A Manifesto and Challenge
Page 25
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The Inevitable Effects of the Nationalization of Road Transport upon the General Public and the Trading Community
AS one of the important munitions in its struggle against nationalization, the Road Haulage Association has published an extremely wellworded and powerful manifesto and challenge. We, therefore, reproduce this in full.
1. For several months past the R.H.A., as the national organization representative of the road haulage industry, has been in constant touch with the Ministry of War Transport, and officials of the Association have on several occasions had personal interviews with the Minister.'
2. During the earlier stages of these negotiations the Association concentrated on an effort to induce the Government to permit emergency war-time controls of road hauliers to lapse, which would have occurred automatically early in November had not measures been taken to extend the period during which controls con' tinue to operate.
3. Ultimately, it was officially announced that the controls would be continued until 12 months after the official date of the conclusion of the war with Japan.
4. The Association then concentrated on an endeavour to ascertain the true intentions of the Government in respect of nationalization of road transport, and the Minister provisionally agreed to a further interview with representatives of the Association for discussion of this subject. Prior to the date fixed for this interview, the Lord President of the Council announced in the House of Commons the intention of the Government to bring under national ownership long-distance road haulage services.
The R.H.A. is therefore reluctantly forced to the conclusion that the Government is determined to deal with this matter purely as part of a general and ideological programme of nationalization, and without regard to the special circumstances of the road transport industry and the evil effects on the trading community and the general public that would inevitably follow in this specific instance.
All Hauliers Will be Concerned
5. The R.H.A. categorically states that if the principle of nationalization be first applied, as is apparently suggested by Mr. Morrison, to one section of road haulage, then it inevitably follows that all those hauliers who are momentarily left out of the scheme will be so far shackled and prescribed as to neutralize their utility to the public and rendei them unworkable as business concerns. Neither can the process stop at this point, but the Government, having broken up the existing haulage industry, would then find itself inextricably involved in the necessity of strictly controlling the use of all commercial road transport and limiting, if not altogether abrogating, the right of any trader to continue to carry his own goods in his own vehicles.
6. The Association is convinced that the road haulage industry is one that cannot efficiently be conducted under a system of nationalization. Experience up to date in all countries in which experiments have been tried goes to prove the truth of this statement. Road transport can give satisfaction to the public only if it continues to be operated by a large number of small units. There are at present about 60,000 road hauliers operating in Great Britain, with an average of not more than three vehicles each. 7. Believing. as it does that nationalization applied in any measure at all to road transport would be disastrous, not merely to hauliers, but to the trading community and to the general public, which would have to put up with inferior facilities, the Association desires that all the facts bearing upon this subject should be at the disposal of the public as a whole.
8. Consequently, this manifesto is issued to notify Members of Parliament, chambers of commerce, traders' organizations, etc., and the public through the medium of the Press, that the R.H.A. would welcome and assist the organization in all parts of the country of meetings at which the pros and cons of the nationalization of road transport could be fully ventilated. Given reasonable notice, the Association ,undertakes to supply speakers who will address all such meetings in any part of the country.
9. The speakers so supplied will not, as a rule, be trained orators, but will be local men of good standing with a-thorough practical knowledge of the operation of road fransport. These speakers will welcome discussion and debate, in the course of which any arguments that there may be in favour of nationalization could be
equally ventilated. The road haulage industry challenges the advocates of nationalization to place both sides of the case before the jury of the public in some such way as is Suggested above, and appeals to the public not to permit it to be exterminated unless and until the case against its continuance under its existing ownership can be satisfactorily proved.
No Mandate to Nationalize Transport 10. The nationalization of road transport, as distinct from the general principle of nationalization with circumspection of industries that may be suitable, was not a major issue at the General Election, and the Association maintains that the Government cannot reasonably claim a mandate to nationalize road transport, unless or until the views of the public on the subject have been obtained. This, the Association suggests, can be done by holding meetings as proposed in towns and villages throughout the country and arranging for the resulting decisions of those meetings, arrived at after the arguments on both sides have been heard, to be made generally known.
1. All responsible organizations and functional groups (e.g., the employees of any commercial-vehicle users) that may be desirous of having this matter fairly discussed before them are invited to communicate in the first instance with the Director of the Road _Haulage Association at 146, New Bond Street, London, W.1, and will then be immediately referred to the Association's officials in their own traffic area, which will concert with them, on the spot, all the necessary arrangements for such meetings.
12. It is stipulated only that such meetings shall be open to the Press, as the Association is convinced that only as a consequence of the widest publicity can the • public be made familiar with the whole of the arguments for and against the nationalization of an industry upon the independent continuance of which some 60,000 small family businesses are wholly dependent, and by which services are rendered to the general public that could not conceivably be equalled in practice by a nationalized organization, however perfect in theory.