Critics Go to Work on Labour's Plans at R.H A. Mass Meeting
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IUTANY hard-hitting criticisms of al nationalized industries were made by the four speakers at a mass meeting in' Dudley, last week, sponsored by Mr. J. F. Walsh, chairman of the Dudley sub-area of the Road Haulage Association. The meeting was held to discuss the proposed nationalization of road transport by the Labour Party.
Mr. Hugo O'Hear. Aims of Industry, warned operators that they would be hitched to a trollop" if road transport. were renationalized. Ald. J. F,. Talbot, prospective Conservative candidate for Brierley Hill, pointed out that the staff of a totally nationalized system would be tied to one employer.
Cllr. F. S. Spiller, prospective Conservative candidate for Dudley and Stourbridge, chinned that a five-minute decision was inevitably referred to a chain of people in the case of a nationalized undertaking. Mr. R. N. Ingram,-national chairman of the R.H.A., emphasized that nationalization of the industry would give an advantage to Continental competitors and that the country would be at the mercy of the railways in the event of a strike if there were no free-enterprise hauliers to move essential loads.
Mr. O'Hear wondered what the effect on the country would have been if the free-enterprise motor industry had expanded at the same rate as the nationalized road network. The lag in road development was symptomatic of the failure of nationalized undertakings to keep pace with the ever-expanding economy of a free-enterprise Community; he declared.
After describing the British Transport Commission as a rigid, over-centralized structure, Mr. Spitler stated that nationalization of long-distance road transport in 1947 had not been accompanied by integration of the Commis
sion's services. Operation of the -railways, road services, docks and so on had been separately organized in every case, and road transport had lost its flexibility.