to give to this Committee and also with executive power. Such a Committee of representatives from the area itself would understand the neighbourhood, would understand what is required, and would understand the particular traffic points of their own districts. I would ask hon Members to read this Bill and work out what has got to be done before the Committee advises the Minister. There will be an inquiry, or, perhaps, two or three inquiries, before they come to a decision, and, when they advise the Minister, they have then got to go back to the local authorities in order to get something done.

Take the question mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member for Chatham. I know quite well the points in connection with the new road required in the dock area. The main part of that road will be in the borough of West Ham, and the borough of West Ham has said, over and over again, that it has no money to subscribe towards a road of that description. The Bill includes a provision relating to much each ought to pay for a new road of this kind. I am keen that something should be done, and it is because I think the method in this Bill is the wrong way to do it and the most ineffective way that I have seconded the Amendment, and I hope the House will vote for the Amendment. London is being treated in a quite different way from what we should treat any other part of the country.

I have listened with interest to the speeches made upon this Bill. There was one remark in the speech of the Minister of Transport which I hardly liked, namely, that this Bill had been expedited owing to the strike. I do not like the idea of this Bill being run through the House of Commons in order to settle a dispute outside. The dispute outside is merely, I hope, of a passing character, and I hope it will soon reach a settlement; but in this Bill we are going to take a step under which we shall regulate the traffic of London for a very considerable period, possibly, and we do not want to have our judgment impaired by hasty decisions in view of the strike outside. This is a problem which must appeal to every single London Member and in which every single London Member ought to take the greatest possible interest. I find myself in a considerable measure of agreement with what has been said by the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment, but at the same time it seems to me that here we have a chance of getting something done. Everybody, including the Mover and the Seconder of the Amendment, is agreed that something must be done. The hon. Member who seconded the Amendment said he did it in order to get something done; in other words, he wants to throw out the Bill in order to get something done. I cannot quite follow his reasoning there. If you throw out the Bill the position would be no better, as a matter of fact much worse, probably, for there would probably be further chaos in London traffic.

1.0 P.M.

I would like to allude to one or two of the things which chiefly cause congestion in London traffic. A great deal has been said about omnibuses, but we have heard very little of horsed vehicles, though they are, surely, one of the greatest causes of congestion. Under this Bill the Minister, I understand, will have power to deal with horsed vehicles. Another thing which causes congestion has been alluded to by the hon. and gallant Member for Chatham (Lieut. - Colonel Moore-Brabazon), that is the action of people in breaking up the roads for road repairs. Everybody has seen the obstacle race which goes on any day up Regent Street and the condition of our great arteries of traffic in this respect is simply deplorable. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said the Post Office were the greatest offenders. I should think the Metropolitan Water Board would come in a very good second. There, I hope the Minister is satisfied, and will satisfy us, that he has power to deal both with the Post Office and with the Metropolitan Water Board. Another thing that causes congestion is waste of the road. Everybody who drives in London traffic knows that one of the causes of congestion is crawling traffic, slow-going traffic not keeping to its side of the road. [ Laughter. ] I am sure hon. Members think this is rather slightly humorous coming from me, but I promise hon. Members this, it is a thing they can see for themselves if they only go out and look at the traffic. The hon. Member for the King's Norton Division of Birmingham (Sir H. Austin) has written one or two very able letters to the newspapers—he is connected with the motor industry, drives a good deal and knows what he is talking about—pointing out that one of the chief problems to-day is waste of the road by slow-going traffic. We have a sort of cavalry in the London streets. They ride up and down. I have frequently made inquiries of the Home Office as to why the men do not appear to be more active in keeping slow-going traffic to its side of the road, and I have been told they have no power. Under this Bill the police will have the power to direct slow-going traffic to keep to its own line of traffic, to keep to its own side of the road. The same observations apply to crawling taxis. Crawling taxis are becoming a great cause of congestion in London traffic, and they are also a danger, because the driver is looking for a fare and keeping his eyes on the pavement instead of attending to his job.

Of course one cannot pass away from this problem without alluding to the trams. The whole of the Bill deals with omnibuses, but the problem of the trams should also be dealt with. There are certain streets, in South London particu- larly, where at certain times of the day you will see an enormous procession of trams, apparently absolutely empty, passing along at frequent intervals. I do not know where they are going, to or from the depot, but they are proceeding along the streets and they obviously cause considerable congestion, and there does not seem to be any apparent need for them. I have no doubt that some hon. Members who can speak for the County Council will explain exactly why we see this phenomenon. There is no doubt that trams are a serious cause of congestion in London traffic, in fact everybody admits it. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I think that is true. I think, too, members of the County Council who have studied the problem closely will agree that the travelling public find considerable difficulty, owing to the traffic conditions, in boarding the trams. It is very uncomfortable for them; they have to wade out through the mud to a tram in the middle of the road—this quite apart from the danger of motors coming up. The motor omnibus on the other hand pulls up alongside the pavement, and people can step in quite easily. I do not believe the London County Council would have been half so keen on developing their tramway system if they had had power to run omnibuses. I wish they had had power to run omnibuses. If they had, I cannot help thinking that in many cases they would have gone in for omnibuses.

I want to offer a few further remarks on the Bill from the point of view of the motor interests involved. The first point is, of course, this Advisory Committee. It is considered by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, and many of the motor interests involved, that it is very important that this Advisory Committee should be as impartial as possible, otherwise there is a great danger that the Minister may be urged to use the powers he takes under the Bill to suppress particular forms of traffic. There is a further danger, which has not been pointed out so far, that if the Minister were to be urged to use his power in this way, he might conceivably be urged to do so by municipal authorities and so on in order to evade the necessity which rests upon them to improve our streets. If you avoid having to widen streets by suppressing the traffic which is going to use them, it would be an easy and a cheap way out possibly for the local authorities, and there is a danger that if you give them too much power, or too much representation on this Advisory Committee, they might be inclined to work in that direction.

The main point so far as motor interests are concerned is in Clause 6. I quite agree with hon. Members opposite—and the motor interest thinks so too—that under this Clause there is a danger that it will result in a monopoly for the Combine. I do not share the apprehensions of many hon. Members with regard to this combine, particularly when the Minister is the traffic authority. I believe, judged upon the score of efficiency, the Combine is quite the most efficient form of traffic on the London streets to-day. It does provide an extraordinarily efficient service. I have no sort of interest direct or indirect in the combine whatever, but I would point out to hon. Members who do not like the idea of a combine, any more than I do really, that this combine provides a service which does not only cover the best paying routes in the central area of London, but also extends to the suburbs and the lesser paying routes, and naturally the smaller owners do not find these routes so remunerative and of course concentrate on the busier areas. I think the people who live in the suburbs are entitled to their bus service, and a good bus service too, and a cheap bus service, just as much as the people who live and have to work in the central area.

The motor interests involved say that if, as must be the effect of the powers under Clause 6, a virtual monopoly is given to a single undertaking, it is essential, in the interests of the public and the commercial vehicle manufacturing industry, that the undertaking should not directly or indirectly be concerned in the manufacture of the vehicles which are granted a monopoly over an extended area, which would thereby be entirely closed to independent manufacturers. It is a rather important point, and I invite the House to give consideration to it. The combine has all its omnibuses supplied to it by a subsidiary company in which it holds all the shares. Lord Ashfield stated in the Industrial Court that they lose a great deal of money in the manufacture of vehicles. Money is lost by the combine because—I believe this is purely a sort of intimate financial operation—the subsidiary company supplies omnibuses to the combine for about £2,000 apiece. But it does not stop there. They are actually making all sorts of chassis—lorry chassis, and omnibus chassis—for export all over the world, which are sold at £600 or £700 apiece. They are deliberately sold under the manufacturing price, in fact dumped, in order to capture markets. That is all very well, but the effect must come back on the general public who use the omnibuses. If the combine loses money in one of its undertakings it will have to make it up on another, and the result is that in order to recoup themselves for losing money in other countries they may be tempted, if you have a monopoly, to put up the fares on the London public. That is quite wrong, and I shall certainly move an Amendment in Committee to the effect that the licensing authority shall not grant licences where the licensee is engaged directly or indirectly in the manufacture of vehicles.

There are other points in the Bill which are very important. I rather agree with the Mover of the Amendment that you are faced with the idea that you have either to have a monopoly or free competition. I am very much afraid that is how it is going to work out. I share that apprehension with regard to Clause 7, and I think there is a danger that it may be used to bar omnibuses from tram routes altogether, or very seriously to interfere with the working of the monopoly. There is another point in connection with Clause 9. Power is given to police constables to regulate traffic according to lines and so on. Traffic has got to such a pitch that it is just about time we had a rule of the road. There is actually no rule of the road laid down in this country. The only thing you have is legislation dealing with dangerous traffic. Otherwise there is nothing to prevent a vehicle being driven about all day long on the wrong side of the road. Of course, it would be stopped on the ground of dangerous driving, but it is time we had a rule of the road.

Clause 11 deals with expenses in connection with this Alvisory Committee. I should like to tell the hon. Gentleman that those who can speak for the motor interest will most heartily oppose this Clause as it at present stands. It is quite unfair that money should be taken out of the Road Fund, which is con- tributed to by people all over the country. Why should people in Scotland or Northern Ireland or Wales be asked to contribute to an Advisory Committee on London Traffic? Also, why should the motorist element be saddled with the whole cost of it? London traffic is not only a motor problem but a tram problem and a horse vehicle problem, and all these interests should be made to pay their fair share. That can only be done through the medium of the National Exchequer. We think it quite unfair that it should be defrayed out of the Road Fund. It is true the expenditure probably, in its initial stages, might be small, but there is only too great a danger of expansion and we do not know what the cost of it might amount to at a future day. I hope hon. Members will not lend themselves to any reflection whatever on the way in which members of the Metropolitan Police carry out their duties under difficulties of the greatest possible description, and even under danger. There was a particularly gallant case yesterday of a policeman who stopped a horse and cart at full gallop. [ Laughter. ] This may be a joke to hon. Members, but I think I am in a position to speak on this subject, because I do know something about it. The regulation of traffic by the Metropolitan police is the admiration of the world, and I hope that we shall not criticise them. They are not responsible for the state of our streets to-day. I share with the hon. Member for Chatham great admiration for the drivers of vehicles on the London streets, and I would particularly like to draw attention to the drivers of omnibuses. Anyone who drives about the London streets will know that the best drivers are the London omnibus drivers. Their consideration, their traffic signals and the way they handle their extraordinarily unwieldy vehicles—everyone must realise what a strain it is driving one of these vehicles—calls for admiration. The way they drive is perfectly wonderful.

I do, however, wish to put in a caveat, and that is, that there has been considerable deterioration in driving since the advent of the pirate omnibus. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] There has been a deterioration on the part of the combine omnibus drivers as well as on the part of the pirate omnibus drivers. The reason is that the two are working in competition, and this is an argument for the combine. The pirate omnibus waits until the very last moment at the stopping place, whereas the General Omnibus Combine vehicle works on a time-table. There is an inspector at all the important stopping places who tells the drivers to go on, as they are not allowed to stop more than is absolutely necessary. The pirate omnibus, on the other hand, waits until the last possible moment and then makes a sprint to the next stopping place and tries to get there first. There have been cases in the Courts where drivers of one firm or another have been held to blame for this state of things, which results in a general deterioration of the standard of driving of these vehicles. To a certain extent this is an argument in favour of the combine.

