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BEYOND THE MANIFESTOES
Page 99
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RHAPS there was once a time when the issues at a general election seemed clear-cut to the road transport operator, however much the point might be blunted in the wording of the party manifestoes. He saw the choice plainly as between nationalization and free enterprise. In the immediate post-war period he felt sufficiently strongly about it to subscribe to a publicity campaign in favour of the second alternative.
In 1966 the situation is more confused. In the transport industry the operator has come to take a mixed economy for granted. He may have reservations about the railways, but he is no longer disposed to argue that the businesses within the Transport Holding Company are any less efficient because they are State-owned. He is not merely prepared to live and let live; to him the nationalized companies are no different from his own.
nTHE PARTY WITH LEAST APPEAL
Even on this basis there is no doubt which party manifesto appeals least to him. All three documents dwell on the need for improving the road system. Only the Labour Party wishes to interfere with the commercial vehicles running on the roads. For this reason alone the road operator is bound to dislike the Labour Party programme. He can see no good reason why he should not be left alone when he is carrying out his task to the apparent satisfaction of his customers and there are so many more pressing transport and other problems.
Closer study shows that the specific threats are not aimed at the independent operator. The Labour Party's national transport plan is intended among other things to "co-ordinate road and rail in order to use existing resources to best effect". The manifesto continues: "As a first step, we shall create a National Freight Authority to co-ordinate the movement of freight by road and rail, and provide a first-rate publicly owned service." A Labour Government will "legislate to annul the evil effects of the 1962 Tory Transport Act".
The phraseology smells of the hustings. There can only be an assumption that coordination will mean the best use of resources. To promise the provision of a first-rate publicly owned service, with the inference that this is not already available, comes near to insulting the Transport Holding Company. The 1962 Transport Act led to the formation of the company and of the present transport boards. No proof is offered that this measure was "evil".
Operators may be less concerned with verbal niceties than with discovering exactly what the manifesto means. It is unlikely that restrictions on independent operators are intended, at least in the first stages. The references to the 1962 Act and to the National Freight Authority show that the main emphasis is on bringing the railways and publicly owned road transport more closely together, perhaps within an organization similar to the old British Transport Commission. This interpretation is supported by the words of Mrs. Barbara Castle, Minister of Transport, in a speech a week or so before the manifesto was issued.
The national freight authority would administer the nationalized sectors of road and rail freight transport, said Mrs. Castle. "I am confident we can build up an expanding freight service under public ownership which can compete effectively with private haulage and help us to make fuller use of our railway service."
If this is all that is entailed why should the independent operators object? They have very good reasons. The BRS Federation has become an important factor in the road transport industry. Within a national freight authority it will inevitably be railwaycontrolled and its usefulness to other operators will be diminished. It will very likely be less efficient in spite of the brave words in the manifesto. Its competitors might be expected to welcome this. Oddly enough they believe it to their advantage that a publicly owned road haulage service should be vigorous and effective.
One may suspect--and it would after all be a natural reaction—that the Transport Holding Company relishes even less than other operators the prospect of being made subordinate once more to the railways. It is a strange reversal of transport politics that hauliers under free enterprise and hauliers under public ownership should unite in their opposition to proposals by the Labour Party.
Because the manifesto does not abuse or threaten him directly the road operator should not reassure himself too soon that he would
be safe from interference from another Labour Government. The words I have quoted can be stretched to have more than one meaning. Politicians in power have been known to perform more than they promise as well as to forget what no longer seems to them desirable.
Other factors than manifestoes play a part in shaping policy. Even the reaction of one party's policy on another can be important. The energetic Mr. Ernest Marples during the last Conservative administration put in hand a number of studies. Not all of them were completed before the Labour Government took over. The report of the Geddes Committee, with its almost comically antiSocialist preference for abolishing controls, exploded like a time bomb roughly in the middle of Mr. Harold Wilson's 500 days. Coupled with the dampening conclusions reached by Lord Hinton the report may have been partly responsible for the diffidence shown by Mr. Tom Fraser towards advocating full-blooded Socialist proposals.
The omission from the Conservative and Liberal manifestoes of any reference to road transport under free enterprise means that the election will certainly not be fought on the Geddes report, since the Labour party are even less likely to commend it. The subject is raised, however, in Conservative Challenge issued at about the same time as the manifesto. "Instead of increasing efficiency in road haulage on the lines recommended in the Geddes report", says this document, "Labour 'pigeonholes' the report and concentrates on expanding the nationalized road haulage services by take-overs of private firms worth alm. in 1965."
More than it daunts the Socialists this comment is likely to set the teeth of hauliers on edge. There may be another unpleasant surprise for them after the coming election if the Labour Party wins. As Conservative Challenge puts it: "Instead of the efficiency drive that is needed, Mrs. Castle promises White Papers." At least one such document to be published as soon as possible, will deal with integration. It will presumably supersede what is said on the subject in the party manifesto. Operators cannot be sure that the party if returned to power will keep within its current statement of intention.