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WRITES
The licensing system will continue although almost certainly in a, modified forin'
IF ever an announcement was made at the wrong time, it was the statement by the Minister of Transport in the House of Commons that he intended to appoint an ndependent committee of inquiry to examine the road taulage licensing system and make recommendations. The )ccasion was the discussion of the Beeching plan for the ailways, and the general public consequently were at once :onvinced that the real function of the new committee vould be to produce a companion plan for road transport. Ile many people who have been complaining about the !clays and congestion caused by lorries now suppose that scheme is to be worked out for transferring the bulk of he traffic to the railways, where they maintain it should lave stayed in any case in spite of the transport revolution af the past half century.
Mr. Marples did nothing to discourage this line of hought. On the contrary, he linked the new committee vith the numerous other inquiries that have been or are aking place: the Beeching report, the Hall report on transort in the next 20 years, and the special studies in the outh-east, in London and in other conurbations. The aults and shortcomings of the railways are to be put right, aid the Minister in effect, and the time has now come to )erform the same office for the hauliers.
No evidence supports what seems to be the assumption hat, because there is a railway problem, there must be a oad haulage problem also. It did not need a Beeching o diagnose what was wrong with the railways. Anybody vho travelled by train could see for himself. The railways' hare of the nation's total traffic has declined year after rear, but little has been done to adapt the railways to their ltered circumstances. As a consequence, the annual deficit as increased to a figure of £150 m., which may itself mask dditional expenditure that ultimately falls upon the Jxpayer.
iAULIER MAKES A GOOD LIVING
The haulier faces nothing comparable to this headlong cash towards disaster. He makes a good living, if not a ortune, out of carrying 35 per cent of the nation's traffic iith less than 200,000 vehicles. For the most part, his roblems are those common to all road users. To their ray of thinking, they pay far too much in special taxation nd receive back far too little in improved and new Jellifies. They are subject to a wide range of restrictions esigned to keep the roads clear, but in spite of this find teir progress as obstructed, frustrating and hazardous as ver.
The licensing system presents no problems of this magniJde. It has many faults, and they have often been pointed ut by hauliers and their customers. The main reason for nposing the system in the first place was to protect the tilways from unlimited competition. Even if Dr. eeching's plan is followed to the letter, he does not suggest tat the railways can dispense with that protection. The censing system will continue, although almost certainly in a modified form. For this reason alone, some investigation of the system will have to be made, and the Minister is right to set up his committee.
What is strange is the importance he seems to attach to a body which one would suppose might almost have been made up of officials from the Ministry, acting in consultation with representatives of transport operators and users. The licensing themes that most exercise the minds of hauliers and others—normal user, switches from one type of licence to another, the privileges of the farmer, the difficulty of expansion and so on—are of no interest to the general public. No doubt the new committee will discuss such matters, and an impartial opinion on them will be valuable.
What more will there be to examine? As Mr. Marples told Parliament, there has been no survey of road haulage since 1933. This could be a hint that the committee would be justified, if they thought it right, in recommending drastic changes, including some of those that are consistently advocated in some quarters, such as the abolition of the licensing system or restrictions on the freedom of choice of the trader or on his right to carry his own goods in his own vehicles. It is highly unlikely that the committee would make this kind of proposal, and it is incredible that the Government would accept it. What is to be gained, therefore, from setting up an important committee with nothing of major importance to discuss?
The clue lies in the apparent anxiety of the Government not to expose themselves to the accusation that they have no overall plan and are treating each piece of the transport jigsaw in isolation. During the debate, Mr. Marples referred more than once to the need for co-ordination, and according to some reports was jeered for his pains. The' word has been much misused and has different meanings when used by a Conservative and by a Socialist. If the Minister was hoping to outbid the Socialists, he was of course on a hopeless quest. Mr. Harold Wilson's recapitulation in the same debate of what the Labour party would do in the way of integration may have had an added attraction in that superficially it seemed to pursue Mr. Marple's tentative ideas to a bold and logical conclusion.
The flaw in Mr. Wilson's scheme is that, where it is not for the benefit of a certain section of the transport industry itself, it is supposed to further the ends of some semimythical entity usually called the "nation ". The transport user seems to have no place at all. Here is an issue on which the Government can at least speak with a completely distinct voice. If transport is a service, its first duty ought to be to the people it serves. The trader and manufacturer, in particular, have the -fight to the finest transport that can be provided. It is more than a right; it is a need if they in their turn are to give of their best, at home and abroad. The duty of the authorities should be to ensure that the service the trader wants is available, and not to compel him to use some other means of transport merely because
it happens to be down on its luck. (1