THE RETIREMENT of Mr G. W. Quick Smith as chief
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executive and deputy chairman of the National Freight Corporation removes from the centre of road transport policy-making a very remarkable person. Since 1935 he has played a key role in shaping the pattern of road transport development in the free enterprise and State-owned sectors.
His vast experience of administration and transport taw and his intimate knowledge of the attitudes and aspirations of transport operators, civil servants, trade union officials and politicians will be much missed at the NFC and indeed in the industry; it was not surprising that the Minister for Transport Industries, Mr John Peyton, MP, should have asked "QS" to continue in office for six months after normal retirement age to cover the initial period of office of the new chairman, Mr D. E. A. Pettit.
QS's early career provided an ideal apprenticeship for the formidable challenges that were to come in the 1948-68 period
when road transport, particularly, was in the political cockpit. In the shipping industry--traditionally the subject of legislation and of highly competitive operations—he gained accounting and secretarial expertise which he employed to good purpose in the 1935-48 period as secretary of various road transport associations, such as the London Cartage Association, and the National Road Transport Employers Federation.
Old associations
The older generation of road transport operators will recall the efforts made by QS and others in bringing together the Road Haulage Association, Traders Road Transport Association and Passenger Vehicle Operators Association under the National Road Transport Federation, of which he was first secretary and chief executive. For the first time the industry was given a single mouthpiece. QS regrets that the Public Transport Association refused to join the Federation. Abroad the NRTF formula assisted in the setting up of the International Road Transport Union—a powerful voice in European transport.
Difficult period
Today QS sees no prospect of a merger between the RHA and FTA despite the freedom of own-account operators to carry for hire and reward. He sees professional haulage as a business in itself and the FTA as an association of users of transport services. The "non-poaching" agreement of the RHA and PTA_ he felt, illustrated the problem of firms with two hats. QS recognizes the great advantage of the FTA in tapping the huge management resources and expertise of large member firms whose support for the FTA is not conditioned by the number of vehicles operated. "A large firm operating only a handful of vehicles could be very influential in the FTA but a 10-vehicle operator would not, perhaps, be very influential in the RHA".
As the author of a famous phrase about the swing of the transport policy pendulum QS expressed the view that the present Minister for Transport Industries, Mr John Peyton, would wish the pendulum to stop swinging to give the industry the stability it has sought for decades. Back-bench pressures, however, in both political parties could influence Government policies and this made the task of transport administrators much more difficult than it need be.
Last year's change of government and the retirement of Sir Reginald Wilson from the NFC's chairmanship presented QS and his senior colleagues with "quite a difficult period". QS referred to CM's Janus feature and a shrewd comment by Janus that the top NFC men had to "walk a tightrope". Evidently, this aptly described the dilemma of the NFC, and such problems are a continuing feature of "hot seat" jobs in the Corporation. The CBI initiative to limit avoidable price increases to 5 per cent for one year poses enormous problems for the State-owned industries since—to achieve commercially inspired Treasury financial targets—nationalized industry chairmen will have to seek grants or "bankable assurances" to meet profit targets. Long-term investment plans are thrown into the melting pot by major policy directives from Government. QS thinks the CBI initiative is commendable but points to the difficulty road transport operators would have in containing costs if tyres—to mention one of many products used—cost more.
QS was for two years the standing representative of the Transport Holding Company (the NFC's predecessor, set up by Mr Ernest Marples when Minister of Transport in 1962) on the Ministry of Transport's Working Party (and various sub-groups) on whose reports the freight sections of the Government's White Paper on Transport Policy and the Transport Act 1968 were based. The thinking underlying the establishment of the NFC stemmed from these discussions.
On the general philosophy of the Transport Act, broadly in line with the Geddes Committee's proposals on carriers' licensing in 1965, QS confesses to some surprise that the Labour Government—and particularly Mrs Barbara Castle as Minister when the Act was prepared—should have adopted so closely the policies advocated by the Geddes Committee appointed by a Conservative Government. The policies could prejudice State enterprise. QS thinks the Act as finally hammered out could well have been produced by a Tory Government. It had been implemented more smoothly than he had believed possible at one time. "If Mr Peter Walker !rad chosen to say in Parliament that it was an eminently sensible and Conservative measure Mrs Castle would have been greatly embarrassed by tbe effect on her back-bench supporters."
Stricter LAs Though by instinct a believer in competitive free enterprise QS knows from long experience that some limits may have to be imposed in road transport and that self regulation by the industry itself may not achieve the desired stability. The old licensing system, unscientific and imperfect as it was, maintained a rough balance of supply and demand. QS regrets that the changeover to operators' licensing was not accompanied by the matching provisions for Transport Managers' Licences. This would not have unreasonably limited competition; it would have ensured that all firms in the industry played to the same safety rules.
Licensing Authorities, says QS, should be much stricter when breaches of safety regulations are brought to their attention. The operator's licence should be at stake—serious breaches merit much more than a sizable fine. Operators in breach of the law should not be regarded as public benefactors—in providing cheap transport—they should be dealt with severely as a public danger. In brief, if the law calls for safe operation of road transport, enforce it.
If political factors led to the introduction of a radical Transport Act in 1968, QS wonders whether sufficient attention was paid by legislators to the prospect of Britain entering the Common Market. The old licensing system, in many ways, would have been more easily integrated with that of the Six and from a strictly business angle it might have made sense to defer legislation.
Common Market policies Common Market transport policies will not be readily married-up with the current British policies. in QS's view. "Their outlook is very much more restrictive and policies tenc to be rail and water dominated. Will the Six liberalice their policies? Will freedom of trade be circumvented by subsidized transport?"
QS makes no secret of his road orientation. The Labour Government was "predisposed by instinct" to favour rail to the greatest possible extent. Any possibility of moving appreciable quantities of freight traffic from road to rail he feels to be quite illusory since so much traffic is on routes not served by rail economically.
Of the Transport Holding Company, dismantled by the Transport Act, QS confesses to being tremendously attached to it. "We would have preferred to devise other means to achieve what the Labour Government wanted. We could still have had 51 per cent ownership of the Freightliner Company...."
THC profits totalling £64m in its first four creative difficult years, were vastly greater than the political creators of this conglomerate expected. Despite his natural attachment to a holding company that won many friends and few adversaries QS concedes that in pure logic there was a great deal of sense in getting all publicly owned road freight businesses into one body.
The departure of Sir Reginald Wilson from the chairmanship of the NFC to the vice-chairmanship of Transport Develop ment Group was a surprise to QS. "I had about an hour's notice of this move," he told me. The two businesses are very different in origin. "In 1948 we in State transport were compelled to take over 4000 businesses whether we liked it or not. We had not quite completed the task when there was a change of Act. The subsequent disposal of vehicles and managers was a source of talent for TDG and others".
Recruiting high-quality staff was difficult in the last years of the THC. said QS. There was also a considerable wastage of expensively trained cadets. Was transport education a social duty of a concern like the NFC, I asked?
The cold business brain of QS responded instantly: "I don't like the smell of 'social duty' ", he said. "Companies must weigh training up in cold-blooded terms. If you don't train the numbers of people you think you'll need you'll be short when you need them. There is bound to be some wastage: every firm suffers from this."