cc UZZLE it out for yourself," said Maggie's brother,
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Cromwell, setting his glass down carefully on the stretch of counter just wiped clean by the barmaid. "You bring together a director of the P. and O., an accountant, an official referee of the Supreme Court, a former Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the ex general secretary of the T.U.C., and an economist. What job do you ask them to do?"
Maggie made a rapid assessment of the problem. "You ask them to work out the proper rates of pay for Scottish cricketers travelling to Australia for a test match," she suggested.
"Not a bad guess," said Cromwell, "except that I said ' referee' and not ' umpire '. You are hopelessly wrong, of course, as you always are on matters of sport. The six gentlemen I have described make up the team appointed by ole Marples to take a look at the licensing system."
" In striking contrast," I said, "to the Salter Conference on rail and road transport whose recommendations formed the basis of the licensing system when it was set up 30 years ago. There were four railwaymen and fotir road transport representatives, and only the chairman, Sir Arthur Salter as he then was, had no special knowledge of the subject."
"Did they do a good job?" asked Maggie. , "They can claim the most credit for the present system," I said, "and it has not required many changes. So that I suppose they did their work well."
"Iii that case why bother to have another inquiry?" Maggie persisted. "And why go this time to people who know nothing about it?"
"Fair's fair," said Cromwell. " Beeching knew nothing about the railways when he was asked to have a look at them, and it would not be right to treat road transport any differently."
" In addition to which," I said, "if the new committee were to be formed on much the same lines as the old conference, and came to much the same conclusions, it would be suspected that they were more concerned with politeness and professional etiquette than with finding out the truth."
"Look at it another way ", said Cromwell. "If ole Marples decided to trust the experts, where would he find a sufficient supply? After all these years, I believe there is. only one man who completely understands licensing, and he is in prison, poor chap. He was the man who knew too much."
"There may be something in that ", I admitted. "Marples believes in keeping his problem simple, and he has found that such a policy gives good results. If he ever gets round to reading some of the reports of licensing cases, he must often wonder at times what the end result is supposed to be and whether there is not an easier way of reaching it."
"You can see his point ", said Cromwell. "Every time the experts are called in, they seem to leave things a bit more complicated than before. How often do you find that a case which you thought you understood becomes incomprehensible after it has been mulled over at the Transport Tribunal?"
"I see what you mean ", said Maggie. "Last time the experts concocted a scheme which everybody still thinks must be marvellous if only he could understand it. To stop this from happening again, the Minister thinks it would be a good idea this time to appoint people who know nothing about licensing."
"Many operators think it a good idea as well ", said Cromwell, "because they know nothing about it either. I suspect a plot to collect all the experts together and push them out to sea. Once that has been done, we can all start afresh."
"Now you are just being rude ", said Maggie, " as always after three pints or so. You seem to be suggesting that Mr. Marples deliberately chose a group of ignoramuses so that he could be sure at least they did not know as much as he did. If he had thought differently, what sort of people do you suppose he would have picked?"
"He would have been in some difficulty ", I said. "He could not have imitated the example of his predecessor in 1932. The railways, for example, are now nationalized and could hardly be asked to sit on a committee of inquiry into their competitors when they could at any time submit their views direct to the Minister and expect to be taken seriously."
"I thought the inquiry was about road transport in any case," said Maggie.
"There woud have been the same difficulty there," replied. "if road operators are represented, then British Road Services must be included, and that could lead to trouble."
"So that nationalization has had one good result," said Cromwell. "It has kept interested parties off the Geddes committee."
" The real problem," I said, "is whether the right sort of people will take the opportunity to put their views to the committee. We know that the C licence holders are preparing their case and that the hauliers are doing the same. We may be sure that Lord Stonham will not keep silent. But who is really concerned in this? Principally the man with goods that he wants delivered. To what extent will he be represented? If he runs his own vehicles, he may feel satisfied. But there are only about half a million C licence holders. Many millions of other traders have a transport problem, but have good reasons for not trying to solve it from within their own resources. They must have strong views on the kind of road haulage structure they would like to see.
"1 wonder whether those views will be adequately put forward. There are any number of trade associations and other bodies, many of them with transport committees. No doubt these committees will prepare evidence for submission if they think it necessary, but inevitably most of their members will be traders who also operate vehicles. I still doubt whether the smaller firms who depend entirely upon public transport, and are therefore most affected of all, will really be able to make their voice heard effectively."