The economic activities of the government with Britain in focus continues

In the last article i made on this topic, i talked about the divisions of the Departments concerned into two classes being:

The Post Office,

The Ministry of Fuel and

The Ministry of Transport which administers services and industries which either have been or are being brought under full government control and ownership.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food,

The Board of Trade

The Ministry of Supply and

The Ministry of Works which exercise control over branches of production still, in the main, privately owned and conyrolled enterprises.

For the sake of time, we shall be looking into just two out of the entire Ministries on the list for toady while we shall continue with the rest on the list in our next article, therefore, we start with first;

The Post Office.

This Department is run by a Board that is composed of two politicians notably;

• The Post Master General(PMG) and

• The Assistant Post Master General(APMG) - one Office.

• A number of permanent officials including a Director General and Directors for the different aspects of the work.

The Board's first duty is to organise the Postal, the Telegram and the Telephone services and from this purpose is mainly to make profits which could either be in normal profits or in a surplus profits that are paid into the Treasury account for the nation's immidiate and future use.

In the last 25 years however, they have been much argument and different changes to the policies as regards the proper relations between the Treasury and the Post Office in which the former (the Treasury) regards the latter(the Post Office) as a source of revenue while this tendency may deter or derive the Post Office of the needed funds with which it can develop its services with time.

Before the war, the Post Office paid a certain fixed amount of money to the Treasury and retained any further sum for its own use.

In more recent times, increasing costs have diminshed the profits of the Post Office and its requirement for quipment have been subject to the same control as are other forms of captial expenditures.

At present, the anual surplus of the Post Office goes to the Treasury and the passing, every two or three years of a Post Office and the Telegraph(monies) Act provides the funds for capital development.

It is noteworthy to understand the fact that the Post Office despite what its name implies, does not only concern itself with communication alone while having Office in every Towns and Villages as convenient channel for much government buisinesses such as the payment of Old Age Pensions and War Pensions.

These however, are only the matters of routine for the Post Office whilst the determination of policy lies in their hands.

It acts as a financial agent for the government by selling the Nation's Savings Certificates and through the Post Office Savings Bank.

The money deposited there comes under the control of the National Debt Commisioners in which they invest it in the Government Securities or may lend it along with the other monies that comes to them and the Government Departments.

The Post Office itself recieves money from the Commisioners for capital expenditures that is; on buildings or telephone equipment.

The sudden realisation by the public At the election of 1931, that for many years , Savings from bank money had been lent to the Unemployment Insurance Fund which has created a good deal of alert alarm within the sector.

In fact, the money is in the same position as any other money that is lent to the government and it is safe so long as the government is not as a regular practice, which is spending more than its income.

The Post Master General is responsible to the parliament for broadcasting, though it is controlled separately from the Post Office by the British Broadcasting Corperation (BBC) and at present, power is left to the Governors and the Directors.

Moreso, the independence of the corperation is shown by the fact that the Director has on more than one occassions addressed groups of M.P.'s and dealt with criticisms. These have usually been aimed at three points namely: personnel - the choice of the poeple to broadcast, and the relations between the BBC and its staff: Cultural standards - the comparative time which are for instances alloted to the dance musics as well as to other serious subjects like the attitudes of the corperation towards politics.

At this stage, one point has been dealt with by allowing the staff to form an association. As to the others, the Ulswater commitee recommended in 1936 that a special Minister should take over responsibilities since the duties were so different from those of the P.M.G.

The government did not adopt this plan by arguining that the Corperation should be independent and the government's reason for this move of a motion for the independence of the BBC Commission was that of an avoidance of any form of control over the BBC for the sake of using what was seen as a National property being solely subjected for its own propaganda if they were placed entirely under the full control of the State.

At present, there is this unsatisfactory position that the delicate question of keeping the BBC impartial and allowing all shades of opinions a chance at the microphone is settled by people who are not in effect, controlled by the parliament which the State is expected and entitled to carry out the policy of the party to which it belongs whereas, the BBC must give scope to minorities who disagree with the government.

The first instance of a sharp conflict on the party lines in this field makes it appear that the BBCs radio and television services, unlike those of the many countries out there are free from advertisement being an Act that was passed in the year 1954 in order to create a separate commercial television services.

The Ministry of Transport.

The two main or chief aspects or parts of this Department are the control of the Roads and Railways.

At some point in time, road transport was partly the concern of the Local Authorities and that of the Private companies.

The growth of trade and the increase of motor traffic have made the task of maintaining proper roads increasingly very expensive and then more suitable for the control of the government at the centre, but today, all roads are under the control of the Minister of Transport while the money that is required to repair and rebuild the damaged roads or even develop more newer ones come directly from the taxes that are paid by the private motorists and the commercial ones alike.

Right until 1936, these taxes formed a separate fund but then, the Chancellors of the Exchequer when short of money with which to balance the budget, would frequently raid the funds realized from the integration of the commercial and private motorists alike while the taxes and the expense of the roads now go into the National Accounts with the other items of income and expenditure, but it is probable that there will still be some relation between the amount that owners of vehichles pay and the benefits that they receive.

The amount of road development is not therefore determined by the Minister of Transport but by the chancellor.

The Minister does however decide what use shall be made of the money at his disposal, whether on the roads under his control by making grants to local authorities. He can as well obtain from the Development Commission, the power to compel landowners to sell their lands needed for road building at a reasonable price.

The at this point collects and classifies statistics of road accidents and tries to frame its policy accordingly but the efficacy of the Acts of Parliament, or of the Minister's safety regulations, depends largely on the attitudes of the Magistrates.

The best regulations will not help if offenders against them are too leniently treated while a respect for the law is not encouraged by the fact that the same offence may be punished by that too in a related fine in one part of the country and an imprisonment in another part of the country.

Meanwhile, the Highway Code issued by the Minister may be regarded as a Ministerial addition to the law and when an accident occurs, the driver's observance or non observance of the Code will go as far as deciding which way the case will go to or end in.

The Railways on the other hand, have provided a lot of problems for the government of which it has had the government to make some compensations for the landonwers that are very much quite as huge in sums of money which are also seen on the government's induced safety measures and their protection of the people from excessive charges.

The first policy of trying to encourage compensations was soon abandoned as wasteful and in 1921, the Railways Act nearly compelled all companies to amalgamate into four largle groups.

During the war of the 1939-45, the government in effect, hired the Railways from the companies and controlled them itself, while the Labour government that came to power in 1945 proceeded to nationalise railways, canals and a large proportion of road transport undertakings.

It also nationalised the Civil Aviation for which separate Ministry was made responsible while the succeeding Conservative government abolished this new Ministry but transferred its functions to the Ministry of Transport while retaining the Civil Airlines in public ownership.

The Civil Air lines would then continue to be retained in the public hands though their organisation was altered with the intention of securing a less highly centralised control.

I guess at this point you have all learned a new thing with respect to the British government's economic activities in politics right? If yes is your answer, then stay with me as I bring you the next being:

The Ministry of Fuel and Power in the next article.

Stay tuned and God bless you.

All images are from unsplash.com.

Merry xmas and a happy new year in advance