Political Commentary
Page 45
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The Price
of Liberty By JANLIS -F4 MBOLDENED by a change of Government, the hauliers have at last published their plan for denationalization. It must be confessed that we are still almost as far as ever from knowing how the job will be done and whether the new Government will attempt it. The plan is less concerned with method-than with the orderly marshalling of the queue, and the not entirely satisfactory size of the Conservative majority means that account will have to be taken of political as well as practical considerations.
There may be a temptation to compromise with legislation on the same lines as the Transport (Amendment) Bill. The 25-mile limit would be• lifted or abolished, and restrictions upon hauliers would be imposed solely by the. Licensing Authorities, whose jurisdiction would be extended to include the Road Haulage Executive. A solution along these lines would appeal to many hauliers. The amending Bill was intended to help them with their most pressing difficulties, and they have taken o heart the parable in which one devil is cast out only to make room for seven more.
Nobody has said that denationalization will be easy, but it should remain the central aim of whatever transport legislation the Tories introduce. As its name implies, the Transport (Amendment) Bill was no more than a modification of the original nationalizing Act. It was a private measure, and its sponsors were careful to emphasize that they were not seeking at that time to deflect the lines on which the Socialists were attempting to solve the transport problem.
Unless the new. Government be content to carry out the plans of its predecessor, it'ds difficult to see how it can avoid grasping the nettle of denationalization. No new approach to the problem can be made while the RILE., or a substantial residue, remains an indigestible lump at the core of the transport system. It will be the odd man out, the spanner in the works. Shorn of its monopoly, it will be of no real service to the rest of the British Transport Commission. Its existence will hamper any renewed attempt by hauliers and the railways to.get together.
Admirable Idea.
The ideal behind the Transport Act, the provision of an efficient, cheap and well-knit service, was admirable. In practice, as the critics prophesied, the accent fell less on service to the public than on the well-being of the Commission itself. The Socialists became more and more preoccupied with the task of making the Commission succeed and pay. They failed to reach even this limited objective, in spite of the restrictions that they imposed upon the Commission's remaining competitors. Vp to the very end, new restrictions were being threatened, particularly upon the freedom of the C-licence holder.
The lesson to be learned from the mistakes of the last administration is that it is unwise to be oversolicitous about the health of the Commission. If trade and industry will not of their own free will fall down and worship the Ivory Tower, they cannot be goaded into doing so. It is time for a change of attitude. If the providers of transport concentrate on giving a service, they may find that what they desire for themselves comes to them in the natural course of events. They can beat the C-licence holder, not by restricting him but by going one better.
Integration, or liaison, or whatever name it is called, must become much less introverted. The Commission has consistently failed to understand why it infuriates customers when it appears to put its own interests before theirs. Its attitude may be summed up in the question: "What. traffic is best suited to road and to rail?" Under the new, more extroverted, policy, the question wduld read: "How can road and rail make themselves best suited to the traffic that is offered?"
There is another side to the case. At the present time there can be no question of getting rid of the railways or even of reducing their size to any great extent. There is no hope of building the new rbads and the new vehicles needed to carry the extra traffic. Once the continued operation of the railways is accepted, it follows that they must be protected sufficiently to enable. them to pay their way,
Joint Working The licensing. system, or something like it, must be kept. in being to restrict the unlimited growth of the haulier. The railways and the road operators will have to work together, as they have always done. The position -may be summed up by saying that the restrictions on road are mainly intended to benefit rail, whereas joint working should be planned primarily to help the customer.
Complete denationalization would enable the pattern to remain consistent. Integration, so far as the Commission is concerned, inevitably favours the railways and is thus deflected from what should be its true course. A uniform service cannot be provided while one section of the road haulage industry obeys certain principles framed by the Commission, for the Commission and the hauliers under free enterprise do their best to nullify the working out of those principles.
The sole reason for having the R.H.E. in the first place was the desire of the Socialists that, if traffic had to go by road beyond a certain distance, then it would have to go on vehicles operated by the Commission. Even the traders' own vehicles would have been banned from the long-distance field had some of the Socialists had their way. If, as trade and industry now hope, there is no longer to be one law for the State and another for the public, the function of the R.H.E. has disappeared.
Few hauliers are under any illusions about the effect of denationalization. The return of the lost sheep will not be an unmixed blessing. Some of the larger concerns that vanished so early and so easily into the maw of the R.H.E. were previously a thorn in the flesh of the small operator. They manipulated rates to his disadvantage and did everything possible to drive him out of business'. If the R.H.E. throws them up, they may go back to their old practices.
The intensification of competition may be the price of liberty. Hauliers must be prepared to pay it. They cannot expect things to be made too easy for them. They must accept the continuation of the licensing system and they must take an active part in resuming discussion with the Commission, this time on equal terms. If it is to take its proper place within the country's transport system, the road transport industry cannot afford to be divided. Denationalization may seem difficult: any other solution of the problem would be intolerable.