On the Eve of Anoth road Transport Debate . .
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HANDS OF1
)UR FLEET
THE giant of the transport world in this country is the C-licensed fleet. Nearly 1,200,000 vehicles
operated by over 500,000 firms, representing every aspect of the country's trade and industry, make up a vast, intricate transport system affecting every home and business. These vehicles assure that the needs of factory, warehouse and shop in the form of raw materials and manufactured goods, are met punctually and regularly, day in and day out.
Between them they carry 43 per cent. of the nation's goods, whilst road transport as a whole transports 76 per cent. of the country's freight. Shops are almost completely dependent on road transport for their supplies. This is the measure of the importance to the community of the direct service given by C-licensed vehicles; without them, production and distribution on the present scale would be impossible.
" C" Stands for Commerce
The contribution is almost equally impressive indirectly. The efficiency of operation of C-licensed transport makes a major contribution to our export industries. Every year these vehicles provide a vast sum for the Exchequer by way of fuel tax and excise licensing. And inland road transport provides direct employment for upwards of a million men. Add to all this the benefit to the country's exports and employment of the companies manufacturing cars and commercial vehicles, and it will be immediately obvious that C-licensed vehicles are not to be treated lightly—as, unfortunately, they often are.
It is against this background that any proposal which relates to C-licensed transport must be considered. Anyone bringing forward proposals must always relate them to the direct impact they will have, beneficially or otherwise, on the entire range of the country's trades and industries.
It is, therefore, in this light that we must consider the proposal, said to be the subject of canvass amongst M.P.s, and probably to be put forward during the Parliamentary transport debate next week, of a ton-mileage tax on C vehicles. . A whole article or series of articles could be written on the relative merits of this or that form of taxation—should it be a ton-mile tax, or would a tonnage tax be fairer, or, again, is the present classification based on unladen weight more practicable?
To discuss their relative merits would, however, be to miss the main point. The proposal is not being made because the present basis of assessment is unsound and should, therefore, be altered to make it more equitable. The objective is simply and solely to increase the total amount of tax paid. The niceties of this, that, or the other form of taxation are therefore of only secondary (if not academic) interest.
At -least the latest proposal has the merit that its object is clearly and honestly stated—to assist the financial 00 position of the railways. So many other proposals to restrict road transport purport to be designed to alleviate road congestion, to reduce the number of accidents, to equate track costs of road and rail, or to "promote the national interest." So it is refreshing • to find that the purpose of this latest proposal is being put forward quite frankly, undisguised by red herrings. No one connected with inland transport has ever been in any doubt that there would be no "transport problem" if there were no "rail problem," and that road transport would not constantly be the subject of attack if the railways were not incurring deficits of the order of £80m. a year.
So the simple proposition is to impose extra taxation on road transport, or C-licensed vehicles, to assist the railways. It is no doubt hoped as a result to persuade manufacturers and traders to transfer traffic to rail, and so improve the railways' trading position. But undoubtedly the most attractive feature of the plan is to devote the proceeds of the tax to offset partially the annual deficits of the railways. This would avoid the need for the deficits to be met by a subsidy payable by the taxpayer.
Understandably, this "solution" might be superficially attractive to M.P.s but it has nothing elk to commend it. Why not meet the deficits by increasing the tax on tobacco? Or, less far-fetched, impose extra taxation on the private motorist to try to force him on to the railways. Again, if the objective is to penalize the whole of road transport in the interests of the railways, we might also put up bus fares all round, which would do the same for passenger transport as it is sought to do for goods. After all, the railway deficit apparently arises mainly on the passenger side. One has only to devote a minute's consideration to these hypothetical but analogous possibilities, to see just how illogical the proposal is.
The Public Should Pay
All this assumes that, as a matter of the public interest, the railways must continue to operate within a framework that necessitates a subsidy. It is not Within my competence to challenge that assumption, but if the subsidy arises because of the public interest, then surely it should be met out of the public purse. There can be no possible reason for expecting trade and industry to shoulder the burden, unless it is that they are the users of the railways and the users must pay the cost. A ton-mile tax on C-licensed transport would not achieve this.
On the contrary, the manufacturer using rail transport exclusively would pay nothing extra, whereas a firm dependent wholly upon road transport and not using rail would pay heavily. Either way, the cost would not be paid by the rail user, but by those who did not use rail. However you look at the problem, you arrive back at the same conclusion—the object is to penalize trade and industry for not using the railways, and without regard to the serious effects on the economy.
So much for the logic of the situation, but what would be the practical effects of such taxation? Some marginal traffic would perhaps be diverted to rail, depending upon the amount and incidence of the tax. Much more, it seems certain, Would continue to go by road. Very few people realize how strong are the reasons which decide the trader in favour of using his own transport—I will not repeat them here, for they are fully analysed in the T.R.T.A. survey of C-licensed vehicles, which is available to anyone interested. Nor is it realized how much goods simply could not go by rail, or could do so only with such loss of efficiency as to jeopardize the production . or distribution machine. .
