Nationalization of Transport has Solved No Industrial Problem and has:
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Failed to Satisfy the Workers. At the Same Time it has increased the Solidarity of Free Hauliers and has Promoted Interworking 0 NE of the many paradoxes of the nationalization of transport is that so little change has taken place in the basic structure of the industry. The Transport Act, 1947, with 125 clauses and 15 schedules, did little more than effect or organize a change of ownership, which did not mean a great deal to anybody except the past and present owners.
Although its proponents heralded nationalization as a notable step forward, it has not solved a single industrial problem. Least of all has it satisfied the workers in the businesses taken over. . They are still doing much the same job as before, and have no greater share in the running of the organization to which they belong.
The only significant changes in the transport industry have been those affecting the Road Haulage Executive. The railways had already moved far towards be
coming an entity. The shareholders had long since ceased to play any vital part in running
Ahem. Co-operation with road transport was already being practised, and discussions were taking place with the intention of extending.collaboration still farther
The workers, including the people -at the top, automatically went over with the railways They went aheadwith plans already in hand. Many apparently new features for which the _Railway Executive has been praised (or
blamed) were originated long before nationalization. The one startling difference in the new order is the existence of the British Transport Commission on an even higher plane than the Railway Executive, but it is questionable whether the B.T.C. has made much difference to the work and organization of the railways.
Direction from above is even more remote in the case of the nationalized road passenger undertakings. The chain of command, from the B.T.C. through the Road Passenger Executive, has so far been mainly formal. Pending the launching of an area scheme, the undertakings have behaved little differently from what might have been expected had they remained free.
A Brutal Process In a limited sense, it is almost possible to say the same thing about the R.H.E. Some of the people with prominent positions in the new organization previously favoured amalgamations which might ultimately have resulted in almost a long-distance monopoly. This result was, of course, greatly speeded up with the help of the Transport Act. The process was in many ways brutal. For the first time nationalization was affectinz an industry made up of thousands -of small units. It could do nothing but attempt to weld them into one.
The evidence points to the fact that the change has been for the worse. By eliminating free enterprise from long-distance haulage, the Government threw out the baby with the bathwatet The R.H.E. cannot reproduce the kind of service that the small haulier gave and that, it so happens, the trader and industrialist continue to demand No doubt the same unhappy results would follow further nationalization of the road passenger side. The B.T.C. had no choice but to go forward on the
lines laid down by Parliament. In the first stage, it adopted much the same tactics with road hauliers and public service vehicle operators. A small number of undertakings and a substantial number of vehicles were captured merely because they were owned or controlled by the former railway companies. The Hay's Wharf group, comprising Carter Paterson and Pickfords, was
the principal organization thus affected on the haulage side. , •• The railways also had large road passenger interests in the groups managed by Thomas Tilling, Ltd., and the Scottish' Motor Traction Co., Ltd. Some of the constituent companies operated haulage vehicles, and the spoils from this side of their activities went to swell the fleet of the R.H.E. The B.T.C. has also. through the railways, acquired interests in the BET group. although that organization is dedicated to a tight "to the last wheel " against the nationalization of road passenger transport.
Other companies operating passenger vehicles have since been bought out by the Commission The number of bilks and coaches taken over now amounts to approximately 14,000, or about a quarter of the total of 54,000 vehicles in the whole of the industry. Apart from the fact that the R.P.E. is one of the few Executives showing a profit, the vehicles under its control would be useful as a sort of Trojan horse in those territories where area schemes are to be put into operation.
The First Year A similar reasoning prompted the voluntary acquisition of several large road haulage undertakings immediately after the accidental capture of Carter paterson and Pickfords. By the end of the first year of nationalization, the R.H.E. had a fleet of 10,000 motor vehicles and trailers, the former assets of 250 companies. With these vehicles as ..a nucleus, it was able to proceed confidently to the compulsory acquisition of other long-distance firms.
A year later, the R.H.E was able to announce the appointed day for the 25-mile restriction, and the squeeze of the remaining hauliers under free enterprise had begun. The process still continues of taking over hauliers who find themselves unable to stay in business without a satisfactory permit. The Executive now has a rolling stock of approximately 41,450 vehicles.
No startling changes are likely to occur in the road passenger industry unless and until the B.T.C. can force one of its area schemes through all the statutory stages. Three schemes have so • far been mooted The greatest progress has been made with the earliest, covering Northumberland, Durham and the North Riding of Yorkshire, but it is still far from being put into operation Another scheme is intended to cover East Anglia. and the latest is intended for the south-west.
Opposition from every quarter has been largely responsible for keeping the schemes on ice. Until the many and vigorous opponents can be satisfied or overborne, Lilo nationalized passenger undertakings are in no more favourable a position than those remaining under free enterprise.
