Smalls With Care
Page 30
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TN his masterly paper to the Institute of Trans' port, Sir Reginald Wilson said: "It is often remarked that we need a really comprehensive parcels service . . which will collect them from the consignor and . . will give a nation-wide delivery not unlike the Post Office service." This was the vision before Mr. C. S. Dunbar when, just under 20 years ago, he started Red Arrow Deliveries and later the National Conference of Express Carriers.
The work so begun had made great progress by 1939 and the disintegration caused by the war was only temporary. Since nationalization, both British Road Services and the remaining independent members of the Conference have made determined efforts to give the widest service for smalls.
The latest report of the British Transport Commission says that smalls and parcels working has, with few exceptions, been concentrated in specialized groups, instead of being carried on by depots within general haulage groups. At 10 important centres it had been intended to set up joint rail and road terminals for smalls and in a number of instances it was hoped to transfer rail smalls to road to give better delivery times.
The Road Haulage Disposal Board and the Commission should give special consideration to the position of the smalls services when they come to the detail work of arranging the make-up of the units to be sold. Mr. R. H. Farmer's presence on the Board should ensure that this is done. If an efficient service for smalls cannot be given under the new set-up, many manufacturers, notably in the footwear trade, who have built up .their businesses largely on the excellent road services, will be forced to take out C licences. The remark in the B.T.C. report that "it seems likely that the parcels and smalls traffics are no longer properly remunerative" also causes concern. The tendency already apparent in 1939, when it was becoming difficult to carry smalls profitably without bulk traffics, has become more marked, probably because of the higher wages of bank staff.
The problem is difficult, but some decision should be made at an early date about the services for parcels and smalls which the Commission intend to retain. These will presumably form an expanded Carter Paterson-Pickfords organization. The express carriers' functional group of the Road Haulage Association should also be brought into the picture.
By this means, unnecessary duplication of services might be avoided and facilities for interworking arranged between State-owned and free undertakings, go that all the work that has been done in the past to provide a national parcels system need not be wasted. Should some units have to be sold to newcomers care should be taken to arrange them in such a way that the purchasers are not entirely dependent on smalls, but have a reasonable chance of taking the smooth with the