Private War
Page 63
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Bird's Eye View By The Hawk
H0W does a strike remain unofficial for more than three
weeks without any apparent attempt by the union concerned to persuade the men to return to work? That is the situation in the London meat transport dispute, caused by the refusal of hauliers to pay an extra 15 per cent, wages for a non-existent benefit of the increase in the speed limit of heavy goods vehicles to 30 m.p.h.
Why, too, were more than 6,000 Smithfield workers allowed on Monday to join the drivers, also " unofficially " ? What action do the Transport and General Workers Union propose to take against their unruly members? .
The operators who capitulated on the wage increase must now be kicking themselves, because their drivers joined the strike on Monday. It seems that loyalty to one another is stronger on the workers' than on the employers' side.
Army Justice
• Q0CIALIST politicians who take such a diligent interest in 1.-.) drivers' hours might turn their attention to the Services. An Army private who was prosecuted last week for careless driving had begun military duty at 8 a.m. on March 31 and continued through the night. At 8 a.m, next day he was called to drive a lorry on an exercise, during which the vehicle became embedded in snow and the driver had to walk eight miles to a telephone. Eventually, he had to dig out the vehicle, and on the return journey to camp he fell asleep and ran into a car. For his pains he was found guilty by his Commanding officer and fined £5. That's justice.
Plenty of Punch
AN ex-boxer with more than 400 fights to his credit (or debit) met his match in a Sheffield bus driver whom he attacked because the driver stopped his bus a few feet from the recognized 'point to prevent passengers from stepping into a puddle. After the pugilist had spent a night in hospital he discovered that he had taken on the ex-welterweight champion of a battalion of the Coldstream Guards.
Furrin Parts
TO most Sassenachs—and, I suspect, some Scots—the Scottish islands are foreign territory. In fact, Mr. A. N. Blackwood, a director of John H. Lunn, Ltd.. Edinburgh, told the National Association of Furniture Warehousemen and Removers' conference at Whitley Bay, this week, that a southern remover recently asked him what documentation was necessary for a removal to the Shetland Islands. He might also have inquired what language was spoken there.
Mr. Blackwood told salty stories of removals in rowing boats on to sandy beaches, of weather-lashed piers and 14-mile trudges by porters with two chests roped together on their backs. The remover who works in the Scottish islands earns his money.
Natural Aversion
TALKING or foreign parts reminds me of the occasion, I before the war, when the chairman of an important commercial-vehicle-manufacturing concern was persuaded to go to the Paris Show to inspect the competition. He tolerated it as long as he could and then said to his sales manager: "Let's get out of this place—I can't stand these foreigners."
They Know Better
A TIMELY warning about the dangers and unnecessary expense caused by fast driving over newly dressed roads comes from the British Road Tar Association. A circular or. the subject has been sent to the secretaries of the three motoring organizations, but not, apparently, to the associations of commercial-vehicle operators. Presumably, professional drivers are regarded as having more sense.
Is It Legal ?
WAS my local council committing an offence, the other day, in towing a garden roller behind a lorry? Like the towing ambulances declared illegal by the Lord Chief Justice, it had neither springs nor mudguards, neither did it fall within the definition of a "land implement" under the Construction and Use Regulations.
Fortunately the police were too busily engaged in trying to keep London's traffic moving to worry about trifles.
Continuity Assured
A LONDON bus driver, so I am told, owns an up-to-date PA Jaguar saloon and, for the duration of the strike, has been eking out the pennies hiring it to the secretary of the local branch of his trade union.