Without the constant menace of area schemes. the two sides of the industry could get on well together The independent coach and bus operators do not fear competition. What they do fear, and are prepared to light. is the extension of nationalization and the imposition of further restrictions upon them. Thebarrier between the two sides exists, as witness the summary withdrawal of the nationalized undertakings from the Public• Transport Association, but it is at ptesent not greatly regarded There is no strong tradition of Complete unity. The preference of the road. passenger industry for organizing itself into separate' groups is shown by ;he continuance of several associations, each with a fairly well-defined sphere of influence
A sharp clash of interest between the R.H.E. and free hauliers was inevitable. In the cant of the Socialists, the R.H.E. has joined the privileged classes. Without having to endure the complicated procedure demanded of -the Road Passenger Executive, it has been granted complete immunity from the licensing system and the right to cut its competitors down to a radius of 25 miles. Long-distance undertakings that it has not chosen to acquire by negotiation have been torn away from their former owners by force.
. Unity Achieved
It was to be expected that the parting of the ways caused by nationalization would affect hauliers more than passenger-vehicle operators. Before and during the war, the leaders of the road haulaga industry strove for' unity, and succeeded when the Road Haulage Association came into existence as one of the constituent Lodies of the National Road Transport Federation. In some ways, the demand for solidarity, is surprising. Hauliers.have a wide range of interests, many of them completely unlike each other.
Nevertheless, the merger in 1945 was one of the least contentious moves in the history of road transport. The parting of the ways between long-distance and shortdistance operators, as a result of nationalization, was genuinely felt as a painful wrench The breach was made complete by the withdrawal of acquired undertakings from membership of the R.H.A., although it is a peculiarity that they remain within the National Association of Furniture Warehousemen and Removers.
The collecthe personality of the road haulage industry under free enterprise has changed with the elimination of the long-distance operators. Their work lent itself to the building up of a larger organization than the average. The individual representatives, having a larger staff to carry on in their absence, were able to spare more time than most for Association affairs.
Their numerical strength, and possibly their influence, on national committees were disproportionately large. The public as a whole tended to regard long-distance haulage as the more important section of the industry. ft was not generally realized that most operators were in the short-distanee field and, in many cases, gained better results than their more travelled colleagues.
The leaders on the free-enterPrise side are now drawn mainly from among the short4listance operators. Transport is to them much more of a vocation, a way of D4 life, than it was to sonic of the leaders in the past. The loss of their businesses is not merely a financial transaction; it is a personal blow They wax much more indignant at any threat to their security of tenure than did some of the former operators.
If there were any well-defined division in the industry in the past, it would be along the long-distance-shortdistance axis. With this distinction gone, hauliers tend to group themselves more readily nowadays on a regional basis. Mileage restrictions naturally exert an influence in this direction, so that operators in one part of the country tend to form a solid bloc in favour of a certain policy.
Circumstances have forced the haulier to become more articulate. The partly deliberate policy of the B.T.C. has been to put intoohe background the existence of any service but its own The haulier has not bothered to shout his wares in the past, not .so much out of modesty as because personal contact was enough to give all the publicity he needed for his usually small business. tik grievances under nationalization have prompted him to appeal to a larger audience
Support for the Haulier He .has not gone unheard. Representatives of trade and industry have expressed in unequivocal terms their preference. for transport under free enterprise. Traders in a .position to do so have put their own vehicles on the road under C licences. Since the passing of the Transport Act, the number of such vehicles has increased from approximately 450,000 to 750,000. Many reasons are suggested for this increase; and it is impossible to say what proportion is the result of nationalization
For a short time, high hopes were entertained of the Road Haulage Liaison Conference, made up of representatives of free hauliers and of the three Executives of the B.T.C. concerned with the carriage of good's. Liaison was heir to the Road and Rail Central Conference, which had planned co-ordination between the two principal arms of transport and had formulated some fairly sweeping proposals.
It soon became apparent that the B.T.C. regarded road-haulage liaison as suitable for only part of the task that the Central Conference had undertaken. Integration was treated as the concern only of the Commission itself. The statement of policy on this subject published in July, 1950, contained no reference to the services provided by free enterprise. Liaison has been used by the Commission merely as a useful medium for the discussion of arrangements already existing between private hauliers and one of the Executives; as an unofficial setting for the amicable and private discussion of permit difficulties: and, above all, as framework for continuing the Road-Rail Negotiating Committees
Private Integration The refusal of the Commission to tolerate the inclusion of hauliers in its plans for integration was a reason why operators decided to experiment with their own brand of integration in the form of interworking The method adopted has ranged from full-scale grouping, notably in the Midlands; to informal arrangements for the exchange of traffic as and when the opportunity arises. Several areas of the R.H.A. have prepared useful gazetteers and lists of members.
Under the Socialist Government, not a single positive step has been taken to help the road transport operator under free enterprise. Purely by his own efforts, he has succeeded in surviving as a force still to be reckoned with. He would welcome the opportunity of shaking off the restrictions imposed by the Transport Act and starting again front where he left off in 1947.