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No Squatter's Rights
Page 123
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pERHAPS, after all, it is not clever tactics for hauliers to maintain, as some of them are now doing, that all they want is to be left alone. The many people who have control over the destiny of the road-transport industry make a habit of moving on any class of operator showing the slightest inclination to claim squatter's rights. The B-licence holder has been the least subject to interference over the years, and it may not be a coincidence that he is also the least contented. He has grumbled ori occasions at the restrictions imposed upon him, whereas the Aand C-licence operators, whatever else they have found fault with, have seldom complained about the terms ofthe licences they hold.
Legal and political pressure seems designed to make all licences approximate to the least desirable. The recent decision of the Transport Tribunal in the Knight case reinforces the already marked tendency of some Licensing Authorities to compel the applicant for an A licence to bind himself to a specific declaration of normal user, from which he subsequently departs at his peril.
Apart from the latitude given by the word "normal," a licence on these terms is indistinguishable from a B licence. A few Members of Parliament on both sides of the House of Commons have in the meantime maCle various suggestions for changing the status of the C licence. Some of. them are in favour of allowing the trader to carry goods for other people by way of return loads:. Once again, such a concession would blur the distinction between B and C.
Some traders, particularly those who could make use of the proposed alteration in the law, might not be opposed to it. Hauliers see no benefit in the strict interpretation of normal user, although it may strengthen some of their own objections, even against applications by British Road Services. Until the past year or so, possession of an A licence, whatever the theoretical restraints upon its use, has given a comfortable feeling of freedom.
Rights Defended When the haulier with an A licence asks to be "left alone," he is not merely reacting against the threat of renationalization. He wants to use his right, that he has not always found easy to win, to the best advantage, without the danger of having it taken away from him when the time comes for renewal because he has not been able to keep as closely as the Licensing Authority would like to a set of conditions laid down five years previously.
The C-licence holder has different reasons for not wanting things changed. He remembers how narrowly, when the Transport Act, 1947, was passing through Parliament, he escaped restriction to a radius of 40 miles. His licensing procedure could hardly be more simple. He has the right, with no strings attached, to carry his own goods anywhere he likes. In general, he would prefer to keep that right intact, rather than to jeopardize it by going into the haulage business. Once politicians decide to tinker with the licensing system, they seldom stop at the point that would be most acceptable in the industry.
So far as can be ascertained, the proposal from one group of politicians is that a trader-with traffic from Y to Z might be allowed, as a return load, to carry goods for another trader from Z to Y, with the proviso that the goods would in any case be travelling on a C-licensed vehicle. The scheme appears simple, even harmless, but it• would raise many problems. In practice, it would be difficult to tell how the traffic would otherwise pass. The trader at Z might declare his intention to use his own vehicles, were it not for some such reciprocal arrangement as is proposed, but there would be no way of judging the honesty of the intention if its fulfilment becomes redundant. If he is prepared to entrust his traffic to somebody else, he might just as well give it to a professional carrier as to fellow-trader.•
The trader who carries the goods would presumably be in the favourable position of not having to prove need. Otherwise, his application to carry for hire or reward would have to be published, and more often than not objectors would be able to discharge satisfactorily the onus of proof. If the trader is to be protected from this, he will have what seems an unwarranted advantage over hauliers.
This may well be the intention of the sponsors of the proposal. They have probably not realized how far their plan would go to wreck the licensing system completely. Already, trouble has been caused by the activities of socalled farmers carrying for other people under C licence, and by dubious refinements on the facility that allows vehicles to be operated under a C hiring margin. A further extension of the haulier activities of traders would open the door still wider to abuses.
The Reason Forgotten
Unperceived, the purpose behind the new proposal has largely disappeared. The sponsors have noticed the rapid increase in the number of C-licence vehicles. While deploring the criticism this has aroused, particularly from members of the Labour Party, they have thought it good policy to suggest a measure which, in their opinion, will slow down the increase, or even stop it, and at the same time promote the more economic running of vehicles.
The reformers may not have noticed that the pattern of the growth in C-licence operation has changed completely in the past few years. The official figures do not always help. A short time ago, the Minister of Transport, in a written answer to Mr. G. D. N. Nabarro, M.P. for Kidder-. minster, gave percentage increases from year to year since the end of 1945. They tell the familiar story of rapid rises in the first few years, then deceleration from about 1950, and a further rise in the past year or two.
What is not clear without a breakdown of the figures published quarterly by the Ministry is that although, until a few years ago, the various weight categories expanded roughly in the same proportion, the lighter vehicles have increased much more quickly since 1951. Nine years ago, in December, 1948, the 322,335 vehicles with an unladen weight of up to 11 tons were about 54 per cent. of the total C-licence fleet of 590,516. In 1951, only 44 per cent. (27,774) of the 63,299 new authorizations exceeded tons. The proportion in 1957 was 14 per cent. (9,985 out of a total of 71,982).
Rationalization of local retail deliveries has been suggested from time to time without rousing much enthusiasm. The proposal at present being canvassed is more concerned with the heavier vehicles. If the figures I have quoted are truly indicative of a trend, the circumstances giving rise to the proposal have largely disappeared. Whether or not nationalization was mainly responsible fOr the remarkable leap in the number of C-licence vehicles in the years following the war, the increase in heavier vehicles now bears some plausible relation to the curve of national production. Leave well alone.