1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136 
The Rill States its Policy Anew
Page 77
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
IN the very near future the Road Haul.' age Association is to launch a publicity campaign, chiefly through the medium of local advertising, to put before the public a restrained but factual picture of what the haulage industry is doing. This was revealed at a Press conference in London on Monday, at which the national chairman, Mr. D. 0. Good, introduced a 19page booklet entitled "The Policy of the Road Haulage Association".
This new and comprehensive statement of policy, which was approved by the national council on January 30, is really a consolidation of the Association's views and contains nothing fundamentally different from the contents of the previous policy statement, published five years ago. The new document, which is being distributed to all the Association's 17,000 members (said to form about 80 per cent of the country's professional hauliers) and to members of both houses of Parliament, trade associations, local authorities and chambers of commerce, covers a wide field of transport activities. It ranges from licensing, labour relations and rates to international transport, co-operation with other forms of transport and with manufacturers of commercial vehicles.
Opposing Renationalization Opposition to further road transport nationalization is stressed in the booklet and was also a main feature of Mr. Good's introductory statement on Monday. The history of road haulage over the past 10 years, he said, had been largely one of recovery from the extremely harmful effects of nationalization imposed by the Labour Party; hauliers still remembered the way in which the businesses and goodwill which they had built up over the years were largely dissipated when their businesses were merged into one monolithic undertaking. Thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands, of once thoroughly satisfied customers, said Mr. Good, found that the service they had received in the Past was no longer available to them and therefore put their own vehicles on the roads. When freedom was restored to road hauliers some 10 years ago they had an uphill task and some people thought that free enterprise road haulage had bitten off more than it could chew. But the picture was very different now; hauliers had, said the R.H.A. chairman, doubled the volume of traffic carried by professional road operators 10 years previously and had won back the good opinion of trade and industry.
Mr. Good said that hauliers—and the whole of trade and industry—were seriously concerned • to discover the real intentions of the Labour Party; the Association could, in the circumstances, only regard the threat of renationalization as a real one and endeavour to put the facts before the public.
In a summary of principal points in the policy document, opposition to any extension of nationalization in the road
haulage industry appears first. It is followed by 13 other main planks in the Association's policy. The Association believes in the continuance of a goods vehicle licensing system, but with a thorough overhaul of the present one; it says voluntary co-operation between members of the Association, the British Road Services Federation and British . Railways Board should continue; that trade and industry should have freedom of choice in respect of transport services; that competition between road and rail transport should be on genuinely equal terms; and that British Railways should not be subsidized except in respect of community services which cannot be provided by any other form of transport.
The summary also states that road vehicle operators should not have to pay in excise duties and fuel tax more than their share of the capital and maintenance expenditure •on roads and relevant services', that the road system should he improved and road spending increased each year by at least 1$ per cent; and that the "commercial versatility" of the road goods vehicle, to which the Buchanan Report pays tribute, should be exploited to the limit consistent with road safety.
The Association would like to see a comprehensive national body made responsible for labour relations, including the settlement of wages; supports international efforts towards uniformity in transport documentation; and comments that the Association must preserve what is best in its traditions, provide machinery to deal with future needs and encourage younger members to take an active part.
Amplification of several policy points was made at Monday's Press conference. Mr. Good said he thought the Socialists were perhaps having second thoughts on haulage renationalization and he hoped the R.H.A.'s attitude would encourage them in this. Some six weeks previously the R.H.A. had written to the Labour Party inviting their representatives to meet top R.1-LA. executives and give a clearer picture of the Party's transport intentions. The invitation had been neither accepted nor rejected, but the Association had been referred to Mr. Wilson's remarks in the Beeching debate in the House last April. (This was the occasion when Mr. Wilson spoke of "taking the artificial ceiling off the expansion of B.R.S." and hinted at some action to curb C-licence expansion.) On co-operation within the Association, as detailed in last year's main Conference resolution, the national chairman said that consultation on this plan was now going on with all the areas.
When I asked whether a reference in the policy document to "more active -co-operation between manufacturers and the Ministry of Transport, who could well be asked to test types of vehicles to ensure that they conform to the appropriate regulations . . ." had any special current significance, Mr. P. H. R. Turner, a national vice-chairman, said the Association had in fact now asked the Ministry to consider type testing of new vehicles.
Other questions by the Press produced the information that the Association has no particular slogan or theme in mind for its forthcoming advertising campaign, that it has no particular policy on heavy goods vehicle licences at present and that it has not formulated any details of how the suggested national body on wages and labour relations should be constituted or conducted. Only unofficial soundings of transport unions' views have been taken, and there was reason to believe that the unions "might not look on this idea with complete disfavour ".
A further question from me elicited the fact that several pilot projects are indeed in hand for inland customs clearance depots for transport. The matter is being discussed with B.R.S. and British Railways to see what facilities are needed, and where. The chief problem appears to be the shortage of customs officers for special duties such as these. This, it was said on Monday, was only one of several topics on which R.H.A., B.R.S. and B.R. had working parties meeting regularly.
H. B. COTTEE.