Merger Project was a "Mistake"
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"ifY own opinion is that the merger 1111 was a great mistake, We were better off before, as a hauliers' association, than we have been since," said Mr. G. W. Irwin, at the first annual dinner of A.R.O. Peterborough Subarea last week.
In the past, he continued, there was, in addition to area representatives, a body of central and co-opted members on the National Council. The time had come when no one should be allowed to sit on the council without having been elected by the rank and file.
The principal promoters of the merger were the central and co-opted members, Mr. Irwin declared, but the project was nipped in the bud by the elected representatives. Referring to those members who had left the Association, Mr. Irwin said that the key was under the mat should they wish to come back:.
In the not-distant future, A.R.O. would see that unscrupulous hauliers were driven off the roads, he added. Mr. R. W. Sewill, M.A., national director of A.R.O., referred to the Association's scheme for a panel of accountants for the preparation, in standard form, of figures required in licensing cases. He urged all operators to keep diaries, indicating when they had to turn away customers, so that they might accumulate facts for presentation to the Licensing Authorities.
Mr. S. J. Peters, M.A., LL.D., LL.B., M.P., declared that, if it were to hold up its head, private enterprise must beware of monopolies, which, by the ancient law of this country, were illegal.
Alderman H. Payne said that, a few years ago, all fruit left Wisbech by rail. To-day, it was loaded on to lorries from the fields and it arrived at the markets earlier and in infinitely better conditNm.
Other speakers were Councillor G. C. Hall, Mayor of Peterborough, Mr. H. W. Pilgrim and Mr. J. W. Calvert.