I understand that under the arrangement which was previously announced, although it is only the Second Reading of the Road Transport Bill, which is being formally moved, both that Bill and the Railways (Miscellaneous) Bill are under discussion and will be referred to in the debate.
Road Transport Bill, 1931—Second Stage.
Yes.
That being so, I call attention in a general way to the provisions of the Road Transport Bill, 1931, the Second Reading of which I now move. I should like to describe the general provisions of it in this way, omitting much of the detail which is in the provisions. The scheme which is in mind and which will be set up under the Bill is briefly this: That after an appointed day, which will be fixed in accordance with the provisions of the legislation, nobody will be allowed to run a passenger vehicle on the roads unless he has received previously a licence enabling him to run a specified service under conditions which will be attached by the Minister for Industry and Commerce when issuing such licence. That is the big fundamental change which is being made in road transport under the provisions of this piece of legislation. At present all and sundry have the right to run on the roads provided certain payments have been made. From this time on, in addition to the payments being made, a licence has to be obtained. Future licensees are divided into two categories in this. It is laid down under Section 11 (2) that, when a licence is applied for, the Minister must give a licence to certain defined people, people who have carried on an existing service identical or substantially identical with the passenger road service in respect of which an application is made. When the applicant is such a person, then it is stated that the application cannot be refused except upon named grounds. These grounds are (1), that the existing service was not carried on efficiently with a due regard to the requirements of the public; (2), that such existing service was not sufficient, in regard to frequency of service or in regard to daily duration of the service or in regard to any other matter, to meet the requirements of the public; (3) that the organisation and equipment at the disposal of the applicant are not such as to enable him to carry on the proposed service in accordance with the conditions which the Minister considers should be inserted in the passenger licence to which such application relates; (4) on any other grounds specifically stated as objections under the Act.
The meaning of these sub-sections is this: that where the applicant has carried on a service for twelve months preceding the 31st October this year, and where, in the opinion of the Minister, that service was adequate to meet the requirements of the public for a variety of reasons, then the applicant ought to get a licence. Other people may apply, but in the case of these people, if they were on the roads running an adequate service for twelve months before the end of October last, then the Minister has full discretion as to whether or not a licence should be given. When the licence is given, whether it is a compulsory one or an optional one, the Minister has the right to attach such conditions as he pleases to it, the conditions being, in the main, those which will ensure that a service will be run in a particular way, along particular routes, within certain periods, and with a certain amount of attention to frequency of service, etc. The big division that we are making is the owner of an existing service running for twelve months prior to 31st October and carried on efficiently and adequately who has a right to have a licence given to him for another twelve months period, and the other people who may or may not get a licence. In any event, conditions may be attached to the licence. These clauses mark the difference between transport on the roads as it will be if this legislation passes and as it is at present. These clauses are enabling clauses in the main. I call special attention to the clause which deals with the attachment of conditions because, by reason of the two classes of applicants who are allowed to put in applications for licences and by reason of the discretion given to the Minister with regard to the attachment of conditions, a very definite line of policy can be worked out, and as far as I am concerned will be worked out in conjunction with this measure.
I view the country as it is going to be for passenger road services under this legislation as divided into two main zones, or three, making a division in the case of the second zone into two subsidiary parts. As the first zone I take Dublin City and a radius of about 15 miles from the General Post Office. Inside that area, when licences are issued, they will be issued on the condition and subject to the qualification that only those licensed inside that zone will be allowed to ply for passenger traffic and local services in the zone. Other services licensed to come in from outside may, of course, set down passengers in any part of Dublin City inside the 15 miles radius, or may take them up, but they will not be permitted both to set down and take up inside of the 15 miles zone. In that way we hope to confine to those who are licensed for the Dublin City zone the local passenger services by road in this zone.
In the other area I make a division. I take, in the main, the area which is covered by the G.S.R. Company and its allied bus services and other bus owners at present, and I take, in contradistinction to that, the area which is served by the G.N.R. line and its allied bus services and other independent bus owners at present. I hope to have, by the exercise of the discretion given to me under the Bill, inside a period of about one year or one and a half years this position reached: that inside the Dublin area there will be, in the main, the Dublin United Tramways Company, with its allied bus services, and such other independent bus owners as show they can maintain an efficient and regular service adequate to the needs of the people of the particular area and without any unnecessary competition, if there is, in fact, to be any great competition at all, inside that area. Outside that area, I hope the position will be reached that within about a year you will have the same situation in the other two areas in the country; that, in the main, there will be the G.S.R. and its allied bus services, plus such small number, I hope, of independent bus owners as also show that they can give an adequate and efficient service in areas where it is called for and where the public are not being adequately provided for by the G.S.R. and its bus services, and similarly with the smaller area that I have mentioned. That will be the main effect of the policy which I will be enabled to adopt under these two clauses if the legislation passes in its present form.
Part 3 of the Bill frees the railway companies in this country from certain handicaps which are imposed on them at present under their old statutes and puts them on an absolute footing of equality with any other person in the country to carry on road transport. They may engage in road transport on their own. They may, as previously they could not, purchase the whole or any part of or any share or interest in any road transport business carried on by any other person and the property and assets used in or in connection with such service or business, and purchase, hold, transfer, and sell shares in any company carrying on the business of road transport and so on. All these clauses have been drafted for the special object of allowing railway companies to become for the future not merely railway companies, but transport agencies, enabling them to embark their funds in auxiliary services not of the special rail type, where they think that is necessary for the carrying on of transport under proper conditions in the country.
Two main matters arise under the Railways (Miscellaneous) Bill. One is the matter of the branch lines referred to in Part II of this legislation and the scheme we want to adopt there is this: We conceive the branch line problem is divisible into two or three types of undertaking depending mainly upon its origin. There are certain branch lines baronially guaranteed. There are certain others not baronially guaranteed which were constructed from free grants made out of public moneys, and there are others to which these two conditions with regard to origin do not apply. We say that where there was a statutory obligation either from some baronial guarantee or some condition implied as a consideration for the involving of public funds in them, to run certain trains, then we are reimposing that obligation anew upon the railway companies. Where there was not any statutory obligation as statutory in that way, then we have imposed upon the railway company to start with an obligation of running such services as they were in fact running at the day this Bill was read a first time. And having stabilised the position momentarily in that way we allow for the modification, the closing down or changing of the railway conditions, the modification of the statutory or baronial obligations previously put upon them, or the complete cessor of the running of trains, but only after an application has been made and after it has been agreed that such modification of the legal obligation may be made or such complete abolition of the old obligation can be allowed. It is intimated to them, but not made obligatory, that in the main the Minister before deciding on such question will hold a local inquiry with a view to having ascertained from the people in the neighbourhood the advantage to the locality of the type of traffic they originate there, what is the view with respect to the economy of road or rail transport in a particular area, and what in fact, as far as can be ascertained from a local inquiry, is the view of the people as to whether they should have a road service simpliciter, railway service singly, or mixed road and rail agency, and an order can be issued following upon that. The order would naturally embody whatever was the result of the local inquiry as ascertained and viewed by the Minister who is to make the order.
Another part deals with a minor matter. Part III deals with the directorate of the Great Southern and Western Railways Company. The main effect is to cut down the minimum at which the directorate now is and which was inserted at the request of the Company in the Act of 1924. This reduction of the minimum directorate is again made in this Bill at their request and is the result of representation made by them.
These are the main provisions of these two Bills. There is a great deal of machinery in addition, but these are all detail matters that will come up on Committee Stage. The two or three big things are what I have outlined: the licensing of road passenger vehicles and the division of the people who may apply into two categories, the obligation on the Minister, with the right to attach conditions to grant licences to those already running services for a particular period in an adequate and efficient way, and the discretion of granting or withholding licences from other people. I have indicated that the policy, so far as I am concerned, is going to be to keep a zone round Dublin free for those who are going to run an efficient passenger service for the needs of the passenger traffic; that whereas long distance traffic may come in and set down and pick up passengers as part of their long distance organisation, they will not be permitted to engage competitively with the local service for local traffic. And in so far as the other part of the country is concerned, I have indicated in the main that I look to two big companies and their allies to supply the main requirements in the rest of the Twenty-Six Counties. I say that, as is obligatory under the Bill, other people can get licences, those independent bus owners who can prove that they are likely to give adequate and efficient service. But in the main the tendency is to divert traffic into the hands of the three transport companies operating on a big scale at present with such conditions as in different areas may seem to be necessary. This is the further stage of the process started by the Railway Act of 1924. I expect to be told here again, as I was told previously, that the 1924 Act failed in its purpose, and I intend to make the same reply that it has been in the circumstances then envisaged as complete a success as its authors imagined it would be, and to give reasons for that belief.
I previously said that if it were not for the Railways Act of 1924 most, if not all, of the subsidiary branch lines would have gone out of existence and that, following upon that, there would have been a constant increase in the unemployment of railway people, and that areas would have been left without any transport service of a railway type. And it is doubtful that they would be supplied with service of any kind under the conditions that would then have existed.
I also hold that the 1924 Act has been an advantage to the travelling public. I pointed out previously that owing to the 1924 Act there was an automatic reduction insisted upon of the rates and fares then charged—a ten per cent. reduction in the one case and something like twelve-and-a-half per cent. reduction in the other. These reductions then brought about have been brought still lower, first by the effect of alternative forms of transport and, secondly, by the economies which the Great Southern Railways, as an amalgamated company, were enabled to achieve owing to the very scheme of amalgamation which the 1924 Act set up.
[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]
In 1924, immediately before amalgamation, the expenditure on the working of the amalgamated company amounted to £4,345,000. In 1930 that figure of expenditure on railway working had dropped to £3,069,000—a reduction of over one and a quarter millions.
At whose expense?
For the benefit, at any rate, of the travelling public.
Who paid for it?
If the Deputy is insinuating that it was the railway employees who paid for it he should investigate the accounts and see how much was due to dismissals and how much was due to saving over-head expenses of different types. I am speaking of the advantage to the public of the saving of one million and a quarter pounds as between 1924 and 1930, that the expenditure on railway working has been brought down in that way so that as it now stands it is one and a quarter millions per annum less than it was in 1924. I have evidence from those who should be expected to know most about the working of the railways as to what was the effect of the amalgamation. In 1926 the Chairman of the Great Southern Railways Co., speaking at a general meeting of the shareholders, said:—
I should like to clear up a misapprehension which seems to have arisen—namely, that all the misfortunes which have befallen the railways in the Free State are to be attributed to amalgamation. That is not the case. Very large economies have been effected, which, if the railways of Southern Ireland had continued to be operated as separate entities, could not have been brought about.
Indeed under those circumstances, with the same conditions prevailing, a great part of the country would have been left without any railway service at all, and even the strongest companies would have found it difficult, if not impossible, to earn an ordinary dividend. Railway workers also benefited by the adoption of the policy of amalgamation, as unemployment on a large scale would most certainly have followed the closing of a number of the small railways of the country consequent upon their failure to earn working expenses and their fixed charges....
And in 1928 the same Chairman, speaking to the shareholders on the question of the cost of working, said:
Whilst the question of costs of working is under consideration, it is well you should notice that any economies which have been effected have been made without impairing or imperilling in the smallest degree the safety or efficiency of the service.
Is that true to-day?
The Deputy can argue that if he likes. In September, 1925, a meeting of the Irish railway stockholders was held, and the honorary secretary of that body addressed the meeting in the following way. He said they should clear the air a little about the misrepresentations indulged in as regards the amalgamation. They would find that the Chairman of the Great Southern Railways would have the pleasure of telling them at the next annual meeting that the economies consequent on amalgamation had been very large and were growing. They did not hear very much about it, but it was a fact. Amalgamation had not been a failure, and it was as successful as could be expected, and the very thing that had happened had been anticipated.
He was sorry for saying that afterwards.
A smaller item can be referred to in this connection. When the 1924 Act was going through, pleas were made by Deputies from different areas on behalf of a certain small number of concerns which were not brought inside the terms of the 1924 Act. The Listowel and Ballybunion Railway was not brought within the Act; the Dublin and Lucan Railway and the Dublin and Blessington concern were not brought in. Two of these have since disappeared, and the third is in process of being wound up. There is no doubt whatever that if two of these had been included in the 1924 scheme they would probably still be existing as railway concerns. In contrast to that, we have the position of the branch lines about which so much commotion was made in the early part of this year. Even with amalgamation and with the economies effected, some of them are threatened with being closed. They were only saved because it seemed a better policy to have the situation preserved as it was until this legislation gets a chance of going through, and the whole scheme of the railways can be looked at in its proper perspective.
Have there been any lines closed?
There have been a number. The Donegal lines are in a certain category. They were closed simply because it was clear that the economics of the particular area did not warrant their being kept open. But they will be affected also by the provisions in the Bill. There has been, of course, a complete change in the transport situation, which has been put entirely into a different position from what was envisaged when the 1924 Act was under consideration. There has been a great growth of other types of transport agencies, mostly privately-owned.
And without control.
Privately owned and for the owners' benefit, and, therefore, I will consider not subject under any conditions to any great control. Prior to this legislation we had looked to one other scheme. In 1927 we had led the way with a particular piece of legislation which has since been copied in other countries—legislation which empowered the railways to run motor vehicles on the roads but subjected them in the running to certain restrictions which in the present circumstances we now realise to have been too narrow, and which did not give them the equality which they require with their competitors. At that time any opinion that was expressed here in any vehement way was rather to the effect that the restrictions that were being enforced on the railway companies with regard to road vehicles were not sufficiently stringent. The opinion was expressed here that even under those restrictions the effect would be that the railway companies— described here for the purposes of debate as very wealthy and powerful— would be able to crush out those engaged in road transport in which these people had a legitimate right to engage if they could provide themselves with the necessary conveyances and pay the necessary taxation.
If any request had been made at that time, and very little was made with regard to the control of buses, it would have been directed, in the circumstances of that debate, almost entirely to the greater control of the railway-owned or managed passenger vehicle, and very little would have been thought of the control of those owned by their competitors. Under those circumstances no such control would have been possible. Circumstances had to develop until one saw by the matter of experiment what system of allied transport as between the road and the railway vehicles was possible, and under what conditions, charges and service would emerge. I indicated in a later debate in the Seanad, when the magic word, "co-ordination," first made its appearance, that I thought co-ordination was required, and that I believed it could be most speedily brought about through the agency of one of the great railway transport companies getting well into the road vehicle services, operating both in a proper way, indicating to the public that they could provide a service which the public seemed to require, and indicating further that if that experiment went along successfully we would come to its aid in the proper time.
We believe that this is the time to come to the aid of these transport agencies, believing that they are going to become real transport agencies, and not, as heretofore, to be rather more rail-minded and tram-minded than we thought desirable. I have talked on the question of policy under this Bill. We intend so to rule conditions that there will be provided a service on the passenger side that in different areas the public seem to want. We want to do that by confining ourselves in the main point to three big companies and the allied services that have grown up or will grow up in a greater degree around them. We do allow for the existence side by side with these three agencies of the independent bus proprietor or company. Personally I would look forward to seeing those people disappearing by degrees either by the process of amalgamation with other companies or by the main companies deciding that their future lay in certain areas in the country, and leaving certain other areas for exploitation by independent bus owners.
In the working out of the policy the bus owner with one or two vehicles will certainly eventually go to the wall, because it must be regarded, under the circumstances of transport at the moment, that the man with one or two vehicles cannot give the proper service, running frequently enough to provide for the needs of the area and running efficiently with all that that word would describe. We have to look forward, under the operation of a policy under this measure, to the disappearance in the main of the small bus proprietors—that is, the man who owns one or two or even more buses and who has existed so far, not because he took traffic regularly from the particular roads, but because he went on certain occasions where the traffic seemed best, operating in one area at one moment and operating in another area the next time, and sometimes going out into the country when the occasion demanded.
The question of fares is only dealt with to this extent, that the maximum fares for bus and tram service will be fixed after consultation with the interests represented. As far as railway fares are concerned the conditions will attach to them that attached to them under the 1924 Act, that portion of which we still leave unrepealed. As far as the road passenger traffic is concerned we think that this brings the railway company to the furthest point they can hope ever to get short of a legislative monopoly, short of a single amalgamation in one group which will give a monopoly of transport in the whole country. On the passenger side we can have absolute equality with everybody else, and I think that the policy I have indicated under the Bill will be to divert, if that be possible without doing harm to the people legitimately in the traffic already, the transport to the three main companies. We have made no such provision with regard to the goods traffic on the roads. So far as goods traffic is concerned we put the railways on an equal footing with anybody else. We free them from any restrictions put on them with regard to the operation of lorries in the country. We leave them free to embark with these vehicles and to operate where they please in the most intensive competition with any roads goods carriers at the present operating in the country.
We feel that at the moment it is impossible to do anything in the way of control of the lorry. We feel it is impossible mainly for a couple of reasons. An examination of the statistics of these road lorries shows that somewhere about 75 per cent. of them are owned by private traders who in the main carry their own goods. At least the first purpose of the purchase of the lorry is for the purpose of carrying the trader's own goods. A system has grown up of a trader who carries his own goods looking for the haulage of other goods as a return. We do not propose and we do not think it would be equitable to interfere with that question at the moment. We calculate that about 80 per cent. of the goods carried is carried in private traders' vans and only 20 per cent. is carried in the way of goods by a professional carrier or haulage company. We feel that to interfere with the private trader at the present moment would be bad. We feel that the private trader has the right to run his own goods in any way he pleases provided he accommodates himself to the legislative conditions that are imposed on the lorries.
I think it would be unfair also where a trader is hauling his own goods, to prevent him from carrying, by way of return, cargoes—goods that are not his own, and we think it would be almost impossible unless there was a very ruthless scheme of licensing to administer any system of legislation to prevent a trader carrying goods other than his own. For the sake of 20 per cent. of traffic on the roads other than passenger traffic at the moment, we think that the administrative difficulties and expenses that would be consequent upon trying to regulate these vehicles would not be worth while. We do not think that the statistics of goods and other merchandise carried over the railways or the ordinary mechandise or live stock show that there has been a big reduction in their cargoes by reason of the road vehicles. In addition to that it would be almost impossible to follow the lorry in its career in different parts of the country. The lorry, in the main, depends upon its mobility, and if it were possible by administration, it would take away from most of the services that the lorry gives if it had to be confined to running along certain roads between certain specific points and other points. If a lorry were prevented from going down a by-road it would be very difficult to carry out that administration. It would be impossible to have a system of such control operative upon such a type of vehicle. I had many consultations with the people materially interested in this question in the controlling of the lorry, and in many cases I had consultations with people who were not materially interested, but who were interested in the problem as one to be tackled. In no connection did I get a proposition with regard to the lorry which could be defended here. I failed to get a definite proposition of that kind put up. The nearest approach to the suggestion at all was phrased this way, that the traders should not be permitted even to carry their own goods by lorry except within a small radius of ten miles. In the circumstances of the country I think that that proposition was indefensible. That was the only proposition. When the details were gone into, the difficulties were so great that the proposition had advanced to the point, that the only thing was to make a complete clearance of lorries, excepting only that there should be allowed those operated by traders for the conveyance of their own goods within a narrow radius, say 10 miles from where they started.
