Digging Up the Future
Page 51
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UCH has-been heard, and more will be heard, of the statement on transport policy prepared by the Association of British Chambers of Commerce. It deals with all parts of the Transport Bill, including even the road passenger section, but the most lively public interest has been caused by the Association's views on denationalization.
Although agreeing in principle with the Government's intention to restore free enterprise in road haulage and remove the 25-mile limit, the Association regards the procedure outlined in the Bill as far too hasty. The alternative proposed is a progressive cancellation of the limit and a step-by-step decentralization of the Road Haulage Executive before any attempt is made to sell it. . There would be.a central holding company, freed from executive responsibilities and controlled by a board of directors. The practical work would be done by regional units, which again would be companies governed by directors and which would have full autonomy. At the next level would be subsidiary companies formed much on the same lines.
Guiding the Association in its self-appointed task of planning one may detect the principle that the first step should be to formulate an ideal system of transport, progress towards which should be made by a series of cautious • experiments. After a decade or more, the historian should still be able to trace the shape of the present Road Haulage Association, just as the archeologist can trace the design of ancient cities in the pattern of the modern streets that cover them. The gradual changes recommended by the Association are defined as a " break-down " rather than a " break-up " of the R.H.E.
Unfortunately, the historical approach to the transport problem appears to involve more planning than the system it is designed to supersede. In digging up the future, the Association is paying far too much attention to the supports and not sufficient to the finished construction. It is even proposed that transport users should be represented on the numerous boards of directors to be appointed. It would be interesting to know how Many of the 60,000 members of the Association have customers sitting on their own board of directors.
• Command Broad Support
The Association claims that its proposals "should command the broad support alike of industry, commerce, organized transport labour and the general public." The support of the providers of transport is no doubt taken for granted, and it is ironical that, as the recent debate in Parliament demonstrated, the Association appears not to have even the unanimous backing of its own members. The Association, so far as is known, has taken no steps to find out what the workers really think of its plan. There is no evidence that they like it any more, or any less, than the Transport Bill.
" Political expediency," which the Association condemns, is too easy a phrase for any plan which does not happen to coincide with our own_ Each political party claims,, somewhat absurdly, to be free from the taint, but naturally has no intention of giving up any of its principles. The interest shown by the Socialists In the Association's plan was solely because of the fact that it appeared to split the Government's supporters. That the plan would ever be accepted by the Socialists is unlikely in the extreme.
Stimulated by competition from a liberated road haulage industry under free enterprise, the operating units into which the Association proposes to break down the R.H.E. would have the "incentive for progress and initiative," 'and ' would also be easy to sell when denationalization at last began. The sale of the units could be gradual or simultaneous. "Parts of an undertaking's share capital could be placed upon the market as and when opportunity permitted or as financial and other circumstances rendered it advisable."
Difficult to Understand
This part of the plan is difficult to understand. lithe units became really efficient, there would be no point in selling them; if they deteriorated, nobody would want to buy, except at knock-down prices. There would certainly be no sale should the Socialists be in power when the "circumstances rendered it advisable." As if to emphasize this point, the Association describes its proposals as a "pragmatic and conservative approach."
Sometimes pragmatism is not enough. Desperate remedies have to be applied quickly without heeding the subsidiary effects upon the patient. Nationalization of transport, once it had been adopted as a policy by the Socialists, had to be catastrophic. The return Ito free enterprise, if it is to take place at all, must be equally quick.
The transport system which evolves from the new Bill may not be unlike what the Association wants. On the face of it, the transport units to be created by the Bill have little resemblance to the units proposed by the Association. In practice, there may not be a great deal of difference. The need for some larger concerns, if it be genuine, will no doubt be met by the Minister of Transport granting permission for them to be set up. Otherwise there are likely to be some rapid amalgamations designed to bring iito being companies of the appropriate size. Nor must one forget the possibility of clearing house and grouping arrangements.
For this result to be achieved with the least dislocation to trade and industry, one may argue that the quicker the change is made the better. The R.H.E. would not be obliterated without trace. Its five years of life will . leave an indelible mark. In the same way, the R.H.E. did not succeed, and would never have succeeded, in stamping out the pattern created by the operators who lost their businesses. .
The Association must shake itself free from the delusion that any plan will gain the approval of all' sections of the community. The choice lies between free enterprise and nationalization, and each side will always have its adherents. The prominence given to the Association's plan is a welcome reminder that the transport industry exists only by virtue of the people using it, but the users should not forget that, once it has, come into existence, transport has a life of its own and should not be subjected to too rigid a-plan. Somebody. at the A.B.C.C. must learn t6 givehistory its head, and to resist the temptation of digging up the future.