Setting the Scene

Michael R. Bonavia

Chapter 1 in The Nationalisation of British Transport, 1987, pp 1-2 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The process by which the British Labour Party became committed, whenever it should come to power with a sufficient Parliamentary majority, to nationalising virtually all public transport, was a lengthy one and constitutes a historical study deserving a volume in its own right. Here, only a brief mention can be made of the two principal elements in the process. These were the pressure from the trade union movement, and the thinking of economists and political writers who contributed to forming party policy. Among the trade unions, the three railway unions had always carried considerable weight in Labour circles. The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (forerunner of the National Union of Railwaymen) first passed a resolution calling for railway nationalisation in 1894 and frequently repeated this demand; but it was not until 1908 that the Labour Party’s Annual Conference resolved ‘that the Labour Party be instructed to draft a Bill, and submit the same, for the Nationalisation of Railways’. In the absence of a Labour government, Private Members’ Bills for railway nationalisation were introduced in 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1911 and 1914. None reached a Second Reading.

Keywords: Road Transport; Labour Government; Labour Party; Railway Company; Road Haulage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1987
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-08793-8_1

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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-08793-8_1

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