The B.R.F. Replies to the Salter Report
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Mr. Frank Pick Speaks to the Conservative Members' Parliamentary Transport Committee, Presided Over by Sir Henry Jackson
AST Tuesday there was a large attendance of members of the Conservative Transport Committee to hear Mr.
Frank Pick speak on behalf of the British Road Federation. He stated that road transport had never been fully organized. Only rarely had the various associations been united ; as a result, it had often failed to put its ease with clearness and cogency. The Federation represented the latest attempt to form a representative organization.
Ile asked for careful and considerate treatment. Road transport was not getting fair play. There was no disguising the fact that the railways, now fully organized and consolidated, and 'using their great resources and vast influence, bad for the past two years or more carried ma, unremittingly, a propaganda which had for its object the hampering of road transport. The culmination was the Salter Report, and it was that which had to be answered. More particularly Mr. Pick wanted to answer Sir Arthur Salter himself, who had come before the committee in February.
"Indefensible Anomalies" in Present Taxation.
Sir Arthur had stated that the duty of the conference was to recommend appropriate contributions to road costs, and said that there were indefensible anomalies in the present rates. A 12-ton lorry paid no more than the 6-tonner. Moreover, the vehicle which escaped petrol duty was enjoying a concealed subsidy. Mr. Pick said he was not there to defend these anomalies.
Speaking for road transport, he was prepared to see the present duties, which stop at 5 tons, increased by stages in respect of increments of unladen weight above 5 tous. He was also prepared to see the countervailing duties imposed on vehicles which escaped the burden of petrol tax, but the removal of these anomalies was not the object of the Salter Report. Sir Arthur did not tell the committee that for vehicles between 5 and 6 tons unladen the duties of £60 (solids) and £48 (pneumatics) were to be increased by 125 to 130 per cent., and become £135 (solids) and £108 (pneumatics). This was not removing an anomaly. It was establishing a new scale of taxation, first, more than doubling the rate upon such vehicles, and then more than doubling it again for those weighing 10-11 tons ; so that the duty on the heavier vehicles would be multiplied five and six times. It was this deliberate attempt to cripple the movement of goods by road thati was the real issue.
Mr. Pick asked the committee to accept the principle that transport, as a basic service to trade and industry, should not be taxed for general revenue purposes.
Reduced Expenditure on the Roads.
The key to the framework of taxation in the report was the average of £60,000,000 for roads during the next five years, but the Road Fund Report for 1931-1932 indicates that the capital expenditure upon roads was to fall by about £8.000,000 a year, and if measured by the full expenditure which fell upon the Road Fund and the Rates Fund, then its decline for the coming years was to be about £12,000,000 annually. Farther, the report of the private members of the House of Commons economy committee stated that £40,000,000 might he expected as the maximum. expenditure, and, in no circumstance, should 150,000,000 be exceeded. It was not permissible to have one figure for use in argument for eeonomy and another for use in argument for taxation. If the £60,000,000, upon which the Salter Report is based, failed, then the whole schedule of taxation equally failed. Sir Arthur had stated that because the petrol tax was diverted to the national exchequer towards meeting &rating (under which, incidentally the railways were partially relieved of rates so that they might reduce their charges upon certain commodities), it could not be regarded as available for road upkeep; therefore, road transport must bear this tax as an additional burden, apart from road maintenance. On this argument the Salter Report departed wholly from its terms of reference. Instead of holding a fair balance between rail and road, it implied that, in certain circum
stances, road transport should he taxed so that rail traffics might be subsidized at its expense.
, Mr. Pick submitted that the current facts destroyed the report. For the present financial year road transport would contribute by vehicle duties £30,000,000 and by petrol tax £32,500,000, totalling £62,500,000, which exceeded by some 112,500,000 the maximum contemplated for future expenditure upon roads, assuming, quite wrongfully, that motor vehicles should bear the whole cost.
Dealing with the regulation of goods vehicles, Mr. Pick asked to what had Sir Arthur directed the committee's
attention. Sir Arthur had referred to excessive hours of work, to overloading, but this was already an offe-ace ; to congestion upon the roads ; to unsatisfactory rates ot wages, and so forth. In fact, he had referred to abuses, and on behalf of road transport Mr. Pick was not there to defeed
them. If a simple form of licensing was required to enable reasonable and satisfactory conditions to be established, there could be no opposition to it ; but he called attention to Paragraphs which showed that the conference began by seeking to remedy abuses, but went on to give the Traffic Com
missioners power to restrict the issue of licences for goods transport, proceeding, apparently, on some scheme of rationing such transport amongst those who applied for licences.
The report drew a distinction between the common carrier or haulier and the ancillary user. He could not see how
equality of treatment was to be secured with such discrimination. He could not see how the Commissioners could say to a person providing transport for his own particular use, and for no other purpose, that he could not do so.
Transferring Traffic to the Railways.
Further, the report recommended that the Minister of Transport should obtain power to prohibit, by regulation, the transport by road of classes of traffic which were borne by rail and which were unsuitable for road haulage. it approved the existing restriction of certain types of vehicle, the exclusion of certain vehicles elsewhere permitted on specified roads, and contemplated a more extended use of these powers. There was to be a three-fold prohibition. It was paragraphs such as these which disclosed the real Purpose of the report. The determination was to reduce the volume of goods traffic upon the roads, not from the point of view of the public's needs, but from the sectional one of the railways' needs..
It was impossible to license goods vehicles to routes like passenger vehicles, nor was area-licensing feasible. Take brewing; it was impossible to put this traffic upon the railway with any advantage, for it would involve additional cost. A large proportion of heavy road transport was connected with public works, and followed contractors about the country from place to place. Another section of road haulage was engaged in moving loads which were out of gauge for the railways; these loads often moved across country.
Mr. Pick finally asked whether the railways would benefit by this policy of restriction and prohibition. Would it not serve only further to depress trade and industry? If comparisons were made between trade indices and railway traffic receipts, it would be found that their decline corresponded closely. Did anyone know the extent to which traffic now upon the roads had been diverted from the railways? Road transport regretted the misfortunes which had befallen the railways." It had 110 wish to be unfair to them.
In conclusion, Mr. Pick said that he could not object to clearing up the recognized and present abuses—that was a small matter ; but with the questions he had raised unanswered, he asked that the larger issue of restriction should be left over. He could not see how anyone could accept the Salter Report as of any real use for guidance.
A number of questions was addressed to Mr. Pick. One had reference to the hours of labour and the failure of Section 19 of the Road Traffic Act, and he said that two or three weeks hence there would be an. inquiry before Sir Harold Morris, with a view to recommending amendments that might be included in any fresh legislation.