Long Time 'Between Huddles
Page 67
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IN the same way as a dog is traditionally allowed one bite, everybody who makes any sort of study of transport in this country is expected at least once to signify his despair of the subject by proposing to turn it over to an impartial committed of inquiry. Lord Forbes reached this stage during last week's debate in in House of Lords, when he recommended the Government to set up a. commission to investigate and advise on the movement of goods. To this the more seasoned campaigner, Lord Lucas, who in his time has not been above .calling for a commission, responded to the contrary.
There is little faith left in the efficacy of collective wisdom. Too many organizations, national, internanational or supranational, have shown themselves wrong-headed and ineffective. There is no reason to suppose that a committee, however select, must inevitably come to the right conclusion. In spite of this, the demand is still made from time to time for an official inquiry into transport.
Another recent advocate is Mr. L. A. Castleton, chief transport officer, Metal Box Co., Ltd., who told the British Institute of Management at Harrogate that, if it would help the Government, there should be a committee of inquiry, " provided both sides will accept the findings." To make matters worse, the suggestion came after a number of comments not calculated to putC-licence holders at their ease.
Although his company operate a fairly large fleet of C-licensed vehicles, Mr. Castleton said that they carried only a small proportion of the total volume of goods manufactured. Additions to the fleet were made only after careful investigation. The service given by the C-licensed vehicles, and the cost of their operation, set a high standard, but Mr. Castleton admitted that in many areas hired transport was just as good, and sometimes even better,
Disquieting Note
There is nothing so far to make the trader uneasy. Mr. Castleton struck a more disquieting note later when he said that professional hauliers and the railways must think with regret of the vast amount of business that was denied them, in view of the fact that C-licensed vehicles at present carry the overwhelming proportion of traffic by road.
In certain circumstances, he continued, it was possible that Governments would feel obliged to interfere and restrict the free operation of C-licence holders, if only to divert a substantial part of their business to the nationalized sections of the industry, "which quite rightly recognize the C-licensee as their biggest competitor." Traders might even have to justify the operation of their vehicles in much the same way as hauliers. The Licensing Authorities would thus become responsible for achieving a "more realistic balance of transport" in their areas.
The proposal for a commission of inquiry might be said to follow naturally after these unpalatable hints. No committee scratching heads for something fresh to say on the subject of transport could resist a disapproving gesture towards the exuberantly uncontrolled C-licence holders, whose total of vehicles has risen dizzily since the war from just over 300,000 to more than 1m. If ever there is another commission, it is highly likely to advocate control, and it is highly likely to be wrong.
Even more unrealistic. is Mr. Castleton's idea that all the parties concerned ought to pledge themselves to accept the findings of a commission. This might just be acceptable to traders who, like Mr. Castleton, depend only to a comparatively small extent upon their own vehicles. Professional operators certainly and rightly would not agree. The commission might easily, for example, propose a mileage limit for road operators. This is the sort of thing commissions in practice have been apt to do. There is enough evidence on this score, at any rate, to justify hauliers—and, for that matter, passenger operators—in not taking the risk of agreement in advance.
The last Royal Commission on transport, Lord Forbes complained, was set up in 1928. This may seem a long time between huddles, but the situation that brought the Royal Commission into being called imperatively for some kind of assessment. Chapter headings in the Commission's report included such subjects as railways, highways, road transpoci, and canals, each of them bristling with problems, many fresh and many even now not much nearer a solution.
Unknown Waters
The Royal Commission were useful if only because they charted unknown waters. They made numerous recommendations, and many of them were subsequently given effect. Almost all of them involved restriction and control. Whether they were the right recommendations it would be difficult to say. Items such as the • licensing of hauliers and the elimination of trams have met with general and continued approval, except from one or two people like Professor Gilbert Walker.
Some equally acceptable proposals, particularly those dealing with the improvement of the road system, have made little progress. Others less well inspired were put into force and later abandoned. The Transport Advisory Council, envisaged by the Royal Commission as a permanent extension of themselves, lasted until the end of the war and then disappeared without much disturbance.
Nor were all the prophecies of the Royal Commission equally well inspired. One passage worth quoting begins with the decision not to make specific recommendations on the licensing of clearing houses, and continues: "We feel that the present unsatisfactory conditions regarding clearing houses are due in the main to the equally unsatisfactory conditions of the industry, and that if the latter are removed the former will automatically disappear." Here was one of the occasions when feeling outran discretion.
On the really big subjects of co-ordination, unification and nationalization, the Royal Commission found agreement impossible, and they ventured on no settled recommendations. Now that some of these panaceas have been tested, for the most part to nobody's great satisfaction, another official inquiry would be going over old ground, and would probably produce an appropriately scraggycrop.