Alternatively it has been suggested to me that whereas the railway companies are now being allowed to run lorries on the roads, competing for traffic and for goods, they will have some advantage over what they had previously. That will not be sufficient to enable them to restore to their road and rail services the traffic they previously carried. I am not sure that it is necessary to restore that position. Even if that were so, the only suggestion made to achieve what is regarded as a desirable end, is to allow the railway companies full power to fix their rates, either on road or rail, without any intervening authority, such as the Railway Tribunal. In other words, instead of the position being as it is at the moment, when rates are fixed by the Railway Tribunal in a certain way, allowing a reduction to be made by the railway companies themselves down to a point 40 per cent. below the standard rate, and allowing for exceptional rates to be quoted, if passed by the Tribunal, there shall be a system of allowing railway companies to be free in everything, except a system of maximum charges, inside of which they would operate in areas as they pleased and would charge what they liked for traffic offered to them. I need only point out that in that there could be no protection against undue preference being given to traders in one area as against traders in another area, or to different traders in the same area against competitors in their own line of business. There would be no protection at all against the diversion of traffic from one port to another. At any rate, I think the request is only to be phrased in that way to be seen that it is one that no legislative assembly would ever pass.
At the moment the situation with regard to rates is that they are fixed and may be dropped a point 40 per cent. below what they are fixed at by the railway company, and after that exceptional rates may be applied for to the Railway Tribunal, and, if passed, will remain in operation. The Railway Tribunal is there to see that there is no undue preference towards one body of traders as against another, and no diversion of traffic from one port to another. Consequently we confine ourselves in this legislation to the transport of goods by road simply to give the railway companies as complete freedom to cater for goods as any other competitors.
That situation will have to be allowed to develop. I hope it will be a situation so that the railway companies, seizing on these powers, will institute such a scheme of road and rail services as will get the public to see that they can provide as efficiently as even the private trader, the services that are required. If they can in the freedom that we give them in this Bill win back the traffic to their lines by offering a door to door delivery as their competitors are now offering, then they may—and I hope soon will—get to the position where a number of traders' lorries now on the road will disappear or be reduced to a small proportion. The situation will then be capable of being handled as we are handling the passenger situation.
We give to the railway companies and to the tramways company in the city every demand that they could legitimately make with regard to fair play for road services. Previously the railway company and the tramways company of the city had what amounted to a monopoly. It is not proposed in this legislation to give them a monopoly, but it is proposed to give them such conditions that they ought to be able to win through again to be, not monopolists but the main transport agencies of the country. We think it is only fair they should be given that chance seeing the amount of trustee and other funds involved in the railway and tramway companies. But we keep a little control. We keep this control that if either of these agencies show indications of not being alert, of not making use of the opportunities, or of going back again and being railway-minded or tramway-minded, and if they do not give the people the facilities that they have come to regard as necessary, we have power in the legislation to enable outside independent owners to apply for the areas these people have neglected and to get their licences. If under the new conditions an independent bus company or an owner gets a licence because of the failure of the railway or tramway company to provide services that seem to be essential, it will be much less easy to displace that person in the future than to displace those already on the roads.
A branch line situation we propose to have in the respective areas where trouble will arise. We have considered it fully. We will deal with it by a system of local inquiry. We would like to get the economics of the rail and road conveyances properly examined, and to have them set out in relief, one against the other, the rail conditions which operate on some of the branch lines, the restrictions which have grown up, the freedom that there is as far as road vehicles are concerned, and to let it be narrowed down to the point that the people in the different areas will realise what they are paying for and what makes the difference as between the charges they have to meet for railway conveyance as against road conveyance. We start off by stereotyping services as they were run at a particular date, and we allow for inquiries to proceed after that. In that way we hope to get the branch line situation met after the solution proposed has been given a chance to commend itself to people who will have to use some form of transport in an area.
The minor point is the directorate. It is one that was considered previously with a group from the Great Southern Railways Company. It was a request to me for a minimum directorate. That is now being lowered. I am leaving out minor points because they are more material to the Committee Stage than to the discussion at this stage. It is quite possible that on the Committee Stage some details will have to be arranged. Personally I do not think there is much room for rearrangement. I can think of quite a number of sections which I will be asked to insert in order to buttress up the position of certain people. But at the moment that is a matter more for separate argument in Committee. As we are having the two Bills discussed, I think the minor points might be left out of consideration until that stage arises, and to have merely a discussion on the two big principles of the Bills.
When these Bills were circulated the members of the Dáil thought that the whole of the Government policy for dealing with the transport conditions which have developed in recent years was to be revealed. We have been pressing for the revelation of that policy for some time and endeavouring to make the Government realise that by delaying in dealing with the situation they were not making their task any easier. We have the whole of their policy now. For some time past we have been getting bits revealed in the various minor measures that were introduced. The process of revelation has now been completed. We have heard the Minister state what the policy was and describe the powers which he proposed to acquire and the manner in which he proposed to utilise them. The question to ask ourselves is whether the Minister is going about his job in the right way; whether he is likely to improve the transport services of the country in consequence of the operation of his policy, or whether he is likely to find that the situation will prove too much for him and that a solution will have to be found along different lines? Let us be clear about what the Government policy is and what it does. It rejects the idea of unified control except in so far as such unified control can be secured in three separate zones by the Tramways Company or either of the big railway companies by a process of attrition, purchase, or amalgamation. It rejects the idea of public ownership.
Apparently the Government is content that the transport services of the country should continue in the future as in the past, and be dictated for the main purpose of realising profits for the owners and not to serve industrial needs or the public convenience. To a very large extent it permits what has been described as the transport war to continue, with this exception, that in the future the Minister is going to take a hand on the side of the big battalions —the bigger companies. Competition in transport in the past produced the inevitable consequences of lower wages, uncertain conditions of employment for the workers, and falling profits or accruing losses for the owners of the services. The Minister apparently hopes it will have fought itself out to some sort of a conclusion within eighteen months, but after that he contemplates a certain amount of guerilla fighting which will, he hopes, keep the victors vigilant so as to preserve the fruits of their victory. The Minister, of course, will in future decide who may engage in the war. He has taken upon himself powers to declare certain of the combatants illegal, and consequently to put them out of the combat. Only those whom he considers worthy of the ordeal will be permitted to engage in it. That is his policy. That is the policy which he apparently thinks is going to solve transport problems in this country, problems which have been attracting the public attention for a long time and which, because of the Minister's inactivity, have been growing in magnitude and difficulty.
If we are going to consider alternative policies in this debate we have got to do so in the first place with a clear understanding of what aims we hope to secure—what the aim of any policy must be. I think there are no Deputies who will deny that preservation of the railways is essential to the industrial development of the country. Similarly, I think there are few Deputies who will deny that the buses serve a public convenience, and that in so far as it is possible to maintain an efficient road transport passenger service it is desirable that it should be done. We have got to ask ourselves whether it is not possible to ensure that these two services will be in future supplementary to each other rather than mutually destructive as they are at present and have been for some time past. If we are going to ensure that, I think some form of unified control is implied. Any tribunal, any committee, any inquiry that was conducted into the transport problems of the country in the past produced, if my recollection is accurate, a recommendation in favour of unified control of one kind or another. The Minister has rejected these recommendations. If we are seeking to attain that aim I think we must also make up our minds that public ownership of these services is desirable if not essential. Unified control and public ownership are necessary for a number of other reasons as well.
Generally speaking, I think it will be agreed that the transport services of the country should be directed with a view to serving the needs of the country rather than the production of profits for any individual. I think that as strong a case, if not a much stronger case, can be made out for the public ownership of transport services as can be made out for the public ownership of an electricity supply. The position here is that the case is also strengthened by the fact that there does not exist amongst the people of this country any feeling of confidence in the existing railway management. If it is intended, as the Minister has stated it is intended, that in a large area of the country there shall be an effective monopoly, if not a legislative monopoly, of transport services exercised by the management of the Great Southern Railways Company, then we have no guarantee of efficiency or no guarantee that these services will be directed towards the development of the area concerned.
When the transport situation in the City of Dublin was inquired into on the occasion of the lock-out of the tramway workers by the company, the tribunal which conducted that inquiry submitted three recommendations. Their first recommendation was in favour of the acquisition by the municipal authorities interested of the competing undertakings and to confer upon such authorities a monopoly of road transport in the areas administered by them. Their second recommendation was in favour of the establishment of a body, subject to public control, with powers compulsorily to acquire and manage competing undertakings and to confer on such body a monopoly of the passenger transport in the city and the suburbs or such larger or more limited area as might be deemed advisable. Their third recommendation was that which the Government adopted and which is embodied in this Bill and in the Road Traffic Bill, which is at the present time passing through the Dáil.
The attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party to these questions has been revealed in the past, in so far as it has been possible for us to acquire all the necessary information to formulate a definite policy in the matter. We are strongly in favour of public ownership of transport services with unified control outside the boundaries of the municipalities. Inside the boundaries of the municipalities we are in favour of municipal ownership and control of these services. It is not necessary that we should discuss the merits of that alternative policy at great length now. We are dealing with a definite set of proposals submitted by the Government in office, proposals which, with or without amendments, will undoubtedly pass through the Dáil. Our chief concern, therefore, must be to examine the details of these proposals and endeavour to convince the Minister, if he is open to conviction, of the extent to which they can be modified or extended with benefit to the country and to those engaged in the transport business.
When, of course, we come to consider the policy embodied in this Bill, it is, I think, only right that the remark should be made that it has been formulated four years too late. We are told that the Minister sees no hope for the man with one or two buses or the small operator, that he is going to go to the wall. It is a great pity that such a person was not told that before he was induced to invest his money in the purchase of these buses or incur liabilities in respect of them which perhaps have not yet been discharged. When road transport was developed some four or five years ago, if the Minister had been keeping his eye on the situation, he could easily have foreseen what the developments were likely to have been, and if he had taken even the powers which he proposes to acquire now, powers to license road transport operators, he would have obviated the necessity for imposing the considerable amount of hardship and in some cases inflicting the considerable amount of injustice which now arises.
The delay on the part of the Minister in formulating a policy for dealing with that situation is something which, I think, all Deputies, no matter on what side of the House they sit, should condemn because of the serious consequences which it is going to have upon a number of individuals, many of whom risked all their wealth, all their property and all their savings with considerable enterprise and initiative in the hope that they might be able to share in the profits to be derived from transport development. The fruits of their labours are now going to be taken from them, and many of them will be reduced to very poor straits in consequence of it. If the Minister had the foresight to take action, when action should have been taken, he would have saved these people the loss in which they will be now involved.
The Minister proposes to take absolute powers to decide who shall or shall not run road passenger services in this State. Since the Road Transport Bill was circulated I have been considering the question whether it is preferable that that power of issuing licences should be exercised by the Minister or by some independent tribunal. In Britain and in Northern Ireland such licences are issued by traffic control boards and all the representations which were made to the Minister by the omnibus operators following the report of the Davitt Inquiry indicated a preference for control by a tribunal of one kind or another rather than by the Minister. I have personally come to the conclusion that under existing circumstances it is preferable that the powers to issue these licences should be in the hands of the Minister, because his actions are subject to question and criticism here in the Dáil, whereas the actions of a tribunal constituted like the Railway Tribunal could not be so questioned. I think, however, that the Minister's powers are altogether too wide and that it will be necessary for us to amend the Act to impose certain restrictions upon him. I agree that he should have absolute discretion to say whether a person proposing to operate a new service for the first time should be allowed to do so or not. I think that in respect of existing operators, or where an operator has received a licence and it is proposed to cancel it, there should be some appeal from the Minister's decision and some opportunity given to the person concerned to hear and rebut the evidence upon which the Minister's decision is based. Under the Bill as it now stands the Minister can make his decision for any or no reason. He has no obligation to reveal the information or the source of the information which occasioned his decision.
In many cases questions of fact will arise for determination, and I do not think it will be accepted that a Minister who is elected in the first instance by the people, and is subsequently elected to his office by the Dáil, and who holds office for a limited time, is the proper tribunal to determine questions of fact which may be frequently of a rather intricate nature. If, for example, the Minister decides either to refuse a licence to a person now operating an omnibus service, or to cancel a licence which has been issued on the grounds that the service does not, in regard to frequency or duration, meet the requirements of the public in the area concerned, is it open to the operator to produce witnesses claiming to be representative of the public in the area concerned in order to support his contention that his service did meet the requirements both in respect of frequency and duration? On what information will the Minister act? Will he receive reports from the Civic Guard, and, if so, will these reports be accepted by him without question, or will he make independent inquiries in order to substantiate them?
It seems to us that there is grave danger of mistakes being made and injustice being done if it is not made possible for a licensed holder, whose licence is being revoked, or an existing operator, who is being denied a licence, to appeal against the Minister's decision in respect of matters of the kind I have indicated. The Minister has told us what his policy will be if he receives the powers contemplated in this Bill. There will be, he said, three zones. One zone will include an area within a 15 miles radius of Dublin in which the Dublin United Tramways Company will run the main services, with a number of independent companies not in competition with it or only in competition to a slight extent. Another zone will be the area covered by the Great Southern Railways Company. And the third zone will be the area covered by the Great Northern Railway Company. And the Minister says he hopes to see a situation created in which, within these zones, the main operators will be the railway companies with only a few, if any, independent operators existing. How is it intended that independent operators who comply with all the conditions of this Act, who secure a licence, and from whom that licence cannot be taken on any of the grounds mentioned in the Act, will be got rid of? Is it intended that their interests shall be acquired, that they shall be purchased by the Tramways Company in one area, or by either of the railway companies in the other areas? Or does the Minister contemplate the exercise of his powers at any time in order to suppress a company which is running an efficient service with a view to eliminating competition? I want also to know how the Minister proposes to reconcile the provisions of Sections 11 and 15, which deal with the granting of licences to existing operators or renewals, with the proposal to give unlimited power to the railway company to operate omnibus services? Is it intended that he shall allow the railway company to operate competing services in the areas covered by the company's licence under either of these sections? If it is his intention not to deny a licence to any such company subject to its compliance with the regulations within the section, will they not remain in existence despite the fact that the railway company cannot compete against them? Or is it intended that the railway company shall be allowed to compete against them and intensify the transport war in the area concerned?
The Minister dealt at some length with the considerations which induced him not to impose any restrictions upon the transportation of goods by road. No doubt, the considerations which operated in the Minister's mind could not be ignored. But it seems to me that there are some restrictions which it is very desirable should be placed upon the transportation of goods by road. I do not contemplate under present circumstances that haulage contractors or traders carrying goods for hire should be licensed in the same manner as passenger road services should be licensed; but certain restrictions may be imposed without the necessity for such licensing arrangements. For example, the railway companies are required by law to provide special waggons for the cartage of live stock and to provide other special waggons for the cartage of foodstuffs. On the roads, however, it is frequently the case that live stock has been carried upon a lorry on one journey and foodstuffs carried in the same lorry on the return journey, with considerable danger to the public health. Restrictions can be imposed which would make that impossible and which would require that lorries which have been used for the cartage of live stock should be thoroughly disinfected before being used for the cartage of foodstuffs. Similarly, restrictions could be imposed upon persons carrying live stock by road which would provide for certain limitations in respect to the number of animals which may be conveyed in any particular-sized lorry.
I do not know if it is at all advisable to permit owners of private lorries to carry goods for hire upon return journeys, having been engaged upon the delivery of their own goods. I think it is frequently the case that such goods are carried at very low rates indeed, and it operates not merely against the interests of the railway companies, but also against the interests of persons who are normally engaged in the cartage of goods for a livelihood, and it imposes upon the latter class of people the necessity of taking, in some cases, goods at unremunerative rates in order to get business.
I do not know if any section or any interested party will accept this Bill with any degree of pleasure. A number of bus operators who hope to survive despite these provisions will, no doubt, be glad of the possibility of eliminating some of the competition with which they are now faced. I cannot imagine that the railway company is very enthusiastic about it, because, although it removes some of the restrictions imposed upon it now, it imposes others. The Bill appears to be defective in its drafting in some respects. I was particularly struck by the fact that though the Minister may, by order, permit a railway company to close down a branch line, the railway company is apparently obliged to keep the line in question ready to be reopened at any time, because, of course, the Minister can, under the Bill, cancel the order which permitted the railway company to cease the services on it.
As regards branch lines, I think it would be very undesirable that any considerable number of them should have to close. It is, of course, conceivable that some of them are so completely uneconomic that there can be no justification for keeping them going. But, generally speaking, we should regard our railway system as a whole and not parcel it out into sections. We should endeavour to make it as a whole a paying proposition and to keep it in existence as a whole, because it serves a very useful purpose, and it is not possible at present to foresee the periods at which it will be possible for us to do without it. This practice of examining costings in respect of particular parts of the railway and saying that one part is paying and that another part is not paying, and that the part that is not paying must be closed is, in my view, fundamentally wrong. The whole concern should be treated as one concern, and the policy of the Government should be directed to keeping the whole concern in operation as a whole and as a paying proposition. I want to know, if it is permitted by the Minister to close down any of these baronial lines, whether it is contemplated that there shall be any provision made for the workers who operate those lines at present, or whether it is intended that they shall be deprived of their employment without any compensation or any provision for their future, After all, it was not merely the directors who made the railway company. The railway company was served well in the past by these workers; and if a stage is reached when the services of some of them will have to be dispensed with, I think that adequate provision should be made for them, in view of the fact that their prospects of obtaining employment in any other occupations are very limited indeed. I do not know if the Minister has any views upon the matter at all, but I certainly think that it would be wrong from every point of view—both from the point of view of justice as well as from the point of view of the general welfare of the country—that there should be any large number of dismissals in consequence of orders made by the Minister under this Bill without some provision being made for the workers concerned.
