Principle Must be Upheld '—Tribunal
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T"principle of abstraction was the same, no matter how many vehicles were involved, said Mr. R. M. Yorke to the Transport Tribunal on Tuesday. He was representing the respondents, the Transport Holding Company and others, in an appeal by T. H. Carr, of Toronto, near Bishop Auckland, against a decision of the Northern Licensing Authorty. The appeal was dismissed.
Miss E. Havers said the appellants wished to surrender a Contract A licence for two vehicles with Evans Reed Teesdale and Lidstome Ltd., Newcastle, and carry return loads on A licence from Liverpool to the base area. The appellants hoped to carry animal feedingstuffs for a Hamsterley customer who sometimes went empty to Liverpool to collect the same commodity.
It was not normally necessary to declare return load traffic, said Miss Havers. The work envisaged was not done by the respondents, so there would be no abstraction, The LA had said in his decision that there was insufficient evidence to grant a Contract A-to-A switch to carry timber; that there was no evidence of need or difficulty, and that animal feedingstuffs were not shown on the application. "I suggest the LA misconceived his duties and completely misunderstood the issue said Miss Havers.
s24 "The evidence of the contract customer to give as much or more work is itself evidence of need."
Mr. Yorke said the evidence showed that the contract customer did not want the contract to end. The haulier wanted a bigger profit despite an expansion A turnover of 30 per cent in the past two years. All but one of the Contract A-to-A decisions of the Tribunal last year, said Mr. Yorke, had been refused, and the one allowed was not for return load traffic but for more efficient integration of the contract and A-licensed fleet. This application was for return load work at the expense of other hauliers, Mr. Yorke affirmed.
Miss Havers said that in her view abstraction was not a matter of principle, but of degree. If A licences could not be granted because of abstraction, no A licences would ever be granted.
Giving the Tribunal's decision, the president, Mr. G. D. Squibb. said they felt the LA's decision was right, although they arrived at the same conclusion by a different process of reasoning. "To Miss Havers' argument that we should take a lenient view because the application only involves two vehicles, it seems to us that we should not give effect to this argument. The question of principle must be upheld."