Traders Being Bamboozled
Page 33
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Road Transport
R0 A D TRANSPORT operators and many important traders are rapidly coming to the conclusion that the railway system of agreed charges is one of the biggest fallacies in the history of transport.
The railways wanted to institute a temporary method of cutting rates, combined with the certainty of ousting their road-transport rivals, and the Railway Rates Tribunal meekly concurred in the development of an uneconomic system which may cause irretrievable damage to road transport as a whole and be bitterly regretted by those foolish virgins of trade and industry who have failed to realize the necessity of trimming their lamps for future exigencies.
In many cases agreed charges have constituted such drastic undercutting as to be almost farcical, and such that no sane economist could believe that they can be continued indefinitely without resulting in bankruptcy.
The rhyme and reason of these charges lie in the restrictions which are imposed upon gullible traders in respect of their employment of road transport While they are making use of this "facility." In agreeing to what amounts practically to a boycott of . road transport they• are signing away their birthright for a mess of pottage —and what a mess!
Can they believe that if road transport be reduced to a negligible factor they will continue to enjoy transport rates which are, in many cases, far below those applying to the road, and against which the rail ways have often complained? The process is merely another move in the war of attrition. The railways fully intend to break the strength of their road competitors. Having done so, they may buy them up at a fraction of their real worth ; and it seems obvious to transport experts that if they do so their rates will soon be on the up grade and the poor trader will be in a cleft stick, unable to fall back upon a competitive means for the transport of his goods. • The Government of Canada is wiser than ours in this matter, having recently rejected a Bill which had for its object the inauguration of agreed charges for the railways in that country. A case has been brought to our notice where a trader who was paying 50s. per ton for road haulage secured agreed charges at much below this figure. The rail traffic proved such a loss that the railway concerned decided to carry the goods by road, necessarily at the same rate for the period of the contract. To crown the matter the road service employed is that which was previously carrying the same goods and was bought up by the railway after it lost the work.
The railways are doing everything in their power to weaken the whole structure of road transport. Only unity in its ranks and co-operation with traders can save it.