These are the main points I want to make in regard to the proposals that are before us. I think that these proposals are altogether inadequate to deal with the situation. I feel certain that in a few years' time, if the present Government are still in office, they will have to come again to the Dáil with fresh proposals to deal with the circumstances that will then exist, proposals along the line which I have suggested here, the line which apparently the Government contemplated taking in 1925, when the President of the Executive Council stated that if the Amalgamation Bill which was passed in that year did not achieve the purposes which the Government had in mind, then nationalisation of the railways would be the next step. That apparently was the mind of the Government then. It certainly is my view that we shall ultimately be forced to recognise that the maintenance of the railways on an efficient basis will be a direct obligation of the State which it will have to take over, as it has taken over a number of public utility services in recent years.
Owing to my connection with the railways, I think I can speak with as great a sense of responsibility on this subject as anyone. I am sorry to say that, in the course of the Minister's speech, I did not trace the slightest anxiety on his part to help the railway company to preserve the millions of capital invested in it and to preserve a very large labour employment business. The Minister should realise the precarious position of the Company, a condition that has been brought about by the unfair and uncontrolled competition on the roads and through the company being hedged about by antiquated legislative restrictions. The Minister is also well aware of the Company's view as to how it should be rehabilitated, but I regret to say that the new charter which he proposes is of such a milk-and-water description that the relief afforded to the Company by it will be negligible. The shareholders will continue to see their capital dwindling until it disappears altogether and much as the Company will regret it the disemployment of labour will be accentuated.
Amongst the reliefs which the Company sought from the Minister were the following:
(1) Power to single or close portions of railway lines.
(2) Modification of liability to employ persons to open and shut accommodation gates.
(3) Amendment of Section 61 of the Railways Act of 1924 which debars the Company from varying or rescinding agreements with other Railway Companies or transport undertakings for the allocation or routing of traffic or the pooling of receipts, or for differential rates on traffic passing by sea to or from Saorstát Eireann.
The Minister has ignored these points altogether except in the case of baronial guaranteed lines or those which were constructed with the aid of free grants. Even in these cases, as Deputy Lemass has pointed out, when permission has been obtained to close a line the Minister has power to order it to be reopened, thereby necessitating the permanent way being kept open and involving many other standing charges. In other words, the Company will be obliged in future to continue certain services which show a heavy loss. Again the restrictions by which the Company is at present hedged, instead of being ameliorated, are increased, as the Minister is taking power to himself which he never had before. There are many other objectionable features in the Bill but perhaps of minor importance. Take for instance the expenses in connection with any public inquiry ordered by the Minister. I fail to see why a Company should have to bear these.
Again, Section 6 of the Bill puts more obligations on a company, as regards train services, than at present exist. As for the Road Transport Bill it makes no attempt to control goods traffic by road although this unfair competition is draining the lifeblood of the railways. In conclusion, I am disappointed, the shareholders will be disappointed, and labour will be disappointed and, unless the Minister realises the seriousness of the position and makes an effort to give the Company the relief which is so vital, I have the gravest view of the future of the Company and I think the Minister will be responsible.
Fourteen thousand shareholders of the Great Southern Railways Company, most of whom are Irish citizens and who have twenty-five million pounds of Irish money invested in the Great Southern Railways Company, will, if they find out the facts, be surprised to know that only fourteen Deputies of this House are sufficiently interested in the measure now before the House to take any part in the debate affecting their interests and involving such a huge sum of Irish money. Thirteen thousand, four hundred and three Irish railwaymen whose livelihood is at stake will be equally disappointed to find out the facts so far as it concerns the interest which Deputies are taking in this Bill.
There is only one-sixth of the Labour Party present.
President Cosgrave, in defending the Second Reading of the Amalgamation Bill of 1924, stated quite frankly that if the amalgamation policy outlined in that measure failed to achieve the objects which the Government had in mind at the time the Government would take the next best step. Surely the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who represents the President and the Government in this matter, does not contend that the measure now before the House is a step forward. There may be something to be said here for the very careful step that the Government are taking in introducing the Road Transport Bill and putting the Railway Company in the same position as other passenger-carrying companies so far as plying for hire is concerned. It is a very careful and hesitating step, perhaps in the right direction, but surely there is no shareholder, director, railway worker or citizen who has read the Railway (Miscellaneous) Bill who will have the courage to say that it contains anything of any value to anybody interested in the future prosperity of the Irish Railways. I do not think Deputy Murphy has said anything to that effect, but I notice that the Minister, when making his apologetic speech for its introduction, did not labour at any great length the contents of that particular measure.
Let us examine the benefits which the railwaymen, the railway workers and the public at large are supposed to have derived from the amalgamation policy of the present Government. The revenue during the period since 1st January, 1925, of the Great Southern Railways Company as it now exists has been reduced by £770,000 which represents roughly a ten per cent. dividend on the ordinary shares of the Company. The number of employees during that period has been reduced from 17,224 to 13,403, namely, a reduction of 3,821 railway servants as a result of the Government's policy, and they promised compensation to railwaymen when that Bill was being put through this House. I daresay it would not be an exaggeration for me to say that not more than ten per cent. of those who have lost their positions in the railway service as a result of the Government's policy have received the compensation which they were promised by President Cosgrave at that time.
What is the value of the shares to-day compared to what they were when the amalgamation policy came into operation in January, 1925? Roughly the value of the shares then held in the Great Southern Railways Company has been reduced by 50 per cent. The ordinary shares which on 1st January, 1925, were quoted in the market at 35¼ are now ten. The four per cent. guaranteed preference stood at 56 and are now 36¼. The 4 per cent. preference were 50½. They are now 26 and the 4 per cent. debenture then standing at 68½ are now being offered at 52¼. The Minister with these figures at his hand knows that I am not exaggerating. He can verify the figures if he wants to. Surely he will not endeavour to put it down the throats of anybody interested in the future prosperity of the Irish railways that the Amalgamation Act has conferred any advantages on anybody anxious for the welfare and maintenance of our railway system.
The Minister, during the intervening period, was responsible for the policy of allowing the buses imported from England, run by petrol imported from outside this country, and purchased on the hire purchase system, to ply anywhere they liked at any time they liked and practically under any conditions they liked. I may have some idea of the Minister's mind in regard to the whole problem of the transport situation: While I believe I would be prepared to go some length to trust the Minister on matters of this kind, I do not know how his colleagues in the Government stand. Therefore, I am not prepared to give the Minister or his colleagues in the Ministry the very drastic powers which they are looking for in the Road Traffic Bill, the Road Transport Bill and the Railway (Miscellaneous) Bill to legislate in effect by order and regulation. We have the Road Traffic Bill with 160 sections, the Road Transport Bill with 30 sections and the Railway (Miscellaneous) Bill with 19 sections which, if properly boiled down, could be all contained in one. But behind the contents of this Bill and every section of it is the power that this House is asked to give the Minister to legislate by order and regulation. If I had any knowledge of the transport policy, if they have any policy, of the present Government I might be tempted to trust them with some of the powers that the Minister is seeking in the measures I have referred to. Even the statement made by the Minister this evening, in explanation of the two Bills which he has introduced, is not sufficient I think to warrant us in giving him these very drastic powers without further and much more careful explanation. If this Bill survives the Second Stage— I am referring particularly to the Railway (Miscellaneous) Bill—we will have to make a very searching investigation into what lies at the back of the Minister's mind regarding the powers which he intends to take in putting that measure into operation.
In examining the transport situation of this country as we see it to-day, I think that neither President Cosgrave nor the Minister for Industry and Commerce—and certainly not the lazy Deputies who sit behind the Government and who are prepared to march into the lobby to register a penny-in-the-slot decision on measures introduced here—have ever sat down to make a careful examination so far as it affects transport in this country. The railways, for instance, had to purchase the land upon which the railways were constructed and they had to pay out of their own revenue for the maintenance of the permanent way, while the lorries and buses imported from outside this country are allowed to tear up the roads of this country and, as far as I know, they pay a very low percentage towards the maintenance of the roads which they are destroying all over this State to-day. Figures are available for any Deputy who has the desire to examine them to show that there is a tremendously increased cost for road maintenance at the expense of the ratepayer. The ratepayer, who in days gone by had full freedom of the roads which were maintained at his expense has very little freedom and travels on these roads to-day perhaps very great danger to himself and to the stock which he has to drive to the local fairs in the country.
I would like the Minister for Industry and Commerce and his colleagues in the Government, when considering the conditions under which buses and lorries should be allowed to ply for hire in this country, to consider that very important point, namely that their owners and those who secure licences for this purpose have not paid for the construction costs of the roads and are not paying a fair licence duty toward their maintenance when compared with the damage done to the roads by the buses and lorries.
The Transport Bill, as I said, was a careful step in the right direction, with the intention, presumably, of putting into operation in a modified form the recommendations of the Davitt or Tramways Tribunal. I am not quite sure that it by any means interprets the wishes of the people responsible for the recommendations made by that particular Tribunal. I notice, for instance, that the Bus Owners' Association, when giving evidence before that Tribunal, made a recommendation that there should be a traffic control board for Dublin and other congested traffic areas. I would like to know from the Minister why, instead of accepting that very valuable recommendation, he desires to set himself up as a transport dictator.
Section 11 gives the Minister powers of a very drastic nature. I did not believe it possible that the Minister for Industry and Commerce, with the responsibility which we all know attaches to his Department, with the troublesome task of putting the Shannon scheme on a firm financial foundation, with the additional work imposed on him of looking after the interests of America and Japan at Geneva and of settling world problems generally in other countries, could even ask for drastic powers of this description. He would be very well advised, busy Minister as he is, to seek the co-operation and assistance of some advisory body which would enlighten him as to the manner in which that section could be effectively worked.
I notice that the Minister does not seek to interfere in any way with the practice observed to a very great extent of lorries not licensed carrying passengers, especially on Sundays. The existing Finance Act makes provision for the imposition of certain penalties on people carrying passengers without a licence. Has the Minister made any inquiries as to the extent to which lorry owners are carrying passengers, especially on Sundays, without being licensed to do so and without any fear of being detected and punished? The Minister would be well advised to insert a sub-section dealing with that matter. I think it will be generally admitted that that practice has a very bad effect upon the revenue derived from the carrying of passengers on Sundays by the railways.
In Section 10 the Minister is asking for powers to issue what are known as occasional passenger licences. I hope the Minister later on will, in the matter of issuing occasional licences, give preference to companies plying normally on the route to which the application for an occasional licence refers. It is not right that a bus owner or bus company should be given an occasional licence to go into an area on a particular day to compete with the bus company normally serving that route.
In Section 11 (4) the Minister defines what he calls an existing service for the purpose of granting a licence. In the sub-section he says:
in the case of a continuous passenger road service, a passenger road service which was carried on continuously during the whole of the twelve months ending on the 31st day of October, 1931.
Why has not the Minister made the period two years instead of one? I suspect he made it one year because this Bill is at least three or four years overdue and the period of twelve months is meant to cover up mental laziness on the part of the Minister's Department—that section of it that should have prepared this Bill years ago.
In Section 24 (1) the Minister seeks power to prohibit the carriage of merchandise and mail bags by passenger road services. I would like some further reasons for that section. I am given to understand that some of the bigger bus companies derive a considerable revenue from parcel traffic. I am informed that in the case of one company the revenue amounts on an average to £400 a week. I quite agree it is not right for an ordinary 34 seater bus to be allowed to carry heavy parcels. Is there any good reason why the Minister should prevent a bus company that hitherto had the right to carry parcels from carrying small parcels, say up to 1 cwt., in future? The Minister may have a good case to make in support of these sub-sections but I would like to hear the case developed at greater length. As it is, we have merely the short language of the sub-section to rely upon.
Section 107 of the Road Traffic Bill appears to me to be unnecessary as a result of the repeal by the Road Transport Bill of The Railway (Road Motor Services) Act, 1927. If the Minister will look at sub-sections 6 and 7 of Section 107 of the Road Traffic Bill I think he will find himself in order in telling the Minister for Local Government that these sub-sections might very well be dropped. I refer to this matter to show the distance there appears to be between the Minister for Local Government and the Minister for Industry and Commerce in a matter of this kind. All this goes to show the necessity for the existence of one Department to control all traffic whether by road, rail or canal.
Let us come to that apologetic measure called the Railways (Miscellaneous) Bill, 1931. This Bill has been looked forward to by railwaymen and presumably by shareholders and directors, yet it is a Bill that could quite easily be condensed into one section instead of being, as it is, a Bill containing nineteen long-winded sections. It confers powers on the directors of the Great Southern Railways Company to reduce the number of members of the Board when they die—disappear of their own free will or by God's will. There is or there is not a case for a reduction of the number of members of the Board. If there is a good case for that reduction why allow members to remain on until, as one did recently, they reach 89 years? Others may possibly be allowed to remain until they are 75 or 80. The numbers will then be reduced when the existing members disappear by God's will. I do not think any good business company in this country, be it railway or otherwise, can be successfully carried on by a Board of 12 or 15 members.
If the members of this Party had any responsibility for the reorganisation of transport services, they would place the running of the railways in the hands of three men. We believe the railway industry here is not big enough to have a larger number of directors. The Board of three should consist of one individual with practical experience of railway working and experience of the handling of railway staffs; a good man with an expert knowledge of finance should be got at any price for the Board, and a highly-qualified engineer would complete the number. Such men would be competent to run the present company far better than it has been run by 14 or 15 old age pensioners. I think Deputy J.X. Murphy agrees with me on that point; I think I heard him say so.
Deputy Lemass referred to the section which confers power on the Minister to close certain branch lines where dividends had been previously guaranteed. The Minister can close them by order as a result of an inquiry held at his request. That appears to be an unbusinesslike proposition. It is unfair to the railway company to close down a section of a line by order and expect the company or its shareholders to maintain it until there is some rush of traffic into the area which will justify the Minister in revoking the order. I wonder would the return to their native districts of the many Corkmen who have got big jobs in the Government service bring about a re-opening of some of the baronially-guaranteed lines that may be closed in their county? I wonder would that event justify the Minister in revoking the closing down of those branch lines?
I understand that Deputy Timothy Sheehy of West Cork represents some of the areas where baronially-guaranteed lines are likely to be closed. I ask the Deputy, who I believe is a shareholder, whether it is fair for the Minister to close down those branch lines by order and ask the Deputy and other shareholders, amongst whom are other members of the House, to pay for the maintenance of the lines until such time as the Minister thinks fit to revoke his order? I would like to hear Deputy Sheehy on this matter. I believe he was heard with great effect at the shareholders' meetings. No doubt we would be all glad to know how he feels on a matter of this kind. I notice that the Minister does not seek power to close other sections of the line which may be working at a loss but which are not baronially-guaranteed. I am not, of course, anxious that he should have that power.
I say it is unfair for the Minister to close down any sections of the line by order and make no provision for compensating those who will lose their positions on the railways as a result. When the Railways Act of 1924 was before the House there were very plausible promises made by the Minister that all those who would lose their positions on the railways as a result of amalgamation would be compensated in accordance with their period of service and the conditions laid down in the Schedule. The Minister changed his mind in 1926. Those of us who have some knowledge of the existing conditions of the railwaymen who lost their jobs as a result of the amalgamation are aware that not ten per cent. of them got the compensation promised. There is all the more reason why there should be some definite provision made for the men who will lose their jobs through the operation of this particular section. I hope the Minister will accept an amendment which will be proposed taking upon himself responsibility for the payment of compensation to any railwaymen who lose their service as the result of the carrying out of an order such as is indicated in the section to which I have referred.
The Minister went to great pains to explain the reasons why he has not included in this Bill provision for the control of the 8,300 commercial lorries which have been stealing most of the valuable traffic from the railways during the past few years. He stated that 80 per cent. of these lorries are owned by business people who use them for their own business purposes and who on occasions, he admitted, accept return loads at very low rates, and possibly carry some traffic for nothing. I do not know that the Minister has given that matter the careful consideration which it requires, and I do not know that any Minister could make a good case why even 20 per cent. of people who own and use lorries plying for hire for profit should not be controlled by his Department and, if necessary, made pay a higher licensing fee than those lorry owners who use their lorries for their own business purposes. I think I could justify the imposition of an additional tax on the 20 per cent. of motor lorry owners who ply for hire and profit as against those, if the Minister likes, who use their lorries for their own business purposes. At any rate, I do not think that any public carrying company or any individual who plies for hire should be absolutely free from the control of some State Department so far as maximum and minimum rates are concerned.
I notice that the Minister in dealing with the passenger side under the Road Transport Bill makes provision for fixing maximum fares, while he says nothing about the necessity for minimum fares. The Minister also has made no provision in the Road Transport Bill to see that fair conditions of service and fair wages are provided by those who secure licences under the Bill. I propose on the Committee Stage to introduce an amendment making provision for proper working hours and fair conditions to be given to those who drive passenger-carrying vehicles under the terms of the Bill. I hope that Deputies who at election times are so much concerned with the welfare of the ordinary citizen will stretch their imagination so far as to insist upon such a necessary provision in this Bill before it passes its Final Stage. In my opinion the failure of the Minister to fix minimum rates and to make provision for the payment of fair wages to those who drive buses or lorries is in effect helping to continue the existing cut-throat competition amongst road transport companies. I am prepared to support any policy, whether it be a Government policy or any other policy, which will cut out these small companies from plying for hire.
There is one other thing I should like to point out to the Minister in connection with the necessity for greater control over the owners of the 8,300 commercial lorries using the roads as they like and doing what they like, and that is that the railway companies under the Carriers Act are obliged to accept any traffic tendered to them, whereas the 20 per cent. of the existing lorry owners can accept whatever traffic they like and charge any rate they like, and I understand are accepting most valuable traffic that would normally be carried by the railway company.
The Minister is well aware of the policy of this Party with regard to the transport industry. In the year 1923, when Deputy Lemass was roving around the roads of the country, the members of this Party took responsibility for the introduction of what is known as the Transport and Communications Bill. The policy of this Party is outlined in that Bill. With the exception of a very few modifications, which would be justified by the passage of time and the experience of the present day, that Bill still contains the transport policy of this Party. The Minister took the trouble to quote from the speech of the Chairman of the G.S.R. Company in which, as far as I can understand, he expressed satisfaction at the Government's amalgamation policy of 1924. The Minister contends, perhaps to a certain extent rightly, that were it not for the amalgamation policy of 1924, perhaps some of the smaller railway lines would be closed down some years ago. We supported the amalgamation policy of 1924 because we believed it was a better policy than allowing the smaller lines to continue as separate undertakings, but we contend that if the Government get any longer lease of life after the next general election they will, in the course of the next year or two, be forced to take the next step, which is the unification and nationalisation of the whole railway system in the Free State. That is the only policy which, in our opinion, will save the railways from bankruptcy.
