Contempt of Court
Page 45
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RENATIONALIZATION of long-distance road haulage will be given a high priority by the next Labour Government, says Mr. Ernest Davies, and the necessary legislation will be brought in "as speedily as possible." His reasons must be purely political. It cannot be said that road haulage is operating unsatisfactorily or uneconomically under free enterprise, or that—to use a favourite phrase of the Socialists—it is" failing the nation."
In fact; the more time passes, the more obvious it becomes that hauliers are doing good work and should be left in peace. Mr. Davies, whose knowledge of transport is not surpassed by any other M.P., must see that further delay will only show up more plainly the absurdity of the threat to renationalize. His dilemma is like that of Macbeth before the murder of Duncan. The virtues of the victim are a condemnation against " the deep damnation of his taking off," but make it all the more necessary to use speed. "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly." As with Macbeth also, one crime leads to another. The destruction of the independent haulier will be followed by restrictions on the C licence holder.
Less Enthusiasm
The leader of the Labour Party, Mr. Hugh Gaitskell, may not view the situation from the same angle as Mr. Davies. In the official party publications, transport is dealt with as briefly as possible. There is the threat to road haulage, and nothing more. Mr. Gaitskell might wish that the rank and file had less enthusiasm for filling in the details. He would perhaps disagree with Mr. Davies' priorities, and in doing so would merely be following the wishes of the public, who put nationalization last on the list of things they would like the Labour Party to do. As Mr. Gaitskell, rather than Mr. Davies, lays down the party programme, it may be that the threat of speedy legislation need not be taken too seriously. ,
It is also possible that.some of the party leaders, if not M r. Gaitskell, have doubts about the propaganda used by Mr. Davies and his followers to support their case. Recently, the accent has been on the alleged increases in offences concerned with drivers' hours and drivers' records. Determined to make these offences one of the excuses for the restoration of public ownership, the Socialists make a number of assumptions. They ignore the fact that the driver is often wholly or mainly responsible for the offence; and they do not stop to consider whether the firms involved are within that part of the road transport industry marked down for nationalization.
Committing No Offence There are occasional flagrant cases involving total disregard of the law designed for the protection of drivers. It is by no means certain that people in general are as appalled at these cases as they ought to be. There are many factors making for indifference. The technicalities involved may obscure the issue. The motorist knows that he can drive his car all day and all night, and, although he would be foolish to do so, he is committing no offence. He may think it strange that he would be breaking the law if his vehicle were a van or lorry, especially as the commercial vehicle driver has a high reputation for skill and safety.
One of the reasons why M.P.s are drawing attention to prosecutions involving drivers' hours and records is entirely laudable. Public indifference should be jolted, and the best way of doing this is to give the maximum publicity
to bad cases. The Labour Party appear to have introduced another reason. They say there would be no cases if road haulage were nationalized, and appeal to public opinion to support their political aims.
Unfortunately, the double intentions of the Socialists work against each other. If the public are lukewarm about Section 19 and about log sheets, they will become colder still if the issue is confused with something as unpopular as nationalization. There is a danger that their sympathies will be aroused for the wrongdoers. Industries controlled by the State, so people say, find it congenial to keep rules about not working too hard, and are experts at filling in forms. The independent man succeeds because he has the courage to break red tape. If he has a job to do, he carries it through to the end. "Working to rule" would bring trade and industry to a standstill.
Too Many Laws All these points are sensible and true in the proper context. They do not apply to grave offences against the Road Traffic Acts. To ensure road safety, there must be stringent rules; and they must be kept. There is much to be said for having another look at the rules, to answer the criticism that road users are oppressed by too many laws. It is a mistake, in any discussion of this kind, to lay the blame on one section of road users. Inevitably, this leads
to mutual recrimination. Hauliers suggest that the C licence holders are the principal culprits, and point out that British Road Services have had their share of prosecutions and convictions.
It would be almost a crime to introduce politics into road safety,. one of the few road matters that has hitherto enjoyed a fortunate neutrality. The Socialists can no longer believe that nationalization turns criminals into saints. There may be some grounds for saying that restrictions have the opposite effect. While the British Transport Commission had a monopoly, for example, there were cases-innumerable cases, according to the indignant Socialists at the time—in which hauliers committed the heinous, offence of carrying goods beyond a distance of 25 miles. The most frequent offenders, moreover, probably did not even hold a licence.
Simple Expedient Ultimately, this particular crime was suppressed without much difficulty, by the simple expedient of abolishing the 25-mile limit. The lesson is not difficult to apply. Public indifference, even contempt, for the law of the road, springs from the general conviction that much of the law is out of date. If the Socialists made this conviction their starting point, rather than their own irrelevant political convictions, they would have popular support and at the same time give publicity, in the most unfavourable light possibly, to the occasional gross offender.
Their political convictions are certainly irrelevant. The function of the State is not to reform the wrongdoer by nationalizing his sphere of activity. For serious breaches of the rules, the licensing authority may deprive a haulier of his licence. There can be no stronger sanction, and its existence ought to satisfy the Socialists. It should certainly prevent them from suggesting that the innocent should suffer with the guilty and endure the common fate of nationalization. However severe the punishment meted out, even if it extends to the revocation of a licence, it will not improve the situation greatly unless there is some attempt to simplify road transport law.