The hon. Member for Central Southwark (Mr. Gilbert) alluded to the "K" type of omnibus, and said that they take up more room. They may take up more room but they carry more passengers and they are an extraordinarily fine type of omnibus. They are much quicker and they accelerate much more quickly, and that is important in regard to the speeding up of the traffic. I hope this Bill will secure a Second Reading. I think it is the only chance of getting something done. There are a good many points to which some of us seriously object, but they are Committee points. Here is a Bill which we can safely approve on principle. We may not like the Advisory Committee; some of us may want to add to it. I want to add to it. At a later stage, I hope to support the Amendment which the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. A. M. Samuel) wishes to move. Let us, however, get the Bill on Second Reading, and let us get it into Committee. Let us see what we can get by means of Amendments, and let us see if we can get sufficient Amendment to satisfy the various interests involved. If we can get this Bill, we shall be taking the first step towards solving the traffic problem of London.

I am very glad to hear from the Noble Lord and from one of his Friends on the Front Bench that they regret that the London County Council has been refused powers to run omnibuses. My recollection is that the most violent opposition to the freedom of municipalities to run omnibuses has come from hon. Members opposite and their friends in another place. Therefore, to that extent the present position is a result of their own policy; they are largely responsible for the present position of London traffic.

I am exceedingly sorry to be driven to oppose the Second Reading of this Bill. This will be the first time, if the Motion goes to a Division, that I shall have voted against the Government, but I shall have done it deliberately, with a very clear conscience and with a profound conviction that had I done anything else I should have been voting against the interests of London and in favour of the interests of one of the most insidious financial corporations that this London of ours is cursed with.

Members of the Ministerial party in this House ought to regard themselves as perfectly free to vote upon the merits of this question. There is no binding decision of the Labour party in this House in favour of this Bill. The expressions of opinion which Labour gave, before it became a Government, were in direct and strong opposition to this Bill? This Bill is the Tory party's Bill.

No.

This Bill is the Tory party's Bill, except in very minor respects, such as the subtle distinction between ordinary and additional Members of the Advisory Committee. That is a Parliamentary device, and there is no real difference. Subtantially, this is the Bill of the Tory party in this House and of the Tory Government which preceded the present Government. In the framing of the Bill, I have no doubt that they had the assistance of Mr. Blain, formerly one of the heads of the Traffic Combine, and now at the head of the Conservative party's organisation. The similarity of the Bill was admitted by the Prime Minister last night. What is the good of hon. Members suggesting that this is a different Bill from the Tory Bill. The Prime Minister said:

"We received from our predecessors a Bill which faced the problem. We found it drafted, and, upon examination, so far as the general outlines were concerned, so far as the general intention was concerned, we took it over without any reserve. There were one or two details which we found, on examination, would give rise to impossible conditions. So we set about changing the Bill in one or two of its details. Unfortunately, we were racing against time. Both sides knew what we were doing, and both sides prophesied with the greatest confidence that we would do something by this Bill to ease the situation so far as London traffic is concerned. But—"

and this is an answer to the idea that this is going to settle the strike—

"I am afraid, the beginnings were made too late, and we found ourselves, and London found itself, in this dispute."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th March, 1924; col. 1681, Vol. 171.]

I submit that in considering the principles of this Bill hon. Members should act on their own responsibility. There is no clear majority party in this House. That is one of the reasons why hon. Members opposite have got their way by this particular Bill and the Ministerial party has been defeated. We have to face responsibility in this House without majority, and, surely, in these circumstances hon. Members must on an occasion of this kind, particularly on a local question affecting their own city, vote according to their beliefs and convictions. On this point I have a statement made by the Prime Minister, which he contributed to the "New Leader" on 4th January of the present year. He said:

"I refer to this, not to rouse mere party controversy but to draw attention to the necessity of finding some other foundation for Parliamentary authority than party Members who are assumed to have no individual independence, but to be shepherded like a flock of sheep."

And then he says:

"The first effect will be to loosen party bonds. Members, whilst holding generally to party principles and conceptions of policy, will more frequently than they now do use their own judgment as to how to vote."

I am in the admirable position that I am not only using my own judgment on how to vote, but I am actually going to vote in accordance with the Labour views and the declared principles for which the Ministerial party in this House stand. There was a declaration of the National Executive Committee of the Labour party itself as recently as July, 1923, on this very Bill, when it was predicted as a Conservative Measure to be brought into this House on the basis of the evidence that was given to the Royal Commission on London Government by Sir Henry Maybury. The resolution stated:

"That the National Executive of the Labour party notices with concern that the Minister of Transport is considering the introduction of legislation which would secure to the Minister, nominally assisted by an Advisory Committee, certain powers relating to traffic control and kindred services in Greater London which are now discharged by municipalities or are appropriate to the municipal authorities. The Executive recalls the policy approved by itself and by Conferences representative of the Labour party in London and the Home Counties on the basis of which evidence was given to the Royal Commission on London Government by Mr. Sidney Webb. The Committee regards the proposals of the Ministry of Transport as wrong in principle from the point of view of local self government and meriting the opposition of the Labour party."

Then the committee went on to reaffirm the necessity for a general municipal authority for Greater London, and proceeded to say:

"Should some interim authority be unavoidable, the Executive takes the view that it should be composed of representatives of local authorities in Greater London vested with adequate powers."

That is really the policy of the Labour party in the country. I know that we have to adapt ourselves to conditions when we become a Government. I am not saying that in any sarcastic way. No party, when a Government, can go on exactly as it did in opposition.

Hear, hear!

I am glad that the Noble Lord who cheers realises that much. I hope that he will remember it if his party come into office, which I trust they will not do, but I cannot go the length of voting against the policy of the party, as clearly stated at the conference of the London Labour party, in the declaration of the National Executive, and the action of our party on the London County Council, which is very clear. Not only that, but the Minister of Transport voted for that Amendment on the London County Council quoted by the hon. Member for S.W. Bethnal Green (Mr. Percy Harris), which was a joint Amendment of the Labour and Progressive parties in the Council. These are the incidents which make one indignant when one hears people say that this is an agreed Bill. It never was an agreed Bill. It is a misrepresentation particularly by certain officials in the Ministry of Transport, to say that this was an agreed Bill. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty voted for the Amendment as well as the Progressive members, and many members of the Labour party in this House.

The only point of substance which does raise a difficulty is the strike situation in London at the present time and the point, which the House will doubtless consider in due course, is whether this provides a solution of the strike difficulty. The Government promised to introduce this Bill, I think, last week. That made no difference, so far as one can tell, in the strike situation. Lord Ashfield stuck to his guns. It is going too far to say that this Bill of itself will solve the strike. Further, I am not disposed to allow Lord Ashfield to come to this House and say, "If you do not give me the Bill, I will not come to terms with my men." That seems to me to be the attitude which he has adopted in this case. I am not going to agree that the head of the traffic combine shall hold a threat of that kind over the House of Commons, and I propose to do my duty by my constituents. Lord Ashfield has fought for this monopoly year in and year out. He is exploiting the present industrial situation to secure an omnibus monopoly for the whole of London without any payment or compensation, and in my judgment without any regard to the public interest or any check on him. If other Members of this House are going to allow themselves to be intimated by the head of a great financial corporation they can do so, but I am not going to do it. I am going to stand by the interests of my constituents and the interests of London against the threat of any traffic trust.

But there were indications that the Government were pursuing the policy laid down in this Bill before the strike happened. Therefore it appears to me that the strike is not a very great consideration in the matter. Neither is the the coming exhibition in Wembley. Obviously the Wembley Exhibition will be open weeks before this Bill can be in operation, and the necessary regulations framed and before the results of the Bill can have any effect on the London traffic. Clause 1 gives powers to the Minister of Transport. The powers conferred by this Bill are essentially municipal and local government in character, and if hon. Members axe enthusiastic in the defence of a State bureaucracy they may be so, but I am not. I would prefer local government any day to Whitehall govern- ment. With all the admiration which I have for the Civil Service, I am not prepared to allow them to take over the government of London; and let hon. Members remember the condition of government in London and realise that this is going further to complicate it.

We have the Police Force, for which we pay equally with any provincial city, but we have no control over it. It is controlled by the Secretary of State for the Home Department. We have the Port of London Authority, a public authority so called which is really controlled by the vested interests Of the Port, a kind of capitalistic Soviet. We have got a Metropolitan Asylums Board which is indirectly elected and selected, also with the able assistance of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health. We cannot even run our asylums without the assistance of a State Department and a nice collection of gentlemen, largely Admirals and people of that kind. Then we have the Metropolitan Water Board indirectly elected and in some cases made up of the representatives of representatives of representatives. We have the Thames Conservancy, which I described the other night on the Second Reading of the Thames Conservancy Bill. We have the Lea Conservancy, of which I have the honour to be a member, which I would abolish with all enthusiam. Then when the Electricity Companies and the Eleccity Commissioners will let us we are going to have a Joint Electricity Authority, again a coalition of municipal and company interests.

Each of these authorities already existing is in itself a vested interest against the reform of the government of London, and by this Bill the Government propose to establish further vested interests which will act in opposition to the reform of London government. All of them ought to be abolished and their functions merged in those of a general municipal authority of Greater London. This is not palliated by the ineffective limitation on the period of the Bill mentioned in Clause 1, presumably to comfort some of us, which has no practical significance. We cannot be a party to one more step in the direction of the reduction of London to the status of a Crown Colony. We do not want to be handed over to the Minister of Transport. We might as well be handed over to the Secretary of State for the Colonies and be done with. We are not having it.

The area proposed is a new one. It is artificial; there is nothing natural about it at all. It is a typical product of the bureaucratic mind that sees roads and nothing else but roads. There is no statesmanship about it, no breadth of vision, no capacity to see any other Department. The area, I think, was borrowed from the Electricity Commission and other unnatural collections of gentlemen. The natural area would have been the Metropolitan Police area. So it is for certain purposes. There are really two areas in the Bill, the Metropolitan Police area and another which is nothing at all so far as I can see. For example, there is a bit of Surrey left out. It is an extraordinary area. We get two areas in the same Bill, and are asked to believe that this scheme will be doing something in the direction of simplifying the government of Greater London. It is a joke and nothing else. No Government would dare to propose the application of this idea to a city like Glasgow, where the Minister of Health comes from; nor to Bradford, where the First Commissioner of Works comes from; nor Derby, where the Colonial Secretary comes from; nor Burnley, where the Home Secretary comes from; nor Northampton, nor Manchester, nor even Lossiemouth. I am sure that the Government would defend the rights of those places, and I am sure also that hon. Members opposite would defend the rights of Birmingham. Chatham is left out. The hon and gallant Member (Lieut.-Colonel Moore-Brabazon), who had something to do with the drafting of this Bill, saw to that.

