CARRY YOUR BAG SIR?
Page 62
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
HISTORIES of transport tend to open with a brief description of what purport to be the early beginnings of the industry with the pioneer carriers using their own backs or a little later beasts of burden to plod over rough tracks through forests and across deserts and mountains for generation after generation until somebody had the wit to think of the wheel. For a long time even after this the packhorse and the mule, assisted by a little manhandling, were still the principal form of
transport.
No doubt there are some scanty records and a few pictures sufficient to justify this version of what happened. Information is lacking on many of the points about which operators today would like to know. In comparison with present standards the cost of transport must have been a substantial proportion of the price of any article which travelled much farther than from one parish to the next. In spite of this the itinerant merchants, the C-licence-holders of the day, appear to have been more than comfortably off to judge from the opulent buildings and other relics of their past splendour.
NO MILLIONAIRES In contrast, the occasional references to professional carriers take for granted or even stress their indigence. Hauliers may trace their descent in a long line from Ali Baba to Barkis, honourable operators all of them no doubt but never a millionaire among them. Those hauliers today who are struggling for their living may wonder how their problems were faced by their predecessors.
Even where primeval or mediaeval rates schedules happen to be extant—apart from the more doubtful examples which certain hauliers claim still to be using—it is not known by what process of costing they were fixed. Standing and running costs must have been incurred by whatever antique names they were known. Depreciation may have been rapid in an environment on the whole unsympathetic to the tourist. The carters in Shakespeare complain of the cost of fodder and its deleterious effect on their horses. Taxation may often have been heavy. Goodsin-transit risks were certainly considerable.
Demurrage may not have been much of a problem but in one way or another the haulier would have been justified in making stiff charges for his services. It would be interesting to know whether the customer accepted the rate without question or whether he asked for an analysis of costs and produced his own by way of discouraging example. More likely than not even in those far-off days an accusation of profiteering would mean that the carrier was brought before an ancestor of Mr. Aubrey Jones supported by thumbscrew and rack instead of by the squeeze and Mrs. Barbara Castle.
Low rates and cut rates throughout the ages have kept hauliers from growing rich. In spite of the long and honourable history of the Carmen's Company one may suspect that for much of the time they have been regarded as of no great consequence. This is the typical attitude towards people who fetch and carry. Porters and bearers, worthy though they may be, are employed casually for a gratuity or for their keep. Traders often seem .to place hauliers in the same category particularly when the trader happens to be very big and the haulier very small.
The customer dictates the terms and may leave the transaction in the hands of a very subordinate employee. When this happens, as it does with considerable frequency, it diminishes the whole road haulage industry. The process has been described more than once. The small haulier currying favour at the back door is content—or has to be content—to sell his services at a low price. Once the official of the customer with whom the negotiations are taking place has established a favourable rate he is unwilling to pay more. He might otherwise be called to account by his superiors.
ERRONEOUS IMPRESSION Perhaps the erroneous impression inherited from the past is that transport is a simple operation presenting no difficulties and that it should therefore cost very little. Hauliers may themselves have encouraged the notion by failing to complain sufficiently loudly when they have felt the pinch. It is to their advantage that many of the problems they now face are shared by their customers who are thus for the first time made completely aware of the complexity of transport and the need to keep it under constant consideration at a high level of management.
DELIVERY ON TIME The turn-that-lorry-round campaign provides one example. Until it was launched many traders saw no need for action on their part to deal with the long queues of vehicles waiting outside their premises. They were concerned only that their supplies should be delivered on time, that their products should be collected promptly and that the transport bill should be kept low. The growing problems created by delays were familiar to hauliers and their drivers and had become familiar by dint of repetition to the transport department and particularly to the men on the loading bank.
There was no easy way of getting the message through to the boardroom. The campaign set its sights as high as possible and in many cases succeeded in attracting the attention of a managing director who had power to improve the situation. In most cases he not only used that power to good effect but made sure that the transport side of his business came regularly under top-level scrutiny. This often meant improving the status of the transport manager, all too often treated in the past as no more than a kind of foreman porter.
The same process may be seen at work as a result of the drive by the Ministry of Transport for better vehicle maintenance. Hauliers as well as C-licence-holders have been caught in the net formed by roadside checks and depot inspections. The latest victim to attract publicity is the Regent Oil Company. In announcing his decision to penalize it, the Metropolitan Licensing Authority, Mr. D. I. R. Muir, had a pertinent comment. "There can be no excuse now," he said, "for any complacency on the part of companies who blindly trust their men on the spot to follow instructions from headquarters."
It has been reported that Regent has already demoted or transferred several supervisors responsible for fleet maintenance. Other companies will take note of M r. Muir's warning. Inexorably by one means or another the attainments and the standing of the men responsible for transport are being uplifted. Hauliers must ultimately feel the benefit.
Janus