Nationalization 0 Claims Exploded
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A Situation the Gravity of Which Should be Realized by the Whole Community
I -.AST week we proinised to deal more fully with the • Liparticalarly interesting remarks made by Mr. II T. Dutfield, chairman of the R H.A., in his recent speech at Sheffield. .. • He began by emphasizing the importance of the roadhaulage industry being able to -speak with one strong and united voice: As regards nationalization, there is not a single " member of the public who could, after study, honestly say -that the question of whether or not road
• transport is to be nationalized is no concern of his. Everyone sends or receives goods and is affected by the working • of the system which. dispatches or delivers them.
One of the basic principles laid down by the Transport Advisory Council •f which came into existence on the recorn' rnendation of the ROjral tomMission largely because it agreed that the coercion of road transport agencies would . be great mistake and would prove ineffective in practice) has always been the unfettered right of the trader to select the form Of, transport whiCh he approves and which is most
convenient and economic for his • purposes, The whole trading community has, Until now, believed • that it possessed, andwould continue to do so; the inalienable
• right to choice in this matter. Now, however, we have before its a.report prepared for consideration by the Trades_ Union Council. In this, we read that traffic must be taken as far as possible by the service which shows the lowest net cperating costs. The business, then, is always to go to the lewest trader regardless of any other consideration; or of any such little matters as punctuality, speed, servicing, safety from pilferage, damage or depreciation.
According to the report, this could be achieved most .simply and thoroughly by a completely co-ordinated service, • in which the consumer does not specify the form of transport, and in which the rates do not vary according tO which be utilized Traders' Freedom ol Choice It would, therefore, seem that the T.U.C. wishes to throw 'overboard the principle of the.traders freedom of choice. This would mean that the goods Of one trader' must be sent
. in a way that is dilatory and devoid of service; those of ' another by a system which is speedy and punctual and good from the service point of view.The two traders are, how-ever, to pay the same, and the one having the worse of the deal is -to have tio groubds for complaint. • The report does;_hewever, admit reluctantly that it might be necessary ta retain for a period a degree of consumer' choice aS to the method of transport; in whith case, the rates structure is to form the Machinery by which the flow of; traffic is directed',-the consumer must find it cheaper to send his gOods by the method which Can most Conveniently and efficientlydeal-With them. In other words the constetner having determined--4oi some obscure reasori—enot to send his goods by the best method, is to be bribed to do so iayornarlipnlation of the rates up to the extent necessary to persuade ,him to do what is good for hint Surely a corollary of this is that the trader will not be ' able to decide for .himself tb use his ,own vehicles to carry his own goods, kir to clo-oso watild. be to exert a right of choice whichiS no longer tri. be his. The R,H.A. believes-that the indtiStry can be effectively -co-ordinated to a sufficient degree without resorting to but if the oorstthreatens, it must be
elpposed. . . .
In its Report on Post -War Organization of British Transport, the National Executive COmmittee of the Labour Party suggests that there has been no attempt to lay down 'in advance the machinery by which a nationally owned 'systeni Shouldbe• conducted. We are being asked, in fact, to-abandon -the-existing system on the grounds that it is . not as-efficient as it might-be, in favour of one that has not yet.-even been devised in any detail at all. V.Te are to buy a pig in a poke! "
"We 'knowthat the preaent system--has; in many ways, proved :admirable. This,in tact', is:acknowledged in the
Labour Party's Report, in the allusions to its astounding growth—that fact that in, roughly,, a quarter of a century, it has developed into a business owning over 500,000 vehicles ' of varioussizeS: and this through the coinpetitiVe spirit. Yet, in the same report, it is Stated that competition and co-ordination are incompatible and that the best 'unified transportsystem would be one conducted under -public
• ownership. In the very next sentenee it says that tbe
' nature of transport is such that the best results are not likely to be obtained through bureaucracy or highly centralized control. There must be scope for flexibility in operation and administration.' It further insists 'that initiative • . mast he encouraged. There must be a clear realization that a high proportion of traffic is created by the facilities pro . vided. _ Where Will It End?
If we are to have nationalization, how far is it to go? It may be-taken for granted-that it will be. based, in the first
instance, on the railways and long-distance haulage con cerns, but we are told in the Executive's Report that to take one part of road haulage and leave the remainder in private hands, even with a more rigid form of control than that
which exists to-day, would rriilitate against the smooth 'working of the nationalized system—in short, once the pro cess commences with anypart of road transport; -teital nationalizationis.inevitable if the new systemis to be successful.
Think what would-happen if all hauliers were nationalized and all ancillary users left to use their Cdicensed vehicle§
with comparative freedom. Every small trader not Work ing on a scale big enough for hint to own his own transport fleet would be solely dependent upon the national organiza tion, and it is in the nature of all such immense bodies to be inflexible and subject to multitudinous rules and legitlations: Is if; therefore, in the least probable chat the small trader would get the service to which' he his been acctis, tomed by the individual road haulier?
Meanwhile the big combine or multiple shop, by running its own transport, wouldbe able _to give just the same detailed service as it had done in the past, still introducing the personal element. In such circumstances, to which of the two groups would go-the average-member of the public?'
The first effect of nationalizing the haulier Would; there. fore, be to drive custom away from multitudinous small traders into the hands of .a limited number of big combines • —hardly a result at all acceptable to the many adherents of the Labour Party to whom the' Combine and the monopolist
are an anathernal ' ' This being so, little time would elapse before the C-licensee would -have to be absorbed into the national sys-tern. It is Mr. Outfield's. firm opinion that any methods eventually adopted to control the C licensee would presently become equivalent to national ownership or control. Carry
, ing the matter furtheri.if it becomes, illegal for a trader to carry his own . goods in his own van, what justification
would there be for continuing to allow him to carry his own
body in his own car? ' Why not compel him to use nationalized bus and taxi servites? In short. Where is the
thing to end? Mr. Outfield wonders if the trading commit • •nity as a whole realizes the gravity of its position in this matter.
War-time experience, has, to his mind, only a limited application. Because, then, the subordination of private interests to national needs made a contribution towards the defeat of the enemy, the •Labour-Party deduces that the sySteen, of control over transport evolved during the war,
Should be-extended and developed in -times of peace. It
would,be just as logical.to suppose.that because the interests of private individuals had to he subordinated to national
heeds in war, the system of control over the actions of men a-I women throughout the country, evolved in the past five _years, should -be-extended and developed until everybody became a tiny-'-itena.-controlled and, to all intents and ,pUrpoSes, owned by the. State: , •