Now we come to the Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee is a farce. It is the sop to local government. It will be officered, staffed, appointed and controlled even to its procedure and the number of its quorum—all these things can be done only with the approval of the Minister of State. It will be advised by the Minister's officials as to how it should advise the Minister. Then, if it differs from the Minister's officials the Minister's officials will go and advise the Minister to ignore the advice of his advisers. Judging by our past experience with this Department, the bureaucracy will be eminently successful in the way that they secure the ignoring of the advice of this Statutory Advisory Committee. Therefore, I regard this Committee as a farce, as a one-act play. I cannot imagine any people with respect for themselves taking it seriously up to the point of sitting on it. The Minister has a discretion as to what he will or will not refer to them, and, generally, the Advisory Committee will not be helpful in the solution of the traffic problem, but will be an instrument which will create friction between London and the Minister, which will always be arguing with the Minister, with the able assistance of his officials. They will go into great plans and think great thoughts, and they will see that little comes of them. They will get "fed up," and altogether they will have a most miserable existence, and instead of London being harmonised by this method there will be friction between the Committee and the Minister and all the local authorities of London. It will lack what is reeded in London traffic, namely, a firm, consistent and deliberate executive policy in dealing with the problems of London traffic organisation. It is said that the Minister is responsible to Parliament. That is somewhat true in the political circumstances of the day. But I have known times when Ministers were only nominally responsible to Parliament. As it is, the means of Parliamentary discussion on the acts of Ministers on local questions are quite ineffective. As a matter of fact, there will be no real control over the Minister of Transport at all. Therefore, the proposal is ineffective. Even if it were effective, with all the respect in the world, I resent the idea that London questions are to be controlled by Members of Parliament representing Scotland, Wales or Lancashire.

We object to your controlling Scotland.

I sympathise with that view. I do not want to control Scotland. I hope my hon. Friend will support me.

You have tried to control Scotland for a long time.

I am not guilty; I have only just come to this House, and I must ask to be "discharged with a caution." Take the composition of the body. The chairman is to be appointed by the Minister. It cannot even have its own chairman The Secretary of State appoints another member. The same Secretary of State, through the police, appoints a further member. The London County Council appoints two, who in the nature of the case will be Tories. The City of London Corporation appoints one, who will be worse than a Tory. The City of London Police appoint a further one, he will be worse still. So that the City of London, with its square mile is equal in representation to the London County Council. It is a most preposterous concession to an ancient corporation which has no live relationship to municipal government nowadays. The Metropolitan boroughs appoint two, and if they choose one Labour and one Tory there will be trouble, because the Tories will want both. Extra-London county councils appoint two. They will be a nice lot. County boroughs appoint one; Metropolitan Police appoint one, probably reactionary; and the Minister of Transport can have another one if the chairman is not an official. Those are the ordinary members. Then of course there are what are called additional members, and the employers will have four who will represent the vested interests which are largely responsible for the chaos that exists. There will be nine municipal representatives, four State representatives, six representing labour and employers. Therefore if you combine State and labour and employers you get 10, as against the nine municipal representatives. And they call that a largely municipal committee.

I do not like the principle of interests controlling themselves. One might be forced to it, but I do not like it. One might as well argue that the Property Owners' Association should have a right to be co-opted on the Public Health Committee of a sanitary authority because of profound knowledge of slum property. I would refuse to do that. This Bill is really giving a monopoly of the London streets. Do not let there be any mistake about that. It will be a matter of profound difficulty for any new omnibuses to be licensed, because, obviously, they will cause congestion. Therefore, in the public interest they must not be licensed. I have no doubt that Lord Ashfield's representative on the Advisory Committee will advise very well on that particular point. What is to be done if the London County Council wants to run omnibuses? Presumably it will not be allowed to do so, because that would cause congestion. The Bill ought to provide that in the case of a municipality wanting to run omnibuses the terms of purchase should be equitable, on the basis of the actual and necessary capital cost less depreciation. The Bill is giving to Lord Ashfield a valuable freehold of the streets of London, with no consideration, no provision for getting rid of him. There is no control of fares or profits. As a matter of fact, largely the powers of regulation will fall upon the Commissioner of Police and not on the Advisory Committee. How the City Police and the Metropolitan Police are going always to agree, I do not know.

I wish to make my protest against the proposal that the Advisory Committee should be financed out of the Road Fund, which is in the main a fund held in trust on behalf of the local authorities of this country. Not only is the Minister going to "run the show" through his Advisory Committee and his officers, but he is going to make the municipalities pay for running a section of his Department. That is altogether wrong.

I am sorry I have had to be so severe in my remarks on this matter, but I believe the Bill is fundamentally wrong. I believe it is going backwards in regard to London local government and is conferring a monopoly upon a corporation for which I have the greatest dislike and which has not that wonderful efficiency suggested by some hon. Members. It, more than anything else, is responsible for the existing congestion in the streets of London. This Bill is a Tory Bill. It is a Bill upon which hon. Members opposite had agreed before the present Government came into office and on which the Traffic Combine has agreed. It is anti-Labour in principle. It is in particular anti-Socialist in principle and I must oppose it. It is not with any pleasure but with great regret that I differ from the right hon. and hon. Members on the Treasury Bench in this matter, but my position is that I am bound to oppose it and I cannot possibly vote for the Second Reading of the Bill.

We have listened with deep interest to the very able speech delivered by the hon. Member who has just sat down. The speaker displayed a mastery of this sub- ject and of the technique of the question, but I trust his dismal expectations as to the results of this Bill will not be borne out. Personally, I feel confident that in many respects his expectations are wrong. I should like to repeat what has already been said, that this is not, should not be treated as a party question. It is a question which deals with a fundamental interest of London, and should be treated from the standpoint of the ratepayers of London as a whole. Hon. Members have alluded to the danger of creating a vested interest. If that danger exists, surely it can be met. Wherein would that vested interest consist, and where is the danger which this House has not machinery for dealing with in this Bill? If this does mean, in fact, a vested interest, as hon. Members fear, surely the Minister of Transport can secure power to control the fares which are charged by the Combine. That seems obvious, and I have little doubt that sooner or later, if the necessity presents itself, such a Measure can easily be obtained. As to the question of trams, I am well aware that the County Council has a very tender feeling regarding the trams. Personally, I have no objection to trams, except in so far as they create congestion. If we had adequate streets, wide enough to carry trams, why should not we have trams, so long as they are an efficient form of locomotion?

The first Clause of this Bill indicates that it is in part a temporary Measure and some hon. Members have objected to that description of the Bill. If it is a temporary Measure, it has to deal with a permanent difficulty, a difficulty which has existed in London for many years past. I, like some other hon. Members who have addressed the House to-day, am a Londoner, I represent a London constituency and that is my interest in this question. I was born in London, I have lived in London and although I have not known the Minister of Transport as long, personally, as some of those who have spoken to-day, I know he also is a Londoner—I believe he was born in London—and I know he has devoted much of his public life to the interests of London. When one looks around, much as one may love and admire our ancient city, we need not be blind to certain of its defects. The inhabitants of London suffer from overcrowding, from the smoke nuisance and from the congestion of traffic which delays their move- ment from place to place. A Bill setting up an authority, such as we hope will be set up by this Bill, is going to help the inhabitants of London and relieve them from the consequences of some of those defects. This question has received the consideration of the House and the country for years past. One Royal Commission, two Select Committees and one Advisory Committee at least have considered it. It has had ample consideration and the time has come to put something into force to relieve these difficulties. I think all the Committees which have considered the question agreed in three main respects—that the problem must be dealt with over a wide area; that it should be entrusted to a single authority, and that the single authority should be a small and expert body.

When we consider the situation, the amount of consideration given to this problem is not to be wondered at. Greater London covers an area of nearly 600 square miles; it contains two cities, 36 boroughs, 65 urban districts, parts of 13 rural districts and seven million or more inhabitants. Those who live in London and are accustomed to move about London are familiar with the enormous volume of traffic which passes over our streets. Not only have we the passengers moving to and 'fro inside the inner circle of London, but we have those who pass every day from their homes outside to their business inside. We have the carriage of goods, the enormous tonnage of merchandise carried across London, delivered in London and distributed from London centres. We have the traffic in goods from our docks to our markets and from our markets to our distributing centres, our shops, and so forth. We have the enormous volume of traffic carried by our railways, surface and underground. I think the Underground alone in 1923 carried over 1,300 million passengers, and each of our 7,000,000 inhabitants takes on an average 162 omnibus journeys per year. From those figures one can readily gain an idea of the scope of the problem and the enormous area which it affects. Then there is the actual pressure of the traffic itself. As has been mentioned, at one point near Oxford Circus 315 omnibuses passed in either direction in the course of one hour. One of the difficulties brought about by this high pressure of traffic is congestion, leading to traffic blocks.

We are all familiar with the traffic blocks which occur and with the necessity for omnibuses and all forms of traffic to speed up in the intervals. If they were able to maintain a higher average rate they would not be compelled to go at high speed when they reach a clear space, but as things are now they have to hurry in the intervals between the points where blocks are likely to occur. It is all very well to have omnibuses marked "12 miles per hour" and traction engines marked "8 miles per hour." We have all of us seen them lumbering along at speeds far in excess of their rated speed. I saw a huge traction engine not long ago in a busy thoroughfare of London, where there was for the moment a gap in the traffic, and it was snorting along at some 20 miles an hour, although it was marked in big figures at the side "8.m.p.h." That brings about the risk of accidents, and we have many accidents unfortunately in the streets of London, accidents which, were it not for the high degree of skill developed by those who drive these vehicles, would be far more severe than they are, and yet, even so, last year, in one quarter of the year, there were more deaths from street accidents in London than in any three months during the period of the War from air raids.

Allusion has also been made to the habit, which some of our public authorities have, of breaking up the street, and anyone who knows that part of the world will be familiar with the disastrous condition in which the Hammersmith Road has been for quite a long time past. That brings about suffering and disadvantage to our people, not only on account of the delay, but also on account of the necessity for diverting the main road traffic through streets which are entirely unsuited for it. In a part of my constituency I have complaints—if not at this precise juncture, shall we say last week?—of omnibuses coursing rapidly down a certain road and shaking down the ceilings of houses on either side. That discloses two things, the defective character of the houses, perhaps, but also the pressure of the traffic and the shaking which it gives to the surrounding houses. One of the great objections to our present traffic congestion is the loss of time, and time means money in this connection just as in other connections. It means loss to the wage-earner for the time that he spends getting to and from his work, it means loss to the conveyer of goods, and it means loss to everyone concerned, because it increases the cost of handling of those commodities, food and other things, which have to be distributed and consumed in our great cities. Further, as we have heard from the Minister of Transport today, it actually does not pay at the present moment to take the speediest form of vehicle, for it is probably quicker at some periods of the day to walk than it is even to take a taxi in certain areas.

2.0 P.M.

Still, when we come to attempt to deal with this very complex problem, we have to divide it into two parts. There is that part which one might describe as the tactics of the operation, by which I mean effective means of controlling traffic on our existing streets, the existing methods of transport, details of which appear in the Schedule of the Bill, the regulation of existing traffic; and there is the wider question, which one might describe as the strategy of the operation, that is, how we are going to take proper measures in the near future for dealing with the great problems which will face us with the growth of London and with the change in the modes of transport and the great pressure on our roads. Undoubtedly, control of existing traffic facilities and better management of our streets, by various means which will suggest themselves to all of those who are at all familiar with the problem of traffic control, will bring relief. We may have to go in for such things as one-way streets, circling traffic at busy centres, the regulation of hours during which certain forms of traffic are allowed to proceed, and numberless regulations of that kind, a great many of which will be found in the Schedule to the Bill, but beyond and above that, London requires far-reaching schemes for future building of roads and construction of traffic, which have had, unfortunately, to be neglected in the past, and when all the remedies referred to in the Bill have been dealt with, we have to deal with the great problem of London contributed to by the fact that London in the past has been allowed to grow instead of being built and planned with proper foresight.

