The 1933 Act Creating Harsh Administration of an Unreasonable Law
Page 45
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Drives Honest Traders to Subterfuge in an Effort to Preserve Their Livelihoods
A Body of "Artful Dodgers"?
AREGRETTABLE result of the gruelling to which haulage contractors seeking licences are being subjected is the development of a species of inferiority complex. As any psychologist will tell you, the child who is browbeaten by his parents is the one from whom evasion and deceit may be expected.
To the uninitiated, the mere fact that they have to enter a kind of witness box and have questions fired at them by people' superficially far cleverer than themselves tends to clothe the proceedings of the traffic court with the atmosphere of the police court.
Playing on Inexperience.
Their inexperience in giving evidence generally receives little or no sympathy, and applicants find that the slightest incautious remark is frequently seized upon and developed into an argument against them. Then, again, for those who are not represented, there is the fac..t that both the Licensing Authority and the railway lawyer have a language and mentality far more akin to one another than to those of the haulier.
This circumstance often gives rise to the impression that they are, more or less, both in the same team, Far be it from me to suggest that this is the case.
Many applicants look upon the railways with the same fearful respect that a certain class of the community accords the police. Any utterance or intimation from this quarter has all the force of law— a law, however, in which the victim does not acquiesce and which is dumbly resented. If one stops to examine the procedure of the average traffic court, it must be conceded that the uninformed indivio dual has every reason for bewilderment. I will take a concrete example.
Appearances Deceptive.
A contractor who required an extra vehicle—a tipping lorry— recently came to me. He had a fair case, and he application was duly made, to be followed by the inevitable objections.
When preparing the case, he told me that there were three railway yards in the vicinity of his base. Two of these depots had no lorries at all and the third had only covered vans. As it was a case of purely local haulage, this appeared to the applicant to be fine evidence. He was both crestfallen and amazed when I told him that it would not help him at all.
But they cannot do the work, so why are they objecting? " was his reply. He went on defiantly ;, "I shall ask the railways how many vehicles of this kind they are operating in the district." Again I was forced to disillusion him, and replied : " You will not be able to ask anything of the kind, because no railway witness will be put forward."
A New Line of Attack.
Ultimately, the case was successfully fought by our counsel on quite
different lines. Had this application, relying on the above evidence, been rejected, could anyone blame the haulier for a feeling of frustration and injustice?
The small man is completely unable to understand why he can remove furniture to St. Albans, but not to Luton, nor can he understand how this restriction is likely to affect the welfare of the nation, or even the railways. He sees no reasonable justification for the thumbscrew that is being applied to his business, and is coming to look upon the law at his enemy—an attitude which is fatal to the harmonious working of any measure.
What is the result? Against this legalized intimidation the smaller men are reverting to the age-old defence of the oppressed; they are opposing strength with cunning. People whom I know to be honest traders come to me for advice and suggest evasions and distortion of evidence which I am quite unable to recommend, or even to countenance.
When I point out that it is the law, the invariable reply is: "Yes, but it is only a railway fraud, and I am just as entitled to nay living as they are." It has been made so difficult, however, for the haulier camel to pass through the eye of the Traffic Act needle that I must frankly confess to a reluctant sympathy for these nefarious proposals.
"Unconscionable Laws."
Harsh and unconscionable laws always have their epitaph written on the reverse side. The British people are probably the most law-abiding in the world, so long as the law seems even tolerably reasonable. But, once bring in a law, and enforce it in such a manner that it ceases to have any moral significance to the conscience of the people, and evasion then becomes the order of the day.
While I was jotting clown these notes, quite by chance I came upon an article in the Daily Telegraph by Senor De Madariaga, Permanent Spanish Delegate to the League of Nations, who said :— ". . . there is a natural law which prevents an imposed law from becoming effective, save to the degree in which it has become a part of the inner consciousness of individuals forming the group or nation to which it must apply. Thus, for example, the Prohibition Law in the United States, and the laws regulating automobile speeds, or forbidding duelling, in most countries lacked efficacy, because the peoples to whom they had to apply never were entirely convinced of their necessity.
'!For a law to be effective. Parliamentary ratification does not suffice. It must, in addition, have the ratification which each citizen gives to it in his own conscience."
Dishonesty Encouraged.
This was written of the world at large, but to no country does it apply with greater force than our own.
It will be a matter of extreme regret if a hard-working and decent body-of citizens is forced by circumstances to assume the role of the "Artful Dodger." A. D.-J.