The Myth of High Transport Charges
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By Geo. B. Lissenden, .Inst.T.
Rates for Transport Cok)er,. Not ...Only Carriage But . Storage of Goods, and Mow for DelaNs to Vehicles Caused by inefficiency and indifference.of Users .
ONE of the many myths about which the people of this country argue until they become exceedingly angry, is that the charges for overland transport in the British Isles are quite unjustiliable and out of all proportion to the services rendered. But what are the facts?
Put shortly, they are that from their inception the railway companies have never been permitted to develop their undertakings on ordinary commercial lines. At the outset, the terms under which they were authorized to do business with the general public were fixed 11,y Parliament, and those conditions still obtain.
In the early days the railways conveyed passengers and their property from station to station only; a little later they were permitted to perform local goods cartage work; but when, some time afterwards, they ought Parliamentary authority to bring their services up to date, and to act as carriers in a general way and for all and sundry, their application was refused: Admittedly, it was subsequently granted, but by then things were getting into a mess.
Figures Tell Any Story
By that time, of course, the commercial road vehicle had made its appearance and was hailed by many as a panacea for all transport evils. The King's highway was free to everyone, it was argued, and all one had to do to make oneself independent of the existing autocratic monopolists, with their excessive freight charges. was to have a fleet of vehicles of one's own. This theory was soon put into practice. How it was justified is quite another matter. One concern, typical of many, in an endeavour to show how successfully it could run its own transport, spent thousands of pounds on new roads within its factory walls, and on a most elaborate garage. then conveniently lost the cost of all this in the estate account. Figures can be made to tell any story. . .
The establishment of the road haulier followed automatically. He was at liberty to pick and choose what traffic he would carry and fix his own rates. The result was inevitable. A fierce rate-war broke out between the hauliers, many of whom were forced to give up the struggle, and, except in wartime, the railways were faced with falling traffic receipts.
The foregoing is, of course, common knowledge, but what is not so well known—at least, to some of those who are so loud in their condemnation of the present state of affairs—is that all forms of transport have been more or less fettered from the date of their birth. The railways have been looked upon as fair game for plunder. Not a few buyers of privately operated transport considered it clever to play one road haulier off against the other, thus making them mere pawns in the game.
It is a common experience for a haulier, on arrival at a factory, to have to wait for the best part of a day for his vehicle to be unloaded because of lack of accommodation, or because production comes first, and transport is a secondary
consideration. •
Scandal of the Docks
The long delay to road vehicles at many of our docks, because of the inadequate storage accommodation for goods destined for abroad is a positive scandal. Much worse is the misuse by the traders of this country of thousands of railway vehicles as temporary mobile warehouses. If the consignees took prompt delivery of the goods consigned to them, half the number of vehicles at present employed in the conveyance of merchandise Would not be required and freight charges could be correspondingly reduced.
It is a mark of efficiency to have an endless belt to convey goods from the packing bench to the warehouse. To apply the same non-stop principle to all forms of transport—no matter where it was located, or by whom operated—would be to reduce the cost of that service. But very few can be influenced by that argument.
The truth of the matter is that industry has been living on transport to a considerable extent, The factory owner has hesitated to entail capital expenditure in the provision of good and sufficient storage facilities, preferring to let the transport industry bear the burden. To put it plainly, "the industry" has come to be regarded by some as a veritable dumping ground for any and every inconvenient expense. For example, the works manager who is overspent on the extension of some department, or who fears an inquest into his costing of the production of a particular commodity, finds transport a con venient scapegoat. .
Waste of Transport
These brief notes could be extended into a volume, but the final story would be just the same. It would show that the charges made by the carrier for the. carriage of merchandise are not merely for transport alone. They have to, and in fact do, cover the misuse. 'and therefore, wastage, of transport instruments of all sorts. They do not reveal the excessive delay and detention which have taken place and mask the rank stupidity of a road vehicle limited to 20 mph.—to name,only a few of the numerous contributory causes of the present -level of rates.
For at least a quarter of a century the present writer has urged that, in the interests both of the purveyor Of transport and the buyer of it, an inquiry should be made into, the actual cost of the movement of anything and everything from place to place. But so far nothing has been done. If ever such an investigation be made, and the various expenses debited to their proper location, instead of. as pow, so many of them being Considered too remote for actual identification and allocation, the result would be illuminating and instructive. Yes, and the real culprits would then be known.
Some day we may perhaps get that far along the road to sanity. Meanwhile, we stick to tradition. We boast that as a nation we enjoy free enterprise, saddle all our carriers with endless oppressive restrictions and cherish the aforementioned myth that transport charges are not related to facts,