Political Commentary By JANUS
Page 74
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First Explorers
SHOULD the next Government put in train the impartial inquiry into transport that is sometimes proposed, not always too seriously, the first request from whatever body may be set up will be for all the available facts and figures. The British Transport Commission will have a good deal of information already assembled. Their annual reports go into considerable detail, and probably leave out far more than they include. Road passenger operators can be equally exact and almost as profuse in supplying information, as they are required to do quarterly or annually to the Minister of Transport. The main difficulty at this early stage will be with hauliers and C-licence holders.
The annual reports of the Licensing Authorities, at any rate in the attenuated form in which they reach the public, show little more than the number of vehicles and the number of licence-holders. Details of such things as tonnage carried and revenue earned are not available, and there is no machinery for collecting them. Two sample surveys have been made since the war, one in 1952 and the other in 1958. It would be difficult to exaggerate their value, but they have already became the battleground for rival political theories, and it might be thought desirable, for the purposes of any inquiry, that an additional investigation be made.
If it is ,thought that, in spite of some praiseworthy attempts to chart the territory, much still remains uncertain about the road goods transport industry, the members of the Royal Commission on transport set up 30 years. ago must have felt like travellers setting out on a voyage with a map no better than that drawn up by Ptolemy. Their appointment was an obviously sensible move in view of the new situation created by the rapid growth of road transport, but they were thorough-going pioneers, in the sense that they had first to make the right discoveries, and next to put the right interpretation on them.
They took evidence from a large number of organizations and individuals. Inevitably, not much of it was carefully documented, not through carelessness but because the facts and figures were not available and could not be collected within a reasonable time. Everything was new. The subject of inquiry was an industry barely 10 years old, made up of some 25,000 individual operators with a total of 80,000 vehicles and no tradition of keeping records.
Axe to Grind
From such material nothing more could be gleaned than impressions. With their help the Royal Commission built up a picture that has profoundly affected all thinking about the road haulage industry ever since. In fact, some Socialists with a nationalizing axe to grind assert even now that the picture is a faithful description of the industry at the present time. They take little or no trouble to collect up-to-date statistics, and have conveniently forgotten that the original picture was composed largely on hearsay.
As the Royal Commission—and more particularly the Salter Committee—saw it, the road haulage industry was little better than a jungle, in which unscrupulous clearing houses ranged like beasts of prey, and on the edge of which were the so-called ancillary users—this was before the C licence had been invented—picking up odd loads so that their vehicles would not return empty. The larger and usually older established operator was doing his best (as the railways also were doing) to maintain reasonable standards of operation and of rates. The mass of small hauliers a40 were cutting rates indiscriminately and foolishly, with no knowledge of or attention to the real costs of operation. There was therefore an alarming and constant drift towards the bankruptcy court. Those among the smaller hauliers who escaped ruin were neglecting to book after their vehicles properly. Drivers were badly paid and the conditions of work were deplorable. The combination of neglected vehicles and overworked drivers was a major cause of the disturbing increase in the number of road accidents.
Corroboration of every detail of this picture may even now be had from veterans in the industry who remember the bad old days before licensing. Commonsense also suggests that there must have been another side to the picture; that thousands of operators, both large and small, were conducting sound businesses, and looking after their vehicles and drivers; and that this type of operator must have been in the majority. Every industry has its quota of wrongdoers and offenders against reasonable standards of conduct. If the proportion in road transport had clearly been no more than usual, the Royal Commission, and later the Salter Committee, might have thought that special restrictions were not necessary. It is possible that both bodies were wrong, and over-estimated the evils of the road haulage industry. It may be too late now to discover the truth, but there are one or two points worth consideration.
" The" Depression
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Britain was in the throes of what, because of its magnitude, is still known as " the " depression. It must have been a period of exceptional difficulty for the proper development of a new industry. If there appeared to be a large number of bankruptcies among hauliers, they were taking place in all walks of life. There is no statistical evidence that the proportion of hauliers going out of business was greater than in any other trade, nor that the larger operators were exempt from the general slump.
The legend of the "killer driver" is still powerful. It does not show up, however, on the recent accident statistics published by the Ministry of Transport, nor so far as one can see, is it borne out by the figures covering the years before the war. Regrettably, the annual total of road accidents is increasing, but there has been a fall in the statistics for accidents as a percentage of the numbers of vehicles. Credit for this may be due to several factors, including improvements in vehicle design, better standards of driving, and the general road safety measures that have been brought into force. There is no particular evidence that the special enforcement arrangements for commercial vehicles have had anything to do with it.
It is much too late now to go back to 1933 and start again. No Government would take responsibility for obliterating the measures that have been taken to deal with licensing, vehicle fitness, drivers' wages and conditions, and so on. There is no particular wish, within or outside the transport industry, that this should be done. Hauliers may feel, however, that they have more than a pious duty to rehabilitate their forerunners. Taken as a whole, the two official reports of 30 years ago, and the mass of legislation that they inspired, add up to a strong indictment of the pre-licensing road transport industry. The attitude of mind created then has persisted until the present day and it is still too easy for the Socialists to neutralize the efficiency of hauliers by accusing them of Iaw-breaking.