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GERMAN LESSONS
Page 84
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work of a dilettante.
The purposes of the German plans are said to be comprehensive and to make up a coherent policy. Among other things it is hoped to reduce the deficit on the German state railways by closing down uneconomic lines and virtually eliminating competition from road transport.
At the same time it is claimed that the -essential restrictions" will improve conditions in the road haulage industry. Road safety, traffic flows, public opinion, relationships with other countries, and water and air transport are also included in the ambitious statement of aims.
Whether the specific proposals live up to the preamble is less certain. From the point of view of the vehicle operator and manufacturer the main impression is of an unrelieved series of prohibitions.
Bans coming The long-distance transport by road of a long list of categories is to be banned from mid-1970. New ton-mile taxes are to be imposed on road freight with an extra penalty for long-distance haulage. A ceiling is to be placed on the number of road transport licences.
To complete the sorry picture hauliers are being asked to cut their rates roughly in accordance with the old taxes which are being withdrawn but are unlikely to be allowed a corresponding increase to compensate for the new taxes.
Mrs. Castle is thought to have derived comfort and moral support from her recent discussions with the West German Minister of Transport. Operators in Britain can only hope that she has not been emboldened to turn the screw more tightly than is indicated in her own statement of intent. Her White Paper will be scrutinized anxiously to see to what extent she has taken her German lessons to heart.
In strong contrast are the remarks by her Minister of State, Mr. Stephen Swingler, when addressing the conference of the Traders Road Transport Association in Blackpool a week ago. There would be no wholesale transfer of freight business to the railways, said Mr. Swingler. No road licence would be refused unless rail could do the work at least as well in all respects.
These reassurances cannot have satisfied his audience to any extent. The desire to keep a restriction within narrow bounds may be genuine. Once the machinery of applications, traffic courts and appeals has been set up it acquires a momentum of its own and takes in a wider field than may have been anticipated.
If the amount of traffic transferred from road to rail is indeed to be as little as Mr. Swingler implies it is difficult to understand why some less complicated and pretentious method could not be found to achieve what is wanted.
Mrs. Castle is no doubt trying to avoid some of the grosser errors which were made when a large part of the transport industry was first nationalized after the war.
The West German Minister of Transport must also have in mind the warning example of what happened in his own country at an even earlier period. There is no suggestion that in general the Socialists in Germany resemble the more sinister selfstyled National Socialists of those days but they may be following much the same path in the attempt to tighten up State control of transport.
As a first step in the 1930s a division was made between long-distance and shortdistance hauliers. Those engaged on longdistance work were compelled to join an association which became virtually a department of the Ministry of Transport. No more hauliers were allowed in and rates were increased compulsorily to the same level as the charges made by the Stateowned railways.
Mania The mania for State control ultimately brought even the short-distance hauliers into the net. They also were made to join an association and to charge rates based on a system which, it is said, became so intricate that even the officials administering it were no longer able to understand it.
As might be expected such a cumbersome form of control led inevitably to the proliferation of officials. In addition to the considerable enforcement staff there were between 1,000 and 2,000 local transport officers as well as district officers and re
gional commissioners, none of them actually concerned with the operation of vehicles.
Like so many other things in Germany the system was largely swept away in the confusion following the war. Sufficient recollections of its harshness remained, no doubt, to make operators tolerate the system which has since been developed. Whether they will show the same toleration of the new proposals is more open to question.
The Germany BDF is in many ways a stronger body with a much wider range of activities than its British equivalent, the RHA.
More trunk vehicles The number of vehicles on long-distance haulage has risen by over a fifth in 10 years to a total of 25,000 in 1966. Their share of the traffic has also risen to about 22 per cent, while the share of the railways declined from over 51 per cent in 1959 to 43 per cent in 1960. The remainder of the traffic goes through inland waterways and pipelines.
There is no disposition on the part of German operators to give up this growing and presumably profitable traffic without a struggle. The fact that British operators are facing a similar crisis makes it inevitable that the problem will be brought forward on the international level.
The road haulage section of the International Road Transport Union is meeting early next month. The situation in Germany will certainly be discussed at length and it would be remarkable if a strong statement condemning the German Government's plans were not issued at the end of the meeting. The parallel with the situation in Britain is bound to be drawn.
Britain's application to join the Common Market introduces a further factor. Efforts within the Six to establish a common transport policy are making slow progress. One difficulty is to ensure that, by means of hidden subsidies or in other ways, the transport industry or a section of it in one country will not have an artificial and ununfair advantage in relation to the rest of the Community.
Neither the German nor the British proposals seem likely to make the solution any easier.