Assurance Doubly Unsure
Page 55
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TO leave the country at a time of crisis can be, in a Minister, a sign equally of guilt and of innocence. Mr. Harold Watkinson's trip to 'Switzerland, while the agitation of hauliers was rising to a paroxysm, is more likely to indicate his innocence, at least of intention. He cannot have known what criticism was coming to him.
Statements he has made to the representatives of goods-vehicle operators since his return are calculated to appease, and at the same time to prove his claim that the fuel rationing scheme has worked smoothly and that, by implication, certain people have been making a lot of fuss about nothing. I like, in particular. his " reassurance " to a deputation from the Road Haulage Association, that "75 per cent. of the motor fuel normally used by goods vehicles would, in fact, be available for distribution."
New Anxiety
Up to this point, nobody had questioned the validity of the percentage. It was one of the few points on which there had been no doubt. The Minister's new statement must mean a new anxiety for many hauliers. So often in the past a reassurance has been a danger signal.
At best, the proportion of 75 per cent. has little meaning. There are varying estimates of the total volume of petrol and oil fuel used by goods-carrying vehicles. Whatever happens, it is unlikely that, at the end of fuel rationing, when the details will be too late for any practical use, the Government will publish figures of consumption.
It is, reasonable to accept the Minister's statement of intention to make 75 per cent. of normal consumption available. It will be assumed in due course that roughly that amount has been used. What hauliers too readily assumed at 'the outset was that individually they would receive 75 per cent. of their usual supply. They translated the general into the particular, and their translation was faulty.
They have no real excuse. The official announcements have been clear enough. The trouble may have arisen from the fact that they were written by people in full possession of the facts for other people who were not. The ordinary haulier, when he heard the depressing news that his industry would have to make 12 weeks' normal supply last for 16 weeks, could not easily understand that he would be running short within four or five weeks.
False Hope
To the officials, there may be many advantages in the rationing scheme. These were not apparent to the haulier. He had already struggled to become accustomed to a 10-per-cent. Cut, and had hoped, or convinced himself, that rationing would be on the same lines, but more severe. At least he thought himself assured of a proportion of his usual consumption, with the possibility of something extra.
Given the unwelcome task of making a reduction of 25 per cent., the Minister must have had as his main objective the avoidance of unnecessary dislocation to trade and industry, and to the services of transport providers. He could best do this by encouraging the carriage of A greater volume of traffic on a smaller number of vehicles—in other words, by cutting out empty running; by transferring traffic to other forms of transport; and by leaving certain traffic with no transport facilities at all.
• There were certain dangers to be avoided if possible. Hardship for any section of the community could lgad to unemployment and other economic troubles. These would have repercussions on the whole of the life of the country. The fuel-crisis is not, one may suppose, to last indefinitely. As soon as it is over, people would wish to return to their ordinary way of living, and it was not advisable to make too many changes that could not easily be put right.
Most vulnerable to these dangers is the road haulage section of the transport industry. Without fuel, the haulier's whole livelihood comes to a stop, and unless he has large financial reserves he goes out of business.
The trader is not hit so directly. Usually, he can absorb the loss of use of his vehicles. He can hand the surplus traffic to the railways or to hauliers and in some cases to the inland waterways.
The haulier without fuel has to pay off his drivers. The trader can often keep them on, by finding them temporary jobs in another part of his business. When rationing comes to an end, they are available to go back to their vehicles. The haulage business that has to close down may never open again, and the drivers may have gone for good.
Bad Start For these reasons, the Minister should have made sure at the beginning that the hauliers had no cause for alarm. If this was indeed his policy, he did not carry it out very skilfully. He was at great pains to distinguish priorities of traffic. He stressed the need for transferring as much traffic as possible to rail and to other forms of transport. There was a proposal for a railway representative, a kind of eminence grise, at the elbow of each Regional Transport Commissioner, to help him determine whether the railways should be used. That the proposal has not been widely adopted may be due, to the good common sense of the Commissioners themselves.
Worst of all for hauliers was the situation facing them a week or two ago, when their basic ration, sufficient for perhaps a month's work, was running low, and the issue of supplementary rations seemed to be on a niggardly scale. It is true that, in his original announcement about supplementary allowances, the Minister had said that hauliers would be given some preference over C-licence holders, but this did not seem very helpful when hauliers started at so great a disadvantage. In general, the basic ration was more acceptable to the trader.
The Minister has now admitted that he knew his policy would cause anxiety to hauliers. Few hauliers can have believed completely that they would be left to run for 16 weeks on an insignificant basic ration and an even more negligible supplementary. But they were bound to complain, and even to make the situation seem worse than it was. Even now, however, there are hauliers who do not know whether they will have 50 per cent. of their normal consumption, much less the 75 per cent. on which the Minister has tried to be reassuring.