Political Commentary
Page 67
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Little Victim
By JANUS
Alas, regardless of their doom, The little victims play!.
No sense have they of Ws to come, Nor care .beyond today. •
WITH hardly a comment on the present hubbub about rates in the road haulage industry, the British Transport Commission are proceeding step by step with .their own charges scheine for railway merchandise. After a public inquiry extending'over 43 days, the Transport Tribunal have published their interim decision, approving the scheme subject to certain . amendments. Because of the delay, there is now no possibility that the scheme will be brought into force by January 1, 1957, as was originally hoped. It will be at least a year, before the railways have their new rates system and can bring it to bear upon their road competitors.
, While the railways are thus building up their armaments, • the deStined N'' icti Its are doing little • for their own protection. ; 'The more• farsighted among them, who for many years have been striving, to establish a coherent and intelligent policy on rates, may.just as well have been .weaving ropes of 'sand. The. flood. of new operators let loose by disposal and the abolition of the 25-mile limit have washedaway most of even those land
marks that formerly existed. .
Corresponding with the atomization of road haulage rates is the extraordinary diversity of the opinions expressed on the subject. People with similar interests contradict one another and at the same time their pronouncements take an unexpected form. According to the text-books, the trader who is the chief beneficiary from rate-cutting should nevertheless continue to protest that he has to pay too much for his transport. To admit that he is undercharged is as good as telling his to put their prices up. In spite of this, the opinion of most traders who care to express one is either that hauliers have clamoured for freedom for years and have now been given what they deserve, or that the prevalence of low rates is regrettable because it will soon lead to a loss of operating efficiency.
Bitter Terms If the state of affairs were normal, hantiers might be expected to say that their rates are cheap. It is not usual. for a:tradesman to boast about his high prices. Those hauliers who are prepared to talk, however, either say that they are satisfied with the rates they are getting and with the treatment they receive from clearing houses, or complain in bitter terms about the unscrupulous tactics of certain clearing houses and the cut-throat rates of lather operators. The clearing houses lately have had very little to say, and perhaps there is a lesson to be drawn from that.
Hauliers are not without plans for dealing with the t;ates problem. The Road Haulage Association• have always had a national rates committee, and there are innumerable committees, nationally and in the areas and sub-areas, for the negotiation and agreement of rates for particular traffics. Rates are among the main subjects to be tackled by the new national long-distance hauliers' committee, who now have their counterpart in most of the Association's areas. '
In spite of this old and new evidence of a concern
for stable and rational rate, the likelihood remains that after all very little will be done about it. One might go further and call upon all the modern techniques of education, public relations, industrial management and so on, and they would, one suspects,, have not the slightest .effect.
The industry is too diverse for the establishment of standard rates and practices. The problem is not merely that one man's return load, with the temptation it brings to offer a cut rate, is .another man's' bread and butter. NO two operators run their businesses on identical lines. What can be carried' cheaply by a. business geared to the traffic seems to be enjoying a cut rate from 'the point of view Of another less well-placed haulier. For .many small men with few connections clearing houses fulfil an operational need, whereas they are anathema,or nearly so, to many large Cmerators who have grown beyond the need and have in the process. had one or two unfortunate experiences.
Claksitig 'a Rainbow Asked the way to a. certain place, a countryman, after one. or two attempts at describing the somewhat complicated route, said, If I wanted• to get ta*i-and-so, I shouldn't. start Irons here."' , The reformers Who Want a logical rates structure in the road haulage industry are chasing a rainbow. To Make any progress, they watild have to begin by reforming the industry's' structure.
This is not a particularly original idea.. It has been , put forward from more than one quarter in the past, , although not usually with the primary intention of stabilizing rates. The suggestion that clearing houses should be licensed has had many supporters, and might have proceeded further had anybody. been able to give a-definition of a clearing house that did not include practically every operator who from time to time subcontracted traffic.
An even more drastic reform of the industry would be renationalization. This would certainly go a long way towards solving the rates problem,. even if it raised a number of other problems of a .somewhat different kind. Some hauliers think that -if. there Were an all-round reduction of 10 per ceno:, in-rates it would be a powerful argument for the opponents of free enterprise, in favour of renationalizatien. No better example of the present confuSed. thinking 'on r rates. can be found than this genuine apprehension that the State will take over the road haulage industry because it does not charge the public enough..
If there were statutory rates as well as statutory wages; if 'the observance of fixed rates were made' the condition of hauliers' licences; if :-traders . were not allowed to put their own vehicles on the road.M.Order to reduce rates—then some progress might be made in building the .ideal rates structure: These conditions
'are scarcely likely to be fulfilled. . . •
Would a particularly strong', challenge from the Commission frighten hauliers into a common policy .on rates? It is unlikely. Some hauliers would fight ,back by prOviding a superior service; others •would give, in at once and cut their rates :more fiercely than ever. Some would hardly be affected; others have always worked -in close collaboration with the railways. Even when their doom is close upon then, the little Victims may refuse to do what is necessary to avoid it. .