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All-in container rates will subsidize the road haul
Page 57
Page 58
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DETAILS of the "equalization rates" to be applied in inland haulage operations were given by Mr A. J. Butterwick, marketing manager of Overseas Containers Ltd., at the concluding study session of the British Association of Overseas Furniture Removers in London last week. He also stated that within the next two months OCL would be giving an indication of their charges for movement of containers between the UK and Australia.
Mr Butterwick said that shippers would not readily provide OCL with container traffic if additional inland haulage charges were incurred. Shippers whose traffic normally went via Liverpool or Glasgow could not reasonably be asked to pay the extra costs of road or rail transit to the OCL terminal at Tilbury.
In effect, OCL proposed to subsidize the inland haulage costs—becoming in the process customers of the hauliers. A Manchester shipper who had previously sent his traffic by road to Liverpool Docks for 27s 6d a ton would have no more to pay for sending the container to Tilbury. The difference between the 278 6d and the 50s rate applicable for the Tilbury journey would be met by OCL as part of the total cost of their UK-Australia service.
The scale of the planned operations was such that OCL would not pay individual dock dues to the Port of London Authority; instead they would pay an enormous bulk charge for using the PLA terminal facilities. OCL were working towards the provision of a single bill of lading which would be made out as soon as the traffic entered the OCL system at inland container terminal or port.
Such simplified documentation would be welcomed by banks and shippers, he thought. One consequence was that FOB and CIF would disappear; instead, export goods would be charged ex works or ex container base or for a delivered price.
Accepting responsibility
Mr Butterwick said OCL would accept responsibility for the real value of the goods for the whole time the container remained in their charge. Shippers, he suggested, should start now to see that their factories were geared for the efficient packing and dispatch of containers. The services of a container packing expert employed by OCL were readily available.
Several members asked Mr Butterwick whether it would be economic or safe to send furniture to Australia in a container. Would existing rates for shipment be reduced, and was it not courting trouble to expect furniture to arrive in good condition if shipped in a container as deck cargo?
He thought it would be possible for furniture to be put in containers stowed below deck, but agreed that small consignments of 300/400 cu.ft. presented problems of consolidation. He thought the new containers on order would be virtually airtight—"Bradford air will come out when the container is opened in Australia". So far as containers stacked below deck were concerned OCL thought they had solved all problems.
Mr Butterwick told another questioner that containers carrying grouped traffic would be for delivery in the terminal port hinterland; it would not be possible to arrange a part load for Sydney and a part load for Melbourne to travel in the same container. He thought the overseas removal trade should act as consolidators of furniture for delivery in a specific port hinterland.
On the question of rates, the speaker said there would probably be a range of four or five. It would not be practicable to move containers on an average-rate basis; low-rated traffic would not move at all on this basis and those now paying for highvalue goods would, of course, be delighted if rate levels were halved.
He thought it unlikely that rates in general would rise—OCL hoped to hold them at present levels.
RTITB in hot seat
Mr I. M. Carlin, director of administration, Road Transport Industry Training Board met with a somewhat hostile reception when he addressed the NAFWR on the second day of the BAOFR /NAFWR two-day meeting. When a lady member made it very clear that she had no time for the training proposals at all, she was loudly applauded. Mr Hugh Begg, the president, explained that Mr Carlin was
there to help explain the purpose of the Act and to deal with queries so far as possible.
Mr Carlin said the compilation of a register of establishments—as opposed to companies—was an arduous task with an industry of 1,200,000 employees working in about 100,000 establishments. Many of those written to had failed to reply to letters.
There had been a steady build up of training staff and there were now 11 specialist training officers at headquarters. Mr Fortnum, with specialized knowledge of removals and warehousing, was shortly joining the staff.
The Board had been criticized for going too far and too fast, said Mr Carlin. The reason for the hurry was that it wished to get as far as possible under the government's finance so that the industry would have less to meet. The Board could have borrowed money and progressed much more slowly but it was felt that this would be a time wasting and costly exercise of no value to the industry.
auick returns
The same thing applied had the Board asked for a very small levy. This would have meant that nothing of value could have been given back to the industry. As it was, the Board was rapidly gaining in experience and would make the desired contribution much more quickly.
Mr Carlin said the detailed arrangements for the payment of grants had taken longer to thrash out than had been expected. He thought the plans would be published in two or three weeks' time. He stressed that all members should give thought to the costs they incurred in training staff and outlined the factors that would be decisive in determining whether or not a grant was payable. In many cases the Board had no discretion; the Ministry of Labour had laid down the governing regulations precisely.
Because of the importance attached by the Ministries of Labour and Transport to safety training, said Mr Carlin, approved safety training—where the bulk of the course was devoted to the safety aspect—would rank for 50 per cent additional allowance. Also, employees would be encouraged to sit certain examinations with a financial reward as encouragement. No Board had done this hitherto, he said.
