Why Disparage the B-Licensees ?
Page 35
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Should the B-licence Holder Rank Second to the Holder of an A-licence? Criticism of the Attitude Adopted by Officers of the R.H.O.
By Percy H. Cain, Director, Caitt Brothers, Ltd.'
WE are a company operating 11 vehicles and engaged in the businesses of transport and domestic and industrial fuel supplies. We were established in 1920 and have been active in both spheres since that date.
As we have always claimed that our vehicles are at all times available to give the 'maximum service to our clients in both classes of business, all the vehicles are carrying B licences, and we have never held A licences.
Our object in writing you is to express our disapproval of two factors which, we find, persistently militate against us in the pursuance of our activities on the transport side of our business, which we operate as " Cains' Merseyside Transport Daily Service," offering a daily service in Wallasey, Birkenhead, Wirral, Liverpool, and within a 60-mile radius of our base at Birkenhead. .
The first factor is the attitude, prevalent in this area, that, as B-licence holders, we must rank second to A-licence holders.
The second factor is a war-time issue, and, incidentally, is mentioned in the leading article of your journal dated August 31, 1945. It is the tendency of R.T.C.s (and, consequently, all M.O.W,T. personnel under their influence) .to extend preference to those operators who " helped the R.H.O. during -the war years."
Some Misconceptions The leading articles of your issues dated August 24 and 31 both give food for serious thought regarding the future of the established haulier, and both voice opinions which must be in the minds of many operators now that post-war reorganization can be expected.
We have, in the pre-war and war years, had innumerable instances of the attitude that we were secondary -to A-licence holders; in fact, we resigned our membership of one organization purporting to represent all commercial-vehicle operators principally because its secretary could not be shaken from the stupid attitude that we were "coal merchants in the winter and hauliers in the summer when the coal trade was slack."
Our attitude to our clients, of transport or fuel, is that if we have a commitment with them we see it through, and this we achieve by having all our vehicles so licensed that they can be. switched from transport to coal or vice
versa at short notice. This arrangement, combined with the fact that we have a complete maintenance shop and handle all our own repairs, ensures that we never let a client down through breakdowns or staff deficiencies.
Average usage of our vehicles between the two businesses shows that three vehicles are normally engaged on the transport of fuel, whilst eight are engaged on general transport commitments. The vehicles are all 5-, 7and 8-tonners, so that we entirely fail to appreciate in what way we can be regarded as less important to Merseyside industry than an A-licensed haulier 'who happens not to be in a second trade and who operates, say, five or six vehicles of the same capacity as our own. It could, in fact, be argued that our larger fleet could handle a large tonnage better than the A-licensed holder, if speed was desirable.
Yet we suffered quite recently an injustice at the local R.H.O. office, when the writer was informed that instructions existed that B hauliers could not be permitted to handle available traffic while A hauliers were on." hand. This was in respect of traffic from a client Whose work we had handled for the past 12 years. It was ironical that the traffic was subsequently moved— in part—by two C-licensed vehicles belonging to a coal merchant in Liverpool!
To refer again to this matter of "helping the R.H.O. during the war years." Nobody appreciates more than we do the need for the R.H.O. and that it did a very big job in getting the essential supplies through. We (airselves assisted in it, although not to a large extent. Our vehicles were at all times fully engaged on carrying goods of equal priority, given to us from other sources, amongst which we must mention the railway companies.
Helping the Railways When the railway companies asked for help in this area in September, 1939, we remember certain operators who said, in effect: "Why should we work for them; they opposed us in the Traffic Courts, etc., etc." Our attitude'was: "There's a war on now; let us help to get on with it." We are still working for the railway companies, moving goods essential to consumers. Throughout the war we have carted for the railways, air-raid shelters, munitions for every theatre of war, and goods of all descriptions for home needs. Surely as essential to the war effort as anything handled by R.H.O.?
In any case, should not the deciding factor be this— the group organizers and S.D.M.s saw to it that nobody received petrol for commercial vehicles unless the work was important to the war effort. Petrol for the movement of luxury 'goods was non-existent. Whether hauliers "helped the R.H.O." or not during the war, we have yet to meet the haulier who, during the war years, was carrying anything but goods vital to the war effort, consigned to the Services, moving blitzed homes and people, or food and essential goods from ports and railheads to our people at home.
There is nothing in -my company's records since 1939 whish does not rank equally with the traffic handled by the R.H.O., and we deprecate strongly any attempt to give preference to any group of operators in such a manner.
No criticism is, however, justifiable unless it has something constructive as its object. Accordingly, as it is implied that the new Minister of War Transport will find in R.H.O. a useful instrinnient ready to hand for development, we suggest that he might also find the existing machinery of petrol rationing—D.T.O.s, S.D.M.s and group organizer's and their groups—an equally useful instrument of decentralized control already available to supply him with complete data as to the merits or otherwise of every operator. From the local knowledge of all operators now in the hands of these officers there could be built up a co-ordinated service of road transport in every district, far more equitably than some sweeping new Orders, which would undoubtedly operate harshly in many cases if applied without reference to local conditions.