Road Haulage Concessions to Farmers
Page 19
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AN article forming part of a report from the Eastern Area Secretary of A.R.O., Mr. G. W. Irwin, will appear in the May issue of "The Road Way," but owing to the importance of the matter dealt with, the Editor of that journal has courteously sent it to us before publication.
It deals with the recent concessions to farmers, by which they are now allowed to use tractors taxed at the 5s. rate for haulage, on the road, of agricultural produce and requirements, and this without any restriction as to starting point or destination.
A further consequential concession is that drivers aged 17 can drive these machines on the road.
Users of such tractors are permitted to employ paraffin taxed at Id. per
gallon, which they Can acquire, without coupons, in lots of 200 gallons and without submitting returns or keeping records. Farmers have been able to retain bulk-storage facilities, and many of them who did not have this facility
before the war now have it. Few hauliers—and those only the largest— have, been able to resume the use of their bulk storage in certain Defence Regions.
Farmers will not have to meet such heavy wage bills, nor, such complicated wage provisions, in respect of their hire and reward haulage as apply to ordinary road hauliers,' nor do they have to keep drivers' records.
It is stated that the purpose of the concessions is to facilitate food production, but it is not clear how they will assist this end. When farmers are kiven powers to compete with rural hauliers on such advantageous terms, they are being encouraged to take their tractors and men off the important duty of food production, and their primary function may suffer.
If there be such needs for more road-transport facilities it is extraordinary that so few rural hauliers have been able to Convince R.T.C.s that they 'should be granted defence permits for additional vehicles, except at times of peak pressure, as with the sugar-beet campaign. There is. moreover, rigid control of all transport through petrol rationing.
If it will assist the Nation to flood the road with vehicles that are virtually untaxed, uncontrolled and unregulated, and use fuel which is unrationed and virtually Untaxed, why not go the whole way and allow 'the same concessions to the professional haulier who, so far, has been subjected only to restrictions on his activities, almost, it may be said, to the extent of extinction?