Political Commentary
Page 44
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Obsessional Neurosis
" We have scotched the snake, not killed it : Macbeth.
LIKE an aching tooth, the C-licence question has become almost an obsession with certain Socialist M.P.s. They drag it into every argument on transport. It kept cropping up—often entirely out of order— during the debates on the Transport (Amendment) Bill, and only the other day was the subject of discussion at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Trade and industry are wise in taking seriously the threat to their liberty. An obsessional neurosis is usually a logical development of the facts as they appear to the sufferer; similarly, the opponents of the C-licence holder have d logical basis for their obsession.
Damnation for Protection Professional carriers, and hauliers in particular, have been damned by tax, licence and permit for no other reason than that the railways need protection. In spite of the persecution of their competitors, the railways are still not thriving. No doubt Mr. Cecil Poole, M.P., and his friends think that the continued restriction of the haulier can make sense or in fact be justified— only if it produces the desired results, and that this is not possible while the trader, unable to find a suitable haulier, merely transfers the traffic to his own vehicle. Mr. Poole must feel like a gardener tending a particularly susceptible plant, who is allowed to take stringent measures against one pest but forbidden to do anything to check another even more deadly parasite.
It is this mental attitude which accounts for the frequent references to the abstraction of the " railways' traffic," as if the trader were at fault in filching his own goods from the Ivory Tower. In the minds of the Socialists, the C-licence holder has become a symbol, a peg on which to hang responsibility for the failure of nationalized transport.
Nobody has yet put forward any satisfactory proposal for limiting the use of the trader's own vehicles. The original Transport Bill would have restricted them to a radius of 40 miles, with some exceptions—the more unkind critics of the Bill opined that Co-operative Societies would be high on the list of such exceptions. Another suggestion is to leave existing C-licence holders alone and impose restrictions on new applicants.
Handicap in Competition To both proposals there are serious objections. A trader with vehicles of his own must regulate their use in accordance with the expansion of his business. This is especially the case with journeys over long distances, where the only alternAtive transport is that provided by the British Transport Commission. Already there are complaints that the acquisition or restriction of hauliers makes it impossible for traders to carry on business economically with customers a long way away except under a C licence. The difficulties would be even greater if obstacles were to be placed in the way of traders seeking to operate their own vehicles for the first time. Such traders would be handicapped in competition with their more privileged rivals, and strict enforcement of the restrictions would be practically impossible.
sto It is strange, except to those people familiar with the symptoms of neuroses, that the extremists, driven by the logic of their own legislation into agitating for yet more restrictions, should not ask themselves whether, after all, they have not been following the wrong course. The relatively simple job of carting goods from one place to another has been buried beneath a mound of Acts and Regulations, and all that the Socialists can suggest is to make the mound bigger.
Scarr versus Wurzal As the Transport Act of 1947 and the Road and Rail Traffic Act of 1933 become more tangled, even the lawyers must at times feel dizzy. The latest example that comes to mind is the case known in legal circles somewhat picturesquely as Scarr versus Wurzal. A haulier had taken hides from Hull to Leeds under a permit which entitled him to carry "agricultural produce or requisites." Now to you and me, hides are hides all the world over, but the Road Haulage Executive is more discriminating. The hides that went from Hull to Leeds had come from another country. and foreign • hides (said the R.H.E.) may not be sent from Hull to Leeds except on vehicles that display the British lion.
The Lord Chief Justice agreed with you and me that the haulier should be allowed to Carry hides of any nationality. The argument, however, has not necessarily come to an end. It now appears, possibly by a coincidence, that the Yorkshire Licensing Authority, in considering applications for the renewal of B licences, is insisting that "agricultural produce" should mean no more than the produce grown by the customer. The applicant must state specifically what other agricultural goods he wishes to carry.
One Door Barred It may not be too fanciful to suggest that this move may affect the definition of "agricultural produce" on a permit, and that the R.H.E., finding one door barred against it, may use the back entrance. Even if it be a coincidence that the Licensing Authority and the R.H.E. are both seeking simultaneously to define more closely the range of activity of the agricultural haulier, the effect is the same. Once more the screw has been tightened to stop the leakage of traffic. Nobody seems courageous enough to suggest that a complete overhaul of the system is required.
The recent 10-per-cent. increase in railway rates emboldened the Tories to demand an impartial inquiry into the operation of the railways. When they are in a position to meet their own demand, they should widen the scope of the inquiry to include the Acts of 1930 and 1933—no doubt the promise to lift the road transport restrictions in the Act of 1947 will also be carried out. The assumption behind the three Acts, that the railways must and can be protected only by curtailing the freedom of their competitors, needs to be re-examined. If it were abandoned, the present system of restrictions, snoopers and legal headaches would be recognized •plainly as the absurdity it is. While the assumption remains there will always be pressure for tightening up the system and for bringing the C licence within its scope.