Good reasons for 'yes' to Europe
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The future pattern and prosperity of the operating and manufacturing sectors of road transport will be vitally affected by next week's Commons vote on Britain's application to join the EEC. When the new president of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders pledged motor industry support for Mr Heath's policy, at the Society's annual dinner on Tuesday, he was loudly applauded by the many industry leaders and managers present who shared his belief that the Common Market is a thriving industrial community from which we cannot afford to be excluded.
From the truck manufacturer's point of view there may be an even more urgent reason for joining the EEC: a theory being canvassed at the SMMT dinner was that the present slump in heavy truck sales results not only from the general economic recession and the spare capacity freed byoperators' licensing, coupled with a trend towards bigger vehicles, but from the fact that a state of over-production had already been reached. Certainly, in response to an apparently booming demand, UK manufacturers have expanded their truck output in the past two or three years, and the fruits of this expansion coincided with a determined assault on the British market by foreign heavy truck makers frustrated by the slow-down of growth in Continental markets. If this diagnosis of overproduction is only partly true, then the wider market of the Community is even more essential to the viability of UK manufacturers' production expansion.
The chief guest at the SM MT dinner was the Prime Minister, and he spoke not only of EEC membership bringing the promise of "growth and prosperity unparalleled since the War" but also of the new investment and revival of industrial pace which were already evident: Goods vehicle manufacturers and operators will say that there is little sign of this yet, but if, as has been suggested, a nation can talk itself into a slump, then presumably there is no reason why Britain should not now try to talk itself into reflation. It cannot come too soon for truck manufacturers and hauliers.