Labour, Hauliers and Users Criticize White Paper
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PROPOSALS contained in the White Paper are nothing but "a series of expedients to alleviate the worst of the inevitable consequences of the denationalization of road haulage," states the general council of the Trades Union Congress. A meeting was held last week and transport was discussed.
Impartial inquiries, contends the T.U.C., disprove assertions that free hauliers can provide a better service than the Road Haulage Executive, which is to be destroyed at the instance of a few who see opportunities for easy, profit at the public expense.
ILIberal Opposition Among those who are opposed to the Government's proposals is the Liberal Party. Mr. Phillip Fothergill, last year's president of the party, condemned them at the Liberal annual assembly at I Iastings.
The argument that the railways could never pay their way in competition with road transport and needed some form of "permanent artificial respiration" was, he said, a defeatist doctrine which the railway interests had peddled for 30 years. The acceptance of this view constituted one of the fundamental weaknesses of the White Paper.
He added: "We must have nothing to do with the twin heresies of the Socialists and Tories." The planner's pipe-dream of a closely integrated and organized transport system, was nonsense. The Government's alternative was equally rejected, as it would merely' transfer road haulage from the Wanglehold of public ownership to the straitjacket of the old licensing system."
Liberals stood for free enterprise in road haulage. If real freedom were impossible, there as no intellectual or moral justificati on for denationalization.
Levy Unpopular The traffic section of Nottingham Chamber of Commerce opposes the road haulage levy and the method of denationalization. "Whilst we felt that opportunities should be given to contractors who had been taken over to get back into road haulage, we did not feel that the procedure set out in the. White Paper was the right way to do it," Mr. C. L. Barton, chairman, stated last week.
Unanimous support was accorded at a recent meeting of Bristol Chamber. of Commerce to a resolution calling for an impartial inquiry before proceeding with denationalization. Great difficulties were foreseen in selling back the Road Haulage Executive's assets to private pterprise. The Potteries Area of the Traders' Road Transport Association has condemned the principle of the levy as "indefensible."
Protests against the Government's proposals were made at a meeting of employees of the Taunton and 'North Devon Group of the R.H,.E. A Bristol official of the Transport and General Workers' Union, Mr. A. E. Dickinson, described denationalization as a most retrograde step.
As a trade union officer, he said, he had been astonished by the unanimity of opinion that he had found about the Government's intended measures. However bad the present structure was, the men did not want a worse one.
At its annual conference at Margate, last week, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen pledged itself to oppose denationalization by all legitimate means.
The Engineering Industries' Association has called for a transport inquiry. Capt. C. A. Kershaw, secretary-general, said last week that denationalization would create many insoluble problems. A comprehensive survey should be made and a plan to co-ordinate road and rail transport formulated.
B.R.S. lorries passing through the Midlands have been seen bearing anti denationalization posters with the slogan: "Save Your Money by Leaving Nationalized Transport Alone. Hands Off Road Transport." It was not known who was responsible for the posters, and some drivers refused to disclose how they came to appear on the vehicles.
NEW MERSEY BRIDGE?
IT may be possible to contemplate the building of a new high-level bridge across the Mersey between Runcorn and Widnes, on the lines of a modified scheme put forward by the consulting engineers, at the end of the year.
The Minister of Transport gave this intimation to Cheshire County Council recently.
PETITION FOR COACH SERVICE
A PETITION signed by 16,250 Birmingham residents, supporting the cause of Northern Roadways, Ltd., was presejated in the House of Commons, last week, by Mr. P. L. E. Shurmer. It claimed that the revocation of the company's licence for a service from Glasgow to Birmingham was unfair.