And bankrupt everybody else.
I should like to hear Deputy Good on this matter, and I am sure he will at a later stage give us the benefit of his very valuable experience as a member of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. The Dublin Chamber of Commerce is credited with having the last word on every business matter. Deputy Good's advice and assistance in making this Bill a better Bill will certainly be accepted by the Minister. I think Deputy Good will be driven to realise that the amlgamation policy of 1924, the Road Transport Bill of 1931, or the Railway (Miscellaneous) Bill of 1931 will not solve this problem, but that the day is near at hand when Ministers responsible to this House and the people will be forced to take over the railways and work them in the interests of the trading and travelling public.
While I was interested in what Deputies Davin and Murphy had to say, and while I have a good deal of sympathy for the case put forward by them, I am not so pessimistic about this Bill as they appear to be. We must realise that we are living in an age of progress. Modern inventions and modern progress have placed our railways in an unfortunate position. I speak with a considerable amount of sympathy on that subject, as I happen to be an unfortunate shareholder in a number of them. While I agree that the position with regard to the railways is bad, I cannot agree with the Deputies when they say that this Bill is going to make the position worse. As I visualise the Bill, it is an effort to improve the position of the railways, and I think that when it emerges from Committee with some amendments it will possibly achieve that object, though probably not to the extent that Deputies Davin and Murphy would like. I am satisfied, however, that it is a real effort in the direction of doing something to help the transport position. I should like to remind Deputies, and I am sure that Deputy Murphy is fully aware of it, that the position of the railways is no worse than the position, not alone of the railways across the water, but of the railways in most countries. I speak again sympathetically, because I happen to be a shareholder in a number of them. The problem is not a national problem, but very largely an international one. All the nations of the world are trying to deal with a position similar to that we are trying to deal with through the medium of this Bill. That being the situation, I certainly would expect to hear from Deputy Murphy, at all events, something in the way of constructive proposals. Deputy Murphy, as a railway director, deplored the situation. As a railway shareholder I deplore the situation. But deploring the situation is not going to help us out of our difficulty. We are here to try and put forward some constructive proposals to help the Executive Council who are trying to find a solution of a very difficult problem.
No alternative proposal of any kind has been put before us by Deputy Murphy. Deputy Davin started in a little more hopeful way. His first proposition was to reduce the railway directors from twelve to three. That was going to work wonders. I was told many years ago that the best committee is a committee of two, with one absent. Having gone from twelve to three, I wonder will Deputy Davin go from three to one. If he comes that far, possibly I will be with him. While I was meditating on that serious proposition of the Deputy's he finished up with the old, old story—nationalise the railways. Deputy Lemass, however, took the wind out of his sails when, at the termination of his speech, he said that his solution was the nationalisation of the railways. Strange to say, in support of that proposition he instanced the case of the Electricity Supply Board. With that eloquence of his, which we fully appreciate, he asked: "Why should you nationalise electricity and not nationalise the railways?" If I had been in the bench behind the Deputy when he instanced the case of the E.S.B., I would have said to him: "The less you say on that subject at present the better." I think it was a most unfortunate argument to use, and I am sure Deputy Flinn, when he follows me, with that wisdom for which he is noted, will steer clear of the E.S.B. I do not know of any board that is more abused than that board, which is held up to us as an example of State control.
By the Dublin Chamber of Commerce.
We will leave the Chamber of Commerce alone for the moment. When we have to defend the Chamber of Commerce we will defend it, notwithstanding that it is attacked by important Deputies like Deputies Murphy and Flinn. But to get back to the subject of the Bill, I had a letter this morning from an omnibus owner of some considerable importance. I will not read the letter, but I shall give the recommendations with which he wound up. First of all, he urged that there should be restrictions on licences. I was glad to hear from the Minister in his opening remarks that one of the achievements he hoped to carry out under the Bill was to restrict the number of licences to omnibuses and thereby to stop a good deal of useless competition and, may I say, of the racing and other disadvantages on our highways at the moment. I think Deputies on all sides of the House will support the Minister in his object of reducing the number of licences and reducing thereby the number of buses. The second proposition, urged by this bus owner, was that in allotting licences to buses in the future priority should be given to buses that had been running in the past successfully over certain routes. I was also glad to hear from the Minister that he hopes to see this carried out and that those buses that rendered good service in the past will have no difficulty in getting licences to continue their service in the future.
There are one or two other matters in connection with this Bill to which I should like to draw attention. In regard to buses, we were considering this question to some extent on the Road Traffic Bill, and it was urged from different parts of the House that in granting licences the Minister, or his Department, should see that a proper time-table was observed so that we should stop that wasteful competition and racing which is going on on the roads at the present moment. I would like to hear something from the Minister in that connection when he comes to reply. There are two other points that occur to one in connection with buses when we are dealing with road transport. We ought to have some idea, or we ought to have some legislation, or at any rate some order, to control the size and weight of buses. To some extent that is done at the moment as regards weight, but I think it is very desirable in a country like ours, with a number of by-roads, some of which are extremely narrow, that there should be control of size. As we know, there is not room on some of these by-roads for two buses to pass, and while it may be desirable to close some of these by-roads it is also desirable to have some limitation to the size applied to buses. Then again, we shall, also, put a limitation upon the size of lorries, and, in addition, we ought to limit the size of the goods they carry. Some of us who use the roads know to our misfortune what it is to see a bus approaching with obstacles sticking out from the side of the bus.
That comes under the Road Traffic Bill.
This matter should be dealt with under the Road Transport Bill?
No, under the Road Traffic Bill.
The difficulty is in these problems that when we are dealing with the Road Traffic Bill the Minister says "I respectfully suggest that that would be more properly dealt with under the Road Transport Bill," and now when we try to bring it in under the Road Transport Bill, An Leas-Cheann Comhairle comes in and says it would more properly come under the Road Traffic Bill. I am only pointing out that to show the difficulties under which Deputies labour.
Under this proposed Transport Bill the Minister intends that the Railway Tribunal shall cease to function. I do not think that the Railway Tribunal was very helpful in the past. It has been helpful in particular cases in fixing rates, but as I understand the position it is that in future these rates are to be fixed very largely in consultation with the Department of Industry and Commerce. I visualise a position in which even the Department may not be disposed to intervene. Take an independent lorry running and charging a high rate. The railway charges may be excessive. Is a person who is anxious to have goods carried to have no tribunal to which such difficulty can be referred? I would be glad if the Minister would consider that aspect of the question. Cases occasionally arise in which we are anxious to get low rates of transport between certain areas and in which we do not always succeed. The object of the railway tribunal in the past was that if we did not get the rates down to what we considered a reasonably low figure we could appeal to the tribunal. While the tribunal possibly has not justified its existence, and while the Minister may be right in dissolving it, I question whether it will not be necessary to set up some tribunal, departmental or otherwise, to which traders can refer in cases of emergency.
There was another thing the Minister mentioned about which I would like some information. I presume that we are dealing with the two Bills here——
The Minister in his statement said that as regards the carriage of goods the railways would be put upon the same terms as the lorries. I do not know exactly how this is to be carried out. I do not know what the Minister had exactly in mind when he said the railways were to be put on exactly the same terms as the lorries. Perhaps the Minister will explain later. The only other point I have to raise at the moment is in regard to the baronial lines. We understand from the Railway Bill that the Minister intends that on these lines the statutory services shall be continued, and in cases where there was no statutory services that the obligation would be placed upon the railway companies to maintain a reasonable service upon these lines. While that may be desirable from one point of view, a difficulty arises. If services are found to be uneconomic is the railway company to be compelled to maintain them? I think there again there should be some means of inquiry. Supposing that the railway company held there were other alternative services possible—there might be bus services—I am speaking now of baronial lines, other possible alternatives might be suggested by the railway company, and one would like consideration given to such alternatives. The railway company runs buses at the moment and they may allege that it would be much more economical to run bus services between these particular points rather than maintain a railway service which is much more costly. These are the only points that occur to me at the moment. Doubtless when we come to Committee we will have a number of other suggestions to make in connection with the Bills.
Thousands of railwaymen and shareholders and many hundreds of dismissed railwaymen will be sorely disappointed at this Bill. The Minister is responsible for the amalgamation of the railways which resulted in the dismissal of many hundreds of railwaymen. Had the Great Southern Railway been left alone and not compelled to have to take on the burden of the smaller railways, I think they would have been in a much better position to-day. Some months ago close upon 100 men were dismissed at Limerick. A deputation consisting of the Mayor of Limerick and seven Deputies waited upon the Minister and requested him to take that matter up with the company with a view to the cancelling of the men's notices. The Minister said at that time if he asked the company to cancel the notices it might prejudice the men's claims for compensation. I understood from the Minister on that occasion that provision would be made in the Bill with a view to compensating those dismissed men many of whom had twenty, thirty, forty and even fifty years' service and who were dismissed without being paid a penny compensation. If the Minister is not prepared to accept an amendment to compensate the dismissed men the result will be that these men and their families will be a burden upon the rates. I appeal to the Minister to accept an amendment before the Bill goes through to see that compensation is given to these unfortunate men dismissed in this way.
I understand the last time the Minister made a statement upon this subject that he declared himself 100 per cent. a railwayman, and that he was practically withdrawing a Bill in the process of construction because it did not contain these particular clauses and these particular qualities which were regarded as sufficiently valuable by the railway company. It is quite evident that he has not succeeded in convincing those who are interested in the railway, either from the point of view of directors or workmen, that he is, in fact, 100 per cent. a railwayman when it comes to the issue. I am not saying that in any controversial sense at all. He evidently has not met the case from the merely selfish labour railway point of view. Up to a point, I am 100 per cent. railwayman. I believe that, as we are at present constituted, and as our problem actually is at the moment, the railway is essential. Whether the railway will continue to be essential is a very different question. I have had the pleasure of hearing the Minister on an occasion, not a controversial occasion, dealing very ably, in my opinion, and very comprehensively, with a series of alternatives to the present transport system as we now have it. But, having regard to the present actual condition—and I start from that—the railway is at present necessary. From that, one thing follows: That the railway, which is at present necessary, must receive, from whatever source it receives it, that amount of revenue that will enable it to function.
Whether that revenue comes in subventions from the State, or whether it comes in rates on goods, on traffic, or whether it comes in restrictions, even within legitimate limits, on alternative competing traffic, that revenue which is essential to keeping the railways in skeleton form in existence in this country must be provided for. Here, probably, is where I will fall foul of what you might call the railway interest. It is on the question of what revenue is essential for them, what amount of goods and services the general community must be prepared to sacrifice to the railway interest in return for keeping in existence that particular transport system. I agree with Deputy Good that the problem which we have to face is the problem of progress; that the comparative or relative destruction of the railway capital or the railway position is a sign of progress; that every development in transport, if coming along legitimately and economically, cuts into the monopoly which the railways previously had. To that extent, to the extent to which that is so, the country does not owe to the existing railway transport system compensation, any more than it would to any trader or anybody else operating in production whose particular method of unreformed production was competed with by a new advance in science.
It is not, in my opinion, right, having regard to the fact that those actually progressive effects have depreciated the ordinary capital to a non-dividend paying basis that the community should be compelled to subsidise these existing transport systems to the extent of guaranteeing the whole dividend on the nominal value of the whole of the ordinary stocks. If the railway companies are to come to the community, to the farmer, the labourer, the shopkeeper and other producers and in return for the transport system which they provide, demand the minimum means which are required to keep it in production, they must be prepared to meet the proposition of drastic reorganisation in the nominal capital values of that undertaking down to the level which is represented by something approaching the actual facts. That being conceded I think as long as we require the railway here we must be prepared to pay that which is required to pay. The second question is how are we to do that? One thing I think that we should hesitate very much to do is to restrict the progressive development of alternative transit in so far as it is economical. The bus service which has been regarded as an ugly pariah, which worries Deputy Good and myself at the corners of roads and throws up nasty dust and runs away from us at a terrible pace——
Not at 70 miles an hour, the rate at which Deputy Flinn goes.
At 70 miles an hour I have seen buses that would leave me standing. Those have been regarded to some extent as pariah services. They have won out because they have done definite service to the people who use them.
They are subsidised by the railways and ratepayers.
Very well, we are now asked that the railway companies be subsidised by the rates as we have subsidised alternative transport. I do not want Deputy Davin to become controversial and I do not want to become controversial myself, but if Deputy Davin is going to take up the position of being an advocate of a particular transport system and of saying "To hell with everything else so long as my particular barony is prosperous and all right," then he must look for trouble and he will get it. Now the buses have done a service and have won on the value of that service. It is not right to say that that service shall be improperly restricted merely because there is the railway service. If in fact they show that road transport shows possibilities of developing, not merely as a substitute, but to eliminate completely the railway service it is entitled to do it on its merits.
Yes, on its merits.
It has gone a long way in doing it.
At whose expense?
On its merits, to the point that it can live in honest competition at its own expense.
On the ratepayers' roads.
I agree. I have said in this House, and I am prepared to take it that the road on which a service is maintained must be paid for by the service. I have no hesitation in saying that. If the roads are maintained for a particular competing service at a cost to the community which is not borne by any competing service, then the bus service is being subsidised by the community in exactly the same way as it is suggested that the railways should be subsidised by restricting the legitimate rights of alternative transport services. I think there should be a fair deal, and the railway companies should meet us first by frankly saying: "We do not mean to take out of the community in the fixed interest on ordinary shares the amount which we claim." When they have done that they will have put themselves into court in this matter. At the present moment I do not think they are in court in that matter.
It has been suggested that the restriction of licences will reduce competition. The restriction of licences, if it is properly done, will increase competition. Where you have two competing bus services on the same road, capable of dealing with the same traffic, two overheads have to be taken out of the fares. The fares in competition with the railway companies have to be raised by the amount of the two overheads instead of one overhead. If you have two more or less efficient bus services on a particular road in competition with the railway company, and if you shut down one of these services you make it a more effective competitor and not a less effective competitor with the railway company. That point has to be considered. On the question of where licences have been withdrawn, and the question of what the resultant fare is to be, I have this to say: If it is to benefit the railway company the actual number of bus runs on a particular road per day has to be reduced. The actual facilities to the public have to be reduced or the rates have to be raised in order to force the people back on to the railways. I cannot see any other way in which the mere supervision of licencing for bus services is going to benefit the railway company. It is either by the reduction of existing facilities, which the people apparently want and use, or by an increase in the fares which the people are now paying. I want to see that there is some definite limitation of the increase which can be put upon those fares as a result of the limitation of competition. We had a case in Cork where the I.O.C. took over the Cork tramways. They then ran a bus service. I think it was Deputy Good who said that the rates should be fixed in consultation with the Department. The rates in this particular case were fixed in consultation with the City Manager, and it almost produced a sort of not which nearly eliminated the City Manager. I do not want the City Manager eliminated for that reason, nor do I want the restriction on the issue of licences to create a position in which there will be a monopoly of freights charged upon the competing services.
The second case is the lorry traffic. As far as I can see from statistics of the Great Southern Railway, it is mostly upon passenger traffic that it subsists. It is through the transfer to the private motor car of this passenger traffic that the railways have lost. They have not lost so much on the ordinary third class fares or upon the bus fares. What they have lost is by transfer to the velvet highways of the private motor cars of the first class traffic. We are not doing anything to affect that. What we are going to do is to acquire some more buses and lorries for the velvet highway so that they can be more fully covered by motor cars and be in more effective competition with the railways. I do not know whether that is the intention but it appears to be the effect. Take the lorry traffic. The fact that the lorry traffic is growing is not due to any prejudice on the part of the consumers of transit. It is because there is a definite convenience to the public. There are men on all sides of this House who told me of their own experiences. Cattle were bought at a fair. They do not have to be driven to the railway stations, kept waiting there for the trains and put into boxes, shunted along and then driven three or four or five miles from the destination station to the farm. They have been put into the lorry at the fair and they have been delivered on to the land. To the extent to which that has been done and to the extent to which analogous things have been done in every trade with regard to traffic, any artificial method of driving that traffic back to the railways is going to be a definite hindrance to economic development and the production of wealth, and an inconvenience to those seeking a livelihood in this country.
I do not want anything done in this Bill that will have that effect. There has been a very legitimate and a very valuable transit system built up on the roads, both for passengers and goods, by petrol vehicles. Any action which does effectively damage that progressive activity, while it may artificially boost the shares of the railway temporarily, will do a corresponding damage to the economic position of the country, and it will take again out of the railway companies the artificial value we put into them. I have been asked to raise one particular point and I am not quite sure it is not a Committee point. Perhaps the Minister will look into it in the meantime. It seems a long cry from Haulbowline Island to even a Railway (Miscellaneous Traffic) Bill and I would have thought that I could not approach that. There is a way to approach it. There is at the present moment a Haulbowline an Industries Company and an Oil Wharves Company which is importing oil into Cobh and storing it on the island. They want facilities to bring the oil from the tanks on the island to tanks on the mainland at Rushbrook. The only land which is suitable for that purpose happens to belong to the railway company. Deputy Murphy may recognise it as that portion above the station at Cobh which is covered now by the present disused engine sheds. The suggestion was to build oil tanks on the railway ground, but there were certain difficulties with regard to amenities and so on. It was then suggested that the tanks should be put underground, where, in my opinion, they would not be any way unsightly or anything of that kind. Under a section in an existing Act—unfortunately I have not got it with me—the railway company found itself prohibited from allowing that piece of land to be used for anything but railway purposes. Under Section 16, which I understand the railway company regards as the only valuable section in the whole Bill, the railway company have a right to dispose of surplus land. Undoubtedly this particular piece of property is surplus, in the sense that it is not being used for railway purposes, but for hard court tennis, at least the place above it is. It is not being used for railway purposes at all. Assuming that the other difficulties can be got over I want the Minister to consider whether such a case as the one I have mentioned could not be brought under Section 16, and power given to the railway company to dispose of this land for industrial purposes of this kind.
I would like briefly to say that I have been very definitely and publicly in favour of the railway company where the railway company was, in my opinion, quite wrongly and improperly attacked by cross-Channel interests, where an attempt was made to prevent them regulating freights in such a way as would give them the traffic which they require. In every other way in which I have contact with the railways and where I recognise the value and the necessity to the country of the railways, I have been on their side. I am on their side now absolutely, to every extent which is just, but the railway companies must meet us. They are not entitled to ignore the fact that a considerable proportion of the depreciation in the value of their property is not due to any causes internal to the State, is not due to any particular act of this State, but is, to some extent, due to the progressive development of other means of transport. They must be prepared to express recognition of that fact in the amount of money which they demand as the minimum amount which they require in order that these services should be maintained.
