DELAYING
Page 57
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SO MUCH fury was engendered by the news that Dr. Richard Beech ing is to receive £24,000 a year as chairman-designate of the new Railways Board that the Opposition in the House of Commons seemed not to have the time to point out, as they might well have done. that neither the post nor the Board yet existed and that their creation depended entirely upon Parliament. Legislation is required to give effect to the proposals in the White Paper on the nationalized transport undertakings. If Parliament rejected the legislation, the position of Dr. Beeching would be anomalous to say the least. .
'The Minister of Transport, Mr. Ernest Marples, may have deliberately intended his announcement of ' the appointment to give the maximum shock at the earliest possible moment. The figure of £24,000 has certainly been bandied about in the Press as well as in Parliament to such an extent that there can be few people who have not heard about it. The publicity may have the usual deadening effect. By the time Dr. Beeching takes up his duties the public will possibly not have forgotten about the money but they will have begun to grow accustomed or resigned to it. .
Much the same technique, one almost suspects, is responsible for the long delay in issuing the reasons of the Transport Tribunal for their decisions in the Arnold and Merchandise Transport cases. What with appeals, cross appeals, stays of execution and further appeals against various points, it is almost becoming difficult to remember what the cases are about. When the battle is at last finished, hauliers may have become reconciled. They may have found a way of living with it successfully and begin to doubt whether they wish the decisions to be overturned, After all, there were gloomy prophecies when the licensing system was first proposed, but hauliers now can hardly imagine what they would do without it.
IN line with the fashion that news, like many other things, improves with keeping, the Ministry have only just released a summary of the, Annual Reports of the Licensing Authorities for the year up to the end of September, 1959. "There have been more' pressing things to do," is Mr. Marples' characteristic comment. He goes on to promise that the reports and those of the Traffic Commissioners will in future be published in full, as they were before the war, and will therefore be available somewhat more promptly
than on this occaSion. .
After a gap of .18 months the reports seem more mellow than usual, or at least 'they have a more mellowing effect, which may come to the sairie thing. The events they chronicle may have been the cause of sharp controversy at the time they happened. They now seem far removed from present discontents, and many of the comments strike oddly on an up-to-date ear.
The summary deals with nothing at great length, but gives more space than usual to the subject of normal user, probably the main bone of contention in the distant days of 1958-59. Although still capable of causing disquiet, it does not now generate nearly a.s much heat. Hauliers who might have protested strongly had the reports been issued at the proper time are more inclined to accept without protest what the Licensing Authorities have to say.
There are other more pressing problem& Operators are gently chided in the summary for the
mistaken view many of them haVe held about normal user. Holders of A licences are said to have Claimed a freedom ot operation that was unnecessarily limited by decisions of the Transport Tribunal in which the significance of normal user played an important part. The reports sum up the views expressed in the decisions. A .declaration of normal user constitutes a specific statement of intention of the use to which the vehicles citt A lieetice are to be put.
Any other point of view ",would make nonsense. of the system."
• Even after this length of.time hauliers might be prepared to 'argue that this evades the issue, They no longer regard the A licence as automatically entitling the holder to carry any goods anywhere, and to this extent they have come round to the opinion expressed'in the Suminary.. They still believe that more opportunity should he available in every traffic area for acceptable declarations of, normal user drawn in the widest possible terms.. To. their mind the operator who sets out to carry traffic of all kinds throughout Great Britain is performing a Useful service and should not he eliminated.
THE Licensing Authorities suggest on the contrary that a fairly precise statement of normal tiger provides an essential protection for the customer. If an operator is" free to carry goods indiscriminately anywhere in the country," this would be "to the discomfort of the customers, for whom it was originally claimed a service would be provided, and Who had supported his application." The reports go on to describe the deplorable effect-as the Licensing Authorities see it. "An excess of transport would be produced in some districts and a dearth in others."
There are points for and against this assessment of the situation. Undoubtedly the haulier owes a duty to the traders who have helped him win his licence; he must keep them from dearth or run the risk that another operator will step in and supplant him. The traders appear to owe no such duty to the haulier. If they can find somebody else to carry their traffic. or if they decide to use their own vehicles, there is nobody to stop them. Strict attention by the haulier to his normal user in circumstances such as these would create the excess that the Licensing Authorities deplore.
IJNLESS some way can be found of overturning it, the Merchandise Transport decision, repeated all over the country, may carry the process a stage further. The traders will be tempted towards the provision of an excess of transport, not only in their own district, but all over the country. The Metropolitan Licensing Authority, although he did not put the point in so many words, seems to have had it in mind in his original refusal of the Merchandise Transport application.
Some sort of comment on this controversial case may therefore be gleaned from the latest reports of the Licensing Authorities, even though they have been so long in :making their appearance. The volume for 1960 would no doubt be more useful. In the meantime one must be. content with what the Authorities were thinking two years ago. Some of the points after ail, including regrettably those concerned with infringements of the law, might have been taken from any of the summaries published during the past 10 years.