M.P. Alleges Haulage 'Cartel' Exists
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A DEMAND for an investigation into a " cartel " of seven or eight road transport firms was made in the Commons this week. It came from Mr. Hugh Delargy (Labour, Thurrock) who said that the group should be carefully examined by the Geddes Committee and perhaps their activities might be referred to the Monopolies Commission or the Restrictive Practices Court.
Mr. Delargy said the firms—Bulwark Transport Ltd., Crow Carrying Co., Davis Bros., Harold Wood and Sons, Smith and Robinson, Thomas Allen, Tyburn Road Services and sometimes B.R.S. (Pickfords) Ltd.—controlled about 80 per cent of the road haulage in Britain. Whenever an application for a licence was made by a firm outside the group, he said, they acted as a unified opposition.
There was a tendency for this " cartel " to become a monopoly, he contended. The firms in question could get together and rig the prices they would charge to carry other people's goods. Mr. Delargy submitted that licensing tribunals facilitated and in part financed the bullying of the small firms by the larger ones.
Mr. Thomas Galbraith, Parliamentary