So the majority' of goods would" continue to go by road and would bear the premium of the tax iinposed. These extra costs, wherever possible, Would be passed onto the consumer, with all that implies in terMS of rising prices, wage increases and the inflationary spiral, And this would not •be a sectional price increase; it would affect every commodity, be it heavy machinery or refrigerators, clothing or food. The effect upon our export industries would be still more serious for, generally speaking, foreign competition is so keen as to leave no margin for price increases.
Only the Trader Knows .
Just .how black the picture would be depends, of course, on. the amount of tax.. If sufficiently small, the effects would be less serious than I have painted them. But that does not alter the fact that discriminatory taxation against C transport, or road transport as a whole, is wrong in principle and economically unsotind. It cannot be said too often that it is only the trader or manufacturer responsible for arranging for the transport of goods who has the knowledge• necessary to determine the most suitable method of carriage. To impose any artificial brake (whether. by means of taxation or otherwise). upon .hiS freedona to choose the most 'suitable transport must be economically unsound and doomed. to failure. .
There seems little. point in going over all this welltrodden ground and reciting how the T.R.T.A. has had to fight ceaselessly to preserve the freedom of C-licence operation—a .freedom which can be menaced as much by penal taxation. as mileage •restriction proposals. The important thing, it seems to me, is to try to stand back from the transport picture and take a broad look at it. In this way some useful perspective may be gained. Here. the trader, ' who uses his own vehicles as well as other road and rail facilities, is able to view the whole more objectively than others. Anyone connected with railways' or road haulage who talks or writes generally on the subject of internal transport, however statesmanlike he may seem, is "suspect," An instance of this was afforded in The Commercial Motor of September 23 when Mr. T. G. Gibb, chairman of British Road Services, wrote engagingly on the subject of "What is Wrong With Road Haulage." At one stage of Mr. Gibb's highly readable contribution a reader could well be forgiven for wondering why the title was not changed to "What is Wrong With the C-licence Operator?"
MR.& Sale3manskip Mr. Gibb's article was an excellent exercise in B.R.S. salesmanship, and there have been others—especially from the railways. But (and the difference is fundamental) anyone from trade and industry who writes on C-licence transport is not moved by the need to " sell " this form of transport. A point often overlooked is that the T.R.T.A., for instance, does not exist to promote and spread the use of C vehicles. The choice of transport facilities must -obviously remain a matter to be settled by the individual business in relation to its particular industrial or commercial needs. What the T.R.T.A. does insist upon is that the choice must be a free one; and this thinking conditlonS our approach to any developments which would tend to restrict C-licence operation or penalize it selectively.
Reading the comments of some of"the critics, one could be pardoned for believing that there is something inherently wrong in using C-licensed vehicles, and that the growth in this fleet, which serves industry and the public so well, is unnatural to the point of almost being sinister. What the critics fail to recognize, or will not bring themselves to believe, is that we are in the middle of a revolution quite as great as that w.hich' the introduction of the railways themselves ,brought about, in the nineteenth ceatury, and equally irrevocable!
: Before the railways spread across the country, goods went by road or canal or. by coastal passage. It is difficult for us now to appreciate the shattering impact the railways had upon the, nineteenth century and the economy of the times. The birth of the railways made possible new industrial expansion, new production techniques, new trade approaches, all making use of a swift, regular, reliable transport service. Does anyone seriously imagine that an artificial prop for road or canal transport could have been other than detrimental to this development?
Then, as the internal-combustion engine made its bow, the roads, which from a transport viewpoint had been almost a negligible factor, started to come into their own again. Once more a fresh transport revolution was touched off and once more there were developments parallel with what occurred when the railways were established; twentieth-century road transport evolution provided yet a further broader basis for industrial growth and :expansion.' This growth, important before the start of World War II, became vital in the immediate pOst-war years when the call went out to sell more and more abroad and 'production ballooned enormously..
It is significant that this growth was accompanied by an increase in the number of C vehicles. . . Time Marches On One unfailing theme has accompanied all these changes:. the. Subordinate position in which an existing form of transport has been placed -due to the evolution of a corn peting form of transport. It happened to the stage' coach owners and the public carriers. It is happening. now to the railways. It may well happen to road transport at some time in the future, when some new technical development revolutionizes our present standards. You cannot put the clock back and halt progress!
This is not an attack upon the railways. Indeed, the C-licence operator has been exceptionally forbearing in the face of sustained criticism, and has been content to defend himself without attacking others. We will not get anywhere in solving our transport problems until we realize that discriminatory moves against one sector of transport to aid another will not help matters in the slightest. No one in transport has any doubt that the tonmileage proposal is a discriminatory 'Move against trade and industry for using their own vehicles.
The fact is that the country's economy today is based upon the kind of service that C-1 icence transport provides —the figures in this respect speak for themselves. It is high time that the negative approach to road transport was replaced by a positive one. Nothing will be achieved, and much will be lost, by tinkering, tampering and penalizing road transport. Road transport is growing and will continue to grow, to the great advantage of the country as a whole.
The Government has recognized this, so let us have some positive encouragement for road transport, and look forwards instead of back.