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Over the Sticks

4th October 1957, Page 36
4th October 1957
Page 36
Page 36, 4th October 1957 — Over the Sticks
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

'THERE are signs of a healthier understanding between the British Transport Commission and free-enterprise hauliers. Both the Commission and the Road Haulage Association are at present examining the rusty machinery of liaison between them. Some of the divisional liaison committees have ceased to exist and new ones will have to be appointed. It may well be that the whole system of contact between the two sides of the transport industry will have to be recast.

There seems to be no doubt that the desire for friendly working relations is quite as strong on the part of the B.T.C. as on that Of the R.H.A. It is, perhaps, significant that the contact would exist between the Commission as a whole, rather than British Road Services, and the free-enterprise sector. Possibly the leaders of B.R.S. would prefer to conduct their own negotiations, but it is unlikely that they will be allowed to forget that they are Members of a unified State transport organization. The greatest success in liaison between the State and private-enterprise sides of the industry has been in dealing with licensing. B.R.S. are again participating in the work of the road-rail negotiating committees and are submitting their own licence applications for consideration. This is a healthy situation and it is to be hoped that the success of these arrangements will be extended to other subjects in which the Commission and members of the R.H.A. have common interests, such as freedom from political interference.

B.R.S. could be a powerful ally of freeenterprise hauliers in discouraging the next Socialist Government from embarking upon renationalization of long-distance haulage. Political stability is as much in the interests of the State road haulage undertaking as of independent hauliers. If unity of thought and action could achieve this end, there could be no doubt of the effectiveness of liaison in day-to-day transport affairs.


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