Learn your tables
Page 4
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
IF THE VARIOUS opinion polls prove to be correct on June 9 and a Conservative Government is returned to Westminster, the road transport industry will be able to breathe easily again. The spectre of nationalisation will have returned to the cupboard for another five years.
However, we must not be complacent. The last Conservative administration showed clearly that it is not prepared to prop up companies which are incapable of standing on their own feet. Another Conservative administration is unlikely to change its position.
Many transport operators have "dropped out" during the last four years. While outside influences contributed to company failures, there was also more than an . element of bad management.
Over staffing, over equipping and rate cutting in the seven years of plenty meant there was nothing in the "storehouse" to meet the famine.
This must not happen again. Of course, the fit have survived, but in too many cases only just. There are too many on the verge of going under water for the third time.
When our Tables of Operating Costs — published today — are compared with rates being charged, it is little wonder that proprietors and managers spend sleepless nights searching for a credit balance.
This country could survive without political dogma. It could not survive without transport services and these services must be charged for at profitable rates. This is a good time to compare our detailed costs with those on which rates are charged.