Hornsey Journal, 14 November 1919
A tube to Muswell Hill and a solution of London’s traffic congestion were promised by Mr Kennedy Jones MP at a meeting of his constituents held by the Muswell Hill ward of the Hornsey Conservative and Unionist Association at the Presbyterian Hall, Princes Avenue, on Friday night.
Mr J T Plowman, the newly elected chairman of the ward, presided and a large and enthusiastic audience was present. Mr Plowman began the evening by calling all members of the Association to pull together to overcome the apathy in political matters which in large measure resulted from the fact that the war was not long finished. They must each do what in them lay to further the government of the country so that the forces of reaction and anarchy which were arrayed against them, would be put in their proper places. Mr Plowman welcomed the local MP and referred to his appointment as chairman of the Advisory Committee set up by the Minister of Transport to deal with the problem of London traffic.
Mr Kennedy Jones, who was loudly applauded, dealt with the proposed tube to Muswell Hill. ‘I am going to get it’, he said. Out of the present chaos he intended evolving a perfectly easy system of coordination which would simplify the London traffic problem. In doing so he thought he was serving the interests of the people of Hornsey in the best possible way as their Member. They had been crushed to death in tubes, sat upon in omnibuses, and queued for trams but this was going to be remedied and a cheaper fare provided. With higher rates, higher wages, higher charges and increased cost of petrol the loss today, in the speaker’s view, was no less than twenty million pounds. By the end of February (1920) four committee reports, which would provide a complete solution, would be presented.
The world was suffering from the transport difficulty. It was leading to Bolshevism and bringing Europe to the verge of bankruptcy and possibly into revolution, chaos and anarchy, Roumania, with an abundant wheat harvest was without transport to export its produce and that was happening all over the world – in Russia, Austria, Hungary, Roumania and France. Mr Kennedy Jones added, ‘I am going to provide a tube for Muswell Hill; you see if I do not do it within the course of the next three years’.