London at the present moment has only 19 main radiating roads from its centre. Some of these roads follow the lines of the old Roman roads, which is an indication of the amount of progress which has been made since that time, and except for quite recently, in the area covered by this Bill no through main road has been constructed for something like 80 years. Paris, with less than half the size of London, has 42 main radiating roads, 12 of which are over 100 feet in width, so that is evidence that one of the things which this Bill will provide is extremely necessary, and that is, an advisory body to study these great questions in their widest aspects. We want more roads, and above all things we want more bridges over our rivers, over our railways, and at intercepting roads; but in particular, we want a thorough examination of the whole question of Thames bridges. We want some means which will enable us to have the bridges where we want them really to make the service of a character which can meet the needs of the traffic. In a district of South Western London with which I happen to be connected, there is a bridge known as Wandsworth Bridge, and it is a miserable object that ought to have been reconstructed years ago. It cannot even carry an omnibus, it cannot carry a lorry bearing a decent weight, for which there is no means of crossing the Thames between Battersea Bridge and Putney Bridge.

That is a difficulty which wants early and urgent remedy, and when it comes to roads again, we want to carry through some of the roads that now come to dead ends. I will not burden the House with particular references, because there are any number of them, but we want them carried through so that they may do their share in bearing the traffic on our main arterial lines of traffic. We also want by-pass roads, roads which will circle round, instead of endeavouring to go through, a great congested and busy area. The mere widening of streets, in my judgment, is not the remedy. In addition to widening, which may be necessary in certain cases, you want to avoid the congested street, especially if it be a shopping centre, and to go round it, and let those people who want to shop arrive in their omnibuses at the nearest point and walk the rest. We want by-pass roads, and for our cross-lines of traffic in London, we want to construct and preserve all opportunities for maintaining alternative and parallel roads. We cannot always go on widening, but even if you do—for a wide road affords a certain relief to traffic, which can travel faster over a wide road—if you come to a narrow bottle-neck at the end of it, you have only got confusion worse confounded.

We want more tubes. We want proper connections between our suburban lines and our Underground stations. We want new tubes in the South-East and South-West, and elsewhere, in London, and we want a system which the traffic authority proposed to be set up by this Bill can consider and devise, and, we hope, bring about. The absence of facilities of this kind is largely due to the difficulty of allocating the financial responsibility, and the Bill should be of enormous assistance. Of course, the particular boroughs through which a road passes should not be burdened with anything like the whole or even a large proportion of the cost of a great public improvement. The whole of London is going to benefit by that, and even areas outside as well, and we want some authority who can determine, on a just and an equitable basis, exactly how the financial responsibility for these great improvements should be distributed. I hope some day, perhaps not too far distant, the citizens of London will be provided with some rapid means of getting from the north side of the Park to the south, and vice versa. At the present moment, I am glad to think, they can go through the Park in a public vehicle, and that has relieved traffic at Hyde Park Corner and elsewhere. Probably something is wanted underground, so that the enormous amount of passenger traffic to-day at Victoria Station can get north and north-east, without being limited to forcing its way by means of already overcrowded omnibuses or walking in all weathers across the Green Park.

The transport problem seems to me to be in two dimensions, that of distance and of time. If you can shorten the time, you can increase the distance, and vice versa. A man can afford to live further from his daily work if he can travel quickly home. Improved travelling facilities for London enlarge the scope of the area within which our workers can live. In that way it enables them to live outside the area more affected by the smoke nuisance, and, at the same time, it is a direct means of relieving our present troubles from overcrowding. Although there may be certain features in this Bill that will require modification in Committee, the Bill, I believe, is a genuine and a valuable attempt to clear away the great difficulties from which London traffic has suffered for many years past. This Bill embodies the main conclusions of many inquiries which have been directed to these questions. I trust this House will not hesitate to give, in the interests of the inhabitants of London, the citizens of our great city, a Second Reading to this Bill, so that it may bring about a great step forward for relieving the trouble from which we all suffer.

As a very old London Member, may I say a word or two about this Bill? I go back at once to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for South Hackney (Mr. H. Morrison). It was a very remarkable speech, very witty, very highly-informed and very pungent. I do not think I have ever heard or seen a Bill held up to such contumely, pulverised, and then scattered to the four winds as this one has been by the speech of my hon. Friend. As an old London Progressive, I say that much in his speech did my heart good. There is no need for us to spend any time calling attention to the urgency and the gravity of the London traffic problem, both as regards business and convenience. It is pretty hopeless, and the patience, the good nature and the good temper of the Londoner facing it is beyond all praise. The treatment of it, as the Minister said, is long overdue. I suppose if it had not been for the General Election, this Bill, or something like this Bill, would now be well on its way through a Standing Committee, against the votes of hon. Gentlemen, including myself, who now sit on this side of the House.

I do not think the Minister of Transport can be very happy about this Bill. In his speech dealing with the relationships of the Civil Service, he said, "After all, your policy is your own," claiming for himself independent thought. I do not think he would apply that sentence to this Bill, because it embodies a very different policy from that which he has always advocated during the many years I have known him. My hon. Friend the Member for South Hackney properly directed his remarks very largely to the essential feature of this Bill, that is, the Traffic Advisory Committee for London and the contiguous areas, consisting of 19 members, but he could have made the case against that Advisory Committee even stronger than he did. The London County Council appoint two members, and the City Corporation one member and another to represent the City Police. Two will be appointed from the 28 London borough councils by the Minister; two will he appointed from the county councils of the seven home counties by the Minister; one will be appointed from the several county boroughs within the London traffic area by the Minister; two will be representative of labour, appointed by the Minister; four will be representative of those providing vehicles and users of vehicles, appointed by the Minister. Two will be appointed by another Minister, the Secretary of State, and then there are two ad hoc Members, including the Chairman, appointed by the Minister. What does all that come to? Of 19 members, 13 will be appointed by the Minister of Transport, and two by another Minister. Really, that is a most amazing proposition. It is bureaucracy in excelsis, and for a Labour Ministry, which makes a fetish of democratic control, to put this to the House, well, as a Londoner himself on a famous occasion said, "there ain't no word," that I can apply to it, and I leave it at that. Not only does the Minister of Transport absolutely dominate the Committee, but throughout the Bill he is the Lord High Everything-else. I ask the House to look at the Third Schedule, which sets out the 21 purposes in respect of which regulations may be made by the Minister. Upon my word, I wonder they do not wind up with a twenty-second, namely, that he should be empowered to command the sun and moon to stand still at his pleasure!

I am sorry the Minister is not here, because I want to say this, I felicitate him and his Ministry upon the kaleidoscopic change which has come over their fortunes. The Arabian Nights entertainments is poor stuff compared with it. Does the House remember the Geddes Report in January of 1922? The Ministry of Transport had to go; there was certainly the strongest feeling about it; and its functions were to be transferred to the Board of Trade. Day by day the then Government was bombarded, from the other side who are now supporting this Bill, asking whether this ridiculous and wasteful arrangement should continue, and the consequent spending of the public money, quite unnecessarily. Indeed, things got this far that the hon. Gentleman himself who is without a salary—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Yes, he is, indeed, without a salary. That is certainly true of the Minister of Transport. Hon. Members had better look at the Estimates. This is far down—the attack has gone against this Ministry. I am glad to know that next Tuesday he will again enter into a richly deserved—with all these functions—and further payment of salary at the rate of £1,500 a year. He will jolly well earn it! But suddenly, and with the support of hon. Members opposite—the great advocates of the Geddes Cuts and the extinction of this ridiculous body through the whole of the year 1922—it is to be reinstated with all its pristine and pre-Geddes glory many, many times multiplied. Really, I do think that the hon. Member for South Hackney (Mr. H. Morrison), in his attempt to show this as a sort of Gilbertian thing, did not go beyond the facts! I am very glad the Lord Privy Seal is present. I want to ask him if we are really going to have a free hand with this Bill? I want to know. My hon. Friends here want to know as well. In his opening speech the Minister of Transport said—and everybody heard him with great pleasure—that he hoped that within a few hours there would be a happy issue from the dispute which has now been continued for very nearly a week. Everybody here will hope and pray that he is a true prophet, and nobody will say a word, or do anything, that will make the labours of those engaged in the work of conciliation any harder. Later, however, in his speech he suggested, rather indefinitely, rather obscurely, if I may say so—though not intentionally—that this Bill would in some way contribute to industrial peace. Personally, I cannot see how this Bill is going to do that. If you like to say: "Unless you have, or get, effective traffic control you will never have industrial peace," well and good. But this is another question. Is this the last word on the matter? I want to know exactly where we stand in regard to this Bill. You may say, as I have just said: "You will never get industrial peace without effective traffic board control." That is one thing. This Bill is another. It has not been said yet, and I should like to know exactly where the Government stands in regard to this Bill. This Bill is a bad Bill. Of that I am satisfied. I speak as a man who has represented a London constituency for nearly a quarter of a century. If the Minister of Transport were here, I would say to him: "Take this thing away. Hatch it over again. Hatch it different."

Hon. Members in the House possibly know that I have for many years taken a great personal interest in traffic and road questions, and for that reason I should like a few words on this matter. Secondly, I want particularly to say a word as one who, while not claiming to speak as an expert, represents not a London area, but one of the adjacent areas outside London and contiguous thereto. It so happens that the particular area which I represent is also an operating authority which, unhappily, has been involved in the present industrial dispute. It is, therefore, perhaps fitting that I should say a word or two in reference to the Bill, and the speeches which have been made. There is only one word I should like to say with reference to the speech of the Minister of Transport, not by way of criticism, but to ask for a little further elucidation of something he said. There was one expression that fell from the hon. Gentleman which I think was, perhaps, unhappily phrased, and which, perhaps, he will be prepared to put quite right. He used the expression that the introduction of this Bill had been "expedited by the strike." I know that that expression is not likely to be misunderstood in this House, but it might be misunderstood outside. I am very jealous, and I am sure everybody else is, of the independence of this House, and it is a very dangerous doctrine that seems to suggest any form of pressure brought upon this House from outside. With that I pass from the speech of the Minister of Transport, only to observe further that I do not think the Government can entirely be absolved from a certain amount of delay in taking up this question. It is quite true that they have only been in office eight weeks, but as the right hon. Member for North West Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara) said, when they did come in they came into possession of a Bill—whether this or not I do not know—in an advanced stage of preparation. I may remind the Lord Privy Seal too, and the House, that the attitude of the Government has been evinced by their variable answers to questions on the subject. When we asked questions at the beginning of the Session we were told they were going to bring in a Bill, but on the other hand whether before or after Easter they could not say. Then the answers seemed to be altered from day to day, or the replies postponed either from day to day, or week to week. Finally, they came down to the House with this Bill.

We have had a good deal of criticism of this Bill. That criticism has been of two kinds. In the first place, there has been that criticism which deals with what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North-West Camberwell has just called "the simple point of view." That is the authority, its composition and functions; and, secondly, very well informed and very interesting criticism such as that which came from the hon. Member for South Hackney (Mr. H. Morrison), but which really affected more the details of the Bill, and was more for Committee than Second Reading. There was the criticism of both the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North-West Camberwell and the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment. These hon. Gentlemen and the hon. Member for South Hackney will forgive me if I say that their criticisms seem to be very largely destructive. I am not surprised at it from the point of view of the hon. Member for South Hackney, because some of these hon. Gentlemen have always had in mind the creation of a Greater London Authority, with much wider powers than this Bill, over an extended area.

