Fair to Middling
Page 23
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OF all people, those with an interest in transport would have been least likely, one would have thought, to describe themselves as middle-of-theroad men. The middle of the road is an uncomfortable place, and the man who occupies it is in danger from both the right and the left. Since the publication of the Government's new Bill, however, the metaphor has been used more than once by transport users, and even by transport operators.
With the normal -Man's dislike of being branded as an extremist, they are prepared to support the Bill as a means for ending a squabble that everybody would agree has continued far too long. Occupying a position somewhere between the two contrary Transport Acts of 1947 and 1953, the Bill gives the illusion of being dead centre, and believers in compromise and moderation as the typically British political virtues arc begining to imagine they can see peace with consistency in the Government's policy.
Aucourant (The Commercial Motor, January 13) shows himself as devout a believer as any. Although I recognize the advantages that he evidently sees of getting the best out of both worlds, I find it hard to accept his interpretation of certain remarks of the present Prime Minister in a speech made as long ago as October. 1946. After stating that the essential problem was to reconcile freedom and order, Sir Anthony Eden said: "We find ourselves constantly faced with the problem of harmonizing the free play of competitive forces and of individual initiative with the organizing power of central Government." Apparently Aucourant regards the Transport (Disposal of Road Haulage Property) Bill as one of the solutions to Sir Anthony's problem.
. Dialectical Problem It would be extraordinary if, in fact, the Prime M inister was already planning an amending Bill to an amending Act a year before the passing of the original Act that began the trouble. He seems to me merely to have enunciated something not far removed from a platitude. In another context, he might have described his problem as dialectical. On the one hand there is freedom; on the other, control. Sometimes one of them is favoured, sometimes the other. The ideal solution is a synthesis combining the best features of both.
Does the new Bill provide such a solution? With some reservations, Aucourant would perhaps say that it does. I am a little more dubious. Far from establishing the harmony that Sir Anthony thought so desirable 10 years ago, the Bill merely draws between private enterprise and State ownership a line somewhat different from that laid down in the Act of 1953. A more ambitious attempt at a synthesis, made in the Act of 1947, was on the whale unsatisfactorj", particularly to trade and industry. The idea that thp new Bill will ultimately lead to a new synthesis, something permanent and out of political reach, is not very convincing. For further judgment on the point, it may be best to wait until the Socialists have declared themselves in Parliament.
Hope springs eternal that the next piece of legislation will be different from all the rest. While the honeymoon period lasts, many people, who in any case are anxious for the new Bill to succeed, will see in it qualities it does
not possess. Aucourant nails it as a Bill for freedom and order, and evidently believes it can resolve the conflict between its two predecessors. In the meantime, both sides in the conflict continue to attack each other, and all the Bill has done to help is to involve its own supporters, many of whom appear to be sitting on both sides of the fence at once.
Aucourant himself is not free from this confusion. He praises the Bill, and at once begins to suggest drastic amendments. He hopes there is a chance of settling for a time the problem of road versus rail, and goes on to suggest a national inquiry. He shows a preference for freedom and competition in road haulage, and ends by suggesting a Road Haulage Board similar to that in the iron and steel industry. He says that the 13111 will not give the British Transport Commission anything like a monopoly, and bases much of his later arguments on the fear that such a monopoly Will, in fact, soon be created.
The new Bill at first seems such a minor measure, and has received such wide support that the difficulty of making a convincing case for it is somewhat unexpected.
Escape the Trap
The previous Minister of Transport may have been wise in saying very little about the reasons for the Government's change of policy on disposal. He may have recognized the risk of giving an impression of confusion and of political opportunism. Most people who have subsequently spoken out in .support of the Government have failed to escape the trap.
They might do worse than study the tactics of Mr. David Blee, traffic adviser to the British Transport Commission and a member of the former Railway Executive. in his recent paper -read to the Institute of Transport (The Commercial Motor, January 13) he dismissed legislation on road transport since the war as no more than `! artificial disturbances of freely operating trends." The result has been, as he said, "to obscure both what those trends were and what they may be as time goes along."
The 1947 Act, said Mr. Blee, swiftly produced a large-scale national system of trunking, as distinct from tramping road services. The 1953 Act put this trend in reverse. So much for legislation, which must largely be ignored if one wants to know what is really happening.
"It seems reasonably clear that if nationalization had not come along there would have been a number of large concerns serving the whole or distinct parts of the country. Today it appears that British Road Services will be left with a reasonably large general haulage fleet of some 7,000 vehicles."
Their road haulage competitors are mainly small, stated Mr. 13lee, but already they are getting together into operating and trading associations in order to be able to offer a national service in competition with B.R.S. With the help of one or two finance houses the amalgamations could go even further.
A little more in this strain, and one would almost begin to think that Mr. Blee, who showed so little appreciation for the necessity of either the 1947 or the 1953 Act, holds very much the same opinion of the new Bill.