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Not a painless extraction
' LIKE THE DENTIST who reassures his patient that there will be hardly any pain, Mrs. Barbara Castle seems a little upset when few people believe her estimates of the trifling effect of the Transport Bill on trade and industry and the public. The opinion persists that so unwieldy a measure must either do a great deal of good or a great deal of harm. As the benefits seem small even when the supporters of the Bill draw up the balance sheet, the general verdict has to be that the disadvantages are substantial.
No secret has been made of the intention through the Bill to promote the interests of the railways. If this means more revenue and a smaller deficit at least there will be some relief for the taxpayer who ultimately has to stand the loss. When it comes to the point, however, there seem doubts about the extent to which the feather-bedding of the railways will help them.
The National Council on Inland Transport, better known as the Friends of the Railways, has even suggested that they would be worse off. The president, the Earl of Kinnoull, maintains that the Bill could mean for the railways the "kiss of death". The service would be reduced in size, assets and character, he says. The railways would become the whipping boy for the National Freight Authority and the Passenger Transport Authorities.
That something of the kind was already happening in a different context was the complaint recently of Mr. H. C. Johnson, British Railways' new chairman. His main reason for calling a Press conference was to stem the growing ill-feeling which the opposition to the Bill was creating between the railways and their customers.
Weighted Scales
Under the Bill the railways will have power to object to all applications to carry traffic beyond 100 miles in vehicles with a plated weight of more than 16 tons and to the use of such vehicles over any distance for certain bulk traffics in lots of more than 10 tons. As and when the railways choose to object the scales are weighted in their favour. It is on these provisions that the critism is concentrated.
Hauliers are accustomed to railway objections although the balance is more even under the present system. They have seldom had to worry about the renewal of their right to continue work they are already doing. Where they wish to take on new business they have had the opportunity for a normally friendly discussion with the railways through the road-rail negotiating machinery.
In opposing the Bill their main concern is for their existing traffic. They have won it in fair competition and resent the proposed law which tells them they may not keep it. Loss of business in this way could result in highly efficient operators going out of business. There is nothing to say that a Licensing Authority must take this into account when deciding whether or not to allow an objection.
In practice the Licensing Authority might find it difficult to ignore. The friendly relationship established through the negotiating machinery will also stand operators in good stead. Mr. Johnson has undertaken to use the machinery to settle disputes wherever possible. This does no more than follow up the promise in the Minister's White Paper on freight transport. The repetition gives at least some assurance to hauliers.
They remain acutely aware that, however well-intentioned Mr. Johnson may be, the Bill gives the railways wide powers. If, having been given a featherbed, he chooses the role of the Spartan and stretches out on the floor beside it, that may be considered merely a personal eccentricity. No more than a Government can the railway chairman bind his successors.
Benevolent despotism can change according to circumstances. If the fortunes of the railways improve after the Bill is passed, perhaps as a result of running in harness with the NFC, applications by hauliers may meet with little opposition. A continuing decline must increase the pressure on the railways and the NFC to use to the utmost their right to earmark traffic for themselves.
Criticism from trade and industry has worried Mr. Johnson much more than that from hauliers. Good customers of the railways who like to use their own vehicles from time to time have been affronted by the novel right of objection even to traffic on own-account. The railways have already been busy with undertakings that applications for this, that and the other traffic will not be opposed.
Perhaps the traders who have received these promises have gone away satisfied. One result might be the sharpening of opposition from the rest of trade and industry. There is bound to be discrimination between one trader and another for no better reason than the convenience of the railways, an irrelevant consideration from the point of view of the unlucky applicant.
Mr. Johnson may believe that the Bill will involve only a comparatively small loss of traffic to the road operator, whether haulier or trader. The Minister made much the same point in the paper which she prepared for the National Economic Development Council. It is all the more difficult for her to meet the criticism that such elaborate provision has to be made and the ill-will of trade and industry incurred for so little gain.
Mrs. Castle is obviously disturbed by estimates which have been given wide cur rency of the cost of the Bill to the public Both the Confederation of British Industq and the Conservatives have reached a tota of £150m by somewhat different routes They are planning to return to the attacl and the NEDC or some similar body ma3 find itself called upon to arbitrate. That thi Parliamentary opposition would put thi worst construction on the Bill is natural The general agreement of transport users another matter.
Less credible
The more Mrs. Castle defends the Bill the less credible does she become. At one poini she tries to refute the suggestion that "transport costs will be increased when traffic has to switch to rail in those cases where quantity licences are refused". The Ministei describes this as nonsense. "The whole poini of quantity licensing," she says, "is to reduce transport costs and the Transport Bill is designed to prevent any transfer of traffic if this would increase costs".
The reader has every excuse for feeling baffled. The whole point of running a transport department, he would suppose, is "to reduce transport costs" and it seems strange that legislation has to be introduced to support the natural desire of the user to get something as cheaply as possible. It is even more bewildering to find that the people for whom the legislation is designed are taking a leading part in the fight against it.
Moreover it is not true to say that the Bill will prevent the transfer of traffic "if this would increase costs". Traffic which the railways are successful in claiming may be the linch-pin of a particular haulier's business. It may, for example, make up the return load for other traffic which the railways are unable or unwilling to handle. Refusal of a quantity licence would put up the cost of this other traffic and in so far as the Bill is "designed" to do anything it will have done this.
With diligent interpretation Mrs. Castle's words become not much clearer and no more comforting. She is talking about "costs" in two different senses. The "transport costs" which quantity licensing is to reduce could mean either the rail deficit or railway charges, that is to say the cost to the user. The more traffic goes by rail the less it will cost per ton. The Minister has prudently refrained from estimating how much less, and trade and industry remain sceptical.
The other set of costs which are not to be increased by the transfer of traffic also falls upon the user but is not solely determined by the railway rate. He can retain his freedom if carriage by rail will be "less advantageous" for him. The comparison will be made in terms of speed, reliability and cost. Other factors such as the convenience of the user, let alone his wishes, will not be taken into consideration.
He will not be allowed to make the comparison for himself. The Licensing Authority will do the job for him. If he dares to say that even Licensing Authorities may make mistakes, he is too late. Mrs. Castle has said it for him in the same document to the NEDC.