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136 
TRTA PRESIDENT ATTACKS 'STATUS'
Page 40
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rOLLECT1VELY, road, rail, inland waterway and air transport services represented 10 per cent of the gross national product and occupied 9 per cent of the total labour force. That was the measure of their importance on the national plane. The speaker was Mr. K. C. Turner, president of the TRTA, addressing the Institute of Directors, Notts and Derbys branch, last week. Mr. Turner said that the significance of transport to the national economy as a whole, and to each company individually, was not matched generally by an equivalent interest in transport by top management. "Transport is seriously underrated and stilt remains the Cinderella of our industries."
Listing the many matters that an executive should be concerned with, Mr. Turner said that on all these matters a top transport executive should be making a major contribution; he should be the key man capable of assembling the facts and evaluating them so that the right decisions could be taken.
Comparatively few companies accorded their transport executives the status that job, done properly, really deserved. Transport education and training must take some of the responsibility for the present situation. So must circumstances, for transport was a significant factor.
The shift of emphasis from rail to road had also contributed to that trend. as the expertise involved in purchasing and operating efficiently a fleet of vehicles was quite different from what was needed to negotiate with a public carrier.
Referring to the approach to plant and machinery, Mr. Turner said that if production plant were neglected in the same way as many vehicles were, "we would be out of business". The effect of this was to be seen in the deplorable figures which had been produced by the Ministry of Transport blitz checks on commercial vehicles.
The TRTA spent a major part of its time and resources in fighting a continuous battle for the freedom of trade and industry to use whatever means of transport it considered best suited to its products. Pressures operating in the reverse direction were powerful. said Mr. Turner, and it was no secret that the sort of integrated transport system which some members of the Labour Party would like to introduce would mean virtual direction of traffic from road to rail, either by physical restriction or penal taxation, with a nationalized road haulage industry and severe restrictions.
New Office: The Birmingham office of The Commercial Motor today moves to a new address, 301 Lynton House, Walsall Road, Birmingham 22b (telephone Birehfield 4838), c4