The way we were
Page 20
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oad haulage adapts to change better than
any other sec-tor of British industry and CM has been recording those changes every week since 1905. In the first of an occasional series the Hawk has been browsing through the archives to see what hauliers were reading about in years gone by...
75 years ago—CM 13 March 1919: CM'S "conductor" Edmund Dangerfield was concerned by the problems faced by hauliers whose trucks had been commandeered for use in the Great War. Prices had risen by 70% since the vehicles were sold to the Army and Dangerfield urged the Government to make up the difference.
With 40,000 ex-Army trucks coming up for sale at least there was no shortage for the demobilised soldiers who were setting up as hauliers: to help them CM launched a series of articles headed "Starting Life as a Haulage Contractor".
Sidney Webb, described by CM as "that very eminent socialist thinker whose ideas, if idealistic, are still far too reasonable to be neglected", was calling for major investment "to make roads fit for the lorry services which he takes for granted will radiate from every port and every railway station". He opposed "a biased policy ender which roads and road traffic might be deliberately held back in the interests of the railways".
50 years ago—CM 17 March 1944: "Road transport, in our view," wrote editor G Mackenzie junner, "somewhat resembles a sleeping giant who does not realise his own strength, yet is continually being pestered and pin-pricked by Lilliputians." With 1,250,000 workers haulage was Britain's third biggest industry; he pointed out, and the Government should be doing more to ensure its post-war prosperity.