Training consultancy services, said Mr Carlin, would rank for grant and the Board would try to assist any legitimate training carried out in the industry this year whether or not it fell neatly into particular classifications. He fully recognized that the NAFWR had a fine record in providing training courses for staff and these would be encouraged to the full by the Board.
Attitude of contempt?
When Mr Eric Russell, secretary of the Road Haulage Association, ended his speech on the effects of the government's new licensing proposals he was rapturously applauded—clear evidence that he spoke for most of those present. Mr Russell's theme was that the existing licensing system had by and large served the industry and the public well. What was the point of scrapping a serviceable structure? "The proposals have been produced with the admission that their principles are unalterable, that discussions with Ministry officials could be concerned only with matters of detail and that there would be very little time for these discussions anyway."
This attitude was at least candid and frank but, of course, to less affectionate eyes, it could look like, and to most people probably did look like, an attitude almost of contempt, he said.
The Geddes Committee was, said Mr Russell, the root cause of the threats facing the road haulage industry and, to an equal degree, trade and industry today. The Geddes Report was a most curious and, at the same time, a most mischievous document. It was a curious document because, ordered by a Conservative Minister of Transport, it was served up to a Labour one who promptly and firmly rejected it. Then it was taken off what had become a pretty dusty shelf by the present Minister of Transport. And Mrs Castle found on that dusty shelf and in that forgotten document a great deal of material and many ideas which must have proved irresistible to one with her political astuteness.
First of all she found in the Geddes Report the recommendation that there should be no licensing, that there should be a free-for-all in road haulage. Apart from a few irrelevant examples afforded by some small specialized sectors of haulage in America and Australia, all the evidence to Geddes was of the 'experience that a road haulage free-for-all would again be harmful to the industry and to its efficiency. But the Geddes Committee rejected the evidence it got. It spurned the experience it drew on. It relied wholly on theories, on theories which completely ignore the realities of the transport situation.
Solutions in Geddes
He continued: "Subsequently, the Minister's thinking seems to have gone like this: If, in my transport policy, I accept the free-for-all advocated by the Geddes Committee, there will be little opposition from the Conservative Party which supports the view. If a free-for-all should prove harmful to the independent sector of the road haulage industry then would not harming it and possibly destroying it be politically more expedient and certainly cheaper than nationalizing it. But in this line of thinking there was the difficulty that a free-for-all in haulage would also adversely affect the railways. So how can I insulate them against the effects of a free-for-all?"
Chapter 9 of the Geddes Report, said Mr Russell, amounted to a sort of manual for pro-rail ministers. "The chapter admits that the means of diverting traffic from road to rail are difficult. It admits that they would harm our efficiency in overseas trade. It admits that they would be inequitable. But it also suggests that, if a government has no scruples in these matters, then the way to get the traffic on to rail are many. And it lists them.
"The list actually includes the idea of denying carriers' licences to certain traffics. For instance, it specifies those over 100 miles and it specifies bulk traffics. Here then was Mrs Castle's solution—all in Geddes.
"That's what makes the Geddes report mischievous. It provides something for everybody's taste: unrestricted competition for Conservative palates; controls and confiscation for Socialist hunger; cream of the traffic for the railways. And Mrs Castle was able to take all these ingredients, cook up a transport policy and serve it up for public consumption, garnished with apparent considerations of road safety.
"I am not suggesting that the Minister could not have prepared her licensing scheme without the inspiration of the Geddes Committee. But the report will enable her in presenting it to contend, or rather pretend, that her approach has been objective and dispassionate."
Taking a look at the Minister's licensing proposals, the speaker had some reservations about the freeing of 900,000 goods vehicles under 30cwt unladen. He thought the heavier models in this category could offer unfair competition to professional hauliers, and their increasing numbers would add to congestion.
Mr Russell suggested a 1-ton limit— or a length limit of 21ft—or a provision that five or more should constitute a fleet subject to quality licensing.
On the quality licensing system too, although it seemed good in principle, he had doubts. He felt that the abolition of any distinction between own-account and professional operators was "alarming". Rates would be cut, service deteriorate and the small haulier would suffer.
Conspiracy and wrecking He was scathing in his comments on the quantity-licensing plans. An operator who wished to operate over 100 miles or over 25 with bulk traffic "would be presumed to be trying to wreck the whole grand design. It will be presumed you are part of the great industrial conspiracy which Mrs Castle seems convinced is working against the railways-.
Those operators who survived the "grab" of traffic by the railways, asserted the speaker, would be licensed to carry only those goods which had been in dispute, and no others. And the weapons provided in the regulations under the Act would enable traffics—and presumably distances—to be changed at will. The „weapons could thus be sharpened from time to time, as necessary.
"Integration gives way to intimidation. Instead of competition there will be coer-. cion. There will be confiscation but no compensation. The keynote of the plan is not efficiency but effrontery."