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' Stealing Mr. Marples' trousers

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18th September 1964

Page 108

Page 108, 18th September 1964 — ' Stealing Mr. Marples' trousers

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while . . . he is still wearing them

MOST people look first of all for the promises in a party manifesto. Road operators have been the exception to the rule at least as far as the Labour Party manifesto is concerned. Their main anxiety has been to find the extent to which it threatens them. It is a strange political phenomenon that on the whole they find the 1964 election manifesto comparatively mild, almost reassuring, although it brings naught for their comfort.

The section on transport contains little that is new. There will be a national plan for this industry as for very nearly everything else. British Road Services will be given vaguely disquieting " powers " to extend their fleet of road vehicles and to develop the "first-rate national freight service" which presumably they are not giving at the moment. Within the regions new authorities set up to deal with a wide range of social and economic problems will also draw up their own transport plans.

The present Government's transport policy is attacked. It has involved breaking up road and rail freight co-ordination, denationalizing road haulage and subse quently cutting down railsservices under the Beeching plan. According to the manifesto these measures, far from easing transport problems, have meant more lives lost and maimed and more discomfort and delays in the journey to work, and have added to the summer week-end paralysis on the roads and to the chaos and loss of amenity in cities.

This should at least put Mr. Marples in his place. The manifesto somewhat dilutes the comprehensive denuncia tion by referring to Buchanan and Geddes almost as if they were gods in a Socialist pantheon. This goes farther than stealing Mr. Marples' trousers while he is bathing; it amounts to taking them while he is still wearing them. Urgent attention is to be given to the proposals in the Buchanan report and reform of the road goods licensing system "must now await" the recommendations of the Geddes Committee, The haulier and the C-licence holder are still no nearer knowing what tribulations are in store for them if the Labour Party wins the general election. The text of the manifesto provides no more than one or two dubious clues, but in the absence of any better guide it may be worth while examining them.

On another subject, national defence, the manifesto promises "constructive proposals for integrating all Nato's nuclear weapons under effective political control ". Evi dently therefore the Labour Party has not forgotten that there is such a thing as integration. What is mildly sur prising is that the word finds no place in the section on transport. The national plan is to be a " co-ordinated " one. Here, it might be said, is something else that the Labour Party has stolen from Mr. Marples, who in his policy document issued just a year ago said more than once that his aim Was to shape a comprehensive and co-ordinated system.

From the Labour Party's 1959 manifesto to Mr. George Brown's speech in the House of Commons last June integration of transport has been so constantly proclaimed as the ideal that one cannot help speculating on the omission of the word, if not the sentiment which it conveys, from a document outlining what the Party would do if they were running the country for the next five years.

Too much can be read into a word. It is fair to say, however, that whatever definitions the Labour Party may apply, to most people co-ordination and integration are by no means the same thing. On the other hand nationalization and public ownership have generally been regarded as ,synonymous. The 1959 manifesto said: "Commercial long-distance road haulage will be nationalized and built into an integrated transport system "; and few people can have had any illusions about what was intended. The 1964 manifesto's pledge that "private monopoly in steel will be replaced by public ownership and control" also seems to have only one possible meaning.

What must interest the road operator, and particularly the haulier, is that in the brief section on public ownership from which the above extract is taken, no reference is made to road transport.

Haulier Not Out of Danger Nevertheless, the haulier or the C-licence holder cannot be so foolish as to imagine that he is out of danger. It has been made plain that a more detailed exposition of the Labour Party's transport policy is to be found in Mr. Harold, Wilson's speech in the House of Commons on April 30 and the speech by Mr. Brown to which I have already referred. Ample and ominous reference to such things as distance limits and integration are strewn thickly through both pronouncements and Mr. Brown gave a warning that anybody who thought the Labour Party would not provide a wide area of publicly-owned road services to integrate with the railways was "living in cloud-cuckoo land ".

No-man's-land is more familiar country to the haulier. Like any other voter he is bound to some extent to think of the coming election in terms of his own future. He has a greater personal interest than most, in that the return of a Labour Government could put him out of business. As an individual he feels that he has a right to know whether or not this will happen and What will become of him if it does. He may also feel that he has done nothing to deserve such a fate and that there should be some way of making a Labour Government aware of this.

Assuredly the framers of the manifesto were not thinking of him when they wrote in their peroration that "new ways must be found to ensure that the growth of government activity does not infringe the liberties of the subject ". But he would certainly agree with them while wondering privately whether it would not be more simple to curb the growth of government activity. The Labour Party's solution to the problem they have given themselves is to set up a new office of Parliamentary Commissioner with the right to investigate the grievances of the citizen. If it ever comes to the point and the road transport industry is once more disrupted one can imagine a long queue of operators outside the Ombudsman's door.