I have been reading within the last few days some of the evidence, in fact I have read practically the whole of the evidence which was given before the Kennedy Jones Committee. I was particularly struck with that point in the evidence given by the hon. Member for South Hackney, who, for the moment, is not in his place, though I think what I am saying will not give him offence. Time and time again he made this point, that what he was after was the creation of this Greater London Authority. Time and time again he was asked by members of the Committee: "Supposing it is thought by the Committee that it is not possible to create an authority of that kind: what else have you to suggest?" Time and time again the hon. Member, being taken up with his scheme, would not answer the question, except merely to say: "It is not for me to make other suggestions: my solution is the solution of a Greater London Authority." It is from that point of view that I think the criticism has been largely destructive. Objection is taken to this Bill in the Amendment on the ground, in the first place, that it is not a sufficiently democratic authority, and, secondly, that it puts difficulties in the way of the establishment of a comprehensive and democratic government for London. I am a little amused to find a complaint about the undemocratic nature of this authority coming from the right hon. Member for North-West Camberwell. I remember when the Port of London Authority was set up, and I do not think it is for those who set up that authority to challenge this proposal in that way. What is it that hon. Gentlemen want who complain that it is not sufficiently democratic? Do they want a directly elected authority? Anyone who considers that proposition will see at once that a directly elected authority is impossible.

Here you have an area of some 25 miles all round London with a population, I suppose, of certainly 10,000,000, and probably more. I represent in this House a constituency of 50,000 electors. That is large enough for anyone to represent, and it is a great deal larger than was intended under the Representation of the People Act passed in 1918. The minimum number which you could have constituting the directly elected authority would certainly be about 100, and then each representative would have to represent 100,000 people. That seems to be an absolutely impossible idea. I am speaking directly from the point of view of the representatives of one of the outside areas, and I may say that if any suggestion of that kind were made, I for one, and I am sure many others representing adjacent areas, would object very strongly to a proposition of that kind, because it would only result in giving an entirely undue weight of representation to the central area of the administrative area, and London would be grossly over-represented.

Let me give an illustration. Who are the people most affected by this Bill? Surely they are the people who use the roads. It is not the person living in central London and in the London County Council area who use the roads most. The man living in Kensington or Chelsea probably covers about eight miles, but those living in the great dormitory areas cover 20 or 30 miles, and therefore they are far more interested in this Bill than those living in Central London. The real truth is that the objection to this Bill, and the authority to be set up under it, is an objection on local government grounds, and that is being used as a peg on which to hang an attack against the present system of local government areas, and it is a claim for the extension of administrative areas. That is shown in the last words of the Amendment which has been moved. I do not want to turn this into a local government Debate, but let me quote what is proposed in Clause 1, which provides: prevent the streets being constantly taken up and laid down. This provision will be entirely useless unless you bring in the Post Office and the Metropolitan Water Board. I hope that will be insisted upon in Committee, because the Post Office in particular has been the chief offender in this respect. With regard to Clauses 6 and 7 when I read them, I really wondered whether this Bill would ever get to the Second Beading, and I should not have been at all surprised if the examiners had reported that this was a hybrid Bill and not a public Bill at all. For that very reason, and for several others, I hope the Government will take into consideration the question whether this Bill ought not to be taken on the Floor of the House.

There are many reasons in favour of that course. In the first place, I am certain that this Bill if it is really so material from the point of view of the industrial dispute which confronts us, if time is really the essence of the contract, is much more likely to get through quickly on the Floor of the House than before a Committee upstairs. Once a Bill gets into Committee upstairs time is very apt to be consumed in a way which would not be possible if the same Bill had been discussed on the Floor of the House in Committee. I remember one Bill being four-and-a-half months before a Committee upstairs. I do not suggest that that is likely to be the fate of this Bill, but, nevertheless, I think it would get through more quickly on the Floor of the House, and if this course is adopted then the Report stage would be shorter, because when a Bill is taken upstairs the Report stage is likely to take much longer. Again—and I do press this point—this is a Bill which affects every London Member, of whom there are 59, and every Member of every surrounding area There are, therefore, well over 100 Members whose constituents are affected in their daily life. You cannot have a Committee with all these hon. Members sitting on it, and, therefore, from the point of view of representation, it is very desirable that the Bill should be taken here. Lastly, from the point of view of publicity, it is desirable that the Bill should be taken on the Floor of the House. Great public interest is taken in this matter, and it is a fact that for one reason or another you do not get the same pub- licity for reports of meetings or Committees upstairs as you do of the Debates in this House, and, if it be true that the discussions on this Bill are likely to have a hearing—not, I hope, on this dispute, which, we trust, will be settled—but on industrial relations generally, then, I think, it is very desirable, from that point of view, that the Bill should be taken downstairs. I have only to say, in conclusion, that, so far as I am personally concerned, I propose to support the Second Reading of the Bill

I rise with a good deal of trepidation on this occasion, because I am afraid I am somewhat surrounded by the atmosphere of the dispute, and it is rather difficult to make one's maiden speech and to keep away from that atmosphere. I am bound to say that I do not share with my colleagues on this side of the House their fears that the Bill will engender a monopoly in London. After all, the Committee is to be so composed that eight out of the 12 men of what are called the original or ordinary Committee will be representative of the various authorities. Then there are additional members, two of whom will come from the trade unions and four of whom will come from the users of the road. I cannot imagine, when the maximum he can get is one seat, that Lord Ashfield is going to sway the whole Committee either of ordinary or additional members. If I were on that Committee, I know that I should take serious exception to anything being done that would make inroads upon other properties in London.

Of course, the Minister has a great deal of power under this Bill. It has been rightly said that there are 141 different county, borough, and urban district undertakings covered by this Bill, and I say to hon. Members who are behind the Amendment and who want to obtain public control—I do not cavil at their desire—that not one of these 141 municipal undertakings have claimed what they are claiming. If they were able to defeat this Bill to-day and were to attempt to substitute for it another Bill meeting their requirements, then I venture to say that the very undertakings which they are seeking to incorporate in one homogeneous body would be the undertakings to bring them down. It is for those reasons and the great need for some control or regulation of the traffic that I support the Bill. It is provisional in character. It is an emergency Bill. Certainly it has been on the tapis for a good many months. I remember as far back as 1903 the first Commission sitting on account of the number of alarming accidents in London, and the various Select Committees or Royal Commissions have always reported in favour of some form of control of London traffic. Last year there were 44,000 fatal and non-fatal accidents in connection with the motor traffic of London, and 69,000 fatal and non-fatal accidents in connection with all forms of traffic. That alone demands some form of traffic regulation.

People have said that this Bill can do nothing to ameliorate the conditions of the workpeople, and our friends on the London County Council say that they are assailed by the omnibus competition. They refer directly to the tram, omnibus and tube combine. I have known London for 30 odd years,' and I remember that there was omnibus competition with the tramways in the old horse omnibus days. I remember all these forms of competition, and the great desire to get uniformity in the system of passenger traffic in London, but I say that they have had ample years in which to do it. There are to-day 11 tramway undertakings, three of which are company tramways, and eight of which are municipal tramways. Frankly, I cannot see the necessity in a great city like London of any undertaking operating with such mileages as ¾, 3½, 11 and 13. That, alone, is an obstruction to the free flow of passengers in London. Certainly, they have tried to overcome the difficulty by getting inter-running arrangements. They complain of the charges, and they are many, which the tramways have to pay. They have, for instance, to operate workmen's cars at cheap fares, whereas the omnibuses do not; they are subject to the regulation of fares for passengers both by ordinary and workmen's cars, and there is an obligation on the undertakings to defray all cost of maintenance of the permanent way.

That may have been a good thing in the horse days, but in these days it is an incubus that should be removed from the municipalities of London. The permanent way is a rateable hereditament for the purposes of taxation, and the cost of widenings is imposed upon the undertakings by Statute. Further, the London County Council are charged not only with the widening of the road, but with the compensation for demolishing the houses or shops at the side of the road to the extent of upwards of £400,000 a year. It is not fair to ask a particular tramway undertaking to meet that cost which should be a community cost. Then we come to the position at the present moment. It may surprise hon. Members that in the large provincial cities—say Manchester or Glasgow—where they have their own police, their own watch committees, and their own undertakings, they are doing what this Bill demands should be done for London. In other words, they are restricting and refusing to allow what they call unhealthy competition with their undertakings. Certainly, there is a right to appeal to the Minister over the heads of a watch committee, but, nevertheless, they are in control of their various cities. But, when we come to London, we find that the police are not London Police, and that the traffic is a mixture. We have municipal tramways, and we have tramways that are leased by municipalities to companies—I suppose in order to get a guaranteed rent and relieve the rates; and, therefore, by virtue of the rates, they are able really to compete with the company-owned trams.

Then we get to this peculiar position. To-morrow morning, if I had 1,000 omnibuses that met the measurements and specifications laid down at Scotland Yard as to the type of the vehicles, I could get a licence, without anybody stopping me, for the whole of those 1,000 omnibuses. I say that that very power alone has led to the chaos of London traffic to-day. I am not denying the right of an odd omnibus to come on the streets, but I say it is perfectly right that an odd omnibus should come under the control of regulations laying down the route that it will travel and the type of service it is proposed to afford, and that the Minister should have power, as provided in this Bill, to say whether that service is necessary in the public interest or whether it is not. Surely, that is not unfair. What is the effect now? Hon. Members may call it a monopoly, but I am not responsible for the monopoly. I say, however, that by virtue of the fact that these licences can be obtained and these omnibuses put on the road without any restriction, they are able to make a shambles of regular services, and in the long run the effect of that will be that the number of odd omnibuses will grow to such an extent that they must leave the most lucrative routes and develop outwards. When they develop outwards, running costs increase, revenue is less, and inevitably the wages of the people who work for the undertakings must come down. I say in the interests of the workpeople alone—and I do not want to get into the dispute—in the interests of what I will call fluid traffic, in the interests of the public of London, certainly all omnibuses and tramways, and I would even go further and say all vehicles—cabs and commercial vehicles—should come under some form of control in this great city.

I could criticise the Bill, I believe, much better than I could support it—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]—but wait a moment. Why? Because there are powers within the Bill that must inevitably discommode large numbers of road users. The Minister has power, for instance, to divert certain goods vehicles. He has power under the Bill to specify the times in the day at which they can deliver, to say where they shall go, and by what route they shall go. Looking at the matter from the angle, at any rate, of the people that I represent, we could very logically get rid of the very long spread-over hours for the passenger drivers, and institute them for the drivers of lorries; but, nevertheless, I feel, and I am sure the House feels, the need for some form of control, and for providing the four representatives referred to in the Bill. They are not named, but, knowing their organisation so well, I can imagine who they will be. I can imagine that Lord Ashfield's people will get one. I can imagine that the odd omnibuses will get one, in the endeavour to make it really democratic. I can imagine that the great motor users' associations concerned with the carriage of goods and so on will get one; and I can imagine also that horse transport will get its one.

What about the donkey barrows?

