Ideological Warfare
Page 60
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By JANUS
COMPOSED in language not always easy to understand, Sir Reginald Wilson's presidential address to the Institute of Transport may not be very widely read by road operators, but it contains one or two points of great interest to them. -Sir Reginald's arguments are based on certain statements'and assumptions that should not be accepted without question.
His subject is the transport man, by which he means the man who has made his career in transport. His theme is that the various forms of transport tend to work 'more and more closely together, thus providing the customer with what is, in effect, a single service. To meet the situation, the transport worker has to cope with a number of factors, moral, intellectual, technical and political.
There is a growing need for education, not merely in the different forms of transport, but over the whole field of transport as " science and an art." For his climax, Sir Reginald thus comes naturally to the work of the Institute, from whose charter the phrase is taken. The Institute is the nearest approach in this country to an" independent centre for the disinterested selection and evaluation of the raw material, and for
disseminating the results." .
From time to time, I have made use of an abstraction that I call Transport Man, to represent the human being as he is affected by transport. He is, therefore, not the same as Sir Reginald's subject, but the two are closely related. By superimposing one upon the other, some interesting effects may be obtained.
Through the ages, Transport Man has changed, generally in the direction of increasing dependence on various forms of locomotion other than his own two legs. Sir Reginald also is conscious of evolution. He records claims by experts that they can distinguish between different types of transport worker, and can, . for example, tell a busman from a tramwayman just by looking at them. Natural selection or adaptation to environment have played their part in producing new transport types.
Persistent Urge
Another process that Sir Reginald -claims to have observed is a trend towards integration. " It is the natural and persistent urge of regular transport services to integrate themselves." Sir Reginald adds a reference to the understandable desire of the owners of smaller units to avoid being swallowed up. Transport Man has a parallel desire. • To him, integration means an end to the competition between transport servicek, and a threat to his own freedom.
Road transport operators and road transport users . can learn from this, and from the conclusion to Sir Reginald's address. They must learn to play their part in shaping the future of their industry, and they must take their share in the work of such bodies as the Institute. lf Sir Reginald's views prevail at what may be' called the intellectual level, there is a strong possibility that they will eventually leaven the whole lump.
An assumption behind Sir Reginald's address — although, for obvious reasons, not made explicit—is that the expert knows best. The transport man may be as confused as the rest of us in a world of rapidly n26 changing values an techniques, but at least he accepts without question that he is qualified to tell Transport Man what to do.
There are deceptive precedents for this We are usually content to follow the instructions of our lawyer and our doctor, and we have to take what the scientists tell us as the truth, more often than not because we cannot understand them.
Somehow, the transport operator seldom gets the same degree of obedience from his-client. Transport Man is inveterate in argument. He doubts the need for higher bus fares. He refuses to have his goods sent by rail. He insists on bringing his car into the centre of London, although there is no place to park it. He will continue to run his own vehicles when expert opinion is
unanimous that he is making a loss.
Freedom Obsession
A very different point of view from Sir Reginald's is that of the three representative organizations of traders that recently published a joint report on the European free trade area. Almost as if/it were an obsession, they constantly come back to their demand for the freedom of chOice of transport, accompanied by the freedom to use their own vehicles to carry their own goods.
The report contains a long extract from a document published by the International Chamber of Commerce -in April. "Transport being a service to industry, commerce and agriculture," said the I.C.C., it is only the user who can judge the form of transport most suited to the requirements of his business."
Transport Man cculd hardly put Sir Reginald's transport man more plainly in his place.
Sir Reginald is probably not prepared to argue the point with his customers. Otherwise, he would no doubt question their own assumptions. Does the provision of a " service " really mean that the provider is not qualified to advise the user? As I have pointed out, this does not apply to medical, legal and other services.
It would be more appropriate to borrow from the charter of the Institute, and to say that a transport service differs from these other services to the extent that it is more of an' art than a science. Notoriously, we mistrust the opinions of the art, musical and literary experts. We prefer to see and hear for ourselves, and to pass our own judgments.
The expert has the academic approach, and the public mistrust it in transport as well as in the other arts (but not in medicine and the law). They are encouraged to do so by the frequent failure of the expert to practise what he preaches. The art critic who is so eloquent against all schools but his own may have to his credit no more than a few watery daubs. The experts who know how best to run transport often fail in their own businesses.
Nevertheless, transport is not wholly an art; and its practitioners arc wise to make public their opinions, even in the face of argument. What is said sufficiently often may come to be believed. Independent road transport operators may be confident that they can compete with other forms of transport on the basis of service. They should also make sure or playing their full part in the battle of .ideas.