JANUS Why should the Labour Party
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be less than precise about road transport?"
IT is easyto understand that road operators should be annoyed as well as baffled by the apparent reluctance of the Labour Party to divulge its plans for transport If the various statements are intended to be consistent, then they fail to give the right impression. At one moment there is talk of renationalization with no payment for goodwill; and this will very likely be followed with the completely different suggestion of greater freedom for British Road Services to expand and no direct interference with established hauliers.
If the latter possibility had the field to itself, operators and users Would not be greatly worried. In the prevailing uncertainty they cannot know what action is best to take. In the normal course of events, hauliers would be deciding whether or not to buy new vehicles, whether to improve or enlarge their premises, whether to stake resources in the hope of getting new business, and so on. They have added difficulty in making up their minds at present because of a natural apprehension about what the Socialists might do. The problem can only become more acute as the General Election draws nearer.
VAGUENESS In spite of these disadvantages, hauliers can take some comfort from the vagueness of Labour policy. The lack of a clear-cut statement is not because of the reluctance or inability of the Socialists to be positive and definite on any subject at all. When it suits them, they can be brutally clear. Their often-repeated threats, for example, have left no doubt of their firm intention to take the iron • and steel industry back into public ownership. The firms in that unfortunate industry have realized that their only recourse must be a vigorous campaign, by advertising and other means, to put their case to be public, and they have no illusion about what would happen to them if there was a change of Government. why. should the Labour Party be less than precise about road transport? If they do not fear the iron and steel industry, they certainly cannot be afraid of the hauliers, and it is absurd to suppose that many hauliers would vote Socialist merely because the threat against them was unformulated. The Socialists must therefore be doubtful about the reaction of some other more influential sections of the community. Their inquiries must have told them, ,in fact, not merely that nationalization of road transport is a generally unpopular measure, but that it will have the opposition of nearly all road users and of the majority of the workers in free enterprise road haulage.
IN TWO MINDS This last consideration must have the Labour Party in two minds. The Socialists cannot afford to alienate an important body of their own supporters, who indeed would be unlikely to vote Conservative or Liberal, but could do almost as much damage by staying away from the polls. Road operators should not take too much comfort from this possibility. It would not in itself have the effect of a410 making the Socialists change their policy. They would rather refrain from making that policy clear until victory at the polls gave them the opportunity of implementing it with or without the leave of any particular body of opinion.
If the Labour Party leaders sense opposition among their own supporters, they know with far greater certainty that many others are convinced and even fanatical nationalizers, and will insist that the Conservative policy of free enterprise in transport must be reversed. It may well be in deference to this powerful and vocal group within the Party that the leaders feel constrained to include some reference to transport nationalizaion—although usually by some other name--in their policy statements and in speeches. This could well be a charitable explanation of the inept arguments so frequently used to justify interference with transport.
SET THE PATTERN Mr. Harold Wilson set the pattern during the debate on railways in the House of Commons nearly a year ago. He put forward all the familiar proposals, all designed to restrict road transport and none to improve its efficiency. He asked for distance limits on A. and B-licensed _holders, for higher taxation on C licences, and for favoured treatment which would allow B.R.S. to destroy their competitors. It may be significant, however, that these well-worn proposals were made diffidently, within the context of a general resolution asking for no more than a thorough survey of Britain's transport resources and the drawing up of a national plan.
Even among the leaders of the Labour Party there must be many who see the problem which they are facing._ An efficient road haulage business is efficient because it is independent. To merge it into a nationalized organization would destroy that particular efficiency with no guarantee that anything better, or even as good, will take its place. Perhaps to get round this point, Mr. Wilson more recently shifted his attack. " You cannot plan for expansion ", he told an audience at Swansea, "if your transport system is to be decided on narrow book-keeping and accountancy considerations."
DIRECTION?
No party has ever suggested that this is possible. The Conservative Government, for example, has allowed the railways to make huge annual deficits, and has sanctioned such projects as the new Victoria line with little hope that it will ever pay for itself. Mr. Wilson would apparently go farther, although in exactly what direction he still does not make clear. The theme of his speech was expanded national production, and one would have thought that road goods transport provided an excellent example of what can be done in this line. As far as can be made out. Mr. Wilson does not share this opinion.
When the arguments from the Labour side are so unconvincing road operators must continue to press for some better explanation for even the vague threats which are preventing them from carrying out their own plans.