Sir Donald hits out at 'ostrich-like attitude' of State on transport .. .
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FTHE Government proposes to legislate on doctrinaire grounds against road transport in favour of the railways, regardless of the true underlying efficiency of either industry, said Sir Donald Stokes, when he opened the CM Fleet Management Conference in Harrogate yesterday. And he added: "This ostrich-like attitude which is reminiscent of the early Luddites is something which everybody in this country is going to regret dearly if it
is implemented." His speech:— ALL OF US HERE today must be very grateful to the COMMERCIAL MOTOR for their initiative in organizing such a Conference as this. A lot of good can come from a representative meeting such as this where there is a free flow of ideas back and forth.
As president of the Motor Industry Research Association, quite apart from any other activities in the commercial vehicle field, I have a very real interest in any occasion where manufacturers and users can sit round a table in order to sort out objectives and the best ways of achieving them.
Research as such is a vital part of our industry but I think that one of the great dangers, particularly in the U.K. at present, is that we have been hypnotized by the word "research", both in the training of our young people and in the multiplicity of research associations as such.
Many of these are in danger of concealing excessive overhead expenditure and empire building behind a facade of esoteric thinking far too removed from practical realities.
Fortunately at MIRA we have a much more down to earth approach—we realize that the way to success in the commercial vehicle industry in this country, which has been proved in Germany, Japan and the United States, is more by development than pure research.
Step ahead
But unfortunately at times we find that the end user himself does not take a sufficiently deep view of his own problems. And in this competitive world it is, therefore, necessary for us as manufacturers particularly to be, if possible, just a step or two ahead of the operator whilst bearing in mind his day to day problems and his ultimate objectives.
Here if I may I would like to add a word of warning which I am sure is unneeded, that while it is necessary to be guided by past experience in dealing with future problems one must not dwell on historical failures. Techniques and processes which did not succeed 10 years ago may well today be perfectly feasible because of the tremendous improvements which have been brought about by development of new materials, coupled with better heat treatment and other process knowledge.
Transport is a much misunderstood industry, one as you all know on which every thinking member of the public takes a strong and decided view of his own, and one in particular in which politicians love to dabble. What we must make people realize is that today transport is the biggest single cost item in any manufacturing process or manufactured article. It is rather tragic that Government after Government insist on taxing to the death this one tool of industry which is vital to every trade, and this in a country which is trying to reduce its costs in order to compete in the world's export markets.
Doctrinaire
We now have in front of us proposals by the present Government to legislate on doctrinaire grounds against road transport in favour of railways, regardless of the true underlying efficiency of either industry.
The railways have been vastly improved and have today very efficient management. They have had fantastic amounts of capital poured into them, mostly one suspects for sociological rather than the economical reasons, but despite this they are still losing £163m a year. Even the old argument that they use domestic coal rather than imported fuel no longer holds sway, and I hope that everybody in this country realizes that their own personal income tax is going to prop up unnecessarily a system which should be further pruned and reorganized into its true relative place in the economy. I believe that there is still room for the railways if they are run on a sound profitearning basis but rather than restrict road transport to give them a few more years of life we should encourage road transport to be competitive and to take over many of the railways' former functions.
The proposed regulations for licensing and forcing traffic on to the railways will, without doubt, increase the railways' deficit at the expense of an industry which has already more than contributed its fair share of taxation.
They will also have a drastic effect upon the ability of operators to buy commercial vehicles from manufacturers who, in turn, have earned fantastic amounts for this country in export markets. My own company alone for instance last year earned over £150m—far more than the railways' total deficit. What we really want is not more traffic on the railways but more roads to handle the inevitable increase in cars and commercial vehicles.
One thing that is going to emerge even more is that whatever the ultimate decisions, the only way that road transport can remain viable and the only way the road transport manufacturing industry in this country can remain competitive, so as to excel in the export field, is for all of us to concentrate in providing the most efficient forms of prime mover, the most efficient forms of maintenance and the most efficient forms of operation.
Gas turbines
British manufacturers have excelled in the past in the development of diesel engines which is now accepted as a world wide method of power propulsion. I believe that this situation is going to change in the future and that we will have particularly for truck road operation, gas turbines.
They will get into a stage of efficiency that when, if ever our truck road system is completed, they will once again make the rail system completely out of date as compared with the true immediate door-to-door service that is so attractive to the industrial user.