OZYMANDIAS
Page 73
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NOT long ago there seemed little interest in the question whether British Road Services, or what was left of the organization after disposal, should be sold up completely. The fashionable argument against the inveterate renationalizers among the Socialists was that they were being unreasonable, and that they ought to accept the present situation as a political compromise. One side in the contest had pulled long-distance road haulage over the line; the other side had subsequently pulled the industry part of the way back, It was suggested that, if both sides would agree to stop the contest while honours were more or less even, everybody should be satisfied.
Having stumbled almost by accident upon the concept of a " mixed economy " in road transport the Conservatives elevated it into a virtue. They were still not quite certain of public opinion. Many people were loudly con-, demning nationalization, and not only of road transport, but there might be just as many people making much less noise about their continued belief in the idea. Publicopinion polls, and particularly the result of the last General Election, showed beyond doubt in what direction the public was moving. The idea that free enterprise and nationalization can live together in peace may no longer seem so attractive as before.
Although in fact B.R.S. and independent operators have settled down side by side and are on reasonably good terms with each other, it cannot be completely correct to speak of the arrangement as a compromise. Such a thing is not possible between two sets of people, such as the Socialists and the Conservatives, who continue to hold diametrically opposed points of view. At best they can reach a truce, and this has been the state of affairs for the past four or five years. A truce can become permanent, and this may yet happen in the rolt haulage industry.
There are signs that the truce may be broken before long. The feeling is gaining strength among hauliers, and most of all the long-distance operators, that they should urge upon the Government a further dismemberment of nationalized road transport. Without wishing to do so, B.R.S. have played some small part in building up this mood. For a while it may have suited them to be meticulous about keeping their fleet down to the size allotted to them. They denied any intention of expanding. They drafted vehicles into some areas, much to the annoyance of the operators established there, but were careful to delete a similar number of vehicles from their licence in another area, thus remaining secure from a national reproach.
Modified Policy Now it would appear that their policy has been modified. They are expanding their fleet, discreetly but unmistakably. Some time ago they set about acquiring new depots in places where they had sold out as part of the process of disposal. More recently they have started to buy up independent businesses. The purchase of N. Francis and CO., Ltd., with nearly 100 -parcels-carrying vehicles in London, may be a foretaste of what is to come. It makes B.R.S. by far the largest London express carriers, and suggests that there may be other towns and other types of operation where they would find it easy to become dominant with the help of a judicious transaction.
The latest move has brought to a head the uneasiness among long-distance hauliers. They have been busy, and some of them are still busy, in consolidating their acquisitions, and a few of them have carried through a series of amalgamations. They have had to digest, before expressing in action, a variety of experiences. Their basic training, either as operators or as managers, took place under free enterprise. They remember the industry as one where competition was fierce and mutual suspicion almost universal. Those of themwith vision saw the advantages to be gained from co-operation but had no idea how tO bring this about.
Within B.R.S. they were forced to work together, and they have not forgotten the lesson thus learned. It was a sign of the times that, almost as soon as they had emerged from the chrysalis of disposal and were ready to begin their new life, they won agreement for the formation of a long-distance group within the Road Haulage_ Association. There had been no such body before nationalization. Those operators who saw the need were not sufficiently numerous to make their opinion felt.
Common Identity The group have found plenty to do since they were set up. Much Of their work has been directed towards establishing a common identity. They have drawn up a code of conduct that members are expected to observe. They have published a list of members, and take care to keep the list up-to-date. They have drawn up a rates guide that only awaits the approval of the Association's national body before it is circulated. The long-distance group have encouraged interworking to the greatest possible extent, and it is operators in the group who have lately begun to be insistent about the advisability of taking up disposal again where the Conservative Government left off in 1956.
For a period after denationalization the independent operators accepted their disappointment that the process had come somewhat abruptly to an end. They even made an advantage out of necessity by convincing themselves that B.R.S. at one and the same time would h.: competitors they could always outbid on service as well as price, and a stabilizing influence on such things as the alarming tendency of a rates structure to collapse just when the proud architects were putting the roof on.
Having miraculously ridden out the storm, B.R.S. were still regarded as a survival from the past. They were like the ruined statue of Ozymandias bearing only the ironical motto: "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair! The task of building up a business faced the new longdistance operators and absorbed all their attention. They found from their old customers a welcome with open arms and there were new customers eager to use their services. B.R.S. were not meeting with the same kind of approbation. They seemed I likely at one time to make further reductions in the still substantial fleet left in their hands.
Many operators may have thought there was a reasonable prospect of gradually eroding the business of the nationalized road transport organization. To fill the vacuum thus created they would hope to be allowed to expand their own fleets. In this way they would be getting what they w6nted in the end without having to pay the somewhat stiff prices demanded for transport units. Any hopes that may have been entertained along these lines . have little by little died away. There seems now not the least likelihood that B.R.S. will crumble like the statue in the desert.I On the contrary, they evidently have active plans of their own. This discovery coincides with the reversion athong hauliers to a policy of complete denationalization.