Uncluttered views
Page 19
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SIX days apart, two shrewd observers of the transport scene have cut through the current political clamour with statements that deserve the widest possible audience.
Point number one came from an engineer and onetime finance executive, Mr. C. F. Baldwin Jr., who painted for the IRTE in London last week a picture of tomorrow's road trunk vehicles and, after deploring the limits imposed on economic progress by inadequate roadbuilding and restrictive operating practices said:—
"There is no question that the new demands of a new class of driver must be adequately rewarded; there is no question that the conditions of employment and the policies laid down by the employer must be the best that modern techniques can provide. In return there can be no question that the framework within which drivers operate must be one that moves with the times and is constantly adjusted to remain as modern as the equipment they operate."
As Mr. Baldwin, who is an American, pointed out later (see page 36) even today's equipment is commonly prevented from earning its full potential. Too often technical advance brings disappointing returns because operating conditions do not keep pace, and this is all too readily accepted as a state of affairs to be accepted with resignation.
Overturning a too-widely accepted state of affairs was also the purpose of our second "observer". Sir Reginald Wilson, addressing the RHA national executive council after lunch on Wednesday, said that the railways should properly regard themselves as the willing and efficient servants of road haulage, at least in the field of general merchandise. If they would accept this relationship to the road haulier, then there was a promising future for them.
Coming from one whom the RHA national chairman described as the most knowledgeable transport man of his time, perhaps it will take root. Resumption of tripartite talks between THC, BR and RHA in February may provide the opportunity for finding out. In the meantime, it is encouraging for hauliers to know that this is the view of the man who is to control the national transport giant described in this issue.
Backing Britain?
IT is welcome news that Cravens Homalloy has won a $2m. export order for 1,250 containers. But what can be said of the order placed by Associated Container Transportation with a German manufacturer for 3,100 containers costing about f2m.?
ACT says it would have preferred to buy British, and we understand that the nearest UK tender was 5 per cent dearer.
This latest German order follows their success in bagging no fewer than eight out of nine contracts for British operated container ships. Our own container manufacturers must clearly exert themselves, with devaluation's help, to hold their place in this vast potential market. It would be lamentable if, yet again, we had to report that pricewise they had been beaten by the Germans.