LONDON TRAFFIC

Hokitika Guardian, 16 March 1931, Page 3

LONDON TRAFFIC

NEW BOARD WITH WiIDE POWERS. (British Official Wireiess.) RUGBY, March 14. It is estimated that £13,000,00' worth of capital is represented in the transport undertakings, including the London Underground and other metropolitan railways, tramways, buses and Thames steamboats—which, according to a Bill presented to Parliament by the Transport Member. Mr Herbert Morrison, are to be co-ordinated under a London Passenger Transport Board. The Bill provides that Ibis Board, which is to govern London traffic wi.hin a radius of 25 miles of Charing Cross shall have’ tne power. (1) To secure an adequate and properly co-ordinated system of pass-ngei transport, (2) To abandon tramways, subject to the approval oi the .Minister, and the provision of alternative 1 facilities. (3) To improve the facilities for the avoiding of unnecessary competitive services. (4) To acquire other trans]H>rt undertakings in addition to those transferred to it. (5) To provide new road services. ((j) To exercise, by arrangement with the London Comity Conned, tlr license possessed by that Council to run steamboat services on the Thames within the limits of the County o London. VESTED INTERESTS HOSTILE! LONDON. March 14. The Fourteenth Transport Bill is dinscribed, outside Labour circles, as b ]ng “undiluted Socialism.” | It is believed in Conservative qunr-j tors that the Government’s policy I now directed to the working up of “ j case against the House oi Lords and to the producing of measures ol a character which the House f) l Louis known to he most likely to rej •’ ’ 'l'hc “Daily Telegraph” »'uiys: 'transport Bill not merely provides for the co-ordination of the control oi 'London transport, which has long been admitted to he necessary, but it provides for investing in a single authority the ownership of all London fi tubes, buses, trams, steamboats and railways. The Bill is camouflaged Nationalisation.