PART ONE A FABIAN ALTERNATIVE
NIALL DEVITT considers the political, economic and organisational issues to be encountered on the road to creating what we came to know as ‘London Transport’.
Returned to Parliament as MP for the marginal seat of Hackney South for the second time in the recent General Election, Herbert Morrison was appointed as Minister of Transport by Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald in May 1929. Later that year trickle-down socialist Beatrice Webb would observe in her diary on 23rd October 1929 that “The only outstanding minister is Morrison, with his transport schemes and he is outside the cabinet and goes ‘on his own’, without guidance from the cabinet.” Morrison was one of the select few invited to dine with the notoriously snobbish Webbs at their famous Hampstead political salon. Also a convinced Fabian Socialist, the new Minister of Transport was now determined on a thorough reformation of all the capital’s bus, tram, trolleybus and underground railway services. Morrison believed that the only real way that further transport co-ordination could be fostered was through some form of public ownership. He later stated in 1932 “Transport must be brought together, and its problems dealt with as a whole, that will enable us to destroy the bias railway mind, and the bias road mind, and substitute a big transport one.” In achieving this ambition at a time of singular under-achievement in the nation’s political affairs, he would go on to transform London for the better and emerge as a politician of national standing.
Morrison was not slow in making clear his intentions; in a statement in the Commons on 3rd December 1929, approved by the Prime Minister, he declared he was preparing to apply public ownership to solve the problems of wasteful competition in the provision of public transport for the capital. The first overtly socialist policy announcement by the new Labour government, it was met with a ‘shudder’ by Conservative members, while also creating a sensation in the press that evening. However, to achieve his ambition Morrison still faced the problem that he would struggle to get the legislation through Parliament as Labour critically lacked an overall majority. The fight to see London Transport safely on the statute book would prove both protracted and complicated, with Morrison’s attempt at fundamental reform of transport in the capital nearly completely lost due to the collapse of the second Labour government in August 1931 and the subsequent wrecking activities of backwoodsmen Conservative MPs, including most notably former Chancellor, Winston Churchill.
Morrison was seeking to establish a due balance between the differing forms of transport in the capital, making them work together as never before, rather than simply compete or allow the ‘Combine’ (The Underground Electric Railways Company of London Ltd. – UERL), a progressive but still ultimately monopolistic operator, to rule the roost as before. The continued tussle for passengers between 55 Broadway and the Metropolitan over the operation of the ‘Inner Circle’ remained an egregious example of this. Instead under Morrison’s proposals, private shareholders would have their capital transferred in the form of new state-issued shares, with returns limited to a set figure, though guaranteed by the new board, one which was to be composed of figures none of whom were allowed to own shares in the new organisation. This would completely eliminate any potential financial conflicts of interest and guarantee that the organisation’s primary task was one of public service, not generating profit for shareholders. In future there would be no repeat of Lord Aberconway being yelled at by angry Metropolitan shareholders as in 1914.
Further, for some on the left to have not simply fully bought out the private interests, or acquire them without any financial restitution, was a betrayal of true
