proposals for relieving the heavy burden of rates, and its general attack 
on the trade situation would go far to assist both the miners and the 
coal industry itself, 
The Transport System 
Transport, like coal and power, is one of the ‘‘ key ’’ industries 
on which our national prosperity depends. The shortsighted and 
disastrous proposal of the Tory Government to abolish the Ministry 
of Transport has, fortunately, been postponed, if not defeated. 
So far from approving this reactionary policy, the Labour Party holds 
that the Ministry of Transport should be endowed with greater 
authority and wider powers, in order to reduce the chaos and conflict 
of rival transport interests to a unified and orderly system in which 
private profit would be subordinated to public needs. 
Whilst it believes that this result can be achieved only by bringing 
the primary forms of transport under public ownership and control, it 
recognises that different transport agencies are at different stages 
of development. The railways could, without practical difficulty, be 
transferred to public ownership, while tramway and omnibus services 
are already in many areas owned and operated by local authorities. On 
the other hand, motor road transport, both commercial and passenger, 
which is a relatively recent development, as well as a large amount 
of water transport—internal and coastwise—are not sufficiently 
organised to be merged immediately in the more highly developed and 
more firmly established forms of transport, whilst civil aviation is as 
yet in its infancy. 
The Ministry of Transport under a Labour Government would 
be concerned, therefore, with the extension of public enterprise, with the 
regulation and development of those branches of transport not yet under 
public ownership, and with the co-ordination of the various transport 
services, so that each may occupy its proper place in the national system. 
A Labour Government would undertake the task of transferring the 
railways to public ownership and control, and would encourage the 
extension of municipal transport enterprises working in co-operation 
with the railroad system, Similarly it would take all possible steps to 
co-ordinate rail and road freight transport for the more efficient and 
economical distribution of merchandise. It would re-examine the 
possibilities of more fully utilising the waterways, and would encourage 
the new methods of transport which applied science has rendered 
possible. The docks, wharves, and harbours—the termini of land and 
water transport—where goods are unloaded and reloaded, are obviously 
an essential part of the national system of communications. They must 
be brought up to date and, when necessary, extended, in order to handle 
with economy and dispatch the products of our industrial system. 
Moreover, modern developments, particularly in the case of road 
traffic, have far outstripped legislation and administration, and 
attention must be given to the proper supervision and control of the 
transport system. The aim of public policy should be to imbue it 
with the spirit of public service, to encourage the improved organisation 
of its less organised branches, to secure the proper protection of the