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TO hear some people talk about the road haulage industry, one would imagine that it was on the point of dissolution or about to become a State pensioner like the railways. Hauliers are more or less. resigned to the political attack, and may have done no more than shrug their shoulders when they heard that Mr. Hugh Gaitskell, at the Labour Party conference, had given the usual undertaking, evidently with the full approval of all the delegates present, that the industry would be renationalized. Had he not done so, hauliers might well have wondered what even more baleful surprise he had in store for them.
What may have given them more food for thought was when, a fortnight later, at their own conference in Brighton, Mr. D. L. Munby, reader in the economics and organization of transport at Oxford, put before them a programme that, if adopted, would change the industry almost beyond recognition. The double take was perhaps a little too much. Hauliers who heard Mr. Gaitskell on television and Mr. Munby in person must be pinching themselves to find if they are still awake, or even still alive. If the academic theorists join the political theorists in maintaining that the road haulage industry should be taken to pieces and remade, hauliers cannot but wonder what they have done wrong.
They can see little evidence that they are not providing just the service that their customers need. If they are honest with themselves, hauliers cannot object to change where it is necessary, but they are right in repudiating the suggestion that there must be change at all costs. There remains the problem that the continual buzz of boom and cataclysm about their ears will begin to sow doubt in the minds of hauliers.
To combat this possibility they would be well advised to take more note of what is happening around them, especially in other fields of transport. Their case may be going by default. Governments, political parties and academicians apparently set little store by the opinions of lhauliers. That at least is the impression one gets. But it would be presumptuous and foolish of the legislators and theorists to ignore the views of every operator of transport. They must listen to the advice of some of the experts and that advice will inevitably colour their own pronouncements and decisions.
WHEREVER there is serious discussion of transport at top level, almost inevitably one finds the representation heavily weighted in favour of the British Transport Commission, and especially the railways. One reason for this, as hauliers will be the first to admit, is that there are far more people within the B.T.C. capable of making an impressive, if not always particularly sensible, contribution to the discussion.
An organization of the size and character of the railways must have an outstanding administrator at its head, with a large retinue of scarcely less able assistants both at his immediate call and in charge of the main departments and of the regions. To these people the opportunity of running a great network employing over half a million people is one that they accept often with eagerness and that ends by dominating them.
As a result there is no lack of businessmen, lawyers, politicians, and people eminent in many other walks of life, who are also, or were formerly, railwaymen. Where people of this calibre meet, in the Houses of Parliament. in their clubs, at the uoiversities and elsewhere, and the conversation turns to transport, there are many voices to put the case with authority for the railways, and to a lesser extent for British Road Services, but the champion of the small haulier is so rare that, as usually happens in such cases, he is regarded as an eccentric and his intervention does more harm to the hauliers than good.
In these circles it is possible to say almost anything about road haulage and have it accepted as truth. The Socialists in particular take advantage of this when it suits their purpose. They will paint the haulier in lurid colours as a kind of Simon Legree, forcing his workers to drive an inhuman number of hours each week in vehicles that are liable to fall to pieces if they take a corner too quickly. The leaders of the community may not accept this picture in its entirety, but they seldom have any satisfactory image of their own to put in its place. Sir Brian Robertson they know, and Dr. Beeching, but who are these?
HAULIERS must not make the mistake of imitating their impressively large but not outstandingly successful competitor. They must follow their own particular star, which tells them that organization beyond a certain point is a hindrance rather than a help to their business. They function best in small units, small that is to say in comparison with the railways
One or two road haulage undertakings of a fairly considerable size are emerging. Even in these cases what is generally formed is a group of smaller businesses functioning almost completely independently of each other. The tendency towards grouping or amalgamation will continue where it is seen to offer advantages, but the rate of advance is unlikely to be rapid. The number of A and B licence holders grows each year almost as fast as the number of vehicles.
What hauliers, through the Road Haulage Association, should try to avoid is a split on class lines between on the one hand the few big figures in the industry—in the sense that each has control of a comparatively large number of vehicles—and the smaller men doing an equally efficient job in circumstances where the large fleet and the large organization are not called for and in fact could even be a handicap. There must be complete unity of purpose throughout the industry, or else those forces that have no reason to wish the haulier well will find their task of destruction made easy.
Where there is an eminent man at the head of a road haulage undertaking he is almost invariably willing to shoulder the burden of explaining the importance of his industry and not merely of his undertaking, to those people he meets whose views may have a great deal to do with Government decisions. It is equally important that the man who is thus more or less forced to take the lead should keep in contact with his fellow hauliers. This may not be easy in an industry of which the national association has a membership of over 17,000. The amount of time that must be sacrificed by the leaders of the association may prevent many good men from taking office. There is a difficulty here that might be considered in any plan for ensuring that there are representatives of a properly organized road haulage industry in all sections of the community and at every level.