Thank God they are going out; there are only a few in Poplar. I should like to put a few interrogations to the Minister, and I hope I shall be ruled out of order if anything I say is irrelevant. The police are given in this Bill certain powers over the drivers of vehicles. Is it proposed that the Abstract of Laws, running into 420 pages, which is now supplied to every licensed driver or conductor of a tram, omnibus or cab, shall be removed, and substituted by these Regulations? There are over 3,000 different penalties that any one man can suffer. Is it proposed by this Bill to remove that horrible red book that everyone receives with a licence? Again, having taken away from the licensing authority the charges they had during the period of the incidence of the petrol tax, namely, the £4 17s. wheel duty and plate duty—that is to say, the police plate—and put them into the Road Fund, is it the Minister's intention also to relieve the drivers of omnibuses, cabs and trams of the incidence of at least one licence that they have to pay for at present? They are licensed under Scotland Yard, and also under the various councils, and I would ask the Minister seriously to consider that matter in getting powers under this Bill. Incidentally I may say that under the old Tory regime it was promised that that should be done for us.

I want to know also whether cabs will be brought within the purview of this Bill. Reading the Bill, it does seem to me that it aims at limiting the facilities for public traffic to the point when the demand is met, since power is given under the Bill to say how many omnibuses shall run, and where. Is it the intention of the Minister also to limit the number of drivers and conductors? The same applies to cabs. I should like some answers to these questions before we go into Committee. A question was asked during the Debate as to whether this will bring industrial peace. I am not sure that it will, but, if it brings regulation, and with it the confidence to industry—and I refer particularly to the employés—about which I have heard hon. Members on the other side of the House talk so often—if it will bring that confidence by regulation, I say that there is a potent factor in the Bill to reduce the number of industrial disputes. It is for these reasons that I am supporting the Bill.

If I may digress for a moment, I should like to see the Bill even stronger. I know that accusations will be levelled at me, but I am going to say, none the less, that I see no earthly reason why the whole of the passenger traffic of London—tram, omnibus and tube—should not pool the total revenue and divide it on a mileage and passenger-carrying basis over the whole of the concerns. Some hon. Members will recollect that in 1915 statutory powers were given to the then combine for the companies that they were then controlling. It was claimed that because the tubes were not being operated under the ægis of the Government they could not pay the wages. The omnibuses being another factor of that control, it was deemed advisable to meet the requirements, the demands in fact, of the industrial people to give statutory powers for the pooling of the total revenue of the vehicles under the control of the combine. The effect of that has been that no one section is worse off than the other from the wages point of view, and the hours point of view, and because of that I feel it would be a very good thing if control could be carried to a point that, the interests having agreed to it—it is their business—there should be some power given to the Minister that in the event of that agreement it would receive statutory, or at least administrative, effect. Whichever way I look at the subject on its purely industrial and economic side, I feel that the control that should be exercised and will be exercised under the Bill—I would have preferred that the six ordinary members should have been definitely on the Committee, and not additional—must have the effect of reducing the number of accidents, of giving proper treatment to the employés of the industry, and, in many ways, eliminating a good deal of the congestion existing in London at present. If there were such a pooling arrangement as I am suggesting, is it conceivable that any undertaking would put more vehicles on? I ask you that seriously. I say the Bill is necessary; we are waiting for regulation; it is the only thing that can, in the period of the lifetime of the Bill—which is a purely emergency one—bring some semblance of regulation and control of London traffic.

I was also a member of the Kennedy-Jones Committee, which examined this matter very carefully five years ago. Before the War, when I was on the London County Council, I was closely connected with the management of the London County Council trams, and I saw and appreciated there the immense value they are to London traffic. Although I know that some of us who sit on this side of the House are accused of being antagonistic to the trams, I can assure hon. Members opposite, who have been always protagonists of the trams, that I have no such antipathy to them. I want to point out that while this Amendment was moved and seconded by two members who are at present members of the London County Council they do not speak for the London County Council as a whole. The Bill which was to have been brought forward last year was almost identical with the present Bill, and it was approved by the London County Council by a majority of 60 to 40 last summer, and, therefore, the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment although it might be inferred they spoke for the London County Council are speaking for a minority and not the majority of the Council. With regard to the question of democratic control, it has been said that the Port of London Authority was set up by a Liberal Government. The Seconder of the Amendment, the hon. Member for Central Southwark (Mr. Gilbert), is himself a member of the Port of London Authority, but he is not there in a democratic capacity. He is nominated a member, and I hope his usefulness on that body is not impaired by the fact that he is there in such an undemocratic capacity.

3.0 P.M.

As a member of the Kennedy Jones Committee I am rather sorry for some reasons that our suggestion that there should be five members only on this Advisory Committee has not been adopted. I am not sure that it would not be better to have a small body giving either the whole or the greater part of their time to their duties rather than a body of some 18 members, most of them busy men, who will attend occasional Committee meetings, presumably, and will not be able to concentrate on the very great difficulties of London traffic, difficulties made much worse by the long delay there has been in finding any measure of solution. I think a good deal could be said on the question of whether the body should not be a smaller one and more of a whole-time body.

On this question I happen to be a Free Trader. I should have much preferred, had it been possible, not to have had Clauses 6 and 7, and to have had uncontrolled omnibuses on the streets of London. But what will be the state of affairs if you do? The London County Council trams, some three or four years ago, lost, I think, £300,000 or £400,000 in one year. For this last year they are confronted with a deficit of something close on £100,000, and it is by no means impossible that the deficit will be considerably enhanced this year in view of proceedings which, as we know, are going on elsewhere. It is surely most unfair that the ratepayers as a whole should have to pay rates amounting to several pence in the £ because tram users are not paying their full quota for the benefit they are getting from the trams. It is also desirable that in our municipal services we should be model employers. It is undesirable that municipal employés should not get a fair wage because of the lack of profit made on the trams on which they are employed; therefore I have come to the conclusion, somewhat reluctantly, that in this case it is not possible for us, any longer, to have uncontrolled competition if you are going to do justice to the traffic problem, to the people and to the employés themselves. When serving on the Committee I saw a good deal of the so-called combine, and I was greatly struck by the extreme efficiency of the staff who came to give evidence before us. They were real live men, and the improvements in omnibuses—I happen to be a frequent omnibus user—and the immense improvements in the trains on the Underground show what an extremely good staff they have, and that the combine, so called, has done its level best to make traffic problems in London less difficult than they were when we investigated the question five years ago. When Lord Ashfield made his statement the other day, that he was prepared, on behalf of his organisation, to agree to a measure of limitation of profit, I could not help feeling that we can, on those lines, secure the best solution of the London traffic question. I am totally opposed to giving Lord Ashfield and the combine anything in the nature of a monopoly. Five years age, in the Kennedy Jones Report, we called attention to the necessity of seeing that the combine do not peg out any claim to a monopoly of London traffic. At that time we were fully alive to the danger of it, and as the hon. Member for Central Southwark has said, approaches have been made since then to try and get something of the nature of a monopoly for the combine. I do not think that would be fair or desirable, but an overwhelming case has been made out in present circumstances for Clauses 6 and 7, although I am sorry we have altogether to give up Free Trade in this respect

There are one or two points in regard to the general London traffic problem which have not, I think, been mentioned. One is the extraordinary increase in London in recent years in the number of journeys made in vehicles of some sort as compared with half a generation ago. The figures are roughly that now every Londoner makes something over 400 journeys in the course of the year. Fifteen years ago he only made 200. Apart altogether from the increase in the population, apart from the fact that the dormitories of London now extend a good deal further than they did 15 or 20 years ago, you have each individual making two journeys where he used to make one, which shows how necessary it is for us not to put off this question indefinitely, waiting for some Greater London authority to be set up, which is obviously a very long way off. It is necessary for us to give the Bill a Second Reading and to consider it carefully in Committee and, with regard to the 16 or 18 members who are to be appointed, I hope they will show imagination in dealing with this question. Without imagination, without trying to visualise what London traffic problems may be in another 15 years, if we each take twice as many journeys as we do to-day we shall get a most hopeless state of congestion. I appeal to the House to give the Bill a Second Reading and let us do something in the interests of London traffic.

I hope the Government will take no notice of the suggestion that the Bill should be taken on the Floor of the House. I have not been a Member so long as some others, but that extraordinary suggestion seems to me to have been put forward as a device to waste the time of the Government. May I say a word or two of criticism of an hon. Member on my own side who rejoices in the same distinguished name as my own. While congratulating him upon his speech I admire his breezy confidence. He reminds me of an advertisement, which appeared in his own constituency, of the Hackney Furnishing Company, which used to be famous all over London, entitled "It is so simple." With an intuition worthy of Sherlock Holmes he dissected the Bill and came to the conclusion, very satisfactory to himself, that it is all nonsense and, I assume, that those who support it must be either fools or knaves. I do not know in what category he would place the Minister of Transport, whether it is foolishness or what it is that ha made him put forward a Bill like this, but in municipal experience my right hon. Friend is old enough to be the father of many of us. The hon. Member for South Hackney (Mr. H. Morrison) says it is going too far to suggest that this Bill is going to settle this strike. I do not think anyone has suggested that it is going to settle the strike, but it is a fact that the judicial inquiry which was held into the strike recommended that this Bill might be a considerable factor in settling the dispute or in preserving peace in the industry. [HON. MEMBERS: "This Bill or a Bill?"] The inference is that it is possible by defeating this Bill to-day to produce another next week which will bring forward something that hon. Members below the Gangway are in favour of—I am not quite clear what it is. My hon. Friend said twice that he was not going to be intimidated by anyone, but would stand by his constituents. I should like to ask him whether, before deciding to put down an Amendment which will have the effect of destroying the Bill, he consulted 2,000 of his constituents who are members of the Transport and General Workers' Union, who are clamouring not for a Bill but for this particular Bill. That, I think, is a factor that wants taking into consideration.

The hon. Member said that this Bill was referred to by the Colfax Committee, and he now says that the transport workers are clamouring for this Bill, which was only circulated to the House this morning.

The hon. Member for Central Southwark, who moved the Amendment from the Liberal Benches said the Bill proposed to take away powers from their local authorities. It does nothing of the sort. The Bill merely says that until the local authorities have made up their minds, the Minister of Transport must do something to ease the present intolerable situation. The hon. Member made a sweeping statement that the Bill would deliver us into the hands of the combine, and then he proceeded to ask the Minister whether he thought it would do so. The hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Mr. Harris) referred to the powers that are put in the hands of officials. It is getting very popular in this House to sneer at members of the Civil Service. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Hon. Members do not call them civil servants, but "bureaucratic officials," and so on. They seem to follow the dictum of Bumble, who laid it down that the poor in the lump are bad, and they seem to say that the Civil Service in the lump is bad. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] That was the inference in the hon. Member's speech. He went on to make a plea for what is called the odd omnibus. I have studied the provisions of this Bill, and I maintain that there is valuable protection in it for the odd omnibuses. The odd omnibus proprietors realise that. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Yes, they do. The odd omnibuses in this Bill have protection in regard to what their proprietors have complained most about, and that is, the flooding of the routes.

