I prefer not to be led down that track. I do not want to take on too many people at one time. I should like to stick to this point on which I have been challenged. What the Government have consistently said, and what was said in the Minister's statement on 5th August, 1947, is that all railway charges will be raised to 55 per cent. above pre-war with effect 1st October next. That is the point that the hon. Gentleman has now twice tried to challenge and twice failed to substantiate. The comparison on which this is based—these words—is exactly the same as the wording used in a similar announcement during the days of the Coalition Government during the war, and the basis is precisely the same. We were quite right when we took the view that all railway charges will be raised to 55 per cent. above pre-war with effect from the 1st October, 1947, in the conventional terms in which that is used.

I want to deal briefly with one or two of the longer term considerations in the short time that remains, but I ought to say a word or two about cheap fare facilities. The Railway Executive have introduced large numbers of cheap fare facilities during the last 12 months. They did not have a straight run before them, because there were restrictions on coal and the railways were kept short of coal. It was not until last Spring that they could really start to introduce these facilities with any degree of assurance that they would not be interrupted. The point I want to make here is that, as these cheap fare facilities and excursions which have been very widely introduced become better known, and as we get a full year's working, I am confident that the proportion of passengers taking advantage of them will be very much higher.

Perhaps I might quote the figures. The proportion of passengers in 1947 who used cheap fare facilities was 5 per cent. of the total passenger traffic. In the first quarter of last year, it was 5.2 per cent., which was about the time of the release of the railways, in the second quarter it went up to 8.6 per cent. and in the third quarter to 17.8 per cent. For the year as a whole, as the hon. Gentleman said, it will be near enough the 10 per per cent., perhaps a little more, but it is an ascending curve and it is the commercial expectation of the Railway Executive that this percentage of passengers will rise more greatly as the facilities become better known and as more people understand that they exist and our broadcast advertisements become more widely understood. I do not believe they will ever return to the 50 per cent. of before the war, for technical reasons concerned with the abolition of the week-end ticket and its replacement by the monthly return. I think it is likely that they will rise to something higher than the figure at which they have stood up to the moment.

The hon. Gentleman asked me for an assurance that bus and coach fares will not be increased. The procedure has been quite clearly enunciated before. It is the duty of the British Transport Commission, laid upon it by Act of Parliament, to review the millions of fares and rates that are charged at the present time and to take them before the Transport Tribunal where they may be fully argued out. The case for the opposition will be presented if the charges are rather unpalatable, and there will be the opportunity of arguing the case before the tribunal. There is no suggestion that anybody is going to depart from that procedure, which is laid down by the Act; it will be followed and the full case will be presented. On a previous occasion, it took seven years to argue it out, but I hope it will not take so long now.

I shall conclude by reading some excellent extracts from a lecture given recently by Mr. Roland Bird, deputy editor of "The Economist," because they are very wise: The fruits of co-ordination and unification are therefore bound to mature slowly. It would be absurd to suppose that the Commission could devise charges schemes within two years of the passing of the Act, or perhaps within twice that period, which would begin to reflect the general directions in which costs are being or promised to be reduced. I leave out a few sentences, and again quote: A system of charges for transport as a whole, if it is to make economic sense, must await the results of the long-term attack upon costs. There is another paragraph which I regret I cannot quote.