The second thing is, I am not prepared to see the railway company, merely as an excuse for its necessity, to be used for the purpose of sabotaging off the roads the legitimate users of these roads, either for the purpose of carrying passengers or goods. I am not prepared for the position that the railway company shall be able to say to a man, if it suits it to do so, "you shall not have cattle which are bought in the fair conveyed direct to the farm where they are required without having to undergo two or three transhipments on the railway." Subject to these conditions I would do everything I could to put the railway companies on a basis in which nationalisation would not be necessary.
What about Deputy Lemass?
I am speaking now for myself. I face nationalisation as one of those evil necessities only to which one may be driven. I am not a land nationaliser, a railway nationaliser or a business nationaliser per se. I go there when I have to go there. What I want to do is not to be driven there by that position. If the railway companies will demand of this community that the State shall sacrifice the roads to other legitimate users in order that they may be maintained; if they demand from the State in this form, or in any form, the subsidies which apparently some of them do demand; if they are going to get the whole of their revenue and depend for their expenditure on the support of the State, as some of them are apparently prepared to do, to that extent they are taking out of the hands of those of us who are individualists, our whole argument against their nationalisation. I want to see a condition brought about on a fair basis in which the railway company can function as a more or less individualist organisation. It is for that reason that I ask the railway companies, and I ask those interested in the individual management of the railway companies, not to do this, and not to ask that others shall do on their behalf those things which will make them so dependent upon the State for their existence that the only proper owner of them shall be the State.
[An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.]
I do not think it is necessary to reiterate the arguments with regard to competition with the railways. The railways created their own roads, and the principal opposition to them has arisen from lorries and buses for which the ratepayers provided the roads. Lorries are carrying traffic at any rate that they can possibly get. Those who run lorries and buses are not restricted with regard to the payment of trade union wages or hours. My contention is— and I speak in the interests of a branch line that serves my constituency —that if branch lines or short distance railways are to be preserved, then railways must be put in a position to carry traffic at minimum rates and the classification of traffic cancelled. The railways must be given an opportunity of carrying traffic for whatever rates they can obtain for doing so. Under this Bill the railway companies are to be given power to operate lorry traffic. In my opinion, if the railway owned lorries are operated on the same basis as the railways are operated, and if the employees are to be bound by trade union conditions, then the lorries put on the roads by the railway companies to compete with the present lorries will not be a success. I am not prepared to discuss the merits of the bus services, lorry competition, or railway nationalisation. These are matters that I leave for those with wider experience. In my opinion, if the railways are nationalised, then it will mean disaster both for the railways and the country. I would strongly urge the Minister to give consideration to the suggestion that I have made regarding the cancellation of the classification of goods traffic on the railways. If the railways and particularly the branch lines, are to be preserved for the benefit of the country the classification of goods traffic should go.
One of the Bills now before the House makes provision for the temporary abandonment of certain railways and the possible resumption of services upon those branch lines later on. Except the Minister, I wonder is any Deputy optimistic enough to believe that if a branch line has to be abandoned for a period of months or of years that that railway line can be restarted as a working proposition. I wonder if that would be reasonably possible? If we endanger part of the network of the railways that we have, will it be such an easy job to set up the system again? In the matter of transport we have seen a strange and a far-reaching revolution in a comparatively short time. Up to twenty years ago we had a system of railways about which there were many complaints, but, when everything was looked into, the railways suffered only from a sort of economic anæmia, namely, want of traffic. The cure to which we resorted later on was to allow every amateur who was able to get a bus or lorry on the hire purchase system, to place that bus or lorry on the road, perhaps uninsured, and until he became bankrupt or was killed in a collision, he proceeded to divert traffic from the railways which were starving for it, before the competition started at all. The Minister tells us in his speech that one of the results of this new Bill of his is that the railway companies may enter into more intensive competition on the roads with goods lorries. Apparently we are to have over again, in regard to goods, the fierce competition that we have witnessed already with such disastrous results in regard to passengers. I would ask the House to consider: Is it worth while further endangering these railway systems? Is it worth while, for the sake of watching this interesting and intensive competition between the railway companies with their goods lorries and the private individuals with lorries, temporarily to close up branch lines, even though there is this enabling power later on, when we get sick and tired of the road competition, to set these railway lines working again? I have been unable to find any reliable evidence that lorries can seriously contend with railways for long distance traffic, indeed for any traffic, unless such traffic as feeds the railway.
I do not pose as having any expert knowledge on that, but from my investigation I have been unable to find any evidence to show that the road services can give anything equal to what the railways provide at the present time, and it is problematical whether they will be able to give such services within any reasonable time. If that is so, why, as I said before, should we run any risk with such a great national asset as the railways? I must say that I felt impressed by a great deal of what Deputy Davin said. Deputy Davin probably has a great deal more technical knowledge of these matters than I have. I do not know how his remarks may have impressed other Deputies, but certainly I agree that it is regrettable that a farmer who in the past was accustomed to have perhaps a double line of railway to a fair in order to take his cattle away if they were sold, or in order to bring his cattle to the fair if he lived a long way off, now in many instances has lost his railway altogether. In other instances he has lost the second line of railway which was particularly useful on a fair day. It is regrettable that instead he has got the problematical service of a lorry which may come to his farm for his cattle and which may or may not bring them punctually to the fair. He has the pleasure of paying extra taxation in order to maintain the roads on which that lorry will travel. He has also to suffer as Deputy Davin pointed out in driving his cattle or his horses along the road built to compete with the railways. He runs the risk of their slipping on the glassy surface, as frequently occurs, and thereby suffering loss. It seems hardly worth while changing the transport system to reach such a state of affairs.
Deputy White seems to think that trade union conditions are the canker in any system whether it be a railway system, a lorry system or a bus system. Possibly the baneful influence of trade union conditions may be greatly exaggerated. In the past before this cut-throat competition started, we had a large number of men who were professional railwaymen engaged in the trade of transport, living in this country, receiving trade union wages, living under trade union conditions. The country did not seem a bit the worse of it, before this lorry competition started. I cannot recall that any real complaint was then made against the railway companies for extravagance in the payment of trade union wages or the observance of trade union conditions. When we got lorries and buses on the roads, with absence of trade union conditions we had under-paid or barely-sufficiently paid men, working too long hours, falling asleep in their buses or lorries and endangering life and limb in the traffic on the roads. This complaint about trade union rates may easily be pushed too far. At all events many of those who may perhaps object to trade union rates will realise that it is rather too late in the day, that it is perhaps half a century too late now, to make a stand against trade union wages and conditions. If trade union wages and conditions are to prevail here, this country can more easily afford them if it has but one system of long distance transport, namely, the railway system, than if it has two systems.
If it is conceded that in this country there is not more than enough traffic for one system, then, if we have two systems, we must necessarily cut down wages. Perhaps a day will come after the agricultural and industrial policy that has been frequently enunciated from the benches on this side of the House has prevailed when there will be a great deal more traffic in this country, when we may have traffic not only for our railways, but when we may need auxiliary long distance road facilities, but that happy day is not yet. In the meantime, I think that this Bill fails lamentably to meet the present situation, that nothing is less desirable than to intensify the competition between the lorries and the buses or between the buses and the railway companies pending some radical reorganisation of the whole transport system in the direction of nationalisation or some other direction. I do not know enough about the subject to express a view either for or against nationalisation. So far from encouraging wasteful competition of this sort, we ought to preserve the lines that we have so that if and when the day comes for nationalisation they will be there, that they will not be grass-grown and abandoned, that they will be there as a going concern. In the meantime, if the public requires roads goods traffic, that traffic should be restricted entirely to bringing goods to the railway stations when the destination of the goods is a considerable distance from the point at which they are consigned. There are other objections that I would make to the Bill, but they are objections in detail and I would prefer to reserve them for a later stage. Again I express regret that this Bill seems to be entirely unmindful of traffic limitation as regards volume in this country and that it is not going far enough at all in eliminating what is wasteful and uneconomic.
I intend to be brief in what I have to say on this matter. I should like to direct the Minister's attention to certain matters and certain provisions in this Bill. Most public bodies that have to do with administration have expressed themselves fairly clearly that the ratepayers in the main are called upon to provide a permanent way for bus traffic. They are called upon to maintain routes and to maintain them in good condition. A good deal of the money they pay goes into the maintenance of routes for bus traffic. I find also in this Bill another provision which enables railway companies to close down branch lines.
Where in this Bill?
Mr. Hogan
Is it not in one of the two Bills we have here?
That the railway company are enabled to close branch lines? That is nowhere.
Mr. Hogan
I do not say "enabled." By order of the Minister.
That is different.
Mr. Hogan
What is the use of trying, when I am endeavouring to reach a destination, to side-track me into a siding? I am not going to take it. I am going to keep on the main track, notwithstanding that the signal is against me. I come from a county where baronial guaranteed lines have been in operation. The deficit on these lines has been made up from the ratepayers' pockets. The deficit has never been fairly calculated. The material advantage that these lines brought as feeders to the main lines has never been taken into consideration. They have acted as feeders to the main lines. Now we find that the Minister can close these lines when possibly the main lines are giving something back of what they got before from these baronial lines, thus again putting a burden on the ratepayers in disposing of the services to which they were entitled.
This matter has been extensively dealt with, and I do not propose to deal with it further than to point out to the Minister the possibility of closing down these lines when they might be of service to those people who have been paying for them for a long period. In the matter of buses, there is one question to which I want to refer. In one part of my county, where there are very little railway services, and where a bus service has been operated for five years and has given sufficient service for that period to an extensive district where no railway touched—a service which was really as Deputy Aiken suggested, taking to the railway all the traffic which could not reach it otherwise when sent from a long distance—we find one of the juggernaut companies coming along in the last fortnight and putting a service on that line, so that it might come within the provisions of these Bills. We find that where that one little service was operating and giving satisfaction for five years, doing what was necessary for that period, giving a very substantial and useful service, one of the big services comes in, creates competition for traffic that is not there, and endeavours to wipe out this small bus service. That big company has come in in the last fortnight, but the other service has been operating there for the last five years. I think it is not right that this other company should have been allowed to come into the area when there is no traffic for it.
The introduction of this Bill and the other Bill, the Road Traffic Bill, shows the great necessity for some co-ordination in the transport services of the State. Perhaps the Bill was too long delayed, as some Deputy suggested, and perhaps it was not. I suppose it was well that the Minister delayed to see what way the bus services would be carried on. These bus services have been of great benefit to the country in general. They have tapped a great many areas throughout the country that the railways could not tap or never had any inclination to tap. The railways did not ask for permission to put buses on the roads in order to take the passengers to the main lines. Whether it was the railways' fault or the restrictions imposed by trade departments in the past, I do not know. There is one thing I certainly wish to say, and that is that I am afraid the railways are, to a large extent, to blame for the financial condition they are in to-day in regard to passenger traffic. In the case of goods traffic, the position is perhaps worse. Their charges are very much greater than they were. They are 100 per cent. above what they were in 1914. I take, for instance, a town in West Limerick. There is a town in West Limerick in which very large cattle fairs are held, and there is a sum of £3,500 more paid to-day for traffic from that station than in 1914. I cannot understand why the railways are in such a bad way in view of this extra revenue. It is not a question of wages, because when the hours were shortened the number of men employed was reduced. Where six men were employed before there are now only four. The result of all this is that there is a definite tax imposed on areas a long distance from Dublin or ports, such as Limerick. That is a very unfair tax. I believe it is to the disadvantage of the baronial lines which had to be guaranteed in the past.
A good many of the farmers of the county of Limerick complained that the present extra costs of transport of stock to and from the farms to-day as compared with 1914, is even greater than their total poor rate. I am satisfied that that is the case—that the extra cost of transport from their farms to-day as compared with 1914 is more than their total poor rate. A good many of them have complained of that to me. I have gone into the figures, and I say that it is the fact. We have a great many demands for derating. It would be a greater advantage to the farmers if they could get a reduction to the 1914 figures. The Minister has stated that there has been a million and a quarter reduction in wages from 1914 to 1930.
Not wages, but in the cost of working.
Could we get a comparison of the cost of working between 1914 and to-day?
The Minister has it all right.
It would be interesting to know the facts as regards the experience of men in the cattle business. Men, say, from Co. Cavan go to the fair at Abbeyfeale on Monday to buy their calves there, and by means of lorries they can have them landed in Co. Cavan that same evening, while under the railway system they would not have them in Cavan until Tuesday evening, and, unless they met the connection here in Dublin, they would not have them in Cavan until Wednesday evening. By means of the lorry they can have them in Cavan on Monday evening and have them fed by the lorry drivers on the way. In one case it is a one-day delivery and by the other method a three-days' delivery.
Is the Deputy quite sure of that?
Absolutely. From Abbeyfeale they leave by lorry at 10 o'clock in the morning and they can be in Cavan and Meath and North Louth that evening, and the drivers feed the calves on the road, whereas if taken by rail they will not arrive in Cavan until Tuesday evening, and if they miss the connection on Tuesday morning they will not get to Cavan until Wednesday.
If the Deputy would take out the "ifs."—does he really suggest that it takes three days from Abbeyfeale to Cavan?
Under the best circumstances they cannot get to Cavan until Tuesday evening. They arrive in Dublin between 6 and 7 o'clock on Tuesday morning. That is the earliest hour at which they can get there. The Midland train leaves at 7 or 8 and it may frequently happen—it has happened to myself I think dozens of times—that they miss the connection at Cabra. Under these circumstances the calves are taken out of the waggons and put in one of the places round Cabra and they get nothing to eat but hay and water, which is not suitable food for calves, and they are pretty well famished when they get to their destination on Tuesday or Wednesday evening. Under the best circumstances they could not get to their destination by rail until Tuesday evening whereas by lorry you could get them there on Monday evening. That is 24 hours' advantage. Then in the case of stock coming to the Dublin market, if brought by lorry they can be loaded at midnight on Wednesday and landed in the market on Thursday morning, while if they come by rail they will have to be loaded early on Wednesday morning. These advantages have to be taken into consideration; and while it may not be a proper thing to speak against the railways here—nobody has suggested anything against them so far—at the same time the lorry traffic has to be considered in view of the great advantage that it is; and for that reason I hope that the Minister will not place any disadvantages in the way of the lorry owner, whether he is a lorry owner for hire or a lorry owner for the transport of his own stock.
Then let us take the transport of goods also. I suppose the best way is to give one's own experience. I can get stuff delivered from Limerick to my own door at 10/- per ton, while by rail it would be 13/4 from Limerick to the nearest railway station, which is five or six miles away, while the cost of bringing it from that railway station to my store would be nearly as much as bringing it from Limerick by lorry. The railway companies do not seem to make any suggestion to meet that disadvantage to me. Then again, I may get an invoice in the morning by rail and have to send two or three times to the railway station before I get the goods. You had no certainty as to the time your goods would arrive at the station. I should be very sorry that the railways should be knocked out altogether for the transport of heavy traffic and for long distances, but the other means of transport has also to be taken into consideration, as has also the convenience of the general public. There is another point also, it is in connection with the conveyance of mails. The buses are now prevented from carrying mails. In the past mail cars often carried two or three passengers. Will the same restriction apply to the mail cars carrying passengers as to the buses carrying mails? Section 24 prohibits the carriage of merchandise and mail bags by passenger road service.
Why did you not let the bus carry cattle?
Why not prevent the bus carrying anybody, as Deputy Davin would wish?
Oh, no.
I hope these mail cars will not be prevented from carrying a few passengers.
These proposals are hardly as good as we expected, but, of course, we did not expect they would. It seems to me that the Minister has left the Bill too vague, that its administration will depend too much upon the outlook of the particular Minister who is responsible for it, that as it stands at present it may be administered in quite different ways by successive Ministers. The Minister has announced the policy which he himself intends to follow with regard to it. I think it would be quite open to a successor of the present Minister to administer it in quite a different way. The Minister has told us that he is going to keep his eyes fixed on a monopoly, or on two or three monopolies in the country, that in regard to Dublin traffic he intends to see that the trend is to give the Tramways Company a monopoly in passenger traffic, and in regard to rural traffic that he will show similar favour to the railway company. Surely he must admit that if another Minister came along he could utilise the Bill for quite a different purpose, that he could utilise it for irritating these same companies and making it impossible for them to continue by inserting conditions in licences which would encourage the smaller people. I do not think that is the line on which the Dáil should legislate in regard to a big problem like transport. I think it would be better if we set down definitely our ideas as to what is required in regard to transport requirements and legislate in accordance with these ideas. From one point of view, the Bill proposes to lessen the competition on the roads. Presumably there will be no more licences where the services at present are adequate, and where they are well conducted. On the other hand, it is proposed to increase the competition on the roads with regard to lorry traffic. The Minister proposes to encourage the railway companies to go out after all the goods traffic that they can get on the roads and even to borrow money, I think, for that purpose. But he does not promise that they will get any return for that money. The shareholders of the Great Southern Railways at least—and, I suppose, those of the Great Northern Company also—have been in despair for a long time past as to the future of their property. Is it right that, in that state of affairs, we should, without being quite sure of what is going to result, encourage the railway company to put a lot of capital into machinery for road transport? I can hardly see that the Bill is going to make any big improvement in any line. The evolutionary process which is to bring about the elimination of competing concerns is rather a cruel prospect. The Minister said that the one-man vehicle or the two-man vehicle must go, and I think it would be a fair description of his policy to say that it will be his policy to get rid of him as quickly as possible, that it will be his policy to give the big owners advantages in so far as he can by the administration of this Bill.
If we are not to divest ourselves of all humanitarian feeling, that does not seem a very pleasant prospect to very many poor people who have put their capital into bus concerns. They have given good service to the public and they have been encouraged —in effect at all events—by the Minister in doing what they have done. I think the Minister once said that he could see no more objection, or rather that he had no more right to interfere with competing bus services than he had a right to interfere with competing drapers' shops. Now he is going to adopt a different principle and to proceed to eliminate these people who were encouraged by remarks of that kind, or at least encouraged by the lack of opposition on the part of the Government, to put their capital into road vehicles and to develop services for the public. That puts, I say, a rather horrid prospect in front of us. We are going to see these people crushed after doing their best. Probably they will have to go out on any terms that are offered to them. The Minister in one section of the Bill inserts a provision that will in my opinion mean that the moment this Bill is passed the goodwill in any service, and even the selling value of the vehicles, will disappear. He puts in a provision by which if I have a bus service going and I sell it to my neighbour he can refuse a licence to that person. I cannot sell my licence to anybody, however reputable the person may be. That is to my mind a very cruel provision. We cannot pass it without doing great injustice to a number of people who are not in any way enemies of the State and who do not deserve ill-treatment.
