Rules of the Game
Page 61
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HABIT plays a powerful part in the lives of politicians. Debates in the House of Commons follow rules as arbitrary as those in a game. If the Opposition bring forward a subject with the intention of embarrassing or discrediting the Government, they use whatever facts they have -collected solely in order to prove that their party's cause is just and right The Minister who replies either denies the facts or uses them to prove something else. He seldom gets to grips with the arguments from the other side.
Coming events in Parliament cast their shadows most quitkly at question time. For some weeks before Easter it was evident that Mr. Ernest Davies was collecting information, by means of question to and answer from the Minister of Transport, about infringements of the Road Traffic Acts. It was only a question of time before he put the information to his own purpose. He chose the day before Easter to inaugurate a discussion lasting exactly one hour, and conforming even more exactly to the rules as I have outlined them. . .
Convictions for contravening Section 19 of the 1930 Act, which. is con,cerned with the working hours of drivers, more than trebled in three years, said Mr. Davies. There were 924 convictions in 1954, and 3,336 in 1956. There were also numerous offences against Section 16 of the 1933 Act, under which drivers' records • have to be kept. Any visitor to a transport café, said Mr. Davies, would find drivers weary from lack of sleep, but compelled to keep going either by starvation wages or by bribes—Mr. Davies did not seem to have made up his mind which.
Another speaker in the debate, Mr. Geoffrey Hirst, had found,things completely different in the cafés he had visited. The drivers, he said, `.` are usually exceedingly happy, jolly, alive and awake:" Mr. G. R. H. Nugent, the Minister's Parliamentary Secretary, who wound up the discussion, did not disagree with the figures put forward by Mr. Davies, but suggested that, if a longer period were taken, a different
picture emerged. The number of recent prosecutions was, . . in proportion, less' than in pre-war years.
. Endless Wrangle
Because the debate took place -on the adjournment of the House it would not have been inorder for the speakers to introduce the subject of nationalization, which would require new legislation. No very close examination of the speeches. is required, however, to show that they formed part Of the endless wrangle between the supporters of British Road Services and of independent hauliers. Perhaps it was this that prevented the debate from coming to any useful conclusions.
Mr. Davies may or may not have found some significant figures. Whatever value they may have had he completely vitiated by the use to which he put them in his determination to fit them within the framework of an indictment of the road haulage industry. He set out with the intention of proving that, with the return to greater freedom in road haulage operation, drivers in an increasing number of cases are being cajoled or threatened into working longer than the law allows.
The remedy, according to Mr. Davies, is to return to a "planned transport system," his pet euphemism for nationalization. "Only when we abolish the excessive competition resulting from the atomization of the industry following denationalization," he said, "will we remove the temptation for operators to employ drivers for far longer hours than the statutes perrnit, and for drivers to work those longer hours in order to gain more money."
Mr. Davies can get away with this sort of thing because he is playing the game strictly according_ to the rules. Through years of argument on the subject Parliament hak: become conditioned to thinking about the transport problem solely in terms of nationalization and free enterprise. The figures appear to show an increase in lawlessness. Therefore, according to Mr. Davies, this must be the result of putting competition back into road haulage. What the Government must reply, if they are to keep to the rules, is that he has put the wrong construction on the figures.
Presumably, it would be considered unsporting to suggest that the figures have nothing to do with denationalization, and that Mr. Davies' argument amounts to nothing at all.
If drivers are really being grossly overworked, one would not normally have looked to "excessive competition" for an explanation. The vehicles must be as overworked as the drivers, and presumably they are not running empty. Such a state of affairs is hardly symptomatic of too much competition. In the normal way, if there are too many companies making an article, or too many shops selling it, the individual business becomes slack. The manufacturers and traders do not start working overtime in order to aggravate a situation in which too many goods are chasing too few customers. There seems no reason why the principle should be reversed when it is applied, not to a product, but to a service, such as transport.
Forced to Conclusions
If Mr. Davies believes that transport is an exception to the general rule, he might have given us the benefit of an explanation during the recent debate. If transport is no different from other industries, Mr. Davies might have been forced to some conclusions that do not necessarily square with his beliefs.
On the face of it, it does not seem sensible to blame competition for the overworking of men and of vehicles. It would seem rather that a greater measure of competition would ease the pressure. There should be more, rather than fewer, vehicles on the roads. Such a state of affairs would not be to the benefit of the British Transport Commission, and would be opposed to Mr. Davies' own policy.
Evidence of excessive competition is to be found more in the low rates now current than in the treatment of drivers. The " planned transport system " that Mr. Davies advocates, with its return to a monopoly, or near monopoly, might mean much higher charges to the customer, as it did on the previous occasion. Mr. Davies might well hesitate to suggest that this is desirable, even as a means for protecting drivers from the temptation to break the law.
Even the Socialists agree that the law-breakers are in a minority. The blame is placed on the confused situation created by the Transport Act, 1953. All legislation of this kind, in whichever direction it moves, has an unsettling effect, and the likelihood of further legislation can only prolong the confusion. The Socialists might well pursue their argument to the conclusion that what the road haulage industry most needs is a period of political stability.
The rules of the game would not allow such a conclusion to be reached. The Socialists would even prefer to reverse their tactics, and to argue that there are few infringements of the road haulage regulations, showing that operators are looking forward to the tranquility of renationalization.