Other targets for dislike
Page 45
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IT IS probably dangerous to mention it, but has anyone else noticed how other industries and professions have joined, if not entirely replaced, the road haulier in the general public's list of "baddies"?
There seem to be at least four new targets.
The most spectacular example is architects. The attack by Prince Charles — and when he was their guest — on much of the work they have produced recently goes far beyond anything said so far about road haulage. Indeed, at about the same time Princess Anne was admitting that, in other circumstances, she would have liked to have been a lorry driver! The least surprising victim is the solicitor's branch of the legal profession. Lawyers have never been popular. Most people only go to them in a crisis of some sort. Inevitably they become associated with bad news, rather as telegrams used to be before they were abolished.
There is also an element of fear. Law is something of a mystery, and many laymen think that lawyers do their best to keep it that way for their own benefit. In the last century Coleridge described how the devil ...
saw a lawyer slaying a viper On a dunghill hard by his own stable; And the devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his brother Abel People have been as rude about hauliers, but not with the same degree of literary elegance.
Until recently the dislike and fear have been coupled with a grudging respect. However, the Law Society's defence of the solicitors' monopoly in property conveyancing has changed that. The society has been quite as vigorous in its own self-interest as any militant trade union fighting to maintain a closed shop. Yet in the vast majority of cases all that is involved is a series of clerical operations. Increasingly these are being carried out, so far as the present state of the law allows, by specialist companies or even on a do-it-yourself basis.
So the general public is unconvinced. Solicitors are seen to be as selfish as any other group. And as a result the standing of the profession has suffered.
Although doctors also attract their share of fear they were always held in higher regard than lawyers. Basically this is because of their ability to relieve pain. And, at least since the creation of the National Health Service, no direct patient-doctor payments are made.
But recently the medical profession has attracted some severe criticism. At one end of the scale this stems from unease about work at the very centre of human existence. Looked at purely technically, test tube babies, surrogate mothers, and similar activities are undoubtedly marvellous. But increasingly people see doctors as playing God, and in general they do not like this.
At the more familiar level, the family doctor is also taking some unaccustomed stick. Increasingly he or she is suspected of being unduly influenced by gifts from drug manufacturers into prescribing expensive proprietary brands while much cheaper generic medicines are available.
The most surprising fall from public esteem is that of the farmers. Ten years ago they were still portrayed as unsophisticated nature-loving folk. They might be a bit slow on the uptake, but they produced food and protected the countryside.
Today, hardly any aspect of modern agriculture escapes fierce criticism. Farmers are accused of keeping battery hens and calves, grubbing out hedges, felling ancient woodlands, draining wetlands and a lot of other crimes. They are perceived to have turned agriculture into an industry like any other. They are portrayed as being quite as ruthless in carrying this out as any millowner of the industrial revolution.
They exploit their freedom from planning controls with quite as much disregard for their neighbours as the Victorians exploited the absence of such controls. The growing practice of straw-burning is merely the latest sympton of this vandalism.
On top of all this they are the favoured sons of Brussels. Even Mrs Thatcher's unrivalled determination has so far failed to cut the Common Agricultural Policy down to size. So millions of "our" pounds are shovelled into farmers' bank accounts.
Hauliers know better than most people that public perception of an industry or a profession can be a gross distortion of the truth. The action by two hauliers against the South Wales National Union of Mineworkers which led to sequestration of the Union's assets has been portrayed in some quarters as a victory by two millionaires over working men. Yet most miners probably make more money than the owner-driver who is such a large part of the industry.
So the sight of others in the public pillory should not be a cause for rejoicing. Calm and rational debate of important matters will produce the best solution for society as a whole. Transport policy has not been improved by ill-informed public dislike of the lorry. Similar distortion of the facts will not produce a better property conveyancing law, sound ethica guidelines for medicine or a logical agricultural system.
But while rejoicing at others' discomfort would be a mistake, there are lessons to be learned, especially from the drop in farmers' standing. For the haulier's old adversary, Friends of the Earth, has turned its fire in this direction. It has producer a leaflet describing how, in its view, agriculture has become "Agribusiness", threatening the countryside and its wildlife. But they go on to acknowledge the important contribution that "responsible farmers" make to our society.
Most hauliers would think of themselves as "responsible". They try to operate within a thng led network of often incomprehensible laws affectini safety and the environment. As Sir Peter Thompson pointed ou at last year's Road Haulage Association conference, the public can have as high a standard of road haulage as it wants — so long as it is prepared to pay for it.
While the heat is off perhaps the industry should mount a discreet campaign (the two words are not mutually exclusive) to demonstrate the level of responsibility at which i already operates. An opportunity will soon present itself.
The first 0-licence will shortl) be refused on the new environmental grounds. The public will expect howls of rage from the industry's leaders. It is more likely to be impressed if, instead, its attention is drawn tc the many tight controls under which hauliers already operate.