REMOVERS and the Bill
Page 50
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By Arthur It By Arthur It
THE impact of the Transport Bill in its present form may be felt less by the household removal trade than by any other section of the transport industry. This, in a lesser degree, was also true of nationalization, although the 1947 Act succeeded in narrowing the limits of removal work by the term "ordinary furniture removal," the definition of which was riddled with ambiguities.
It was clearly an attempt to restrict the bona fide remover in the work which was his by "use and wont" from time immemorial. It is to the credit of the Road Haulage Executive that the matter was not taken to the courts, where it would have made a "lawyers' holiday." It is expected that the present Bill will sweep away the need to define an "ordinary furniture removal." Should any future Bill ever require the clause to be reconstituted, the National Association of Furniture Warehousemen and Removers should be consulted. Wilson, M.I.R.T.E.
• New Furniture Traffic Lost One activity which was completely cut off by the 1947 Act was the carriage of new furniture and alliedetraffici from manufacturers to shops and:warehouses. This traffic came from many parts of the country, but chiefly from the London and High Wycombe areas, and was of greatest concern to removers in the North of England and Scotland, who secured return loads at rates which satisfied the manufacturer and made for economical working.
Original permits were granted, but were revoked when the R.H.E. was ready to take over the traffic and no appeals would move the Executive. It is assumed that this class of work will again be available to those removers who wish it. It is doubtful, however, whether it now exists in anything like the pre-1950 volume, for apart from the increase in C licences, many of the manufacturers withdrew their agents from their far territories and sold their output as close to the factory as possible, a method of saving transport charges.
Restore Permits First Removers whose original permits for traffics allied to the removal trade were revoked, should certainly have them restored as a matter of right before the Disposal Board starts work. The railway-owned concerns will not yield readily what has been gained, and the door will be wide open for an influx of vehicles into removal work. During the long period of dissolving the R.H.E., the remover who had his original permit revoked will still be confined to the 25-mile limit. This will place him in a position worse than anything experienced .under nationalization and will be manifestly unfair. Some apprehension rightly exists that there will be a flood of vehicles into rernoVals by the purchase of transport units, Since 1933, the Licensing Authorities have controlled this flow and have done their work well. If a purchaser buys what was formerly a removal business, there cannot be any objection to his entering the trade. Adequate safeguards will be required to prevent some or all of an estimated 36,000 vehicles from indulging in removal work. Not only would the existing remover ' nib
be annihilated, but one section of the British Transport Commission, in its new set-up, would suffer equally badly.
It does not follow that this assessment of the situation will be correct. Assumptions based on vehicle figures available to date and compared with 1946 could be wide of the mark. It is possible that the total number of vehicles to be handled by the Disposal Board will be much fewer than the number acquired. Many of the vehicles taken over by the R.H.E. were unsuitable and were sold. Progress in integration has been made by the B.T.C. and substantial volumes of traffic have been transferred to rail. Severe local shortages of vehicles might arise when the Disposal Board has done its work.
Here, then, is the probable reason why the Bill affords "greater latitude in the granting of new licences to hauliers." Once the new distribution is completed, the Licensing Authorities will no doubt resume their oysterlike attitude.
The levy, which is a direct subsidy to the railways, should• be strongly resisted by the removal trade. It is said to be compensation for traffic which will be abstracted from rail under the new conditions and to
• A meet losses on the sale of R.H.E. assets. There will not,
• :however, be a single household removal abstracted from the railways, now or in the future, and so few bona fide removers were acquired that any loss on realization will be negligible. The logical conclusion is that the levy to be contributed by the removal trade should also be nil.
Mere Book-keeping
There is another aspect. The railway-owned concerns, such as Pickfords, will also pay the levy. Whilst it is true that such undertakings will stand on their own feet, the levy will be more or less a book-keeping entry and the removal trade will be subsidizing its chief competitors.
The levy is bad in principle, for whilst the initial outlay may be small, there is no saying where it might stop. The end could be the placing of large parts of the railways on a care-and-maintenance basis for defence purposes and carrying only traffics unsuited to road haulage. Not only would the money for their upkeep have to come from the levy, but the cost of building and maintaining the new roads which would become imperative would have to be met from the same source.
As its vehicles are to have A licences, the B.T.C. will be able to take advantage of the greater latitude in granting new licences allowed by the Licensing Authorities. It is easy to visualize that the wheel can turn full circle again. In a few years the B.T.C. road-vehicle strength could be rnuch increased beyond the nucleus. which the Transport_ Bill affords. As an appreciable percentage of the B.T.C.'s existing fleet consists of removal vans, the removal trade will require to watch, developments closely. It cannot be too often.-repeated that transport shoul-4,1 • be removed from the realms of politics. There is still time for the political parties to arrive at Some agreement on the main fabric of the transport system.