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The Moping Owl
Page 105
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Save that from yonder ivy-mantled toWr The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wond'ring near her secret bow'r Molest her ancient solitary reign.
BECAUSE their annual report has to be laid before Parliament, the British Transport Commission have chosen in previous years to compose it in a language that only M.P.s, and perhaps not all of them, can understand. The report for 1952 is not as thickly varnished as usual, however, and enough of the original pattern shows through to enable even the layman, if he wishes to do so, to infer that the Commission are tearing a dignified strip off the Government and the Minister of Transport.
From the introduction at least, it is clear that Lord Hurcomb and his henchmen strongly suspect they are being trifled with. Four years of planning, the report begins, had reached their climax in proposals placed before the Minister at the end of 1951. His reply, not in the circumstances particularly encouraging, was the White Paper of May, 1952, indicating that the Commission would be called upon to get rid of their road haulage undertaking and decentralize the railway system.
Subsequent discussions between the Minister and the Commission, although possibly animated, could scarcely, one suspects, be described as cordial., Following a brief summary of what took place, the Commission abruptly drop the subject. They are "glad to record" a surplus of aim. for 1952, of which about half is being applied to reduce past deficiencies. '
Expensive Delays The Commission have indeed done very well in 1952, bearing in mind all the difficulties. Substantial increases in the cost of iron and steel and in the fuel tax mean that the Commission must pay another £13m. a year, but there have been expensive delays before corresponding increases in rates and fares can be applied. When the Transport Tribunal finally grant an increase, it is not always as much as the Commission had hoped, and Government intervention last year to curtail rises in fares reduced the Commission's revenue by nearly £2m. a year. The giant machine was running at a loss during the last quarter of 1952, and has continued to lose in the first six months of this year. In spite of this, the balance for 1952 is the best in the five years of the Commission's life.
The R.H.E. have not played their full part in building up this happy picture. Their net traffic receipts of £1.6m. compare unfavourably with the figure of £3.2m. for 1951. The report and accounts do not show the proportion attributable to the R.H.E. of the Commission's central charges of £47m. This total consists for the most part of interest on transport stock, and the share for which the R.H.E. are responsible may be estimated at £2.1m. or 3 per cent, on the £75m. paid to the former owners of nationalized undertakings. On this basis, it may be said that the R.H.E. made a loss in 1952, and certainly contributed nothing towards the surplus of £81m. for the Commission as a whole.
The Commission have plenty of excuses ready, heading the list with the familiar complaint about rising costs. They draw attention to the recession early in 1952 in the textile industries and later in other trades. There was a decline in imports and exports. Outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease reduced milk production and the movement of feeding stuffs. Competition increased from operators holding C licences or working on C-hiring margins. The Commission also noted an increasing tendency on the part of private hauliers to ignore the 25-mile limit and permit restrictions.
For political reasons, certain permit-holders were allowed to continue as before although the R.H.E. had reached the stage of being able to carry the traffic. The Government's policy must have affected the R.H.E. in other ways, and these were invariably adverse in the view of the Commission. The report argues that, in spite of all the difficulties, the R.H.E. did a good job of work in 1952. . They made several economies in operation. The number of complaints and of insurance claims against them decreased. A "very considerable number" of letters of commendation came from "important customers" expressing appreciation of the service they received.
Diagrams and Tables To eke out this somewhat bare analysis, the Commission give one or two diagrams and tables. It is shown that since 1951 the average number of miles covered by R.H.E. vehicles and their drivers went up. Another comparison, given frankly "for what it is worth,' indicates that between December, 1948, and December, • 1952, the average number of staff per vehicle owned or per 100 tons carried went down.
What would seem more important is not how many miles a vehicle or driver travels during a year, but the fact that the number of loaded vehicle-miles fell from 632,000 in 1951 to 575,000 in 1952, whereas the number of empty vehicle-miles remained almost the same at 136,000 for 1951 and 135,000 for 1952. Comparisons between the position now and in 1948 seem to have little value, for by that date only Carter Patersons and Pickfords, and the undertakings that went over voluntarily, had been acquired, and British Road Services operated no more than 8,208 motor vehicles.
The Commission labour to prove that the R.H.E. are popular, efficient and progressive. They are unable to• deny that during 1952 more and more traffic was shaking itself loose, and finding its way to the vehicles of the C-licence holder, the man with a C-hiring margin, the haulier with a permit—and, so the report alleges, the haulier without a permit, perhaps even without a licence. What have the R.H.E. succeeded in doing in 1952? They have carried fewer tons on fewer vehicles for fewer miles with fewer men, at a somewhat greater cost—in fact, 36s. per ton in 1952, as against 32s. per ton in 1951, an increase of 15 per cent.
The more one considers the Commission's arguments, the more obvious it becomes why the Government have decided to return the RILE. to free enterprise. Perhaps the reasons will never be completely appreciated or accepted by the Commission. When, in a frivolous moment, I first compared the Commission to an ivory tower, I did not fully realize how prophetic I was being. The Transport Act, 1947, created an edifice with the ' windows facing inwards.