-licence Operation Pays
Page 40
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
en said and written lately, both in favour against the trader operating his own vehicles.
whose output is consistently maintained at a able tonnage or capacity level and whose cries in the main represent regular dispatches to rtain districts, can fully justify such operation. He e.in always keep his independence in furthering his obligations to customers by the ability to deliver at arranged times. Additionally—and this is of major importance—the transport overheads can be kept at a reasonably fixed level, freeing him from the worrying prospects of price increases in transport. • He will, of course, have to allow for periodical fluctuations in the cost of fuel and oil, but will not have to worry concerning the inevitable rise in rates which must follow the completion of the nationalization programme. Even when road transport is competitive and
there are excellent services from which to choose, the trader with a lbw of traffic justifying a certain number of vehicles, benefits financially, as opposed to their hire or the employment of the haulier.
It is, of course, not economic for a trader to operate his own vehicles when there is insufficient tonnage to keep them fully occupied, and scheduled journeys should he drawn up to avoid overlapping. "
Whilst transport is not in the strict sense of the word productive, production would be of little value without the means for distribution. Therefore let us forget this non-productive claim, which is so frequently brought 'forward, and bear in mind that if operation under a C-licence be justified, then let it be controlled not by a stores or shipping clerk, or, in fact, any Torn, Dick or Harry, but by a person schooled in the work. Members of a production staff are not usually interested in transport economy and have little respect for running costs.
Operation under a C licence is sometimes condemned because vehicles are allowed to-chase about withsmall loads, irrespective of whether delivery-be urgent or not. Managements must tealize that transport is a job for specialists and leave its control in the hands of the experienced .transport Manager. If that be done, the case in favour of this class of work will not be left in doubt.
At the same thine, there seems to me to be nothing against a C-licensee passing some of his traffic to a haulier or the Road Haulage Executive in cases.where it would be uneconomic to carry it on his own vehicles. For example, a trader might find it in his interest to operate vehicles on full loads between, say, the Midlands and Glasgow, but that it would be uneconomic for him to run a vehicle with half-loads. to London, and for him to hand these to another party is a consumer's right.
It was recently suggested that the R.H.E. had its limitations, and whilst this may be the case, it must also be agreed that the limitations on the free haulier are crippling him, even at this early stage. I witness daily the frustration of such mut, or their drivers, particularly where the return load is concerned. One of the many instructions of the R H.E. to acquired undertakings is that only vehicles of such undertakings, or those of contractors whose date of acquisition is fixed, are to be loaded unless force of circumstances compels otherwise.
te
Consequently, hauliers may have to accept return loads at unrernunerative rates or even travel back light.
As regards the possibility of the British Transport Commission acquiring clearing houses, the goodwill of these exists only while there are vehicles available to hire, and I cannot imagine the Commission acquiring business much of which must be ultimately handled by it when the programme is completed and the remaining free hauliers have been axed.
There is a tendency for clearing houses to make hay while the sun shines, while there are some free hauliers remaining, but to my mind, they will be finished when " free" long-distance transport ceases.
Southport. . " C" ADVOCATE.
SOCIALISTS ARE OUT TO STOP PROFITS IT is amazing to me that in your issue dated November 25 the leading editorial expresses mystification at the Socialist Government nationalizing transport services which are efficiently meeting the needs of those using them.
Why be mystified? Surely this Government has shown by many of its actions that what it does intend to do is to stop business men making any bui the most meagre profits.
This combination of tight-lipped ascetics, long-haired alleged intellectuals, and their cruder companions whose intransigent unorthodoxy prevented their earning good wages before the war, simply cannot bear to see anyone making a profit and benefiting to any appreciable degree from the operation. of his business, however necessary it be. It is this spite, emanating from envy and •incapacity, which,unfortnnately, is substituted for statesmanship in
the running of this pathetic land to-day. . Unless this warping venom be removed from the direction of this country by the substitution of personnel more stable in character (it cannot be eradicated from those at present in power), we will be doomed to exist at a level so low, both morally and physically, that contemplation of it appals. . , 1 write from my home address as a private individual. and not as a representative of the motor, trade company for which I have the honour to work. .
Leighton Buzzard. STEWART MILLS PRIDE IN THE "MIDLAND RED" I CANNOT let the statement by A. A. Townsin coa1 cerning the best-maintained bus fleets, published in your issue dated November 25,.go without comment. Has he never heard of the coach and bus fleets of the Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Co., Ltd.? The coaches of this operator are extremely, well kept, as are the service buses, yet neither is included, even as an "also ran."
Incidentally, I would like to know if there be any reason why the roofs of coaches could not be built an inch or so higher, for although I am not abnormally tall, I find the ceilings are nearly always on the low side for me.
Gloucester. P. L. ROBINS.