'SINK THOSE DIFFERENCES' CALL TO RHA MEMBERS
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A CALL to members of the Road Haulage Association to make a serious attempt to sink sectional and local interests so that reform could go ahead without delay was made on Tuesday by a national vice-chairman, Mr. Noel R. Wynn, director and secretary of Robert Wynn and Sons Ltd. He was speaking in Birmingham to the Midland section of the Institute of Transport on "The future of private road haulage".
Mr. Wynn said that the wide divergence of opinion among members about the Association's future structure and role was not unnatural but might result in the whole process of reform being long drawn out. In the present political and economic climate there might not be all that time available.
If the Association was to continue to represent the whole of the public and private sector of the road transport industry, it had to be made plain for all to see that it had the support of the great majority of its members. He believed that the RHA had that backing, but this, unfortunately, was not plain to see.
Of plans to impose some national integration of inland freight through Government intervention, Mr. Wynn said that if one looked at the accepted figures, some of them in the White Paper, it would appear that much less than 20 per cent of the total ton mileage carried by road and rail was involved.
"Surely no imposed organization is necessary to deal with this", he said; the danger was that an imposed solution might adversely affect the transport system used by the vast majority of traffic already passing efficiently by road and rail.
Discounting both absolute control of transport from Whitehall and complete freedom for individual enterprise in an unrestricted play of supply and demand, Mr. Wynn came down firmly for a commercial partnership.
He felt that if the mutual distrust between road and rail could be broken down, the railways, the private hauliers and BRS could operate a partnership to handle at least the traffic which the railways now carried on their own at a commercial disadvantage.
Collection, delivery and the making and breaking of bulk would be dealt with by road hauliers and the trunking by rail. The start could be made with parcels and smalls, he thought.
Mr. Wynn felt that the Minister of Transport should consider encouraging such a development before embarking on her projected National Freight Authority "which may well become the monolithic organization that everyone fears".
Stressing that he spoke in a personal capacity, Mr. Wynn indicated that he was very wary of the Government intention to "devise a licensing system which is an effective instrument of modern national freight policy". This could mean a system which imposed a complete restriction on longdistance trtmking of general merchandise by road. Traffic could be attracted back to rail by normal commercial enterprise, and the BR modernization could do nothing but good in eliminating the inefficiency of the past.