The Railways Take Off the Gloves
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—and the Road Haulage Association . have Let Them Do It says John Wisdome
IT is probably a safe bet that not more than one haulier in a thousand has bought a copy -of the Transport Act, 1953. Of those who have, I doubt whether 10 per cent. have studied sections 20 to 24, which are grouped under the heading "Charges, etc." If those who have read those sections understand them, their feelings will probably be much the same as mine.
The Road Haulage Association have been hopelessly out-manceuvred and in their clamour for denationalization have given away completely the-defences which the old associations cast up for their members' protection in 1938-9 and have nullified the great success then gained vis-à-vis the railways.
The cry for a "Square Deal" which the 'four railway companies put up at that time arose out of the difficult financial position in which they found themselves as a result partly of the way the Railways Act, 1921, worked in practice and partly because of even older statutes. Try to visualize the position in the 'thirties and 'forties of last century. Road transport was finished, except for purely local hauls, and.whilst there were not, of course, as many railways as we have hauliers today; there were several hundred different lines.
Now imagine that you were a manufacturer in, say, Bristol, wanting to send small consignments to a number of addresses in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk. You could not have done as a trader would do today (or even before the war)—telephone the nearest goods station, make out a consignment note and leave the rest to the' railway. You would have had to find out exactly what line served every town you wanted to reach, to trace the junctions and make out a consignment note not only for every individual consignment, but for every separate length of line. You would also have had to obtain a quotation from each of the companies.
What Might Have Been
When you had done all this, you would still have had no guarantee that all the undertakings would forward your traffic. You might have received one day a notice that some of your goods were lying at Sheffield or Retford or Peterborough, incurring warehouse and demurrage charges because the on-carrying lines would not accept the packing; back the parcels would have had to come and in the end, you would have lost the order.
Imagine your chagrin if, after all this trouble and with, perhaps, only 75 per cent, of your parcels delivered in anything like a reasonable time, you discovered that a competitor had been able to undercut your prices because, having a larger volume of traffic than you, he had obtained a better rate from most of the companies.
In the early days, certain maximum charges were normally incorporated in a railway's enabling Act, but these schedules were usually so vague as to cause endless disputes, whilst the important terminal charges for handling, transhipping: etc., were entirely uncontrolled.
el2 Even where railways attempted a primitive classificatior of goods, there were wide divergences between filo different companies.
It was obvious that something would have to be don' or thegrowing trade of the country would be strangled so, in 1854, the Railway and Canal Traffic Act wa, passed to compel the companies to provide interchangi arrangements and to prevent them from showing undu. preference as between one trader and another. Thi provision, combined with others in Acts of 1868 ant 1873, has, until this year, formed a cardinal principle o railway rating.
The rate charged for a certain commodity betwee any two points had to be applied to all consignor sending the same traffic between the same two points an every, consignment was entitled to the same degree o service. Thus, anyone could go to a railway statio and demand to inspect the rates for the commodity i which he was interested
An Attempt That Failed
In the course of years a natural classification an rates structure came into being and the Railways Ac 1921, was intended to avoid " exceptionals " (rates belo' the standard) and by putting all commodities—otht than coal, coke and patent fuel—into one of 21 classe The attempt was a failure and by 1939 there were moi exceptionals than ever, although, broadly speaking, tt railways were not free to cut their rates without ti' consent of the Railway Rates Tribunal. In any even an exceptional rate given to one trader had to be applie to all his competitors sending between the same point Now let the reader try to put himself in the positic of a railway goods manager faced with intensive roa competition in 1938. Suppose he was in charge of district where the industry was practically all of one kin For the sake of illustration imagine that it was a distri where the main trade was the manufacture of boots ar shoes and that, in addition to a few large makers, the was also a number of smaller concerns.
Along came the road transport men and made .z offer to the big manufacturers to carry their boo " loose " (in the boxes which the customer sees on tl shelves of a shop, and without these boxes being car fully packed in cartons as the railway regulatio required). In addition, they quoted rates which habil the traders' transport bills. Soon the railway goo manager lost the bulk of his business and was left wi dozens of fiddling small consignments.
Although it is impossible to calculate exactly what costs to carry an individual consignment by rail, certa points would be obvious in a case like this. The raw.
collection and delivery organization would have be left with scattered and relatively small collections whi could be seen not to pay when the amount allowed the 'railway rate for 'collection was set against the vehi( and labour costs. dare important, perhaps, would have been the effect losing the big consignments on the working of the Kls station and the'operation of services from it. Staff services might have had tp be curtailed and the teral trade facilities of the district would have been ted. .
n these circumstances, the railway management might re decided that it would be worth while to meet the .d challenge by reducing their rates and altering their iditions so that they, too, could carry the boots • )ose "—perhaps in containers. They would have been e to claim'in their propaganda that for transit of over 1 miles their overnight fast services would allow them beat road transport.
Co follow up this plan they would have had to obtain consent of the Railway Rates Tribunal—which might re entailed a lengthy hearing, with more loss of traffic the meanwhile. , Even if the Tribunal approved the v rates and conditions, their action might have turned to be a Mixed blessing. The railway would then re been compelled to charge the same rates and to 3. the same conditions to everyone in the district.
Mass Pressure 'for, probably, would the matter have ended there, as manufacturers in adjoining districts and other parts the country would have pressed for similar concesls and in a few years the class rate for boots would re been only an entry in the standard rate-book and consignments would haVe travelled without paCking. Vhen they launched the "Square Deal" carnpaign in 8, the railways wanted to secure the repeal of the statutes which tied them, so that they would thenceth be in the same position as the road transport ;rators and free to quote rates and conditions applile to individual traffics without any obligation to give same concessions to others in the trade.
his campaign was launched when the road transport loyers were divided between five associations but the lers saw at once what a challenge to the interests of ir members the railway proposals were. A liaison =Wee, which had been functioning for a short time half-hearted fashion to discuss the possibility of le agreement on road rates, was galvanized into on and 12 members were elected to negotiate with railway general managers. After many meetings and difficult discussions, appreciable concessions were made by the railways, themost important being the establishment of the Road and Rail Central Conference and its area committees What the railways agreed in effect to do was to give road transport a chance to put its own hbuse in order in the matter of rates while the possibility was being explored of common conditions of carriage and a common rates structure.
The war and the subsequent political upheaval prevented this agreement reaching fruition and now it seems that the railways have gained all that they asked for in 1938 without, any protest whatever, from the R.H.A. Now only the maximum railway rates are public; the rates actually in force are secret.. The reader will, perhaps, say that so are road rates, but it seems likely that many will not be so much longer.
"An Illusory Freedom" At the same time as the railways, for all practical purposes, have been freed from rate control, the Licensing Authorities now have power to consider road rates in determining applications for licences. It is incredible that the R.H.A. should have consented to this, too, as part of the price for what may well prove to be an illusory freedom.
The gravity of the situation as it affects road hauliers cannot be too strongly emphasized. The railways are now in a position, if they so choose, to wipe out the hauliers engaged in a particular trade or particular locality by .quoting rates and conditions against which no haulier Could live.
In the original draft Bill, published in July, 1952, there was a clause which would have restrained the British Transport Commission, from using their charging powers to eliminate competition. Why was this clause struck out? Did the R.H.A. realize that it had disappeared in the second draft (published in November), and, if so, what was done about it?
The railways can now use their charging powers (if necessary in conjunction with the rest of the Commission's undertakings) to secure a monopoly of a particular trade or in a particular district. Having done so, there is nothing to stop them raising their rates again so long as they do not exceed the statutory maximum or take them past the point where it would pay traders better to buy their own vehicles.