There are several other provisions in these Bills that I think do not look too well. I think eight directors for the Railway Company is a rather large number. Further, I fail to see why the Minister in making provision in regard to railway directors should not take powers to put some of his own nominees on the board. If the State is to have such control over transport in the future, if it is regulating charges and all the general conditions under which transport is carried on, I cannot see why it would not be practicable and extremely useful to have the power to nominate two or three directors who would carry out the policy of the State.
There is one curious omission with regard to the closing of branch lines. The Minister may approve of the closing of a branch line if he is satisfied that a road service can be substituted with advantage. But he has no power to lay down charges with regard to the conveyance of goods on that road service. So that if any of the baronial guaranteed lines that we are familiar with—the Ballinrobe and Claremorris line, the Loughrea and Attymon, or any other—be abandoned after a local inquiry and a road service substituted, the local people will have no guarantee whatever that their goods will be conveyed at anything like reasonable cost. It is a curious defect, especially when one considers the areas in which these lines that are particularly mentioned in the Bill are situated. They are generally very poor areas.
In my opinion it would have been better if the Bill had proposed to eliminate competition once and for all. I think it would be more satisfactory to the State in every way and that it would result in less cruelty to the small men who are conducting road services at present. It would mean probably a great saving in the end if he had taken power to get rid of all public competition on the road. The money that is being spent on rival services must be coming from somewhere and surely it could be better spent. Take Dublin to Bray, for instance. I think there are at least three road services there as well as a railway line. There must be very big waste involved in running these services and surely the money could be better spent than in that way. But there is a much more serious waste than has been referred to in this debate—the waste arising from damage to the roads. I think that this whole problem is very closely linked up with the expenses of road maintenance and road improvement. Unfortunately the State has never given us any help in understanding that part of it. They have never given us even the opinion of their own engineers as to what that particular work is going to cost in the future or even what it is costing at present. The Minister talked a while ago about holding a local inquiry, when it would be proposed to close down a branch line, and said it would be put to the people whether they would be satisfied with an alternative road service, and if they had to pay more for it whether they would be prepared to face the increased cost. But he cannot in present circumstances offer them any idea as to what the maintenance of a road on which a service of heavy vehicles would be run would cost them. The distribution of the Road Fund we all know is not done on any particular principle. It is done in a haphazard way, consequently nobody can form any idea at the present time as to what the cost of road maintenance is over any number of years. For that reason I do not think that he will be able to get any clear opinion from the people in one of these areas. However willing they might be to give information that would be worth while, I do not see that they would be in a position to offer it.
To come back again to the case I have mentioned of Dublin to Bray. The fact that there are unnecessary vehicles on that road means that money is being wasted, that not only is it being wasted through unnecessary services, but by the very serious effect on the roads. With housing in such a state, and with the many other demands that face the Government, it is a pity that we are going to continue the system indefinitely on such a route as that. The people who are there at present will probably decide, now that the Minister has threatened them, that they are going to see as far as they can prevent it, that he will not have a chance of wiping them out of existence and that if he wants to extinguish them he will have to come along with a definite proposal to extinguish them. The services on that particular line, then, may continue indefinitely, and, of course, there are a great many other lines of the same kind.
Another question arises, too, with regard to the Minister's forecast as to how this Bill is to be administered when it becomes an Act. He said that within fifteen miles of Dublin the Tramway Company would be regarded as being entitled to all the traffic, and that services from the country would not be allowed to pick up passengers. Is the Minister satisfied that there can be bus services for the rural parts if he makes that decision? I would be surprised if it would be possible to give regular services, at all events to the country, if all suburban traffic was denied to buses coming from the country. I do not think it will be possible. I believe he will find that a great number of them will have to go out of existence if that proposal is carried into effect, and that it is quite likely that places in the midlands, for instance, like Longford and Athlone, will not be able to have services at all, that the volume of traffic that would be coming all the way to Dublin and returning from Dublin to these places would not justify the continuance of such services. A further rather serious question arises as to whether, after the fifteen miles is past, all traffic is to be regarded as long distance traffic. For instance, you have services at present to Kildare, the Curragh, and Wicklow from Dublin. Does he mean that the fifteen miles provision will apply to these services, and that, if the Kildare service has got to continue, it will have to depend on conveying a remunerative amount of traffic the whole distance from Kildare to Dublin and from Dublin to Kildare? At present, one of the services I mentioned is continued solely because a great deal of traffic comes to within that fifteen miles. If it were deprived of that traffic I can see that it would quickly go out of existence. Therefore, we ought to face the fact that we are going to go through a very serious performance in passing this Bill. We are going to deprive a certain number of people of their livelihood, and we ought to consider whether there are not alternatives to that course. I submit that, just as the Minister had to face the problem in 1924 of compelling the amalgamation of the railways, he could now compel the amalgamation of the bus services. I think it would be worth his while doing so. I do not believe that this country can afford competition on the roads. I am very doubtful indeed as to whether anybody is in a position to realise the full costs of employing different systems of transport in the country at present. At all events, I am quite satisfied that with the present economic outlook we cannot afford two services on any road where one service would be sufficient. It is another question as to whether we can afford to have a road service and a rail service competing against each other, but certainly with regard to the road service I think we would not be doing anything very startling, that we would be doing something that would in the long run be found to be of the utmost commonsense if we decided with regard to public services that no two shall compete on the same road. Even so conservative a man as the last Conservative Minister for Transport in England took that as his maxim, that there was no room for competition in transport, that there would have to be a monopoly in order to give the utmost satisfaction. I suggest that we, in present circumstances, would be well advised to adopt the same principle and to make up our minds before these Bills go through, that we will take a plunge on it, that we will decide in the interests of the people, who will probably be rather frightened when they realise the tremendous power that the Minister will have over them in this Bill, and in the interests of general economy to accept the principle, too. I hope it will be agreed either to insert the principle in this Bill or to ask for another Bill which will provide for amalgamation or absorption or whatever you like to call it—at all events, the unification of all the existing services—and that henceforward we will not allow any competition to exist on the roads of the country.
I think in the light of present circumstances this Bill has been very well thought out. I do not believe this is the last piece of legislation that will have to be introduced in connection with traffic. We have heard many objections to the Minister's interference in traffic matters. At the same time we have heard Deputies saying it is very undesirable that there should be one, two or three lines of traffic in the one direction. Deputies cannot have it both ways. The modern bus is a swift method of transport and, so far as I know, the country people are satisfied with the bus service. There may be overlapping in some districts, but the fact remains that the bus is a great convenience to country people, particularly those who live long distances, sometimes eight or ten miles, from a railway station. Country people are conveyed by bus to the principal towns and cities at reasonable rates, just what they are able to bear.
There is then the lorry service and this must be regarded somewhat in the same light as the bus service. The country people very much desire the lorry service, which should be improved rather than restricted. There are very few people engaged in farming who have not benefited greatly by reason of the buses and lorries passing their doors. The lorries take away all their livestock to the markets. Farmers living ninety miles away can have their cattle, sheep and pigs landed in Dublin in approximately five hours, and the cost involved is the same as would be charged by the railways. That means that livestock can be left at the city markets in five hours in a very fit condition.
In the case of the railways cattle may have to be driven eight or ten miles to a station to be loaded. With the existing railway service waggons of livestock are described as slow traffic and it may take eight or ten hours for animals to reach the city. They have to be driven from the railway terminus to the cattle market, and after all the handling the condition of the animals is not so good, and it is only natural to expect that.
Lorries are utilised for the conveyance of livestock to local fairs in the country. The people are coming to realise that it is almost necessary for them to load cattle in lorries for conveyance to the local markets. By having them transported in lorries the cattle are saved considerable loss and, in many respects, abuse. The lorry traffic is one that the people desire and there must be no restriction of it. The buses and lorries are in almost universal demand in the country.
It is very regrettable that the railways have fallen into their present position. The railway system rendered very good service up to recently. At the moment the railway company is at a great disadvantage trying to compete with the bus and lorry services. The railways have to maintain their permanent ways together with a huge amount of rolling stock and their efficient staffs. They are responsible for everything they carry for the public. They have to pay a very high rate of wages and their workmen work only eight hours a day. There is not the same limit of time in the case of those serving the lorry and bus companies. In other countries livestock are handled in a different way. If cattle are loaded at a station, that train is rushed through irrespective of the passenger services. In fact, livestock wagons are given preference over passenger trains, which are left on the sidings until the train bearing the livestock passes through. It would be an advantage if the railway company in this country could institute a similar system.
There is one thing that I do not consider fair. Many councils and other local bodies have been making protests against the closing down of the railways and the dismissals of men. No doubt all that is very regrettable, but it comes again to the point that people cannot have things both ways. People in many towns and districts are anxious that the railway company should continue its service but they do not assist very much individually in helping the company to retain the service. Those people come to Dublin and make representations for the retention of the service and the continued employment of the men who would be involved in the closing down of portions of the line, yet they prefer to give their traffic to the buses and the lorries and overlook the railways. If they wish to have the railways continued they should support them as far as they possibly can. They cannot expect the railway companies to carry on without traffic; they certainly should not expect them to keep staffs idle at the various stations. If the people give the railways their support the railways will be prepared to continue their services and give employment.
The railways are not in a position at the moment to compete with the buses and lorries because they are restricted in the sense that they must not charge a rate smaller than 20/- for a particular class of goods. In the case of common brick the railway company's price is 20/-. A lorry can take the same load at 15/-. In the circumstances the lorry carries out the contract. The railway company must subscribe to the conditions imposed by the Railway Tribunal. The railway company, in my opinion, should be at liberty to quote a rate in order to meet competition. The company should be allowed a free hand, otherwise it is bound to go down. No man in Longford or Athlone is prepared to pay the railway company 20/- a cwt. for carrying certain goods if he can get the same material delivered at his door for 15/- a, cwt.
Those are the conditions that obtain throughout the country. Until the impediment is removed the railway company will not be in a position to compete. There are other matters that affect railways and that do not affect lorries or buses. Railways passing through a town or county have to subscribe a certain share of the rate that is struck for the particular area. Lorries and buses are not under any such obligation. Unless the railways are given a free hand, particularly with regard to rates, they must of necessity close down. It would be a very great loss to the country if they were compelled to close down.
Let us suppose that the railways were closed down and the livestock from Ballinasloe Fair had to be conveyed by lorry to Dublin. At least 500 lorries might be required. Imagine 500 lorries on the road from Ballinasloe to Dublin. They would occupy that road for at least two days, and even that service might not be sufficient. The people should realise such a position as that. If they want the railways to continue they should be prepared to support them. The railway company cannot compete with the road transport services until the present system of classification of rates is removed. Lorries prefer to carry Indian meal, flour or apples rather than coal or cement. If the railway company has to carry coal the rate is 12s. a ton up to 70 miles. Apples over the same distance would cost 40s. No lorry would be prepared to carry a ton of coal for 12s., but a lorry owner would be only too pleased to take a ton of apples at 12s. because apples are easily handled.
The restrictions that are placed upon the railway company must be removed if the railways are to be given an opportunity of competing on fair terms with road transport services. I am satisfied that this Bill does not impose any hardship on the lorries or the buses. There is no intention to put them off the roads. It is not the wish of the Minister to do so. From time to time he has declared here that he is anxious to allow lorries and buses to be used in the interests of the community. There is a demand for road transport services such as we have. The demand is there for them and it must be supplied. The only thing that can be done is to place the railway companies in exactly the same position and to give them the same facilities to serve the public as are being given to the bus companies and the lorries.
I want to refer to a provision that appears in the Bill. It will be one of very considerable importance to the county I come from and the constituency I represent. At a later stage I will refer to what I consider to be a very notable omission from the Bill. This Bill will give power to the Minister, after complying with certain formalities, to order the closing down of what are known as baronially guaranteed railways. I think that in the county I come from and in the constituency I represent we have more of these railways than are to be found in any other part of the country. Under the 1924 Act the baronially guaranteed railways were preserved for a period, I think, of ten years. The guarantee that has to be met by the local ratepayers was to end at that time. It was pointed out on many occasions when the 1924 Bill was going through that the maintenance of these railways involved the ratepayers in certain districts in very heavy taxation. The payment of the guarantees has been a long standing grievance. It has been the subject of many speeches at the local boards. In many counties it has been pointed out that the payment of the guarantee involves great hardship on the ratepayers who live in remote parts of the barony, in view of the fact that the people there have to pay for a railway service they do not use. There was the prospect that, in a reasonable time after the passage of the 1924 Bill, the ratepayers would be relieved of their obligations in that respect, while the service would still be preserved. That was fairly attractive and the people generally were satisfied.
I regard the provision in this Bill giving the Minister power ultimately to close down railways of this kind a particularly dangerous one, and one that I am afraid is likely to be used severely. It is true there is a provision for a local enquiry. I regard the insertion of this provision as indicating the fate of certain railways of the description I refer to. They are likely to be adversely affected by it. I would like to see this matter considered again. It is also a very serious matter for the men employed. In many parts of the country, including Co. Cork, we have a very large number of railwaymen disemployed at the present time. In addition to the number who are entirely disemployed and in receipt of no pensions or allowances, we have quite a number of young active men who have had some considerable railway service. Some of these have pensions and allowances which are extremely poor. In view of the prospect of a substantial addition to the ranks of such people, who have neither pensions nor allowances, the position is a very serious one indeed.
I want to refer particularly to two lines. The railway line from Skibbereen to Baltimore was originally constructed out of a grant specially given from some particular fund. The parish priest of Baltimore at the time, the late Fr. Davis, took a very prominent part in the agitation that ultimately led to the construction of the line. At the time the money was handed over for its construction one of the conditions laid down was that a certain service should be maintained continuously. Within the last few months the railway company have reduced that service to a mere skeleton service. That is an extremely serious matter. I understand the claim made by the railway company is that the service was not justified in view of the amount of transport that was going by road. That claim is altogether wrong. As a matter of fact there is no proof whatever of it. There has been no desire shown locally to patronise road transport as against the railways. The amount of road transport leaving Baltimore and going to Skibbereen and Cork City is extremely small. The only road transport in the area is provided by people coming from outside places into the little villages with goods. It is extremely serious for the people of the district that they have only one train per day. That train is run at an hour that is altogether unsuited to their needs.
The needs of the district for a good railway service are very great, in view of the fact that Baltimore is the principal fishing centre in the South. A great deal of the success that would attend the industry locally would depend on the facilities provided to enable the people to send the fish promptly and expeditiously from the port to the marketing centres. The people interested in that industry as well as the people locally who want to avail of a railway transport service are hampered very considerably. I suggest that the action of the railway company in that particular matter is entirely against the undertaking that was given when the money was handed over for the construction of the line. I am anxious that the Minister should enquire into that particular matter and see that arrangements are made for a restoration of the full service, so that the needs of the people of the district, and particularly those concerned in the fishing industry, would be met.
Within the last two or three months the town of Kinsale has been isolated in the same way. I only mention these matters now because I feel that this is the beginning of a policy that will end in completely isolating a large number of districts in West Cork that have been served by the baronially guaranteed railways up to the present. I view with very great alarm the prospect of a very large number of men in a district where employment is not very general being thrown out of work. As a result of the operation of this Bill they will be thrown out of employment, and there is no provision to enable them to make a claim for compensation. Under previous legislation certain railwaymen were entitled to compensation, but I understand the position here will be that as a result of the passage of this Bill and the closing down of the railways on the decision of the Minister, no such compensation will be payable.
There is one other matter that I would like to mention. I regret that no provision has been made in this Bill to deal with the matter that is agitating a very large number of people. It affects them very seriously in the City of Cork at the present time. As a result of the operation of the Electricity Supply Act, and the subsequent changes that occurred in the elimination of the City tramway service, some 200 men have been disemployed. One would think that, in a Bill of this kind, which is supposed to be a comprehensive measure dealing with transport, provision would have been made for remedying what is really a bad condition for a very large number of men in the City of Cork. The Minister, in reply to a question dealing with this matter last week, seemed to suggest that provision to meet their case would be outside the scope of this Bill. But when one considers that provision has already been made for the holders of licensed premises, people who had no vested interest in their business because their licences had to come up for renewal year after year, enabling them to obtain compensation following the passage of the Intoxicating Liquor Act, one would imagine that in a Bill dealing with transport, a Bill that is supposed to embrace all the phases of the transport system in the country, the appalling position affecting nearly 200 men who have been disemployed in Cork City as a result of changes following the passage of legislation would be remedied.
A few of the men have been absorbed in the bus service that has now taken the place of the trams in the City, but 100 or 150 of the men are without work. Up to a certain point they will probably receive something in the shape of unemployment benefit. A good many of them are men who are getting on in years. It is a shame and a disgrace that they should be put on the scrap heap now. Even at this point I would appeal to the Minister to make some amends in their case. The fact that they are disemployed is the result of legislation that has been passed by this House. These men have nothing to look forward to in the future, except the few who may be fortunate enough to have been able to make some provision for their old age. Their wages at any time were not very generous. Wages are not generous anywhere in this country, but in view of the cost of living it would have been pretty difficult for these men to save anything or to make provision for the future. The prospect for them is a very hard one indeed. I would suggest to the Minister that he should go into that matter again, although I am afraid, in view of his statements on the Bill, that he is not sympathetically disposed to do so.
I interpreted one or two statements made by the Minister to indicate that certain matters in connection with the railways would be enquired into. He seemed to suggest that certain restrictions affecting work on the railways would form the subject of further investigation. I do not know whether he meant to suggest that the hours and wages of railwaymen should be the subject of further revision. It looked to me as if he had that in mind. I would like to remind the Minister that the railwaymen of this country over a very considerable period have been the victims of more reductions than the workmen in any other industry. They certainly have made very full sacrifices and have demonstrated on many occasions that they are anxious that the service should be continued. They have gone farther than one would expect men in their position to go, in order to show that they were anxious to do their part and as evidence of their desire that the industry should be maintained. Even if a contribution from themselves had to be given for the maintenance of the industry they were prepared to do that. If I interpret the Minister's view on this matter correctly, the suggestion that he has made on the Second Reading of this Bill would, if given effect to, tend to create further hardships and to make the position of these men and their families intolerable. I hope I have caught the Minister's meaning correctly. I again draw the attention of the Minister to the position that will result if there is the interference that is apparently contemplated in the Bill with the baronially guaranteed railways. I again direct his attention to the position arising from the skeleton service now provided on the Skibbereen and Baltimore railway. Although the forecast of measures, such as the two before us now, might have been taken as a warning, still I think it is a pity they were not introduced before people had invested so much money in motor lorries and buses. We had references from Deputy Hogan and another Labour Deputy to guaranteed lines. There is one such line in Galway from Attymon to Loughrea and there are rumours that it is to be closed down. There is another line of about 50 miles from Clifden to Galway and there are also rumours that that line is to be closed down. I have even heard hints about the line from Tuam to Claremorris.
