ISOLATION
Page 65
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
ISOLATION from the continent of Europe has its disadvantages, but there are points in its favour as well. The transport situation there is complex, sometimes -bewildering and not always kind to the road operator. There are any number of international and supranational organizations with considerable influence and in one or two cases considerable power. Their decisions have to be given close and respectful attention in a community that still contains many sovereign states but is gradually becoming more closely knit together.
The course of British transport since the war has at least run in accordance with a simple and easily recognizable pattern. The tendency towards a single authority with a virtual monopoly has first been checked and has then flowed steadily in the opposite direction. The White Paper on the reorganization of the nationalized transport undertakings marks the latest stage. It is surprising that in some quarters there is still doubt about its significance.
Even within the Conservative party the old lines of thought persist. There is general agreement that integration of transport is discredited, but no clear idea of what exactly has taken its' place. The Government, it is felt uneasily, have no overall policy into which their deeds, many of them desirable in themselves, can fall neatly into place. For example, expenditure of £150m. on railway modernization in a year may be admirable, and so may expenditure of £100m. on new and improved roads. But who fixes priorities and who decides the railways are worth an investment one and a half times that spent on roads?
THE answer is perhaps too simple to be acceptable at first sight. Although the Government certainly have some kind of general plan for transport, such a plan is no longer their chief concern. They have a separate aim for each form of transport. The White Paper and repeated statements by the Minister of Transport make plain the determination to keep the railways in being as a "vital basic industry." Equally clear is the intention to encourage road transport, even if the performance in road building lags sadly behind the promise. To complete the picture, there are also plans for the canals and for air transport.
At this stage the Government might not be prepared to admit in so many words that they no longer see transport as a single problem but as a number of problems whose interrelationship is not their most significant factor. Such a bald statement would seem too much like an excuse to prepare the way for the spectacle of the railways as a permanent State pensioner.
In any case there is scarcely need to adumbrate a political philosophy for what has so far been done or proposed. Even the Labour party agree with a good part of the White Paper, including the important financial provisions. Although any idea of integration has been finally discarded, no bar is proposed on the closest possible inter-working between road and rail. Licensing restrictions on road haulage are to remain and nobody has the least relish for an experiment to see what would happen if they were abolished.
The revolution in thought has been silent and bloodless, and so far as one can see it has been wise. It hardly seems a possibility for Continental countries. Whatever the economic benefits of the groupings that have taken place in Europe, from the transport point of view they certainly seem to be at sixes and sevens. Every country sees the theoretical advantages of a general transport policy for the Continent, especially where there is a considerable interchange of traffic, but agreement on the policy seems to become more difficult as time goes on, Even technical and mechanical points present their problems. Lengths and widths of vehicles, lighting, trailer couplings and maximum permitted weights have all been the subject of discussion. On many of the points the main obstacle may well have been the reluctance of countries with heavily protected railways to allow too many conces sions to road vehicles. The difficulties do not appear insurmountable but they become much more serious when attention is turned to the operation of the vehicles.
IN some European countries, notably Western Germany, severe restrictions arc imposed on road transport 'for the benefit of the railways. Among other things, rates for road haulage are determined by law, This may seem purely an internal affair of the country concerned, but it so happens that fixed statutory rates, or something very much like them, are among the principles laid down for the European Economic Community.
The reasoning is sound. If countries are to work closely together, with considerable interchange of traffic and progressively fewer Customs barriers, there must be no hidden subsidies such as could be provided by artificially low rates. Therefore they must be the same for all traffic between two countries. From this it is only a step, perhaps an inevitable one, to the compiling of rates schedules even for traffic within national boundaries.
In addition to E.E.C., the question of nationally or internationally controlled rates has occupied the attention of the International Chamber of Commerce and the International Road Transport Union. As may. be expected, the C-licence holders or carriers on own account who comprise section I of I.R.U. are not in favour of fixed rates and there is also strong opposition from many of the hauliers in section 2.
BRITAIN'S road haulage representatives on F.R.U. have
always made their position clear. A rigid rates system would badly handicap them in competition with the railways newly enjoying their freedom from rate restrictions of any kind. Hauliers would also find difficulty in meeting the challenge presented by the C-licence holder. Flexibility in charging is a mixed blessing so far as hauliers are concerned, but is often of great help to them in the shaping and expansion of their businesses.
Decisions of I.R.U. are not binding on the governments of the countries represented.This is fortunate for British operators. When they hear of the complicated negotiations that take place on the Continent, they should be pleased that they are on the periphery. The Minister of Transport
is aware of what is happening in Europe. There is a European Conference of Ministers of Transport, set up in 1953, mainly for the purpose of co-ordinating policy. Most of the countries represented, it must be admitted, have a difficult enough task in co-ordinating their own transport. Away from the main stream, Britain under the Conservative Governments has been able to work out her own pattern comparatively undisturbed by what the neighbours think. Transport users in Britain may well have gained from this.