The main part of this Bill is entirely non-party. The jibe that it is a Tory party Bill has no effect so far as three-fourths of the Bill is concerned. Three-fourths of the Bill is entirely non-political, and could have been introduced by any Government. The part that is political is that which deals with the appointment of the Advisory Committee. The original idea that was put forward by the Conservative party was to appoint an Advisory Committee of 12 members with a chairman, three officials, including police, five municipal officials, and four representing other interests, including labour. They were all to be equal in status, and the intention was to have a committee of experts. In the new Bill the Committee is divided into 12 ordinary and six additional members of the latter, connected with the traffic, two are to be labour. Do the supporters of the Amendment object to the representatives of labour being put upon the Advisory Committee? Surely, the men who have to drive under the existing traffic conditions are best qualified to judge as to regulations. Tram, omnibus and taxi drivers are all agreed that the present conditions make their work almost impossible. Does anyone suggest that they are not entitled to be on the Advisory Committee? [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] If they are entitled to be on the Advisory Committee how can you logically keep off the other people?

The Bill is opposed on the ground that it creates a barrier in the way of establishing comprehensive and democratic government for London. The Bill sets up a Committee which is to act until an authority is set up for London and Greater London. When will that be? The answer does not depend upon the Government, but upon the local authorities of London and Greater London. It is said that the Advisory Committee is no good, and that it ought to be entirely independent of the Government and executive in character. I hope we shall have that before long, but supposing the Government had had time to negotiate for such a Bill to get a measure of agreement for the local authorities, would not a statutory municipal committee, independent of the Government, be just as likely to sell municipal trams to the combine as anyone else? No one will deny that there is a majority on the London County Council and on other bodies who are not in love with municipal ownership. As things are at present, a statutory municipal committee, with executive powers, would give a unique opportunity for doing through a statutory municipal authority what they are trying to do through the London County Council because such Committees would not be directly representative of the people, but, as the hon. Member for South Hackney has said, would be the representatives of representative of representative.

It is said that it is not the business of the Government to regulate London traffic, and why not have it done by the local authorities? The answer is that local authorities cannot agree to any proposals for permanent legislation. As a member of an important county council for some years past, I would suggest that some of the minority party of the London County Council fail to realise that you cannot have legislation against the wishes of the local authorities, and that you must have some little co-operation for any sort of legislation to pass. An excellent example of this lack of co-operation is that of the London County Council which is seeking to promote a tramway Bill to which other municipal authorities in Greater London are opposed. The criticism has been made that this Bill would deliver us into the hands of the combine. No evidence has been offered as to how that is going to be done. The present strike has been brought about because the trams do not pay, and they do not pay because of the unrestricted omnibus competition—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]—competition by the combine and to a small extent by some pirate omnibuses. One of the objects of the Bill is to stop the bankruptcy of municipal trams owing to unrestricted omnibus competition.

In reference to the Amendment, which postulates that no solution of the traffic problem will be satisfactory which does vest control in a democratic authority, I would ask hon. Members, what do they mean by that? They have made no attempt to explain what they mean by it. I interpret the sentence to mean complete municipal ownership of all the services. Are they prepared to accept that? I hope so. If so, they cannot get it without a Greater London authority. Despite what anyone may say, this is a Bill which is urgently required, and is asked for by men whose bread and butter depend on it, and by the public of London. I suggest that ideals cannot be put into force in an emergency. While a matter of such urgency, as the present condition of London will be within the next few months, arises, the Government can either postulate its ideals, as our friends have done to-day, with brave words and go down with bands playing and flags flying to a glorious death, leaving the confusion of London traffic worse confounded, or do what is possible to right the position, only until such time as the municipal bodies of London realise their responsibility to co-operate in producing permanent legislation. For these reasons, I think that the Government have been well advised, in present circumstances, to establish that advisory body, which can be easily replaced as soon as the London authorities agree to co-operate, instead of setting up a body which, in the present municipal circumstances, would be unsatisfactory, and could not, except with great difficulty, be removed.

The hon. Gentleman who has just resumed his seat, after what, I hope, he will allow me to call a very interesting speech, has claimed, and rightly claimed, that this Bill is not a party Bill. I quite agree with him. It is admitted on all hands that in substance the Bill is a Bill which was drafted, or the sketch of which was made, in the time of the late Government, and I do not think the House is aware of what material modification has been made in it by the Minister of Transport. But it is not a party Bill. Indeed, there are hon. Members, firm supporters of the Government as being members of the Labour party, who have expressed a strong objection to some of its provisions. I wish to point out what appears to be the disputable principle of the Bill. What is the principle in it whch may fairly be the subject of challenge and discussion? After all, that is what a Second Reading Debate is about. It is not necessary at this stage to discuss whether the Bill is right or wrong because there are so many members, more or less, on a particular Advisory Committee. The point, which is a fair point of dispute, is this: I should think that there is a very large measure of agreement that a London traffic authority is required. But I am quite unable to see how this Bill creates a London traffic authority, or, indeed, makes any contribution towards creating one. It sets up, it is true, a Committee, but the Committee is one of those Advisory Committees which is at the service of the head of a particular Department, the Minister of Transport, and the Minister under this Bill is left with supreme executive authority.

I agree with the hon. Gentlemen who has just spoken that it is necessary that there should be something other than unrestricted competition in the matter of London traffic. But the serious question then arises, on what principle and by what methods are you to regulate it? This Bill is a Bill which sets up an Advisory Committee containing, amongst other things, representatives of the providers of means of transport in the London area, and undoubtedly, therefore, representative of the largest provider of means of transport, namely, the Traffic Combine, in order that with the advice of that body the Minister, under Clause 7, may, amongst other things—

It would mean that this great combine would continue to exercise its rights without any charge for the franchise it enjoys; it would mean that it could do so without any regulation or control of fares and it would mean that it could do so without being called upon to account for any share of its profits otherwise than in the ordinary course of taxation. Contrast the case of the railways. The Ministry of Transport was originally set up to deal with the railways' and there were some people including Sir Eric Geddes' Committee who thought that when they had dealt with the railways by handing the railways back to the great combinations which now control them, the principal work of the Ministry' of Transport was done. The Geddes Committee actually recommended the abolition of the Ministry, but here, apparently, there is other work for the Ministry to do. Observe, however, what happened in the case of the railways. The railways are, under the law, required to justify the fares and charges which they impose and the provisions of the Railway Act of 1921 expressly secure that the charges which the railway companies make to the public shall from time to time be revised, restricted, and regulated, having regard to the profits which the railway companies make. This Bill makes no effort to do anything of the sort. It puts what is by far the most important traffic combine in London in the position of exercising an increased monopoly and of exercising that increased monopoly for the purposes of private profit, without necessarily taking into account the interests of the ordinary travelling public or any other public interest at all.

There is nothing in the scheme of the Bill which mitigates the disadvantage of granting what is, in effect, a great monopoly to a great private enterprise without efficient public control. I am one of those people who resist the whole principle of Socialism as expounded by some of its upholders, but, on the other hand, my friends and I have always taken the view that once you find a case where in the nature of things there must be restriction of competition, then you are getting to a point where there is a great deal to be said for some effective democratic public control. Take, for instance, trams. Admittedly, you cannot have two sets of trams running dawn the same street. Consequently, the trams are municipalised, and I say they should be municipalised. In regard to omnibus traffic the case is not so clear, but I am quite willing to agree that, in the circumstances of London, it is inevitable there should be some regulation and restriction of omnibus traffic. That is wholly different from saying that it should be done by the executive power of the Minister of Transport, who, with all respect to the hon. Member who has just spoken, has been correctly described as a "bureaucratic" authority—that is what the word means—and that the Minister's action is to be tempered by nothing more than the advice of a Committee upon which, among other things, the providers of means of transport are to have permanent representation.

I quite agree that this may be an effective scheme from the point of view of the great traffic combine, and of course, anyone can see why that is so. Therefore I am not in the least surprised that the learned Gentleman who presided over the recent inquiry, struck apparently by an inspiration, was able to ask the two sides in the dispute whether or not proposals of this sort would be satisfactory to them and that he received, not with too much astonishment, the assurance that they were both struck by his original suggestions and gratefully accepted them. Notwithstanding that interesting incident in the course of the inquiry, it does not appear to me that the interests of the public, the interests of the ordinary man or woman, the interests of the clerk who has to go to his business, the interests of the ex-service man who has started with the help of some of his friends, an omnibus of his own on the streets, will be served by this Bill, and I do not conceive that this Bill really acts at all in favour of interests of this kind.

Lastly, let me put this point, and I will invite the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade to deal with it. If one day we do get an attempt to establish a traffic authority in London, and if it takes the form, amongst other things, that it is necessary to expropriate the great private enterprises that are now providing these services in London, how much more compensation is this Bill going to put it in the power of the London traffic combine to exact? That, to my mind, is the point of principle of the Bill. It is a point which may have to be discussed in Committee, but when the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken said this is not a party Bill, and when the hon. and gallant Member for Chatham (Lieut.-Colonel Moore-Brabazon) earlier in the Debate said this was the most uncontentious Bill you could conceive, for it had been drafted by Tories and introduced by a Labour Government, I would respectfully reply that there are still some people in this House who believe that when, in the public interest, it is necessary to have some sort of monopoly, that monopoly should be controlled by an effective and democratic public body and not by the executive authority of a bureaucratic Department.

The circumstances in which this Bill has been brought for- ward at this particular moment seem to have imported great heat, if not much light, into the Debate. I am going to venture, in the few minutes that I have, first of all, to try and answer some of the more serious of the criticisms that have been made, and some of the more genuine, if I may say so, of the questions that have been put, and also, if the House will allow me, to put the case for this Bill, apart from the political passion which has been put into it, perhaps in the unwonted character of the language of common sense. There is a great deal of common ground underlying all the speeches that have been made. Nobody denies the need, the very pressing need, of the setting up of a traffic authority of some kind in London, and not, of course, merely in London. Hon. Members have spoken as though it were only a matter of dealing with the London County Council trams and that sort of thing, but the House must realise that you cannot deal with the London traffic problem without including the area, roughly speaking, of 25 miles radius from Charing Cross. That has been the result, not merely of the tramways, but of the enormous development in the last few years of the motor omnibuses, which now run to places of which most of us had never previously heard, and which run far beyond the boundary of London. You cannot deal with that traffic without taking power to cover all that new ground, and there is no local authority that you can entrust with the service over that area, and that is the answer to hon. Members who want to know why such a Bill could not be brought forward for Glasgow, and who say that Manchester would rise in revolt if such a Bill were brought forward for Manchester, and so on.

That is so, of course, but London is the only city which has been denied this degree of expansion. I believe that since 1834 Birmingham has grown six-fold in area, and the jurisdiction of the town council has spread as Birmingham has spread, so that the town council covers all the real Birmingham. In 1834–35, the City of London refused to extend its boundaries. In 1855, when the Metropolitan Board of Works was established, something was done to unite the neighbouring boroughs, but no alteration has been made in the London boundaries since 1855, save only that the Hamlet of Penge has been taken out of it. Meanwhile London has spread out for miles, and successive Parliaments, for one reason or another, have denied to London any Bill which would allow it to extend. That is why it is necessary that we should have a measure for London which could not be applied to Manchester or Glasgow, but it is not a reason why we should not have such a Measure. It is a reason why such a Measure has been necessary for the last 25 years. I certainly have taken part in these discussions for a quarter of a century, and the difficulty is to find any agreement upon a traffic authority. I should like a greater London corresponding with a greater Birmingham, and a greater Glasgow, although I accept the dual administration of London as between the local councils and the County Council, but we cannot get that. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] I would only say that because it is urgent, and it has been urgent for several years, to have this traffic authority, and immediately the present Government came into office we were brought up against the facts. We found the facts were that the provision of some authority which could regulate the London traffic this Spring was absolutely imperative and we have been at work ever since coming into office trying to get a traffic authority which could be brought into operation straight away.

