A Rose is a Rose
Page 75
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Dames!
Do you recall their names?
NOT only primitive societies believe that names have magical properties. The choice of the right title is universally recognized as important. Whatever her attractions, no girl would be groomed for stardom if she refused to be called anything else but Jemima Bloggs. Before a new brand of detergent or cigarette or confectionery is offered to the public, market research spends a good deal of time, money and expertise in order to discover the most generally acceptable name.
Few tran.sport operators go as far as this before deciding what to call their business. Some are even content with the John Smith and Company formula. The utmost concession they are wi-fling to make to their public image—or more plausibly, to the registrar of companies—is the insertion of a parenthetical "transport " or "haulage." Others, perhaps less coy, will at least provide a clue as to the town or district in which they operate. This on the whole sensible practice is followed in particular by bus companies, who will sometimes give hostages to fortune by incorporating the livery colour in their name, or will seek to give additional information.
. Other familiar solutions to the problem of finding a unique name ring the changes on a variety of epithets and symbols. A road haulage business may proclaim itself as swift, speedy, reliable. universal, rapid, ideal, and so on, or invite comparison with arrows, birds and other symbols of quick transit, or with the traditional fetchers and carriers, such as Mercury and Atlas. Less familiar these days, when people have less inclination to puzzle over such things. are the names to which a good deal of thought has obviously been devoted, but which defeat their own object in that few people can understand them without the help of a classical dictionary.
The patriotic touch is often to be found. The chief example in this category is that of the British Transport Commission. This name they were born with. It was provided as their official title by the 1947 Transport Act. They were quick to see some advantage in it, for they piomptly decided that British Railways was more acceptable than the railway executive, and before long the road transport executive became British Road Services.
Other nationalized industries were content with less emotive descriptions, such as "general " or ," national." The emphasis on the Britishness of transport may have been due to the fact that so many operators remained independent. Tne inference could have been that there was something unpatriotic, or even alien, in their refusal or inability to enter the Ivory Tower. They were the lesser breeds without the law. Whether or not this, impression was iptended. the Commission in, the end seemed to gain little credit from their insistence that they. were a home
product. . .
At least the claim was justified, and in general transport operators can say at the very least that they have honest names, in the.sense that they do not conflict with the work actually done. A haulier who specializes in a limited number of commodities does not give his business a name that suggests he will take anything, and universal or national descriptions are not adopted by a B licence holder operating within a radius of 15 miles from his parish pump.
In view of this lack of imagination in nomenclature, operators might bc expected to take at its face value an organization calling itself the National Standing Joint Council on Road and Rail Traffic. Obviously, such a body is bound to include representatives of hauliers, of C licence holders, of trade and industry, of the-railways and possibl also of the transport trade unions. It could even have experts from Government departments, local authorities and so on. Whether a body with this name and this constitution could do any good is another matter, but any reports that it managed to issue should at least be interesting.
Although described in the Press as "newly formed," the standing joint council somewhat surprisingly has already managed to agree and submit to the Prime Minister a memorandum running to 6,000 words. The proposals put forward would certainly be unexpected if the constitution in any way matched the promise of the title. To judge their flavour, it is sufficient to say that they include railwa, subsidies, heavier taxation on long-distance road vehicles, no more motorways, and limits to the operating radius of C licences.
THE suspicion that this is all very familiar becomes a certainty when it is seen that the chairman of the standing joint council happens to he Lord Stonham, Who is also president of the Road and Rail Association, one of the 10 members of the new body. The Association one knows to be composed of a few like-minded individuals with little or no direct connection with transport. The other signatories of the new memorandum, it is interesting to note, represent cyclists, pedestrians. ramblers and canal us...rs. In .addition, there is one local road safety committee represented, the Noise Abatement Society, and no less than three organization that—if titles are taken to mean anything at all in this context—might well have been founded by George Stephenson in the 1820s and stuck doggedly to their programme ever since.
There is no reason why these bodies should not get together and propound their own solution to the present transport problem. One can understand their close interest in it. The cyclists no doubt choose their means of transport because of the heavy taxation that would Call on them if they used liquid fuel instead of leg power and four wheels instead of two: and they naturally feel that the people who are lucky enough to be able to afford the taxation ought not to mind paying a bit more. The pedestrians and ramblers would no doubt feel happier without the motorways they are fOrbidden to use. The more points of view, the better. But the Cogency of the arguments rut forward by the national Standing joint council comes into question at the very outset when .a body •with such a name represents none of-the interests T. have mentioned, 1 now understand that there are a few other.Organizations that -support the memorandum althourrh the were not directly -concerned in its composition.. For this reason. it is only fair to say that two trade unions ought to be added to the list, in addition. to such bodies as Holiday Fellowship and the Friends of the Lake District, who• would presumably like to see the railway line extended beyond Windermere. The two' unions are the Transport Salaried Staffs Association and the National Union of Railwaymen. Apparently, one name that the list does not include is 0-,.at of the Transport and General Workers* Union. I wonder why?