13,000,000 Animals Transported by Road
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OVER 13,000,000 head of livestock in one section of the country alone had been carried to slaughter houses by road-transport services organized by the staff of AsSociated Road Operators. This was announced by Major H. E. Crawfurd, president of A.R.O., speaking at the annual meeting of the South Wales Area.
No complete record of tonnage carried or mileage covered by commercial vehicles was kept, but that figure was some measure of the dependence of the people on road transport for their food supplies. A similar story would, he said, one day be told about the carriage of munitions of war. The industry had done a grand job of work, and by common consent the drivers and their mates, in black-out and blitz, had played a worthy part in. seeing the Nation through its food troubles and frustrating the enemy efforts to dislocate our national economy.
Speaking on South Wales, Major Crawfurd said that roads were a capital asset, and nobody knew better than those who lived in South Wales how that particular capital disset had been neglected in the past. Only' a few weeks before, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport had publicly bewailed the fact that there was no road bridge over the Severn, and that the road communications between the western ports and the populous centres in the rest of the country were so inadequate
Given an adequate road service, those who made their living on the roads, whether they carried people or goods, would, if they were given 'freedorn to develop their services, serve the Nation adequately, whatever plans of reconstruction were put into force.