The Minister stated that an inquiry will be held before any such line will be closed down and that the various interests concerned will be represented at such inquiry. I suggest that the Department of Agriculture should have a representative there. Deputy Connolly spoke of the advantages of lorries for bringing cattle to fairs, but he rightly referred to the fact that it would be impossible to get road transport to take stock from such fairs as Ballinasloe or Loughrea. Apart from the number of lorries it would be necessary to have, if they were provided it would interfere greatly with the ordinary traffic on the roads, and certainly it would have a very bad effect on the roads' surfaces if you had a large number of heavy lorries travelling on the roads, although we have not got any scientific basis to estimate the damage actually caused by such lorries. Cattle trains at present are very slow and stock having to travel long distances are detained for a longer time than they should. Complaints have been made to me by men in the cattle trade that there is a certain remissness in providing food and water for the cattle. I do not know whether that arises on this Bill, or what powers the Minister has under it. It might be possible by amalgamation or unification to make lorries bringing cattle to a fair ancillary to the railway. They certainly could hardly develop a service which would transport stock 100 miles or more to the Dublin market. The railways, I think, must be preserved and I hope these measures will go some way towards preserving them. Leaving aside altogether the question of employment, many people like myself, who perhaps are old-fashioned, prefer to travel by train. It was my experience two years ago to come from Galway in a bus which tried to do a steeplechase outside Moate and failed to negotiate the first fence. I would ask the Minister to say that the Department of Agriculture will be consulted and that this question of the transport of cattle will be carefully considered before any line is closed down.
To my mind, and to the minds of the Labour Party, this question of inland transport has been neglected to a very great extent since the Government took up office, as they allowed bus traffic and heavy lorry traffic to develop to an alarming extent without a proper system of control. We have been promised a Transport Bill for a very considerable time. We, on these benches, had hoped for a courageous and statesmanlike measure calculated to put inward transport on a scientific, businesslike and economic footing. To my mind, and to the minds of people who have looked into this transport question, both from the point of view of the railways and of road transport, the Bill is certainly a keen disappointment. No serious endeavour is made to cope with the chaotic conditions of road transport, or to bring about a system of co-operation or co-ordination as between road and rail services. The Bill, for instance, does not empower the Minister to divert buses from a particular route that has too many buses on it on to a route which is comparatively neglected. While, under the Bill, the Minister will have the right to fix maximum rates, ar far as bus passenger traffic is concerned, no power is vested in him to fix minimum rates. In England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland the responsible authorities are empowered to fix minimum rates as well as maximum rates. If the Minister here has not power to do that, it will mean that the rate war between the railways and the road transport will be intensified to a very considerable extent.
Under Section 8 (1) the Minister is empowered to grant to any person a licence to ply for hire with a mechanically propelled vehicle. I should like to ask the Minister a question with reference to a matter which is somewhat peculiar to a Border county. In Donegal, for instance, we have, I think, the third largest bus company in Ireland, whose buses are registered and owned and pay taxes within the Six Counties, using and abusing the roads, and at the same time paying no taxes whatever in Co. Donegal or any county in the Saorstát. The result is that many railway employees of both the railways of Donegal have been thrown out of employment. Another matter which I deplore in connection with the Bill is that it ignores the 8,300 commercial vehicles now carrying a large and increasing proportion of the merchandise traffic. While certain regulations are laid down in regard to passenger traffic on the roads, there are no regulations in regard to this serious menace. I do not think I am far wrong in saying that these heavy lorries carrying merchandise, which should be carried by the railways, are doing enormous damage to the roads, for the upkeep of which the railway companies have to pay through the rates.
The railway companies have to pay certain rates to the county council in the counties in which they operate and part of these rates is expended on the upkeep of the roads. In other words the railway companies are asked to subsidise their greatest competitor. That is one of the reasons why I think this Bill does not go far enough. It should endeavour to bring about co-operation or co-ordination as between the road vehicles and the railway. In my opinion, buses should not be allowed to operate on routes already adequately served by railways. It is admitted, I think, by everyone who has studied the problem that railways are essential. I agree with Deputy Lemass that ultimately the proper solution of the railway situation will be nationalisation. Deputy White said that while railway companies were empowered under the Bill to run buses, he thought it would not be for the benefit of the public, owing to the fact that they would be asked to pay proper rates of wages. I hope Deputy White, or any other Deputy, is not in favour of the present system under which bus drivers and conductors have to work for twelve or fourteen, or fifteen hours a day for twenty or twenty-five shillings a week.
Railway amalgamation has been referred to. I think the Minister and Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies will admit that, while amalgamation has taken place, the Railways Act did not endeavour to deal with railways crossing the Border, with the result that passenger bus traffic and heavy lorry traffic have detrimentally affected the two railways in Donegal to a very great extent, owing to the fact that they were not linked up with the other amalgamated companies. The result is, as I said, that we have a passenger bus service paying a road tax in Co. Derry operating against the railway to which the ratepayers are asked to pay an annual subsidy. I hope on the Committee Stage that the Minister will accept an amendment whereby licences to ply on the roads within the Saorstát will be granted only to companies whose headquarters are in the Saorstát, who pay road tax in the Saorstát, and whose employees are living in the Saorstát.
The Waterford and Tramore Railway, although it is only a small line, supplies a good example of the terrible effects of the policy of the Government in connection with the railways. Until amalgamation came about that railway was paying its way. After the amalgamation, and owing to the development of the bus traffic, it ceased to pay its way, because the Government did nothing to regulate the traffic or to try to co-ordinate the bus traffic with railway traffic. They are now forced to do a great injustice either to the railway and its employees, by shutting it down altogether, or else a great injustice to the bus companies which have been serving the public in the meantime. That small example is typical of the evil of the policy of the Government, not merely in connection with small lines, but with reference to railways all through the country. They are now in the position that they must do an injustice to some of them. They are allowing cut-throat competition which not alone affects particular individuals, but the country also. After all, what constitutes the assets of a country except initiative, work and capital?
The bus companies have put initiative, work and capital into their business and you have the railway companies attempting to do the same. In the end, someone must go down in this struggle. The real loss is to the nation because these valuable assets have been wasted and destroyed. This is merely one result of the application of the laissez-faire policy of the Government which has done such a tremendous amount of injury to the country. It has done it in an internal way by allowing this cut-throat competition to destroy the assets, and also by allowing unlimited imports into this country. The real evil of the present transport system generally is the decline of the prosperity of the country, the loss of trade to the country. That is due to the fact that the Government has not intervened and taken the proper steps to build up industries in various parts of the country and to use the railway system as it should be used, namely, as a circulating system in order to get a healthy circulation inside Ireland of the goods produced in the country. Some people will blame the railway company for the high rates. How can the railway company do otherwise when they have not got the goods to carry on the railways? Others will blame the development of the bus companies. Bus traffic could have been developed properly if the Government had made it fit in with the railways and co-ordinated it with the development of industries.
I heard it suggested a great many years ago that the fixing of freights could be used as a protective policy in a country, if it were made possible for a transport system to keep internal freights low and to maintain import freights at a high rate. But, because the Government has not done that work for the development of industry over the country in a proper way, it has put the railway company in an impossible position and the bus companies in a position where a great many of them must go out of existence. It has also put the workers in an impossible position. Another cause that is suggested is the question of wages. It is entirely a side-issue because industry should be able to produce sufficient to pay a just wage, to put the worker in a condition of comfort and in a position in which he could accumulate a little property of his own. I would like to know how many workers in the railways are in that position. It is entirely a side-issue where the question of the real blame is to fall for the whole condition of affairs to-day. One can judge the complete condition of chaos and decay that has come upon the country owing to the attitude of the Government on the whole question of industry and tillage and the connecting of it up with a properly co-ordinated system of transport. One can see it even in the present Bill. Bus companies which are in existence must according to the Bill receive the necessary licences if they are efficient and serve the public sufficiently.
There is no attempt in the Bill to prevent overlapping. Where there is overlapping as there is in many places there will be no attempt to prevent it or to give the Minister power to direct one company to take up service in some district where there is no company working at the present time. There is no attempt to be made to use certain centres along the railway line where bus companies could be used to serve outlying districts. I should think that in the Co. Dublin a bus service might easily be taken off the road from Dublin to Dun Laoghaire and put to a service on the upper roads towards the Dublin mountains with very great service to the public. Instead of that we have a lot of these companies overlapping and cutting each other's throats and the public in other parts will not be served.
Again there is a complete lack of attention to goods traffic and lorries, imposing upon them conditions that would prevent a further development of the cut-throat policy. I had not intended to intervene in this debate, but I could not help as I listened to the debate as it proceeded realising how this question of transport brings home to one the decay of the country as a whole. It is like the vein of the body where the health of the human being can be judged by the circulation of the blood and so on. We can gather from it the calamitous policy which the Government has imposed upon us by this persistent following of the policy, this cut-throat competition which has done such enormous damage to the country. I would point out that the powers which the Minister is taking are rather vague. It is really developing that unhealthy line of legislation—legislation made by orders of Government Departments.
We do not know what railways are to be shut down. We have no indication whether the Waterford and Tramore line is to be shut down and what other small railways in the country are to be shut down. I believe that instead of doing good this Bill is only going to make a bigger mess of the whole affair. It would be pretty well intolerable to debate this matter if it were not for the hope we have that this policy and its author are going to come to an early conclusion.
I feel disposed to congratulate myself very distinctly on the success that this Bill has so far attained. I say that deliberately because to-day there has been nothing in the way of serious criticism attempted of the proposals put forward. We have had Deputy Lemass waving his hands, so to speak, on nationalisation. Deputy Davin, of course, cannot forsake his old love as readily as Deputy Lemass does at times. Outside these two, with their foolish proposals, backed by no argument, for nationalisation, there has been no objection taken in principle to the scheme laid down in the measures —the scheme of insisting upon licences for those who are to run road passenger services in the future and even for the scheme outlined as my policy under it of the division of the country into three zones with the diversion of road licences in the main to the three transport agencies with their allied bus services, and to such other operators as have shown themselves equal to the task of providing adequate service in the different areas. Deputy Lemass wailed again about unified control. Deputy Davin answered by saying that under Section 11 of this Bill I am established as a transport dictator. There is surely a conflict between the two points of view. We were at any rate saved in this debate the argument generally used when transport is discussed ordinarily that we should have co-ordination and that co-ordination could only be effective by what is described as a single Ministry governing all transport affairs. If there has been any leaning in this debate on any side it was rather against the unified control which I seek to have established here in two ways—unified control by throwing in the main the transport services into the hands of the three big companies and having those directed in the main by a Minister. Deputy Lemass waived that aside. There should be unified control, but his only idea of uniform control is a road transport board operating a nationalised transport service. The Deputy previously outlined his policy here on behalf of his Party and that policy was nationalisation. Deputy Flinn turned down nationalisation to-day. Deputy Geoghegan who announced with no great necessity that he did not pose as an expert on this matter thought that he could not pronounce on nationalisation but that it would be a good thing to get the railways under control for somebody to nationalise, if nationalisation seemed to them the proper policy. We apparently are getting definitely away from the clear-cut policy that Deputy Lemass had in 1929. At least his Party has failed to back him on it either here or at their conferences. The Deputy's tears at the moment are spilled for the small man who is going to be pushed to the wall under this. What was his point of view in 1929?: "The railways have fixed assets. They have lines and stations, etc., whereas the omnibus companies own only omnibuses. These have a limited life and I believe very little hardship would be imposed on anybody if it were enacted that after a particular date, let it be one year or eighteen months ahead, the sole right of running public services on the road would be vested in that transport board, the establishment of which we suggest." The small man is going to be pushed to the wall under that but apparently the Deputy had considered that and thought it was right. To-night he thinks the small man should have our sympathy although under this Bill it is not necessary that the small man should go to the wall. There is leave given under the policy outlined as being mine if the Bill is passed for giving the small man his place from now as long as there is some need for him and some place into which he can fit.
Deputy Moore was also against the elimination of the small man. He thinks that this evolutionary process of elimination I had outlined might be desirable in the interests of traffic or transport, but that it was going to work very cruelly. Then at the end he wound himself up to this conclusion that we should decide once and for all to-night that we would allow no competition on the roads, that we should have elimination here right away and there was no question of compensation from him but just the objection that there was to be some process of elimination, although that allows for the fitting in of those men where they could fit. Although Deputy Lemass has described these buses as only having a life and therefore a value of from one year to eighteen months, Deputy Moore wants us to come down here and make up our minds now to have elimination of all competition and the wiping out of people engaged in that competition at the moment.
Deputy Lemass believes that the country has no confidence in the existing railway management. I wonder how he knows that. I wonder are we to assume from that that the country has before it certain other and better railway directors than the shareholders who own the property have elected at the moment. If they have that view clearly and distinctly before them why do they not impress upon the people who have the right of voting out these directors at general meetings? Is it simply that the Deputy does not know, but that it is a good phrase to fling about, that there is no confidence in the railway management? I want to speak in a moment of the viewpoint expressed by the only railway director we have who expressed himself speaking with a sense of responsibility because he was a director of a railway and what exactly he had to offer as a contribution to this. Deputy Lemass wipes out the existing railway management, wipes out the companies, wants nationalisation and incidentally to nationalisation I presume unless that part of his speech has no meaning wants some heed paid to the small man although in 1929 he was going to be ruthless about small men. He asked with regard to the branch lines could we ourselves, or railway directors if we cannot do it, view the concern as a whole, not to say that a branch line of a particular type must be closed down because in certain circumstances it is not paying. What is the whole purpose of this legislation except to have transport viewed as a whole, not to have the decaying branch line—decaying because it is joined to a railway agency—viewed that way, but to have it viewed, as to how far that line is necessary to a big paying concern or whether it could be replaced or supplemented by a road service which the railway could undertake under the Bill, but which could not be undertaken before.
This allows for the greatest co-ordination, co-ordination with the object in view of the needs of the country that Deputy Lemass spoke of. Not that we should have branch lines viewed simply as single little lines here and there but that they should be viewed as transport agencies, as one concern. The Deputy took the opposite point of view from that—the opposite point of view in that all these transport agencies should be made serve the needs of the country rather than seek profit. These two things are not necessarily far apart and I think I should say that if railway directors in any scheme, particularly in the scheme we have here, are to get a profit they could only get it because they are giving evidence that they are serving the legitimate needs of the country. But for the purpose of the nationalisation scheme that the Deputy wants to push through there has been a definite contrast between the people who look for profits while not serving the needs of the community and the people who might lose if they are going to serve the needs of the country. I think the two things can be reconciled. We want to have the railwaymen brought to the point of view that they are not to be railway-minded men, but they are first of all to be transport-minded and say that they are going to have such a junction of railway and road services as will give the country the service which it needs and give them the profits which they should have for serving the needs of the people.
The Deputy has said that nationalisation was apparently before the President's mind in 1924 when he said that this was a particular step and there would have to be another one taken. By no means was that the meaning of the President's statement. I noticed that Deputy Davin refrained from commenting on that. The Deputy heard that speech made and he knew the circumstances in which it was made. The amalgamation policy seemed at the time in the existing circumstances to be sufficient to enable the railways to meet all claims made upon them. But certainly the speech can never be read as meaning that in other circumstances, that if amalgamation did not succeed, if amalgamation were a failure, that we should then necessarily proceed to the next step—nationalisation.
Deputy J.X. Murphy, speaking as he said himself with a full sense of responsibility because he represented the railway companies, speaking on their behalf, complained of this measure for three reasons: He said the Great Southern Railways had asked me to meet them on three or four points. That is not a complete statement. The Great Southern Railways had asked me to meet them on about nine points. I think this Bill meets five of these points. As far as the other four were concerned we said that the law as it stood was in their favour, but we thought that the railway directors should not emphasise that because it might lead to a cry that the law should be tightened up against the railway directorate to a certain extent. In regard to the small crossings we refused to meet the railway company. I would like the Deputy to put down an amendment to secure what he thinks the railway company should get on the matter of accommodation crossings and let us see what conflict there will be in the House on that amendment. If I were to judge from the letters I have received from all parts of the country as to what the railways have done, there will not be many votes for the policy which Deputy Murphy would like to see the House consider.
The Deputy said they wanted something done with regard to Section 61 of the Railway Act of 1924. He said they wanted powers given to them to single or close lines or parts of lines. I have always pointed out to the Great Southern Railways that as far as Section 61 was concerned, all it did was to take inside its scope the existing arrangements with regard to road traffic and other things. It stereotyped these conditions and it said there could not be parity except application was made to the Railway Tribunal as representing the interests of the traders, and the Railway Tribunal decided that the old arrangements could be continued. The only thing I could argue from the stress laid upon this particular matter by Deputy J.X. Murphy on behalf of the railway company was that the railway company want power to have all their grievances removed without recourse to the Railway Tribunal. I do not think that this House should allow that to happen. The Tribunal was set up as an independent, semi-judicial authority or tribunal with no vested interests behind it, to see if in the interests of the community particular fares should be varied. We thought that was a good arrangement and we hope it will continue.
As far as having powers to single or close lines we told the Great Southern Railways that they have full powers in that matter except only in regard to the peculiar class of line that we are dealing with—lines baronially guaranteed or lines built under a grant of money with statutory provisions imposed. But so far as the greater mileage of the system is concerned the directors have power to single or close lines as they please. I do not know whether the company realises that, but I do feel that if the country realised that that was the position there might easily be a clamour not to allow that position to continue, and the Deputy, so far from getting anywhere with his point if raised in that form, would find that contrary amendments would be moved with the intention of restricting the freedom that the railway company has at the moment. I would not like to have amendments moved one way or another.
Some Deputy referred to the matter of singling lines. Deputy Geoghegan talked of farmers' woes, one of his grievances being that the farmer is now to have his goods conveyed from the fair along a single line where previously he had a double line. When an attempt was made first by the railway company in this country to single parts of their system there was a vehement protest. Applications were made to the Tribunal and public bodies passed resolutions against the singling. There was a ramp against the efforts of the company. They did proceed to single portion of their lines. Since that singling there has not been one complaint that traffic has been held up or that fairs have been spoiled or that anybody has been worsened. If there had been power in the Minister to refuse the railway company this right of singling lines there would be such pressure that the Minister would have to refuse that right and the railway company would have to keep a double line where practical experience has shown it was unnecessary. What would happen under a nationalisation system? Does any Deputy imagine that any portion of a line under a nationalisation system would be allowed to progress towards a single line with Deputies representing constituencies ready to unite against the railway company's attempt to have a single line where now they had a double line?
