Jekyll and Hyde
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REACTIONS to the Budget while Parliament are discussing the details reveal once again a typical difference between the hardier and• the public service vehicle operator. Both sides of the road transport industry have at least something for which to thank the Chancellor
' of the Exchequer, and both have expressed the appropriate sentiments through their national representatives. The difference lies in the response of the rank and file to concessions that can have been intended only for their benefit.
The reduction of Excise duty on passenger vehicles has brought essentially the same reaction from operators and from their associations. The Public Transport Association and the British Omnibus Companies Public Relations Committee have damned with faint praise the alleviation of their lot, while complaining that it makes an inadequate contribution towards helping rural services and solving the other financial problems of the industry. The comments of individual operators add up to this general statement. Some of them say they have been saved from making immediate increases in fares; others are now going through the process of lodging the fare applications that the imminence of the Budget had held in check.
The equivalent concession on the goods side was the abolition of the 30 per cent. purchase tax on vehicle chassis. Mr. Ernest Davies, M.P., has said that it is more than equivalent. He has told the Chancellor that the concession helps the road haulage industry Substantially, and that equal, if not greater, relief should have been given to the road passenger industry, which is in greater need. There could be no doubt of the welcome given to the concession by the Road Haulage Association, which had for many years been prominent in the campaign against the purchase tax. The first comment on its abolition came, as might be expected, from the R.H.A., and, as might also.be expected, was an expression of thanks.
Less to Pay
Second thoughts from within the industry have given a different picture. It is pointed out that the abolition of purchase tax at one stroke lowers the value of every goods vehicle. The substantial reductions in purchase price that manufacturers have announced will be partly offset by reductions in the tax reliefs that can be claimed. As it may take up to 10 years to replace all the vehicles in a fleet, the full benefit of the Chancellor's generosity will not be felt for a long time. If the Labour party win the next election and renationalize long-distance road haulage, they will have to pay less compensation for the vehicles than represented a fair market value before the Budget.
Individual hauliers take an even gloomier view, and are almost in the mood to suggest that the R.H.A. should have run a campaign for the retention of purchase tax. They maintain that any Budget concession is an invitation to their customers to agitate for a further reduction in rates Llready too law, or to put their own vehicles on the road.
In such a cacophony even the voice of Bloggs would be hard put to it to sound a discordant note. The road haulage industry is evidently under considerable menial stress. Passenger vehicle operators, whatever their financial troubles, are uninhibited and free from repressions. They can, and do, attack the Government for being niggardly, and they have never hesitated to say what they think of their rivals and competitors, including television and the private car. The threat of renationalization is not at the moment a serious one for the road passenger industry, so that they need be no respecter of parties. The car owner may not relish being the continual subject of attack, but he seldom answers back, and may well be burdened by the feeling of guilt brought on by years of persecution.
In this respect (he haulier is more like the car owner than the passenger vehicle operator. He may criticize the Conservative Government, but knows he will be much worse off under a Labour Government. Officially, therefore, the R.H.A. may have no more than a mild reproof for some piece of Conservative legislation that they dislike, while individual hauligs are in a fury. They are also denied the consolation that the passenger vehicle operator may find in his animadversions against the private car. The nearest equivalent on the goods side is the C-licence holder, whose work is of like importance to that of the haulier.
Fervent Disciple
The organization through which the haulier presents himself to the public has to strike on his behalf a number of attitudes that at times are difficult to keep up. He is represented as the fervent disciple of the principle of free enterprise, as the arch-foe to monopoly and to restrictions, and as the industrious and humble servant of trade and industry and of the public. When circumstances are propitious, the role may come more naturally to him than to most other people, but it can be irksome particularly when it is taken for granted.
It was the original intention of the Labour Government after the war to restrict C-licence holders to a radius of 40 miles. This was one of the reasons why trade and industry made common cause with the hauliers in opposing the first Transport Bill. During the Committee stage in the House of Commons, Mr. Alfred Barnes, then Minister of Transport, announced a change of heart by the Government, and the C-licence clause was dropped.
The road haulage industry appeared as glad to hear the news as the C-licence holders themselves, but there was an under-current of bitterness. The C-licence holder is in a sense the competitor of the haulier, who was still to be restricted while his customers would have every inducement, when they had bought their own vehicles, to fill the longdistance vacuum, to use those vehicles also, when available, for the shorter journeys that were in future to be the hauliers' sole source of livelihood. In fact, the British Transport Commission suffered much more than hauliers from the subsequent rapid growth in the C-licensed fleet, but hauliers were not to know that at the time.
It was taken for granted by the public that the haulier, as the vociferous champion of free enterprise, would acclaim the victory of the C-licence holder. There was some surprise that he showed no great enthusiasm. There may also have been surprise that he was not more pleased when the railways were given freedom from restrictions that had hampered them in the past. It had been said in the past by hauliers, or on their behalf, that they would welcome competition, from whatever quarter it might come. They should therefore, people reasoned, positively enjoy watching the rebirth of the railways.
Competition, like many things that are good for one, is not necessarily enjoyable. Hauliers may feel they must pretend to like it in whatever form it takes. Their Jekylland-Hyde attitude is due to the unhealthy political atmosphere in which they have been for so long enveloped.