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COMMENTARY
by JANUS
BY tradition an annual conference is the corporate equivalent of a session on the psychiatrist's couch. It gives members of the organization taking part an
opportunity that most of them do not have during the rest of the year. to tell their fellow-members, their officials and the world in general exactly what is on their minds, to give their hidden fantasies an airing, cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart, and in one way or another have a whale of a time. The lack of combustible material in the resolutions set before the conference of the Road Haulage Association apparently aroused resentment among some of the members, leading to the inevitable allegation that the organizers had deliberately watered down the programme. The national chairman, Mr. D. 0. Good, was able to point out with some justice that the quality of the resolutions depended entirely upon the members who put them forward, but he may not have completely silenced the critics, who evidently felt rather as the audience in the Colosseum would have done had the emperor told them that an inept display in the arena was due to their own failure to round up the right type of Christian.
Certainly, the discussion on the resolutions was hardly sufficient in itself to show what hauliers are thinking. For that purpose, it might be more profitable to examine the longer set speeches, including those made at the highly successful session devoted entirely to the Common Market, and providing a model that is likely to be followed at subsequent conferences.
ADDED interest was provided this year by the fact that the R.H.A. conference, held on the Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, came immediately after a week. end conference of the London and Home Counties division of the Traders Road Transport Association, which also lasted two days and was also held at Bournemouth. Assuming that the T.R.T.A. conference would have followed very much the same lines if it had been on a national scale, this means that within the space of a week both hauliers and C licence holders adopted the posture, even if it was not sincere in every particular, of opening their hearts to the public. Without intending to do so, they also provided the basis for some interesting comparisons.
One surprising difference at once comes to light. In his opening address, which in many conferences is regarded as providing the keynote, Mr. K. C. Turner, the president Of the T.R.T.A., made a sustained protest against the concerted campaign waged in the Press and elsewhere with the object of discrediting the commercial vehicle operator and driver. The public were being told, said Mr. Turner, that the road problem and the rail problem would both be solved by the simple expedient of transferring goods traffic from one form of transport to the other. He stressed the need for a counter-campaign to promote a better image for the road transport industry.
Mr. Good's introductory remarks included no reference to what was Mr. Turner's main point. The chairman of the R.H.A. directed the attention of members to the opportunities ahead. They might arise because of the contraction of the railway, because of the beneficial effect on vehicle turn-round of the national productivity year, and because of Britain's entry into the Common Market. In such a context there was no opportunity for dealing with the publicity campaign against road transport. What is at any rate curious is that, so far as one can tell, not a single reference was made to the subject throughout the entire conference.
It must not be assumed from this that hauliers are not just as much concerned as the trader at the recent unpre cedented volume of adverse publicity. My impression is that they have been even more vociferous in their protests. Why, therefore, did they leave their indignation behind when they went to Bournemouth?
To some extent, Mr. Turner himself provided the answer, by drawing attention to the logical consequences of the proposals that the supporters of the. anti-road cam paign would like to see implemented. Direction of goods traffic would have as its natural corollary the direction also of passenger traffic. The price of helping the railways in the way suggested would be competitive inefficiency, a halt to transport progress and loss of personal liberty. "Let the railways prove their advantages and we shall be pleased to use them," said Mr. Turner.
In other words, the campaign is doomed to fail, whatever its immediate unpleasant effects. What hauliers may also feel, in so vague a fashion that they may find difficulty in giving it expression, is that the trader using his own vehicles is the main target of the campaign, that the division is intended to be between the professional' and the private carrier rather than between road and rail, so that, although they cannot fail as individuals to be annoyed by attacks that make no obvious discrimination, as a body they are
not perhaps moved as much as they think they ought to be. Other differences in emphasis may be seen even where both conferences discussed the same subject. The Common
Market was dealt with in a paper read by Mr. J. W. Bannard, chairman of the international committee of the T.R.T.A. The R.H.A. provided a platform for the presentation by Lord Gladwyn and Mr. Peter Walker, M.P., of views for and against Britain's entry. An introduction by the Association's secretary-general, Mr. G. K. Newman, outlined the possible consequences of entry upon British road transport, and the points he made were fairly widely reported. But there is no doubt that to the audience the gladiatorial contest was the main item of the session.
This must not be taken to mean that hauliers feel they should have a voice in the Government's ultimate decision.
They are more concerned to assess as well in advance as possible what the decision is likely to be, so that they can make their plans accordingly. The C-licence holders, on the other hand, are ancillary to a wide range of industries, many of which hold strong views for or against entry. The impression left from the two Bournemouth conferences, therefore, is that the traders feel much more involved than the hauliers in the actual determination of the Common Market transport policy.
Mr. Bannard himself provides a key example of the difference. On the Continent there has been much talk of compulsory rates schedules, with publication of maximum and minimum rates. At discussions within the International Road Transport Union, said Mr. Bannard, the T.R.T.A. representatives have opposed fixed transport charges as fundamentally wrong. There has been support from the R.H.A. representatives, but for practical reasons only. The hauliers have felt that the difficulties of enforcement and documentation were insuperable. Their chief concern has been with the implementation of the policy rather than with the policy itself.