Does Industry want private transport—or not?
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IT IS NOW very clear that the Labour Government intends to kill off private enterprise road transport.
Recent and proposed legislation against the road transport industry includes altering the licensing regulations, increasing road tax on lorries by 200 per cent in the past 2+ years, altering drivers' hours regulations, abolishing all investment allowances on commercial vehicles, increasing fuel tax to 3s 7d per gallon, and many more major Government inflicted cost increases. These are all designed to cripple the private enterprise operator and favour his nationalized, and therefore subsidized, former partner.
Thus the time has now come for England, and especially the industrial and commercial leaders, to decide whether they want the services of private enterprise transport as well as those of the British Railways and the BRS, or whether they do not.
If they do not, and they are content to rely solely upon the railways and the BRS then they need do nothing, for Mrs. Castle is seeing to it that they have no choice.
If however industry wants private enterprise transport to remain with its competitive spur, then industry must make its feelings felt, and quickly, for it will very soon be too late.
It is the transport user who will be severely restricted in the way in which you may dispatch your goods, and if you wish private enterprise transport to continue to serve you in an efficient and competitive manner, then you must make it clear to our present Socialist Government, that you cannot and will not tolerate Mrs. Castle's plans to stamp out healthy competition.
The choice is yours. F. S. RISSBROOK, Managing Director, J. Brevitt Ltd., Staffs.