CAB129-78 — Page 6

Printed for the Cabinet. October 1955

CONFIDENTIAL

C.P. (55) 151

14th October, 1955

CABINET

Page 6

Copy No.

67

CANALS

MEMORANDUM BY THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND CIVIL AVIATION

On 12th October the Home Affairs Committee invited me to submit the composition of an independent Committee of Enquiry into the system of inland waterways for the consideration of the Cabinet (H.P. (55) 12th Meeting, Item 5).

2. The point for decision is whether the proposed enquiry should be small and expert or large and partly representative in composition.

3. In general I share the view which was expressed by some of my colleagues at the Home Affairs Committee meeting that small bodies of independent and intelligent people are better for ascertaining the truth about a subject than are large and representative ones.

4. The object, however, in the present case is not primarily to ascertain the facts. There have been a number of enquiries into this and the facts are well known. My main purpose in proposing such a Committee is to create a climate of opinion in which it may be possible to make some progress in the very difficult situation which now exists. This is, briefly, that the British Transport Commission were saddled by the 1947 Transport Act with a large number of canals which will never be of the slightest use for transport purposes, but which other interests are very keen to see maintained for their purposes at the expense of the Commission. These interests can make it virtually impossible, to use the existing procedure for closing or abandoning canals, and no other body, including those which benefit from the canals, is prepared to take them over.

5. I therefore regard it as essential to the main purpose of setting up this enquiry that it should include responsible and respected representatives of the interests concerned or alternatively persons so closely connected with those interests as to command their respect. In my view it is only by obtaining recommendations supported by at any rate a number of these representatives that it will be possible either for the Government or for the Commission to take the steps which expert opinion recognises as necessary. We already have the report of a highly expert body, the Rusholme Board of Survey, on over three-quarters of the canals in the system. But that has cut no ice at all with the interests concerned.

6. I fully appreciate the risk involved in a composition of this sort, of one or more minority reports. I hope however to minimise this by the appointment of a strong Chairman and a number of good independent members. Equally, while I would wish to appoint people closely concerned with the more responsible interests involved, I would not propose to include representatives of purely propagandist bodies.

7. After thinking over the discussion in the Home Affairs Committee I remain firmly of the view that the main purpose of appointing a Committee of Enquiry will only be served if its composition is on something of the lines suggested in the appendix to H.P. (55) 63, attached. I would add that these proposals were put forward after consultation with the other Departments directly concerned, who were indeed good enough to make suggestions as to appropriate representatives of the interests with which they were concerned.

Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, W. 1,

13th October, 1955.

Page 99f321

J. A. B-C.

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