Deputy Davin complained that this Bill will be disappointing to the shareholders of the railway and that it will be disappointing to the servants of the railway. The shareholders are brought in for an obvious purpose. The railwaymen are the people the Deputy has in mind. This Bill will be disappointing to shareholders of a particular mentality and to the railway directors in the matter of their monopoly. It will disappoint the railway servants who believe that they have a right to be guaranteed a transport system whether or not that system has traffic sufficient to pay their wages. It will disappoint the railway directors who look to legislative measures to bring back prosperity to the railway transport system without any effort on their part. We do not want to give either of them the conditions that they would look for. We want to give them this right that if and when they can bring about a consolidated service of road and rail which would give to the business people of this country as cheap and efficient a service as they are getting at the moment by other methods, it should be a service run under the aegis of the present railway company rather than under independent bus proprietors. But we want efficient management on the part of the railway directorate, we want them to put their backs to the work. The railway companies have to get away from the idea of railway monopoly, they have to realize that road transport has come to stay, and they must make an effective junction between these two methods to enable them to control in the end a transport system, but not a rail system.
Deputy Davin raised the point that other Deputies raised as to whether or not road users are paying in full for the cost of the roads over which they operate their vehicles. I think they are paying in full. I announced here a policy on three occasions in regard to the roads. I said our policy was that we took the roads as they were at the time when there was no motor traffic of any great volume running over them. We said that the roads then built, and the type of maintenance, represented what the country wanted in the pre-motor age. We took whatever was the tax laid upon the ratepayers for the building and maintenance of the roads in that condition, and we tried to re-establish that on the ratepayers in proportion to the value of money in relation to its purchasing power. We said that we would take from the farmers of the country more or less what they were paying round about the 1912 and 1913 period. Everything else that went either towards road building or maintenance we intended to take out of the taxation of motor vehicles. Since we adopted that policy and made a division of the costs, as between the ratepayers and the road users, we have since imposed heavy taxation on motor users. Our calculations may be wrong, but they have not been questioned or refuted. If our calculations about 1925 or 1926 are right the balance has been further weighted down as against the motor users by the taxation of motor vehicles, the petrol tax, and everything else, definitely putting motor users in the position that they can say that they are paying for the upkeep of the roads over which they operate.
Deputy Davin raised a few points of detail. He complained of a system of which he complained previously, that passengers are being carried on lorries. He complained that this Bill did not meet that position. There is no necessity to go any further than the existing law. At least one cannot go further by legal provision than what is already enacted. If lorries are being used for passenger traffic then they ought to be classified as buses, so to speak, and ought to pay taxation as passenger vehicles. In so far as we can find that situation developing heavier taxation will be put upon them. I can do no more in this Bill than to repeat the provisions made in two other Acts. I had expected to hear from Deputy Davin—who has been so vehement about consolidating transport—arguments as to the lack of co-ordination, and as to the defects he found occurring in the system of administration because two or three Ministers were engaged in different aspects of the problem. He discovered one thing. He discovered that there are in Section 107 of the Road Traffic Bill two subsections referring to an Act which this Bill is going to repeal. That is the solitary thing, with all his traffic and transport experience, that Deputy Davin was able to bring forward as evidence of the lack of the necessary co-ordination. That matter is simply explained. The Road Traffic Bill had priority in time. It looked as if it was going to be many months ahead of my Transport Bill. As it was there was a certain provision in it referring to the 1927 Act. Now that the two Bills are running almost together a slight amendment can change Section 107.
Again, and rather extraneous to this Bill, Deputy Davin introduced a question of compensation and repeated figures that I have often challenged. He said that compensation was promised to railway employees who suffered as a direct result of amalgamation, and that that was the policy outlined in the Act of 1924 and in the Amending Act of 1926. The Deputy also stated that not more than one in ten of those who should have been compensated have got payment. I challenged that before and I challenge it again. I can state the position; as the matter developed complaints were made to me about people being deprived of legitimate compensation by the action of the railway company in bringing cases before the Tribunal and fighting them in a particular way. In the end I agreed with the trade unions that I would ask them to bring before the Tribunal certain picked cases and I gave a distinct guarantee that if these cases went against the railwaymen I would have to admit that the compensation provision I intended to operate had failed, and that it should be amended. These cases were brought and in these cases the men got the compensation to which they were entitled. I heard no more complaint since from the railway unions. I am still faced on a general debate with the type of complaint that Deputy Davin has made that not one in ten entitled to compensation got it. But in the specific cases brought before the Tribunal as a test the verdict went as it was agreed between us it should go. To my mind that proves that the provisions of the 1926 and the 1929 Acts worked smoothly and justly with regard to the compensation that these men should get.
Deputy Davin still holds to his Transport and Communications Bill of 1923, the first fruits of the Labour Party's appearance in this Parliament. The Deputy stated that with some amendment that Bill might be introduced to-day. I am glad to say, at any rate, that the passage of time has been strong enough to disturb the happy relations that Deputy Davin wanted to see set up in transport under the Bill of 1923. I wonder does the Deputy remember the provisions of the Bill. As well as I remember the draft I think in 95 per cent. of the sections it dealt with railways. It had to do with nationalisation. It was a scheme for the nationalisation of railway transport. The only place where it went outside that was by an obligation imposed in a very vague way on a board that was to be set up to look after other forms of transport. It was not a Bill at all dealing with transport. It was a Railway Nationalisation Bill. If any other form of transport developed there was a very vague reference in two or three clauses to a transport board to look after it. That there was a detailed provision for meeting the peculiar circumstances that have arisen here since 1926 I deny.
Deputy Good asked about my power under present legislation to prevent two or three matters which appeared to him, as transport is carried on today, to be disagreeable. He asked how far could I restrain chaser services between rivals on certain routes. I think Section 12 gives me full power. The Bill rather than that particular section is designed to prevent chaser services. The whole design of the Bill is to remove a number of competitors off the roads. If there is to be competition in areas of a vigorous type Section 12 would empower me to attach such conditions to licences as would do away with the complaint to which the Deputy refers.
The Deputy has again made a plea for restriction both as to size and weight of certain types of road vehicle. That I consider to be rather a matter for the Road Traffic Bill. It is dealt with in Sections 13, 14, and 107 of the Road Traffic Bill which gives the Minister powers to deal with these matters. The point is more a Committee point and we can deal with it there. I think a certain section will give us an opportunity of speaking on it once more. Meantime, I would refer to the Deputy's close consideration these sections that I have mentioned of the Road Traffic Bill.
Deputy Good mistook one observation of mine. He indicated that he believed the Railway Tribunal was being dissolved. It is not. It is being kept in being. The Railway Tribunal has no function with regard to road passenger services, but for railway business the Railway Tribunal is still going to exist. The situation if this legislation goes through will be roughly this. As far as rail fares and freights are concerned they will still be governed by the Railway Tribunal with all the facility that the Railway Tribunal can give to the railway company to get exceptional rates struck here and there as they desire.
As far as rates on goods carried by road are concerned, whether the road vehicle be privately owned or railway owned there will be neither a maximum nor a minimum rate established. As far as fares for passenger services either by bus or by tram are concerned there will be maximum rates established by me in consultation with the people who are interested. Again I think, probably by not defining enough, I misled the Deputy on another point. He said he could not see the justification in the Bill for a statement of mine that the railways were being put on an equality with privately owned lorries in certain respects. May I make my phrase clear? Railway owned goods services will be put on an equality as far as their use of the road is concerned with privately-owned lorries. But railway goods carried by rail will not operate on an equality with goods carried by road vehicles whether they be railway owned or privately owned.
Deputy White approached this problem of the rates for goods from another angle. He made a suggestion that the classification of merchandise dominating in the Act of 1924 should be eliminated. I presume with that there would fall also the attachment of certain rates to the different classes of merchandise. That is a radical amendment. That would mean complete abolition of all these sections of the Railways Act of 1924 which deal with standard revenue and standard charges, because the classification of merchandise hangs on to the question of the standard revenue through the fixation of standard charges, and I do not propose to interfere with the scheme in the Railways Act in that respect at the moment. The alternative is one I cannot contemplate at the moment. If we abolish standard revenue, standard charges, classification of merchandise and the fixation of certain rates to each of these classifications, we throw entirely to the discretion of the railway company the fixing of rates for any and every merchandise. We have no protection against undue preference as between trader and trader or diversion of traffic by preferential rates from one port to another.
I prefer the system—I think, if properly understood, it would be preferred by everybody—that we have under the railways to the one that Deputy White would drive us to. The system is the standard charge, the attachment of certain rates to these classes of goods, with this additional provision that the railway company on its own may vary the rate as long as it is more than five per cent. and not more than forty per cent. below the standard rate. If they wanted to go further they would have to make application to the Railway Tribunal for a lesser rate of an exceptional type, and from my knowledge of the working of the Railway Tribunal I know of no case in which an application of a proper type has been made for a lower rate to the Railway Tribunal where permission has not been granted. I prefer to keep some body of independent people as between the trader and the directors of the different companies.
Deputy Nolan asked me to give, in addition to the figures I have given for expenditure in railway working in the years from 1924 to 1930, for the purpose of a further comparison, a statement of the cost of railway working in a pre-war year. He asked for 1914, but 1914 was complicated by the fact that the end of that year was affected by war conditions. I have the figure for 1913. I previously quoted that the expenditure on railway working in the year 1924 amounted to £4,345,000. Last year that was reduced to £3,069,000. The figure for 1913 was £1,689,000, so that the year 1930, even though reduced considerably from the year 1924, showed an increase of over 80 per cent. on the year 1913.
Does that include all the amalgamated companies?
It is the proper comparison. These figures will stand— £4,000,000 for 1924, £3,069,000 for 1930, and £1,689,000 for 1913.
Deputy Nolan, I think, has misread two sections with regard to the carriage of mails. What we want to achieve is not the prohibition of the carriage of mails, but that the carriage of mails would be more or less a matter that had to be licensed. We also want to give the Department of Posts and Telegraphs the right to insist in certain circumstances on mails being carried. I think if the Deputy will consider the two sections in conjunction with the secondary provisions in the first of the sections quoted, he will find that they are sections that allow for the carriage of mails rather than ones that restrict the carriage of mails.
Deputy Moore had a view on this Bill, that it was a bad Bill for two reasons, first, that it was vague. When he described the matter that he considered vague, I felt that one had to agree with him to a certain extent. He said that under the provisions of this Bill the policy may vary with different Ministers. That is so. I have outlined the particular policy that I would follow. It would be with a certain purpose before me. Deputy Moore has properly criticised that by saying that another Minister with, say, the road mind or towards the road vehicle, might administer the Act in an entirely different way. That is so. I think it is the proper way to have this piece of legislation. I think that I have correctly interpreted the views of those who are interested in the transport of the country in the policy that I have outlined. It may be that that is wrong. It may be that somebody else with another policy, more in favour of the road vehicle, would come into possession of my office. In that event he ought to have a piece of legislation before him which would enable him to operate that policy. I do not think there is going to be any radical change in policy of any Minister under this Bill. I think, particularly when coordination has been effected, that it will require something in the way of a revolutionary change on the roads to bring about a change in policy, but if it does happen the Bill ought to be flexible enough to allow the new circumstances to be met.
Deputy Moore has a vague objection to this. He said at first, as I announced previously, that he thought that the evolutionary policy of elimination that was outlined here was rather a cruel thing—that the small man would have to go. My answer to that is that I do not propose immediately to eliminate any great number of people. I do think that, as the Act moves on, I will be driven to anticipate the day of elimination which is inevitable, under circumstances of competition, for some of those small men. If we give the railway companies power to operate road vehicles, either passenger or goods, on an equality with other people there is certainly going to be a big number of small men crashing under the competition.
If these men are to be saved it will require a law that will prevent competition having its ordinary effect upon them. If we are to prevent that, and if any Deputy has that policy in mind, it ought to be announced clearly in that way because that, in my opinion, will be a policy of preserving what is described by most people here as the chaotic conditions that at present prevail in the transport system of the country. The Deputy changed his mind towards the end of his speech when he stated he thought that we should give a monopoly here and now; that we should eliminate competition once and for all. If that be his policy in the end of his speech, I wonder what has become of the cruelty argument with which he opened? Has he adverted to the difficulties of the granting of a monopoly here and now? Supposing we have a monopoly both in passenger and goods traffic, who is going to establish the rates at which goods or passengers would be carried?
Deputy Nolan talked adversely to that type of policy. He said it would not be a good thing to drive the road carrier of goods off the roads because he had succeeded in bringing the railway companies down to the point the community required and he feared the railway companies would go back to another point if the road vehicle for carrying goods was driven off the road. Deputy Moore went on another line. He said there is great waste at the moment, the waste being specially on the point of road maintenance. He thinks there is an enormous amount of money spent in maintaining roads and apparently he thinks that money is coming from some other source than from the people who necessitate the maintenance of the roads to a certain point. I have argued that matter previously.
If there were fewer buses on the roads there would be fewer people to bear the burden of maintenance; there would be less necessity for maintaining the roads at a certain figure. The road vehicle is paying and paying fully for the maintenance of the type of road it requires. When that argument was put forward, as it was by Deputy Moore and certain Labour Deputies, I wonder do they ever look back on their past and do they realise that every time there is an appeal made in this House for moneys for unemployment reference is always made to the great and profitable way of using unemployment moneys by the building of bigger and better roads than we have and the maintaining of them at a bigger and better standard than we require at the moment.
[An Ceann Comhairle took the Chair.]
That is almost a cardinal point of Labour policy. We are told on such occasions that one of the great ways of employing the unemployed usefully is by the building of better roads, but when it comes to a transport debate then, in the minds of such Deputies as Deputy Davin, the unemployed men who might get employment through a road construction scheme are forgotten or lost sight of in the clamour of a railway employee whom Deputy Davin at the moment considers it his main duty to look after.
No.
There was one thing with which I opened and which I may have explained too vaguely. Deputy Moore took it up in a way that showed distinctly that I had not explained my point properly to the House. I spoke of establishing a zone around Dublin and I spoke of that zone as being a fifteen mile area from the General Post Office here. I said that inside that zone I wanted to restrict the long-distance buses from picking up and setting down passengers. In other words, I was not going to have local services interrupted by the incoming long-distance buses. I should have made a differentiation as between those zones. Clearly a fifteen mile radius from the General Post Office would be an area that would far outstrip anything that could be regarded as suburban traffic. The restriction on picking up and setting down passengers would not be equitable inside such a wide area.
I would rather take as my area for suburban traffic the present Greater Dublin area plus the coastal borough and say that suburban services are those operating inside that area, but that the outer area included in the fifteen miles radius is the area in which the Dublin United Tramways Company and its allied bus services and other people would get the preference as against all other comers. When I speak of policy in that matter I do not want to have it appear before the House that there is a cut and dried policy in this matter. It will take a good deal of time to work out.
One cannot inflict undue hardship on people right at the beginning. No matter which of these zones I think of there will be found people operating a service that just comes inside one of those areas and stretches out for many miles in the country beyond. Unless that operator is going to come inside the radius or go outside it he will have no possibility of life. It will require some time to get these people diverted to other routes, as the Bill gives me power to do. Some Deputy raised that as an objection to the measure. I can get that diversion. I do not think it can be done in twelve months, but the important thing is to have it done eventually and in that way to restrict the competition going on. I have said that this Bill is going to disappoint certain people, railway servants, directors and shareholders of a particular type of mind.
I spoke of the plea put up here with regard to a nationalised service. Do people ever stop to consider that a lot of the difficulties that the railways find themselves suffering from, both here and elsewhere, are due to the fact that during the war they became a nationalised service? During the war they were under control. Wages and the cost of material went up, rates were increased, conditions of service were improved, and the extra cost that had to be incurred by reason of these things had to be passed on to the railway user, and was passed on to him because during the war period it could be passed on with impunity. During these years railway management generally lost its commercial spirit. They did not keep alive the old idea that they had to give the same type of service that they would be driven to give under competition. They lost their commercial keenness, and one of the points that railway management has to fight is that the public now realise that the railway companies would never have been brought to a proper appreciation of what the public require were it not for the advent of the road vehicle.
Quite a number of people who are rather keen on the upkeep of railways in another country do not feel themselves at liberty to give their custom to the railways. They believe they must keep in reserve and give a certain amount of traffic to keep in reserve the road hauler who helps to keep the railways at some low point.
In this Bill we set out to do one thing. We do not intend to re-establish the railways as the old monopolists. We do not pretend even to put the railway services into the position which they had achieved in the old days when the railway companies were the transport monopolists. We want to have an efficient transport and we want to give the railway companies sufficient liberty to enable them to do the business that is now being done against them by certain road vehicles. Some Deputies have talked of this Bill as inaugurating a new warfare as between the two types of transport agencies. I do not believe there is any necessity for that warfare. I do believe that it is quite open for the railway management to seize the chance now offered to them and to show traders who are now operating road vehicles that they can give the door-to-door service as frequently and as cheaply as traders now provide for themselves. We give them every chance to achieve that position. We hope they will achieve it and if they do we believe it can be done without any aggravated competition. It should be the aim of the railway company to show these people that they can give them that particular type of service. If they do, I believe that traders will be glad to get rid of the trouble and expense involved in keeping vehicles of their own. When you think of all those traders and think of the competition, that the number of traders' vehicles is 75 per cent. of the total number of road lorries and that they are carrying 80 per cent. of the traffic— if the railway company can be brought into the position of carrying all this traffic by rail, plus road under railway management, I think we will be back to the old system when the railways got most of the traffic. That is the situation we are playing for. When that does come about there will be a chance of establishing maximum fares for goods on the roads. The chance is not here at the moment.
Question put and agreed to.
These Bills have been before the House for a long time. I received representations from two sources to have a long period as between the Second Reading and Committee Stage. These representations were made to me before the details of this Bill were received. I cannot conceive myself of any amendments having to be thought over for a long period. I would ask, if that is the view that is also taken by the House, that we put down the Committee Stage for the earliest day next week on the understanding that if amendments are handed in even up to the beginning of next week they will be received. Under these conditions I ask that the Committee Stage be taken next Wednesday.
We agree.
Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, 16th December.