One-horse Tycoon
Page 53
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KIND words the haulier seldom expects to hear from the Socialists. His notorious opposition to the Transport Act has given him an assured place in the rogues' gallery of the Labour Party. Until recently, he may have imagined he could estimate
fairly accurately where that place was. His dossier identified him as one of thousands of little men trodden upon and hemmed in as a result of the battle between private enterprise and the State for control of industries where one giant undertaking had established a monopoly, or was well on the way to doing so.
He had not presumed to claim that his ownership of two or three vehicles brought him within the tycoon class. Apparently he has been unduly modest. The Labour Party in its new pamphlet on monopoly places the haulier in the particularly hot circle of hell reserved for the industrial mammoths. • "Vast Press and advertising campaigns financed by the cement ring, Tate and Lyle, the Iron and Steel Federation and the Road Hauliers' Association have been used to influence public opinion—and the funds thus used to protect monopoly have in the first instance been raised by the use of monopoly powers."
The haulier has evidently not understood what constitutes a monopoly or ring. He thought that, as one of 40,000 independent companies, he did not come within that category. A better example, to his mind, would be the main-line railway companies, who in any event spent a good deal more than the hauliers in opposition to the Transport Act, The British Transport Commission is another excellent example, although its chairman and the Minister of Transport have both pointed out that it is not really a monopoly owing to the existence of C-licence holders and hauliers under free enterprise. This makes the confusion even greater. The haulier finds himself taken out and dusted, and set up on a pedestal as a competitor by the Minister. The next thing he finds is that the Minister's own party comes and knocks him off it. It, is all bewildering.
Conforming to a Pattern
Anybody who studies the pamphlet will find other things to puzzle him. Polhical manifestos, from whatever party they emanate, have a depressing tendency to conform to a pattern. Even allowing for this, it is remarkable how many passages in the new document would not be attributed to the Labour Party were it not for the label on the cover. .
"Some of the factors making for monopoly and restrictive practices are neither irreversible nor in the public interest. The need here is to reintroduce competition."
This might be lifted from a Tory argument in favour of de-nationalization or the abolition of the 25-mile limit. Or consider a passage from the indictment of price rings: "Once producers and distributors agree to abandon competition, the lowest price will not be the ruling price. On the contrary, prices will be fixed at a level which will guarantee comfortable profits for all. . . . The consumer will have to pay the price demanded since there is no one else to buy from."
This is almost exactly what has happened with the Road Haulage Executive. When companies charging different prices for the same service have been national
ized, the rates have been adjusted almost invariably to the level of the highest. The only discrepancy is the reference to "comfortable profits."
As a logical statement of case, the pamphlet scarcely gets into its stride. As an appeal to the emotions, it may be more successful. It relies heavily on the fact that the word " monopoly " has become widely accepted as a term of abuse. Every monopoly is evil and should be destroyed. If that be impossible, the evil should be exorcized through the agency of democracy. The general belief thus engendered in the power of democracy is helped by the fact that nobody knows what it means; nor does the pamphlet attempt to define it.
Destroying Incentive The case against private monopoly, therefore, rests chiefly on the fact that it is not democratically controlled. It is accused, in addition, of putting up prices and of destroying the incentive for greater efficiency. The cure, according to the Labour Party, is nationalization (masquerading for the greater part of the pamphlet under the title of "public ownership "—another example of the way in which a careful choice of words can help towards the desired effect):
The pamphlet skates quickly over the question of whether nationalization has achieved the results claimed for it. Democratic control apparently has nothing to do with the status of the workers within the industries concerned. At any rate, the pamphlet. makes no reference to this point. It contents itself with saying that "the public, as consumers, can express, their grievances through the consumers' councils.". Whether those grievances are likely to be met is prudently not stated. The touchiness of the 13.T.C. at receiving criticisms and objections has been demonstrated more than once.
Prices charged by a public monopoly are "controlled by a Minister responsible to Parliament: or in the case of the railways by a special tribunal as well." One peculiarity of the pamphlet is that the control of railway rates is also cited as an example of the way in which monopoly can be controlled without, public ownership. There is little evidence that nationalization so far has kept down prices; concerning road haulage, the evidence mainly points the other way.
Although the pamphlet accuses the private monopoly of loss of efficiency, it prudently refrains from claiming that there is any gain in efficiency • as a result of nationalization. It merely states that " there is no incentive to restrict production," which is a somewhat different thing. There is no attempt to draw up a list of industries that the Labour Party proposes to nationalize. Some heed may have been taken of the opinion expressed by Mr. Arthur Deakin, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, that any further suggestion of extending State ownership would mean a heavy defeat at the polls.
The understandable caution, coupled With the preference for words with a strong emotional content rather than a precise meaning, baffles the seeker after truth. If the haulier under free enterprise be regarded as a monopolist, what industry can avoid a similar accusation? It is one thing to deplore the growth of monopoly and to suggest ways and means of curbing it. It is another thing to classify as a monopoly every industry one would like to see nationalized.