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Political Commentary
Page 75
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1933 and All That
By JANUS
ID you see tonight's paper? "asked Maggie. "They do write the most confusing things." It says . on this page that they are going to renationalize road transport, and on the next page there, is a man who wants it denationalized. They should get together' and decide what state it is in to start with."
There is" no contradiction," I said. "Part of the industry is nationalized and the remainder is under. free enterprise. So really the two people are. talking about different things."
"Does 'free enterprise' merely mean that a business is not nationalized?"
"When road hauliers use it, they mean that the enterpris-irig man is free to build up his own business. He hopes to succeed, but stands the risk of failure."
"Tilly Jones was saying rude things about free enterprise to.day."
".Not, I hope, because her husband has left her again." •• "No! This time it is the next-door neighbour's husband."
"Who has he left?"
• "He has not left anybody. It is only that he read about these free-enterprise hauliers, and wanted to join them." " And he no doubt found that the most enterprising feat of all is to get in. But does he know anything about road haulage?"
"Tilly says that Bert, as she calls him, has been a lorry driver. All he wanted was his ownVan. But when he • "bought it and started to use it, he was told he was breaking the law. Since when is it against the law to drive your own lorry?"
"Since 1933, if the lorry is carrying goods for other people. To become' a haulier, Bert must get an A or a • B licence."
"Can he not buy one, like any other licence?"
It is more like a marriage licence than any other. He has to publish banns, and anybody is at liberty to object." Tilly says Bert did just that."
"He has applied for a licence, then?"
"He went along to the registry office, or whatever it is called, and staked out his claim."
"I can guess that 'there were objections."
"Several people, Tilly says, made themselves objectionable, including Sir Brian Robertson and Cromwell's friend filoggs."
"They have a right to do so."
"Given to them in 1933, I Suppose. But has Bert the right to object to them?"
" He can bring along his own witnesses; if they will come. They will probably be -the traders Bert hopes to work for. All the same, he.will notfind it very' easy to prove his case."
"Would the trader have to gO through all this rigmarole if he decided to carry the stuff himself? "
"To carry his own goods he needs .a C licence, and he can get that practically for the asking."
Was this also agreed. in 1933? "
"Yes. The trader is considered to know best whether or not. he wants to put his own vehicle on the road."
"But suppose the trader does not want to bother with his own van. Is he no longer supposed to know what is best for him? "
"He has the unfettered right, to choose between the various forms of transport available—road, rail, canal and even air."
So why cannot the local traders choose Bert?" ".Because he has no licence."
"Back to 1933 again. If they can each get a licence for themselves, why cannot they pass it on to him? After all, he needs it more than they do, and he has a lorry."
"They could possibly take it in turns to hire his lorry, so long as they each provide their own driver. Or one of them could giye him a contract, and he could get a licence simply to carry the contract out. But he would not be allowed to do any other work with the vehicle."
"But perhaps none of the traders has enough business of his own to make it worth Bert's while, and I suppose they would not have enough business to run vans of their own. What happens then?"
"They must give the traffic to somebody else."
"What becomes of their unfettered right '? "
"It applies only to what is available, not to what the traders would like to have available. The choice is free, but not unlimited."
"What happens if the traders agree to be witnesses for Bert? "
"They must go to the traffic court and say why they require his services, and why they are not satisfied with what other people are offering them."
"Will the registrar take their word for it?
"The objectors will argue that they can give the necessary service already. He must make up his mind between the two sides, and give his decision."
"SO, after all, the trader is not really supposed to know what is best for him?"
" The licensing authority is not exclusively concerned with that. He is instructed to have regard to the interests of the public generally, including primarily those of persons requiring facilities for transport, and secondarily those of persons providing facilities for transport." _
I cannot make head or tail of any of it. The people who wrote it, whenever they wrote it, must have had some strong reasons that I know nothing about. What were they? "
"The main argument was, and is, that the railways are providing something of value. Therefore, as they cannot continue to do so in the face of. unrestricted competition, they must be protected. A more sophisticated variant of this is that the roads, overburdened as they already are, must not be cluttered up with more and more lorries, especially if it means that the railway wagons are left empty. It may seem Surprising that the hauliers themselves prefer a system of licensing—although, perhaps, not exactly the present system—as a way of keeping competi' tion at a reasonable level, and preventing the cutting of rates by newcomers who have not learned what is the least they must charge in order to cover their costs."
"At least I am glad that what. I read in the.paper the other day was wrong. It stated that the railways were incurring bigger arid bigger losses. Somebody forgot to tell the editor what happened in 1933."
"Unfortunately, the paper was right. It is just one of those things."
" Never mind; perhaps the railway wagons are carrying more goods, even though they are not _making more money."
"I am afraid that has not happened either."
" It may be, then, that there are not so many lorries cluttering up the roads. Are there many more now than in 1933? "
"Something like threetimes as many."
" That leaves us with the hauliers, and at any rate they are not grumbling.. Or so you said."
"I said they preferred licensing, but that does not stop them grumbling about the prevalence of rate-cutting."