Don't plug the ports
Page 7
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If you discover a man boring a hole in the bottom of t boat you don't hand him a larger drill. Yet that is what t Government seems determined to do by nationalising priv ports and extending the dock labour scheme, thus creati the conditions for our leaky economy to sink even fast The users and the trade associations have spelt out I higher costs, lower productivity, worsened labour relatio lack of flexibility and inefficient management which wat almost inevitably result. Experience, it seems, counts : nothing when dogmatic policies have to be impIemen1 and militant minorities placated.
Many drivers and warehousemen are fed up to the teo with losing out to their docker "brothers," and few peo: realise the extent to which big ports continue to functi because haulage employees put up with long and awkw. hours and unending frustrations. Ironically, the deteri ation of port efficiency and co-operation has been mas14 by the flexibility of road haulage—but there are limits. 1, only would irony be compounded but a disservice done the nation if the new Transport Minister put his wei4 behind improvement of port access roads—as he see. inclined to do—while he and his colleague Michael F( slammed down the twin trade barriers of State owners] and the dock labour scheme.