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Focus of discontent
Page 86
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WHATEVER the success of last night's rally at the Albert Hall, the campaign conducted by the Road Haulage Association has had one effect. It has identified the RHA as the spearhead of the opposition to the Transport Bill. Other less vocal opponents have looked on with approval and will no doubt remember the RHA in their prayers if in no other way. There is no reason to suppose that the partisans of the Bill have harboured lasting resentment nor that hauliers would have achieved more, or indeed as much, by remaining silent.
Public interest in the campaign has been slight and ephemeral. This should not cause surprise or disappointment. The case against quantity licensing is not sufficiently clear-cut to become a burning issue. Freedom of choice for trade and industry is a fine-sounding phrase but somewhat remote from the cares of the ordinary person. The extra costs arising from the Bill will be spread thinly all over the country and will hardly be noticed by the individual who has more substantial causes for complaint against the Government.
The most that can be said is that the campaign has played some part in fraying the nerves of an administration already alleged to be on the way to demoralization as a result of internal dissension, election reverses and other signs of unpopularity. There is an encouraging and growing tendency for the Press to give the Bill a prominent place in any catalogue of the Government's follies.
Wide support
Undoubtedly the campaign can claim the support of the whole of trade and industry and agriculture and of some other sections of the community including lorry drivers as distinct from the road transport trade unions. Much of this support would have been there without the asking and some of the interests such as the Transport Users Joint Committee have been running vigorous campaigns of their own. The value of the RHA has been as a focus of discontent. If anybody is put out of business by the Bill it will be certain hauliers. They are entitled to make the most fuss and likely to win the most sympathy.
Some progress has been made. Since becoming Minister of Transport Mr. Richard Marsh has promised one or two concessions and appears to have taken the credit for others which operators may have imagined they had already received from Mrs. Barbara Castle. Mr. Edward Heath, Leader of the Opposition, has pledged the Conservative party to the repeal of quantity licensing and mileage restrictions on hauliers.
Now that the Bill is almost ready to go to the House of Lords, it is a convenient moment for the associations to consider the next steps in their campaigns. There is a temptation to argue that however many battles are lost it is the final result that counts; and to hope that the Opposition Peers will do what the Opposition MPs could not. Merely to continue as before in the hope that a break may come somewhere could be an illusion. The Lords will undoubtedly make a number of amendments. When it comes to the point they may not go so far as to eliminate whole sections. They would not risk a direct collision with the Government except on an issue of overwhelming gravity. They are unlikely to throw their coronets into the ring over the Transport Bill.
Almost everything possible has been said against the measure. A continued vociferous campaign outside Parliament might seem increasingly to be full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. If new tactics are to be adopted now is the best time for the change to be made.
Look to future
If the RHA is to remain the focus of the agitation it must look more and more beyond the Parliamentary stage to the period when the Bill comes into operation and beyond that to the possibility of new legislation following a change of Government. There are many issues which have been relegated to the background so that the argument could be concentrated on quantity licensing and the financial consequences of other parts of the Bill.
Mr. Heath stated that there were "no fewer than 16" policy groups within the Conservative Party at work on different topics relating to transport. They form part of a "thorough and constructive review" of transport policy. Working parties of this kind in the past have come up with proposals far less welcome to operators than the promises made by Mr. Heath at the RHA dinner. Operators should perhaps be forming policy groups of their own.
The groups would naturally fall into two categories: those which seek in one way or another to modify the Bill or to mitigate its harmful effects; and those which envisage the creation of a completely new structure.
Neither possibility can be neglected if operators are to have a say in the running of their own industry.
Only a starting point
Mr. Heath's pledge, generous though it may be, is no more than a starting point. Abolition of quantity licensing would aggravate rather than cure the railway problem. The report of British Railways for 1967, published last week, shows an increase in the annual deficit from £134m in the previous year to £153m.
Road operators who had a bad year would
for the most part lay the blame on increases in costs. The working expenses of the railways did not go up. The main reason for the poor results was a drop of £25m in freight traffic receipts. Coal and coke and iron and steel traffic showed the biggest fall and this may be accounted for by a decline in output. Freight receipts from general traffic also went down from £83m to £'76m.
BR's optimism
What the report calls "the impact of the industrial recession" is held responsible for the disappointing results. "Hopes of some economic recovery and consequent increase in traffic were not fulfilled," says the report. This still does not damp the optimism of the railways.
In the context of their long-term future, says the report, "1968 promises to be a year of change and new hopes". There are signs of a commercial and industrial recovery, although the report adds a little ambiguously that "as in 1967 the Government's economic measures will undoubtedly affect the traffic which will be available to the Board and the prices they will be allowed to charge".
For legislation as distinct from economic measures the report has only praise. The Transport Bill will go a long way towards wiping out the railway deficits. On the other hand, says the report, it "is not designed to solve all the railways' problems; certainly not those which can and must be solved by the industry itself".
No direct reference is made to quantity licensing. This is obviously intended to help the railways and the report shows how much some protective legislation is needed.
Results for 1967 have closely followed the pattern set by previous years. Freight train traffic amounted to 240m tons in 1964; to 229m tons in 1965; to 214m tons in 1966; and to 201m tons in 1967. The decline has been steady and substantial, upwards of 5 per cent each year.
Intractable problem
On the evidence in the report the railways are certainly not pricing themselves out of the market. The average receipt per ton forwarded actually fell from 20s 4d in 1966 to 19s 5d in 1967; and the average receipt per net ton mile showed a corresponding drop from 3.52d to 3.44d. This took place at a time when road transport rates were increasing and when in theory road operators would be making themselves less competitive.
No doubt some of Mr. Heath's policy groups are working on the problem of the railways. It might not be a bad idea if all 16 were diverted to this single purpose. It is certainly the most intractable problem in the whole field of transport.
Unfortunately the abolition of quantity licensing would not help. The present licensing system—which attracts far more criticism from politicians than it does either from hauliers or from trade and industry—gives the railways some measure of protection. Under the Transport Bill it would disappear and the railways' hopes of one day breaking even would recede still further.