Wild Goose Chase
Page 54
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" You won't make yourse0 a bit realer by crying," Theedkdee remarked: "there's nothing to cry about."
"ii I wasn't real," Alice said." I shouldn't be able to cry." "I hope you don't suppose those are real tears?" Tweedledum interrupted in a tone of great contempt. THE man who has set his heart on one particular transport unit and no other may be imaginary, but if he did exist, the British Transport Commission and the Disposal Board, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, would perplex him to the point of tears. So far as one can make out, all 45 units in List Si have been designed to meet known requirements, and the requirements were probably made known some time ago. If the prospective buyer has resisted all previous temptations, or his bids have so far been unsuccessful, he must submit his tender and wait for the result until at the earliest September 15, when the bidding will be closed.
Although the unit may have been created at his instigation, there is no guarantee that he will get it. His only other chance—unless further lists are published later—will be List 7. This will consist mostly of units with vehicles only, and the last day for tenders is September 8, a week before the last date in respect of List SI. For the few units with premises in List 7, the date is September 22. In short, the man who has had in mind one specific unit all the way through may easily fail in spite of his long vigil.
More than likely, however, there is no such creature. The code letter of the latest list might well stand for "surprise." In their second report the Disposal Board stated that 20 units in List 4, with premises and a total of 527 vehicles, had been made up to meet the expressed wishes of prospective buyers. Only seven tenders were received from the 20 persons who had made the requests, and four of the tenders had been rejected. The Board did not attempt to explain this apparent change of heart, but one reason may be that the bidders had grown tired of waiting, and had transferred their attention to some more accessible quarry.
Confusing Dance
Where this is the case, the Disposal Board and the Commission must blame themselves. They have led bidders on a confusing dance that may often have seemed like a wild goose chase.
The recent harum-scarum debate in Parliament reflected the general uncertainty about the direction in which disposal is heading. The impression left is even more than usually one of a series of set speeches bearing no relation to each other. Although it may have seemed that the Board's second report gave a pretext for the debate, the facts and figures freely used by both sides rarely seemed to agree with each other.The speakers were like stall holders side by side in the market selling similar goods at different prices.
Mr. Callaghan opened the debate without knowing exactly what he wanted. He had to agree that the Board and the Commission were behaving with scrupulous correctness. He could not complain that the process of disposal was slaw, for he frankly admitted he would not wish it to be any quicker.
a20 He criticized the Government for accepting the policy put forward by the Road Haulage Association, and went on to condemn the Association for certain monstrous suggestions which he was pleased to note the Government had rejected. He pointed out that 1,887 transport units had already been created in the sale of 6,000 vehicles, thus making nonsense of the Government's declared aim of restoring the pattern of the road haulage industry before nationalization.
Subsequently, the Minister of Transport said that there were only 958 actual buyers, and that perhaps threequarters of these were already in business as hauliers. Mr: Callaghan had already answered this point after his fashion. Hauliers were buying transport units merely to throw a cloak of legitimacy over their operations beyond the 25-mile limit. They were "legitimizing their babies" while the Minister was " atomizing " British Road Services!
No Clear Exposition
It was not difficult for Mr. Callaghan to find and expose contradictions in statements by other people. He had at hand quotations of expectations by the Minister that events had not altogether fulfilled. From the Government benches, Mr. Enoch Powell followed with another set of quotations. He had evidently read both reports of the Disposal Board with some care but without finding there any clear exposition of what was going on, Mr. Sparks made a not unreasonable comment: "I was hoping that he would be able to indicate to the House the reason for the failure of the Road Haulage Disposal Board to dispose of those vehicles which it has offered for sale and also that he would inform the House how the remaining vehicles left unsold would be rapidly disposed of. But I listened in vain for that information."
Mr. Sparks must have listened in vain for the remainder of the debate. He may or may not have approved completely of a plea from Mr. McLeavy for a period of stability free from politically inspired changes. Apart from this, the discussion followed the line of innumerable other debates on transport in the past. The Minister, naturally, was careful not to give definite answers to Mr. Sparks' questions. There had been hints, he admitted, that led many people to think that disposal would be "well advanced" by the end of the year. He did not think that was a "wrong anticipation," nor that it would be "all that out in the event." He defended the Commission and the Board for not dropping their prices. He was satisfied that not many more vehicles would have been sold, unless the price was cut so far as to be indefensible.
One reading of the debate would be that the Opposition were bent (with the possible exception of Mr. McLeavy) on doing as much harm as they could to the process of disposal, while the Government were equally determined that it should proceed. It is more likely that neither side had enough information on which to argue. If the policy of the Disposal Board is deliberately to keep the public in the dark, they appear to be succeeding.