Mr. Dutfield and the future of the "Free" Haulier
Page 40
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
By An Old Member of the R.H.A.
SOME people seem to be wondering how it comes about that, after his brilliant and whole-hearted leadership of the vigorous campaign of the Road Haulage Association against the nationalization of transport, Mr. H. T. Duffield, its chairman, has agreed to become a part-time member of the Road Transport Executive of the British Transport Commission, and to conform to the conditions necessarily attached to such an appointment
One cannot expect, from Mr. Duffield personally, any more direct reply to such a question than that which is contained in the official statement issued by the Association. This statement made it quite clear that his decision to accept the appointment was in accord with the unanimous wishes of his co-workers in the R.H.A. A long time ago, Mr. Dutfield himself made it equally clear that, should any appointmentbe offered to him, its acceptance by him would be in accord with the wishes of his colleagues and would not be considered unless those wishes were unanimously expressed.
I am convinced that the Association as a whole remains just as firmly opposed to the principle of nationalization, applied to road transport, as it ever was. It believes firmly that road transport ought not, in the public interest, to be nationalized, either wholly or in part. It realizes, however, that the Transport Act is now law, and that this fact must be recognized. This being so, the view of those who are in the best possible position to judge is unanimously to the effect that it is in the best interests of the country and ed. the industry that Mr. Dutfield should serve in this new capacity Faced with the Inevitable That such service is incompatible with his prolonged occupation of the offices he holds in connection with the Association and kindred bodies is a matter for universal regret; but it is none the less inevitable. Equally, it must follow that he could not, in the circumstances, refuse to dispose of his own road-transport undertakings to the Commission. In any case it seems evident that such action would presently have been forced upon him; the most he could have done was to have postponed the evil day for a short time, and, had he taken this course, he would have precluded himself from continuing to give, by his work on the Road Transport Executive, vitally important and valuable service to the industry to which he is so well known to be devoted.
In the unavoidable absence of any detailed statement from Mr. Dutfield himself, the most that anyone can do is to endeavour to arrive at the conclusion as to what he, himself, would consider to be his duty to the country and the industry under similar conditions. On this point the writer can state only that, had he been placed in Mr Dutfield's position, he would have regarded it as his bounden duty to act as Mr. Duffield has done.
Thus, any further discussion of the subject seems to be a matter rather of endeavouring to assess Mr. Dutfield's future value to his old friends in his new position Here, we are able to get some guidance, at least, from the contents of the lecture which he recently delivered, under the auspices of the Institute of Transport In this lecture he was careful to make it clear that B6
he was expressing personal views and not necessarily those of any particular association or other body. At the same time, he laid down a programme which, if it can be carried out, will undoubtedly be to the best possible advantage of what are now known as the "free" hauliers, and it may be remarked at this point that this certainly means conservation of the interests of the small men in the industry.
This bears out the contention that, from first to last, the policy of Mr. Dutfield and his colleagues has been to protect the interests of the small hauliers even more jealously than those of such of the big concerns as appear to be inevitably faced with the early prospect of being taken over by the Government
Timely Co-operation Essential
No one who heard, or has since taken the trouble to study, his "Henry Spurrier Memorial Lecture," which may be read as Mr. Duffield's personal creed, could fail to be impressed by one particular point: namely, his reiterated insistence upon the need for frequent and timely consultation between the B.T.C. and the R.H.A. It would be disastrous if the former were to go forward to its own conclusions on numerous important matters without first discussing them with the latter and endeavouring to arrive at an agreed line of procedure.
It is particularly in this connection that Mr. Dutfield's presence on the Executive should prove to be of great value to the haulage industry. So long as he is in a position to make his views heard, there can be no fear of the hauliers' case going by default. It will be just as certain to receive a hearing as will, for example, the policy of the trade union which is also represented on. the Executive.
If Mr. Duffield has his way, one may take it for granted that the contentions of the " free " haulier will be fully expressed and their merits properly assessed as each point comes up for consideration by the Executive. Among the many important points we can, if we follow Mr. Dutfield's lecture, include matters such as rates, conditions of carriage, standardization of practice in dealing with consignments "paid on," "to pay," and " C.O.D.," the granting of licences on a fair basis, the organization of short-distance traffic and local cartage, the standardization of containers, and a host of other ,matters Lions and Lambs One can, in fact, visualize the development of a state of affairs reminiscent of what has taken place as between the rail and the road 'interests. Here we had at one period two parties that seemed to be diametrically opposed, but what actually happened was that, by frequent consultations, they drew closer together, until, if the nationalization programme had not intervened, they were just about ready to put into operation a really comprehensive scheme of co-ordination.
Something of this kind may well happen again, and if it does it will go a long way towards giving the "free" hauliers a fair deal from now onwards, and will be directly traceable, in no small measure, to the welladvised presence of Mr. Dutfield on the Executive.