Twenty-nine Distinct Damnations
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There's a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails. • Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
One sure, if another fails. One sure, if another fails.
NOW that the appointed day has been fixed, interest may soon be turned towards some of the difficult questions yet to be decided about operating centres. Before the passing of the Transport Act, the precise situation of his base or centre was not one of the major worries in a haulier's life.
The passing of the Act, however, gave to that base a dreadful significance. It became the operating centre from which were to be measured the journeys during 1946 that determined whether or not compulsory acquisition was to deprive the haulier of his business. The one exception was where a B licence had a mileage limitation defined in terms of a distance from a specified point. In such a case, that point was regarded as the operating centre.
For the haulier, weighed in the Road Haulage Executive's balance and found wanting (or not wanted), the expression "operating centre" has been given another significance. It marks the spot to which, lacking a permit and not carrying excluded traffic, hc will be tethered after the appointed day. In the absence of any attempt to make a change, this spot will continue to be the base or centre specified in the licence application. As the application was in most cases made before the Transport Act was passed, it would seem more than a little hard if the haulier should not only be restricted to a radius of 25 miles, but should also have to measure that distance from a place chosen perhaps many years previously for a totally different purpose.
The haulier may, of course, endeavour to arrange for a change of base under the 1933 Act, when, for example, his licence is due for renewal, but this gives other carriers the right of objection and of appeal. It appeared, therefore, a generous, if not characteristic, gesture on the part of the architects of the Transport Act to allow a haulier, in certain circumstances, to apply for his operating centre to be altered.
More Characteristic Than Generous
On closer examination, and judging from the interpretation put on Section 58 in such instances as the Barrett case, the gesture was perhaps after all more characteristic than generous. Nevertheless, many hauliers have been helped by the section to ensure that their operating centres more exactly conform to the pattern either of their business activities or the disposition of their vehicles.
Some of the hauliers who have had the benefit of Section 58, now learn that there is another obstacle to overcome. When they apply for renewal of their licences, they meet with objections and a demand to prove need for the work they do from the new operatingcentre-cum-base.
Attention was drawn to this danger by the Appeal Tribunal in the Booth case. As the application by B. Booth, Ltd., was for a change of base under the 1933 Act, it may seem strange that the Tribunal should have spent some time in considering the 1947 Act. Stress was laid, however, on the necessity of adopting common principles for dealing with applications concerning bases under the earlier Act and operating al 0 -centres under the later. The main decision in the Booth case ends with these words:
"An operator is, of course, entitled as of right to require that a new operating centre shall be recognized under and in accordance with Section 58 (5) of the Act, but it would appear to be fair to him that he should be warned at the time that by so doing he may be incurring risk of being unable, on application for renewal of his licence, to prove need to provide facilities in the locality of the operating centre which he may have chosen to claim, and that the former operating centre or base may ultimately be held to have been abandoned."
At least one case has occurred where a haulier .who had previously been successful in securing new operating centres for some of his vehicles, was later unable to obtain a renewal of his licence for those vehicles. The case is still sub judice, but it is worth noting that the Licensing Authority, in refusing to grant the renewal, drew the haulier's attention to his right to make application for a new A licence.
This suggestion opens up interesting possibilities of all kinds. For one thing, the operator, even if he gets his new licence, will have forfeited his right to an original permit, or to a claim to compensation if the permit be refused. He may, of course, apply for an ordinary or job permit, but the general assumption is that either will be harder to . get than the original variety. The haulier, with his new centre and new licence, may, therefore, be more restricted than if he had remained content with his old centre under the old licence.
Hauliers Doubly Damned
It always used to be maintained that a person cannot be tried twice for the same offence. Apparently, when the offence is a desire to carry other people's goods for payment, the principle does not apply. The haulier stands trial for a new operating centre under Section 58 and, if he be not convicted there, the prosecutionlaunches another attack under the Act of 1933. If he survives even that, some forensic genius ought to be able to catch him in the toils of other legislation.
Once this stage has been reached, it should not be difficult to surpass the total of Browning's "twenty-nine distinct damnations," to which the haulier will certainly be willing to add several more damnations of his own, equally distinct. Even as matters stand, he must be tempted to picture the R.H.E., the Railway Executive and the Licensing Authority in the role of the three "secret, black and midnight hags" in " Macbeth," dancing widdershins round the fire, and chanting: "Double, double, toil and trouble ! "
One almost wishes some completely Gilbertian situation could be precipitated which would force an early overhaul of road transport law. Of the additional complexities introduced by the Transport Act, there has now been enough experience to show that soon even the most skilled of jurists will begin to lose their way.
A campaign to simplify the law need. not wait until the next General Election. It is not a matter of politics. Action should be taken immediately to ensure at least that the holder of an A or B licence who wants a new operating centre should 'not ,have to run the risk of losing his licence, his, original permit and his claim to compensation. Otherwise, few hauliers will dare to apply when the penalty for success is so great.