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While Road Transport Has Life

18th November 1938
Page 67
Page 67, 18th November 1938 — While Road Transport Has Life
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

t Has Hope

J.D.P. Answers the Recent Article by Mr. T. A. McDowall Entitled "What A Hope!" and Offers Several Happier Theories for the Industry's Betterment FOR how many years Mr. McDowall has been engaged in the roadtransport industry I do not know, but it seems clear that he abandoned all hope upon entering therein. The first two paragraphs of his article, "What a Hope!'" (in the issue of The Commercial Motor dated November 11), have my earnest agreement. The industry's greatest operational asset is, strangely, its greatest political liability. I refer to the manifold divisions of interest and ownership, and I hope it will not be called labouring the obvious if I sum up Mr. McDowall's neatly turned phrases in the old, old tag, "Unity is Strength.'

The Industry's Need for Unity.

Agreement -in 'principle is simply not enough. A unity with regard to procedure is, to-day, the greatest crying need of the industry. This is,

• perhaps, more labouring of the obvious, yet no one can be criticized for striving to arouse road transport from the perils of these twin evils.

Are we to accept the status quo or, worse, to face added trials and tribulations with no further effort at prevention than recrimination and murmuring of past injustices?

Viewing the edifice that road transport has built since the war, are we to stand and look at the structural damage which has been caused and say what a pity it all is, or are we to strive with all our might, as I think we should, to prevent further damage or, indeed, total eclipse by the other transport "department stores " in Westminster and Northumberland Avenue? The almost criminal complacency of the road-transport industry is an accepted fact; the vicious oppression of successive railway-minded governments is another. These two drawbacks do not require enlarging upon. but what does require it is the need for a greater unity, a fiercer determination and a made-up mind to prevent further inroads.

I make no apology for the more obvious sections of my recent article, "Will the Crisis Terminate Restric

tion? " None is needed, for inherently there is nothing wrong with road transport, no need for specious reasoning and mis-statements to make clear its advantages. There is no need for anything, in short; more elaborate than the obvious—even trite—truths about• the industry and its well-deserved right to take first place in the life of the nation.

Neither do I make apology in hoping that the industry will receive better future treatment. As with all things, there are only two ways (with their attendant diversions) in which the future can go, and these are well or ill. Surely, it is a 50 per cent. chance either way, so, in all'reason, let us hope that the former will prevail, and strive to attain that object.

Let the haulier ask himself : "In the event of myself, a competing haulier and the railway tendering for a job, would I hope for the job to be placed in that order of preference, or would I be indifferent as to which got it if I were' ruled out? " If he chooses the first of the alternatives, he manifests the spirit which will undoubtedly raise the industry from its present rut.

A Cheering Belief.

I have a fervent belief in the future of the industry. It is a belief which transcends the present gloom that has been occasioned by the fog of prejudice from Parliament and Press. I believe with all my heart that the industry will overcome its present difficulties by reason of its fundamental stability and economic advantage over the cumbrous financial and operative difficulties from which it is impossible to divorce the railways.

Nothing I or Mr. McDowall can say may give any material assistance to road transport, but, equally, nothing that the Houses of Parliament, assisted by Lord Beaverbrook, can say or do will be able permanently to bolster up the railways. Most certainly they could not achieve this bolstering by the downfall of commercial road transport, responsible as it is for only a small part of the railway difficulties.

Gloom Will Not Help.

So, while not advising road transport to lean wholly on the broken reed of Parliamentary assistance, I do earnestly and sincerely ask it not to give way to gloom. Neither should it dwell too much on the iniquities of the past and ally them to the seemingly impossible difficul ties of the future. • Road transport can—and will— prove itself as ubiquitous in the future as it has shown itself to be in the past, as ready to serve in an emergency as in more peaceful conditions.

It is by rising to these heights, as it did in 1926, and now again in 1938, that road transport will impress itself upon the minds of our rulers and their masters, the electorate.

Memories, I know, are short, but , not so short that the railways or Government would be allowed totally to imprison road transport. A move of that magnitude could not be engineered by the wiliest of bureaucrats without raising a public outcry. Mr. McDowall exclaims, "What a Hope ! " which, anyway, sounds like sweet music compared with "Not a Hope ! " J.D.P.


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