Active or Passive Voice
Page 61
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ORGANIZATIONS have characters of their own, and the lineaments of such a character arc nowhere better revealed than in the programme for a conference. The sober organization that would like to be mistaken for a professional body has a preference for the reading of papers, followed by a discussion on the contents. The papers are often prolix and disappointing, and are read in the voice familiar to and dreaded by all conference addicts, a voice midway between that used for the Home Service news and a sermon. But the process obviously satisfies the delegates, who return year after year for more or less the treatment as before.
Political parties, and para-political bodies such as trade unions, present the aspect of someone with a completely transparent personality, who would like nobody to think he has any secrets, and is prepared to bring his opinions into the open and explain them. These organizations make a practice of Circulating in advance comprehensive statements of policy, which the conference re-fashions by means of resolution and amendment.
The Road Haulage Association, like most other bodies, have remained faithful to their own formula, while shifting the venue uneasily from one end of the country to other. Their conference agenda invariably consists of resolutions from areas, arranged under laconic headings. The 18 resolutions down for discussion this year at Rothesay are somewhat fewer than usual, although what they lack in number they may more than make up in explosive content.
Sublime to the Ridiculous
Resolutions, if adopted and put into operation., can have various effects, some fundamental, others trivial. The delegates can be plunged from the sublime into the ridiculous, and lifted back again, half a dozen times in the course of a single session. Generally, although not always, the cataclysmic resolutions arc not carried at R.H.A, conferences. The usual impression at the end of the day is that hauliers, while grumbling at the state of affairs, prefer to leave it as it is. They do not wish to start a revolution, in case it turns out for the worse. Their voice is passive rather than active. Things happen to them from outside, rather than through their own volition.
This year events may take a different course from usual. Many things have happened over the past 12 months. Long-distance operators, after a period of confusion during which it was even difficult to tell who was running what vehicles, are consolidating their position and establishing numerous links with each other. Two groups within the R.H.A. have found occasion to bicker. The Labour Party have reaffirmed their unalterable convictions on the ownership of the road haulage industry. British Road Services have seized the opportunity to cry up.their wares in a tone calculated to drown the unco-ordinated squeaks of the individual haulier.
Perhaps for these reasons the resolutions to be discussed at Rothesay seem to be far more sweeping than in previous years. They call, among other things, for a new basis of fuel taxation, revision of the wages machinery, "radical" reform of the licensing system, and changes in the Association's constitution. The very first resolution has a thoroughness that provides a foretaste of what is to come. It calls upon the R.H.A. to approach the main political parties " with a view to discussing the possibility of formulating a policy whereby road transport Is no longer a political issue."
As might be expected, there is a demand for better roads, which finds separate expression in two parts of the agenda, and a demand for the abolition of purchase tax on commercial vehicles. After these broadsides at things as they are it may seem almost time to discuss some of the other resolutions asking for road facilities in the Channel tunnel; colouring of untaxed gas oil; compulsory painting of names on lorries; five-year logbooks for recording accidents; stricter enforcenient of the weight regulations; and the compulsory fitting of two independent and efficient brakes to all commercial vehicles. The one resolution unlikely to rouse passion suggests the formation of a charitable fund.
Stand No Nonsense
The character that emerges from this medley of demands upon society and the Government is of a man prepared to stand no nonsense, and to question everything under the sun. If all the resolutions were adopted, the officials called up to implement them would have to tackle tasks from which Hercules himself might have recoiled.
The resolution I have already quoted provides a good example. Road transport will cease to become a political issue, if ever, largely at the will of the Socialists. They may renationalize road haulage tO such effect that free enterprise will never again have the chance to establish itself, or they may find so much other legislation occupying their attention that renationalization is deferred indefinitely: With the Labour Party back in power, road haulage might conceivably escape through lack of interest or through inertia, but not as a deliberate matter of policy, much less a policy formulated with other political parties through the good offices of the R.H.A.
Another resolution that may seem particularly overambitious begins with the proposal that the Association let the Government know of their concern about the vulnerability of Britain's oil supplies, "as made clear by the Suez Canal crisis." The Government should then he urged " with all possible force" to reduce the demand for, and the dependence on, Middle East oiL The method proposed is apparently to tax oil that is used where there is something else that would do just as well.
Unusual Times
This seems no little thing to ask of any Government. Having given relief from tax to certain people to encourage them to use imported oils instead of coal, the authorities are now to be asked to impose a tax because the alternative is available. Admittedly, Governments have done this sort of thing in the past, but perhaps not in cold blood.
It may he, after all, that this particular set of resolutions reflects not so much character as a mood. As I have hinted, hauliers are not usually inclined to throw everything into the melting pot. These are unusual times, and it will be interesting to see how far some of the resolutions for the R.H.A. conference are toned down before they are accepted, and how many of the resolutions are rejected outright.