At last the dreaded news is out. Dr. Beeching has dropped his bombshell on the Cabinet; at least so headlined the daily press. But in fact the general outline of the Beeching plan has been known and discussed widely for some months. The Transport Minister, Mr. Marples, immediately confirmed his support of the plan on the day of its publication—hardly the action of a person struck dumb by devastating tidings.
Let us make it clear that we are unconcerned whether or not Capitalism manages to make the railways a profitable concern. We do not urge modernization schemes whose motive is that wealth can be used to serve the interests of a minority. We prefer to show how such changes can and do affect the mass of the population and how these changes can often be unpleasant for some sections of the community.
Probably the new plans will produce a slick rail system. But for how long? And just what new problems will be created by its implementation? Even Dr. Beeching cannot be emphatic in his replies. Change as such cannot be avoided, but we should find out why a change is desired, whom will it benefit and who will suffer and whether it is particularly necessary.
The rapid growth of road traffic has dealt railways everywhere a heavy blow. By point-to-point delivery, transport costs for both goods and passengers are cheaper by road. As the rail running costs increase, so freight and passenger receipts have either fallen or not kept pace, and often the railway's only answer has been to raise rates and fares. This puts the railways at an even greater disadvantage, especially on freight carrying. The car industry is the number one consumer of steel, and the oil interests are powerful factors in Britain's economy, and this is possibly why the Government tends to be more favourable towards the road interests than to an industry like railways.
Many sections of the capitalist class are fed up with subsidising, through taxation, a transport system that is no longer so useful to them as in days gone by. Many lines have massive engineering works which were erected a hundred or more years ago. Such works do, and will in the near future, need large sums spent on them for restoration, but the takings on these lines would not justify this expenditure. So, in the interests of the profit motive, some fifty to seventy-thousand people will over a period be sacked. Some areas will be more isolated than they are already and no doubt the slashing of lines in Wales and Scotland will be ready fuel for the fires of the small nationalist parties. Mr. Marples has promised that roads in the trainless areas will, if necessary, be improved to take the heavier road traffic, but he gives no guarantee that such construction will synchronize with the closures. The promise of replacement by extra buses is not certain as the routes have a tendency to be just as unprofitable for the bus companies as they were for the railways.
We have heard a lot of chat from the Parliamentary-maid-of-all-work, Lord Hailsham, about new industries in the depressed areas, but it is noticeable that the cuts are heavier in the North and the Scottish lowlands than in the “prosperous" South. Does this mean that the Hailsham promises are just so much political flannel to keep the unemployed in a state of suspended animation?
When the Labour Party nationalised the railways, we were promised efficiency, cheapness, security of jobs for the railwaymen, and improved travelling conditions, but the iron road became the odd man out. The mines were modernised; even the small film industry was subsidised; and huge sums were poured into aircraft production, while the steam train clanked on, encrusted in Victorian filth. So in the 1950's the railway became a whipping boy; a god-send to every comic and mummified politician who aspired to enter the House of Commons: trains always late, freight often mislaid or stolen, and public relationships ranging from antagonism to despair the more recent modernisation programmes have been held up by political uncertainty. Government decisions have ranged from plans for dieselization and electrification, to shutting the whole lot down. At least Dr. Beeching has arrived with something definite.
In spite of the sectional and local feeling, the majority of the people will not be very much concerned with the drastic cuts. The wide ownership of cars has removed the utter dependence on the trains. The car, in fact, has become a universal season ticket, but with the owner himself providing the vehicle and being responsible for garaging, parking, maintenance and driving-problems that were unknown to the train traveller.
After the lull of a few days that followed publication of the report the railway unions have made arrangements for protest strikes, and some local councils and M.Ps. have organised agitations. Some sections of line may be saved, but there is always something of the forlorn rearguard in token strikes and strongly-worded protest; the cage door is being closed after the bird has flown. The stick that falls across the shoulders of the working class is unfortunately wielded by themselves. Most workers believe in and support a society that stands four square on profit, exploitation and privilege for a few, and the railwaymen are no exception. Whilst this mass support is given to capitalist society, those who are not under immediate fire will never extend more than a passing sympathy for the afflicted and with many workers it probably never gets that far. Perhaps the attitude of a fair number of people can be expressed in the statement by a Conservative M.P., Kenneth Lewis, when he stated that the N.U.R. strike threat was a “strike without reason, a strike against change." (Evening News, April 4th. 1963.)
Capitalism with its ever-pressing need for new modes of production to prevent its profit from falling has mesmerised its supporters into dumb worshippers who fall prostrate at the very mention of words like “Streamline.” Few of them stop to wonder why and for what purpose slickness is established in our every day lives. It is pathetic to wail and protest, to alternate between humble petition and violence, if over the past years one supports in word and deed the very base of our social maladies. If those who ardently organise protests and demonstrations against this and that were to examine more closely their position as workers, the nature of capitalism and its Socialist alternative, their power to defend themselves as a subject class would be much stronger, and a new society that degree nearer. It is not only rail systems that are stunted by our current society.
How will transport operate in a Socialist society? Firstly, it will be owned by the community as a whole, which means that it would be absurd to charge ourselves fares. The problems of threatened bankruptcy, or the need to reinvest surplus would be unknown in such a society. One cannot say with certainty just what form of transport would be most common, but this we do know; man's prime concern, in transport as everything, will be to serve the needs of the entire community.
If a given form of transport should be technically obsolete, then the operatives would certainly not be cast on a dole queue. This only happens in capitalist society, where the exploitation of wage labour is dominant. A Socialist society would also ensure that alternative methods of transportation were already fully in operation before other means were removed. The present dominant form of travel—the car—in its current form, is hardly likely to be regarded as beneficial under Socialism. The effect of enormous numbers of people driving their vehicles along a confined road space serves only to jar our nervous systems and it is not to be wondered at that the road casualty figures have become an outstanding disgrace and tragedy.
The history of capitalism, with its demand for accelerated production and improved methods of buying and selling has been the basic cause of speed in the modern world. Remove these social and economic factors for one of common ownership and mankind can revert to a more leisurely pace—and be the happier for it.
Jack Law
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