Hon. Members say, why not go for a larger London, and a county council extending over Hertfordshire, a great deal of Essex and Kent, and the whole of Surrey? But we cannot wait for that time, and anybody who faces the problem of London traffic knows that to oppose the traffic authority on the ground that you would rather have a directly represented county council for a larger London, as I would rather have, is not business. It is not doing the work we are sent here to do. It is not fair to keep the public of London without the necessary traffic authority, because we cannot agree among ourselves as to what that traffic authority should be. At any rate, that is the ground on which this Bill is put forward. It is put forward, not because we on this bench have any particular love for this particular kind of Bill, but because we had to make the best Measure we possibly could to meet an emergency. This is a Bill of 13 Clauses. I suppose about 11 of those Clauses are not objected to. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] As a matter of fact, I think nearly all the people with whom I have discussed this Bill recognise that these powers, which are non-existent at present, which are denied to all the various authorities dealing with London traffic, or who think they ought to deal with London traffic, should be given to an authority for this purpose. We want powers to prevent the breaking up of the streets by one after another of the separate authorities. [An HON. MEMBER: "The Post Office."] With regard to the Post Office, we cannot, as a matter of practice, put one Government Department under another Government Department. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] The Postmaster-General wrote on the 24th March, welcoming the arrangements for the London traffic authority, and the power given over the local authorities in the opening up of the streets, and stating that he will endeavour to conform to the programme to be agreed to, and that on the rare occasions when he may find it impossible to do so, he will inform the Ministry of Transport and give them the opportunity of stating their views. That, for good or evil, is the arrangement that we have made with the Post Office. We have brought the Postmaster-General, as far as the arrangements will permit, into this Bill in the way I have indicated. A similar question has been raised about the Metropolitan Water Board. I am advised that in the Bill there will be the same powers given over the Water Board as over the other various authorities. No one can say that this power is not necessary. Is there anyone to argue that because we cannot get this glorified London County Council, that these powers to prevent the breaking up of the streets shall not be made operative or that we shall go on year after year as at present?

There are 120, or more, separate authorities at present. It is hardly necessary, surely, to discuss the matter. It is obviously necessary to carry out this reform as soon as possible. That is in the Bill. That is what hon. Members below the Gangway want to reject. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] That is what they do reject! Those who vote for the Amendment desire to kill the Bill. Take the question of the regulation of the traffic. There is at present no authority with power to regulate the traffic at all or power to set aside special streets for special traffic, so as to prevent congestion, and promote smooth working. There is no authority to do that. First of all, take the question, of which everybody must have been aware during the last two or three years, of the steadily increasing congestion of the streets. I have the figures, but I do not want to go into them. But one of the features has been the steadily increasing number of accidents. I represent a mining constituency. We talk, some of us with some warmth, and, I hope, with some feeling, about the large number of accidents in the mines. The streets of London are more dangerous than coal mines; there are far more accidents. In view of the situation we cannot afford to allow the thing to go on steadily getting worse year after year, because we cannot get that larger London authority which some desire. Then there is a question of the loss to business enterprises.

I have some startling figures. They have been got out for me by one of the large business enterprises which employ a very considerable number of motor lorries going to and from the docks and warehouses. They count up their losses owing to the congestion, and the failure of their vehicles to get to the docks and back in reasonable time, as running into thousands of pounds per year. That is only one of the enterprises. The application is to all business enterprises. That is part of the tax on the food of London, on the wages of London, and it is going on because we have not taken steps to set up a Traffic Board for London. Again, there are the general interests of millions of the people to consider who suffer from the absence of the Traffic Board. I want to deal now with the character of the authority. It is easy to sketch out an ideal authority, and we have had at least half-a-dozen of them sketched out this afternoon. The trouble is that you cannot get people to agree on this point, and there is this inherent difficulty that you have some 120 to 130 separate authorities to deal with.

Can the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that, within a period of three years, some attempt will be made to transfer these powers to the local authorities?

In regard to that point all I can say is that I am not authorised to lay out the Parliamentary programme for His Majesty's Government for the next two or three years. I have been trying to get an authority of that kind for some time, and I am now exercising whatever influence I possess in order that we should have such an authority. We have the responsibilities of all these local authorities to consider. I went myself before the Ullswater Commission, and pleaded very hard for the establishment of a directly elected authority which would not actually replace, and in no sense supersede these local bodies, but would leave the local authorities to deal with their purely local business. I pleaded with all the persuasiveness I could, and I think I pleaded more persuasively even than the London County Council, but all those local authorities rose up and said that nothing would induce them to desert such bodies as the Middlesex and Hertfordshire County Councils, and therefore the Ullswater Commission was not able to make that recommendation.

You cannot take those 130 local authorities and give each of them the power to nominate a member of this body. All you would be really doing would be that you would get a nominee of the nominees of the people. We have had in London the Metropolitan Board of Works, the Asylums Board, the Port of London Authority, and the Metropolitan Water Board, and if anyone tells me that on those authorities you have got democratic control then I beg to differ from them. The only other alternative we have got as far as I can see is to put this power in the hands of another democratic authority with proper safeguards, and that authority should be a Minister who is responsible to the House of Commons. That may not be so good a plan as a directly elected council, but it is the next best thing, and it is far more essential to give public responsibility to the people through this House than to a body which is indirectly elected. I claim that our plan is the most democratic way which it is possible to have under present circumstances. This Bill is an attempt to do a number of urgent things, like dealing with the obstruction to traffic by the closing of streets for weeks, and also to provide the possibility for doing some bigger thing. Hon. Mem- bers have raised the question of getting some new access to the docks in the East End of London, and the Noble Lord wanted to have a new north road to relieve the traffic. You cannot do that by the power or at the expense of any particular local authority. I do not know that this authority will be able to do it. It would not be able to do it compulsorily. But this authority will be able to work out a plan and bring it to the notice of the local authorities and get their consent to the proposal and to the Bill before it comes before Parliament. In that way, I believe you can get large street improvements, and you are much more likely to succeed in your negotiations than if you are dealing with a multiplicity of authorities indirectly opposed to one another. The Noble Lord and others have asked why we should take the very small expense of this Government office out of the Road Fund. I believe the Road Fund amounts to some £10,000,000 or £15,000,000. [HON. MEMBERS: "£14,000,000."] The expenditure of this traffic authority will be a matter of some two or three tens of thousands of pounds. If we are going to do all this for the citizens of London, including the owners of motor cars, a very large proportion of whom are in London, then I think we might ask the owners of motor cars not to grumble at this very small item being devoted to what the Noble Lord admits is to some extent an advantage to the motor using public in London.

What about the tramways?

The tramways are burdened enough. This, however, is not a vital point. It is obviously a Committee point. I do suggest that the fairest way is to take this £20,000 or £30,000 out of the £14,000,000 in return for the very large contribution that this is going to make to the convenience and comfort of the motor-car users in this province of London, because it is a province, of something like 500 square miles. Another question which has been raised is that of the control of fares. I want to be quite frank about that question. Nothing would be easier than to put in the Bill a Clause to say that among the Regulations should be one relating to fares, but you would at once be landed in considerable complication and open up a very wide area of dispute and speculation. It has to be remembered that there is no question of any interference with the number of omnibuses, except in a comparatively small number of restricted streets, over the vast area of 500 square miles, and if the right hon. Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) thinks that the combine is going to get more compensation eventually, possibly under some future Liberal Government, I would remind him of the power of regulation and that the water companies got enormously less than they would have got if there had not been a long series of regulations of the water companies.

Will the right hon. Gentleman put a Clause in the Bill preventing that from taking place in future?

That is a matter for the Committee. I think I can say that, if the House forces upon the Government a Clause regulating fares, the Government is not going to fight on the subject. I want to say two things more. I want to make an appeal to my hon. Friends below the Gangway. Their proposal is not an amending proposal, but rather, I would say, a wrecking proposal; they want to kill the Bill. But I would ask them: Do we get on in these matters by killing? If it is necessary that a traffic authority should be set up now, if it is urgent for the various reasons to which I have already alluded, is it not better that it should be a temporary, transient authority such as is now proposed—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Those who do not think so must wreck the proposal, but they must take the responsibility. I venture to

think that there are some Amendments moved in this House which have the character of wrecking Amendments, and, although they do not always succeed in wrecking, they at any rate liberate the soul of those who move them. On the whole, however, I would rather stand by my hon. Friend the Minister of Transport in this honest attempt to find a remedy for an urgent need, than I would stand up even for my own ideal. Something has been said about hitching one's wagon to a star, but a wagon must have horses or it will not draw. I submit that those who desire an improvement in the means of transit in London ought to realise that this Bill is a step in the right direction, and in that belief I appeal to the House to give it a Second Reading. Further, I would ask the House to allow a Bill of this character to take its usual course and go to a Standing Committee upstairs. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I am afraid that, if it does not, it will not be possible to get it through.

We have no objection, on this side of the House, to the Division on the Bill being now taken. The discussion, however, has been very short, having regard to the importance of the matter, and that, in our view, makes it all the more necessary that the Committee stage should be taken on the Floor of the House. On that point, we propose to divide again.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 211; Noes, 112.

Bill read a Second time.

Motion made, and Question put, "That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House."—[ Lieut.-Colonel Lambert Ward. ]

The House divided: Ayes, 124; Noes, 187.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee.

With the leave of the House, I rise to say that the Prime Minister was hopeful that he might be able to make some announcement to the House as to the progress that has been made in the negotiations proceeding with reference to the transport strike. He desires me to say that the conference, having sat this morning, resumed at 3 o'clock this afternoon, that negotiations are still proceeding, that he is present with the parties, and that the discussions are being continued. I think that I am expressing the hope of the House when I say that, with a spirit of reasonableness in the discussions, the means of settlement may be found before the conference rises to-night.

Are the Government taking any steps to enable workers to get to their work to-morrow morning, in the event of the strike not being settled?

I do not think that the House will expect me to add anything to what was said by the Prime Minister last night.

In the event of an arrangement not being come to, will the workers of the metropolis have some assurance from the Government that steps are being taken to enable them to get to their work?

I do not think that I need answer that hypothetical question.

Are we to understand that the Government have declared a state of emergency, or are awaiting the result of the negotiations?

The Prime Minister last night made a full announcement as to what the Government had done on that question of the state of emergency, but as to further steps being taken we are awaiting the news of any settlement or not.

Does that mean that if, unfortunately, no arrangements be come to to-night, none of these workers will be able to get to their work to-morrow? Will the right hon. Gentleman say, plainly, "Yes" or "No," whether any steps have been taken for their convenience?

No hon. Member should draw the conclusion, from what I have said that, in the event of there being no settlement, the Government are doing nothing and nothing will be done.

In view of the statement in the Press that the electricians intend to come out on strike without giving any notice, and in view of the danger and risk to human life in the hospitals owing to unnecessary delays in surgical operations, or during those operations, may I ask whether some notice cannot be given by the electricians, and whether the Prime Minister will consider that matter during the negotiations that are now taking place?

I have no information as to the electricians, but it must not be concluded that the Government can do nothing and will do nothing in the event of such a development.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.