I tell them that within a short time they will realise that they cannot do with London to-day, with its big Labour representation, what they could do with old London dominated by the Tory party. The wise thing for the Government would be to have regard to the declarations of its own party—of the National Executive of the Labour party—apart from the London Labour party, and try and get a settlement on the basis that the people of London should have a right to control their own traffic and settle the lines upon which it is going to be run. We are not trying to obstruct this question being dealt with. We want it dealt with. Nobody appreciates more than do the London Labour Members of Parliament how urgent the question is. It affects the passengers and the workpeople and the convenience of the general travelling public, but we beg the Minister to have regard to the elements of local self-government and to see that the people of London really shall have a decisive voice in London traffic policy and the organisation of London's traffic.

I suggest to hon. Members opposite, that they might have got agreement on this question if they had not ridden roughshod over London, and tried to impose a dictatorship from Whitehall upon it; and I suggest to the present Government that there is plenty of room for agreement provided that that is understood. But I resent the efforts of the Conservative party to try and pitchfork this new Labour Government into the Tory party's policy, and I warn this Government that, if it is going to fall into the policy of the Tory party, if it should think for a moment of introducing their Bill instead of a Labour Bill, there is going to be difficulty. I am sure the Minister of Transport, with his many years of occupation in the work of local government in London, will have some respect for the people of London, and will not submit to the temptations of hon. Members opposite, who would lead him astray. London is a great city, and I do not know that I am particularly anxious that London should be run by the hon. and gallant Member for Chatham. I would much rather that London people should run London for themselves. This is essentially a local question. Nobody would dare to go to Manchester, Glasgow or Edinburgh and impose this kind of thing on them, and say that they shall be run from Whitehall. Although London is on the doorstep of this House, and Whitehall is in London, London has an equal right with Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow to control her own destinies and her own services, and I hope this Government will not disgrace itself, or its party, or its great democratic ideals, or its association with the high principles of local self-government, by falling into the questionable Bill that the Conservative party desire to introduce, a Bill which, first of all, was wrong in handing London in this important respect over to a State Department, and, secondly, which had more regard, I am afraid, to the interests of the traffic combine than it had to the interests of the passenger public of London. I hope Ministers will not fall into the trap which is being so carefully laid for them by the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite and by the capitalistic newspapers outside. This question has been gratuitously raised to-night from the other side, but as it has been raised, I wanted to give a brief indication of the fact that at any rate the Labour Members of Parliament of Greater London on this occasion are going to put up a real fight for the lights of London, and the rights of the people of London to control their own local destinies.