Quick or Slow Death ?
Page 44
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Every Haulier and the Trading Community at Large are Affected by the Government's Nationalization Proposals
nERHAPS the most outstanding feature of the Transport V Bill as a whole is that its passage on to the Statute Book would leave all inland 'transport completely subject to the British Transport Commission, whilst this would itself be completely subject to the Minister of Transport and his civil servants. In the words of The Manchester Guardian ":— " The independence which transport administration must have if it is to succeed is not evident (in the Bill). The Minister can control the Transport. Commission in matters affecting the national interest, can stop any of the Commission's activities he thinks fit, can give directions of a specific character. ' No doubt it will be said, as on the Coal Bill, that there is no intention on the Minister's part to interfere, but this is far from what the Bill says."
In short, the Bill provides for a dictatorship, controlled not by traffic experts, but by men with, for the most part, no practical knowledge of transport operation. Under this dictatorship would come the Commission, which is intended to be supreme in its turn over the operators with whom it will compete, and to be the judge as to whether permits are to be granted to those operators to enable them to go rather farther than the radius generally permitted by the Bill.
Everyone is Affected There has been so much talk about the Bill's being aimed primarily at the long-distance haulier, that the country has not yet fully realized that its provisions are equally vicious in their effect upon every other haulier, large or small, whatever be his radius of action. They are nearly as vicious in their effects on the whole of the transport arrangements of the trading community. • Let us consider what will happen if the Bill goes through in anything like its present form. To do so we must con' sider its victims in detail.
Take first the road hauliers. These can be divided into three sections.
The first is comprised of concerns predominantly operating long-distance hauls (i.e., over 25 miles). These must be taken over lock, stock and barrel by the Commission; they therefore cease to exist as separate entities. The proposals as to compensation for those so treated are iniquitous and hopelessly inadequate.
They are calculated to reduce tens of thousands of men, at present of what might be called "moderate" means, down to a condition of complete poverty.
Three Choices The second section consists of hauliers who are predominantly working on short-distance—what is called the free" radius. These people are free to choose between only three lines of action. They may sell their businesses complete to the Commission and thus share the fate of the first section; they may sell to the Commission only that section of their business that is concerned with long-distance haulage.
If they do this they will receive no compensation at all for the loss of their goodwill in this section.
They may decide to limit themselves to the 25-mile radius; in that case they autornalically come into the third section. If they sell out in whole or in part they will be either submitting to immediate eNecution or condemning themselves to carry on an emasculated 'business, in which it would not be conceivably possible to reduce the overhead expenditure in anything like the same proportion as the receipts would be reduced.
These mangled businesses would almost certainly fail before very long.
All concerns still left operating in the so-called "free zone ' are faced, perhaps, with an even worse fate. The Government, which has never ceased to proclaim that its A34 interest is only in long-distance transport, would be competing for the short-distance work, using in that connection all the short-distance vehicles taken over from predominantly long-distance concerns. In the aggregate this would be an immense fleet. Even so, the small haulier might, conceivably, fight its competition if the competition were fair, but it will not be fair.
The owner of the large fleet will be the judge as to whether the owner of the little fleet should be allowed any trifling extension of his radius of action. The Government's vehicles would be subject to no such influence.
Moreover, it would be within the power of the Commission so to adjust its rates as to make large apparent profits in those sections of its business in which there was no ,competition, and use those profits to subsidize the short-distance haulage business, and so be enabled to drive off the market air competitors in that section. Thus, the only difference between any one and any other haulier is that, whilst some are condemned to immediate death, others arc to experience a death which is slower but probably even more painful. All the latter small men, moreover, will be left devoid of compensation of any kind, however inadequate.
A Loop-hole ?
We come now to the prospective effect of the Bill on the trader. This depends to some extent upon his size. A big concern (such as the Co-operative Society) would, of course, be able to run its own C-licensed vehicles. The majority of C-licensees would be limited to a radius of 40 mites, but the very big organizations are given a loop-hole, which would probably enable them to travel longer distances. The small trader, on the other hand, whose business is not big enough to althw him to run his own fleet, has, in the past, been dependent on a haulier. Under the Bill, if he wanted to use a haulier, all his transport would be restricted to an area within 25 miles of that haulier's premises.
In short, the big trader would have a 40-mile radius with a good chance of an extension, the small concern a 25-mile radius with no great likelihood of getting a permit by application to its haulier's principal competitor. Thus the Bill is calculated to injure every small trader in the country, and its tendencies are all in favour of huge monopolies or cartels.
The small trader, of course, would be at liberty to use Government vehicles for any purpose he liked, but the point is that if he found this process less economical, expeditious or efficient than the use of his own vehicles or those of an independent haulier, he would be debarred from any alternative, whereas his big competitor would not.
Costly Supervision The Bill sets out to provide.economical and efficient transport. Without discussing in detail the likelihood of its success in this respect, it may be pointed out that the provision of machinery for supervising all the independent hauliers and seeing to it that they were prevented from doing so much or such useful work as they had done in the past, would be costly in salaries and in time.
One does not know how many inspectors would be necessary to see to it that a carrier is prevented from doing an expeditious job for a customer 26 miles or so away. An enormous official organization must necessarily be subject to much more rigid rules and regulations than are required in a small personal business. These things all cost money. Incidentally, the great incentive of competitive effort would be removed. This is hardly likely to lead to either economy or efficiency. These few notes do not profess to be in any way exhaustive. They merely touch on a few of the many points which should be generally appreciated before the Bill is discussed in the House.