C Licence System Criticized
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AT two conferences held during the Easter week-end there were direct criticisms of the present C licence system. The Mayor of Harrogate, CHI'. N. Morrell, told the Clerical and Administrative Workers' Union at the Union's annual conference that half the heavy goods lorries on the roads today were running empty because "they are on C licences ".
" If all these vehicles could be on A licences and could carry goods from anywhere they would be running full and with payloads all the time," he said.
Mr. A. E. Oram, Labour-Co-operative M.P. for East Ham South, told the Cooperative Party Conference at Scarborough that he believed the question of C licences, coal distribution and industrial insurance were in the "fringe areas" distinctly suitable for nationalization or for municipalization or for cooperative ownership.
Both the Labour and Co-operative parties had to do a lot of hard new thinking about these fringe areas, he said. " We have tended in the past to fall into the error of merely saying hands off' coal distribution, industrial insurance and road transport without putting up alternatives," he said.
Mr. Oram was supporting a resolution asking the national committee to restate the Co-operative movement's policy on social ownership.
He believed there was a case for cutting out huge waste in coal distribution, for national control of the huge investment funds of the insurance companies and for new policies for C licences.