Is There Really a Shortage of Road Transport ?
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DA1LY we see advertisements from the Ministry of War Transport urging the quicker turnround of road-transport vehicles. These advertisements would give anyone the impression that there is a shortage of
road transport. There is also the cry of shortage of spares, skilled labour, vehicles, tyres and petrol. Nothing is farther from the truth. There are ample spares, skilled labour, vehicles, tyres and petrol for the running of road transport dbring the state of emergency created by the war.
The associations and the Press are either so held by their varying interests that they cannot bring the truth home to the M. of W.T. for fear of repercussions, or they do not know the real state of things. The M. of W.T. does not know, that is certain, it is too much concerned with the difficulties of transport in these difficult times, and the shortages I have mentioned. As the M. of W.T. is an amateur and not a professional haulier to any extent yet, when it does get its schemes into operation, it is hardly likely that it will be able to overcome waste or be any more efficient than the professional haulier.
In view of the fact that we are at wdr it would, however, be well to remember that obstructing the M. of W.T. will not give us victory, neither will victory be attained if professional road transport be obstructed to the detriment of its efficiency. What we want to do is to win the war, and it will not be wan without road transport. I suggest that road transport is as important to the railways as the Royal Air Force is to the Royal Navy. We lost Singapore, we cannot afford to-lose Great Britain. Any interest that survives in either road or rail services that is merely a self interest, should be removed immediately. Do not forget that above all, if we lose this war, there will be no interests.
The shortages we are suffering are caused directly and indirectly by, so-called, petrol rationing. I say "so called" because the rationing has consisted of a " dole " and if you need any more ask for it, to all and sundry, small cars, large cars, railway companies, C-licence holders and road-transport contractors, sofar asroad transport is concerned. Possibly everyone had less than he wanted. Fuel should have been allotted only to roadtransport services. Bus and rail services can cater for travellers.
Our employees have not cars to go to and from business. Railway companies do not need petrol, their road transport could be done more efficiently by local contractors, and they would have made time to deal with their long-distance services. C-licence holders, not being dependent on road transport for a living, should be satisfied with their profits and leave transport to the professionals. If the rationing was done on these lines, there would be a tremendous saving of labour, spares, petrol, etc. As it is, everyone has been restricted, so that there must be thousands of vehicles not working to capacity.
These vehicles are demanding maintenance and are absorbing most wastefully what we need. At present
we have C-licence holders trying to load both ways and who have been known to ask hauliers if they have loads to give away. There are private cars running everywhere, food being held up by strikes at railway cartage depots, transport contractors being slowly squeezed out of business, and all this while the official mind is struggling with shortage of transport.
Will you kindly tell the Ministry of War Transport why we are in this mess, and that road-transport contractors became such a menace to the railways because of the efficient way they worked? lithe eminent roadtransport experts recently absorbed into the M. of W.T. be still without -"official minds," perhaps they will remember the chaos caused by the bombing of our railways and if the whole of road transport in the country has run itself to death' for lack of everything, no amount of fuel will revive us. It has been discovered that the "official mind" can always criticize, from now on let us have construction. If we must be rationed, we must be, but let us have a policy that will lead us to Victory.
London, S.E. G, J. VERRALE.
[The points raised by Mr. Verrall are certainly interesting, but we are sure that many operators would be glad to learn of the sources of his information concerning the ample supplies of spare parts, skilled labour, vehicles, tyres and petrol, to which he alludes. If he be so fortunate. as to have access to all these requirements, many others are not in the same position. So far as we are concerned, we fear no risk of repercussions in bringing , home the truth to any Ministry or any section of the community—but we must be convinced that it is the truth. The M. of W.T. may be an amateur in haulage for the time being, but it has experienced hauliers in charge of its Road Haulage Scheme, and it must be remembered that it is not so much improved efficiency that is important, as the expressed need of the Government to have at its immediate command a nucleus of haulage vehicles in active operation. Mr. Verrall wrote his letter before it had been decided to stop the basic ration for private cars, so at least one of his arguments has been Met. Owners of vehicles under C licences must not use these for carrying for hire or reward except by special permission of the respective Regional Transport Commissioners; if they do so without such authority they will be accepting a grave risk. As regards his suggestion that we should tell the M. of W.T. why we are in this mess, he cannot have been a consistent reader of " The Commercial Motor,". otherwise he would know that we had written quite a large amount on these lines, and it has not, fallen on deaf ears. Apparently Mr. Verrall's sole constructive criticism is that commercial road transport does not 'get all the fuel it wants, and this is not a novel viewpoint to us, but, surely, it is better to utilize road transport more economically by such factors as quicker turnround than to allow wastage of man-vehicle hours, and merely give more fuel. Also, it may have been found advisable to let a large number of hauliers have a reasonple quantity rather than to give fuller supplies to a few. No doubt in any grave emergency, larger quantities of fuel would be released, but it must be remembered that many tankers have been sunk, that men are risking their lives daily to bring us this vital and dangerous commodity.—Eo.]