FURTHER RAILWAY ATTACKS
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A BOUT 400 persons attended the Plannual dinner of the Road Haulage Association (Northern Regional Area), at Newcastle-on-Tyne, on Saturday last, Mr. W. W. Walton, chairman of the branch, presided and those present included Sir John Maxwell (Northern Licensing Authority), Messrs. R. W. Sewill, M.A. (chairman, R.H.A.), W. Donaldson Wright (vice-chairman, R.H.A.), A. Todd (area representative on the National Council), J. J. Berry (chairman, Northern Road Transport Owners Association), and A. D. Currie (chairman, Northern Area Conciliation Board).
Mr. Hartley Wilkinson, a well-known Sunderland haulage contractor and a member of the Northern Committee of the 11,11.A., said that he could not understand why hauliers had to guarantee certain wages, hours and conchbons of labour, whilst a C-licence holder could employ youths as drivers and pay them any wage he liked.
Sir John Maxwell declared the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, to be the "hauliers' charter." Since it came into operation he had dealt with 9,000 licences and there had been three appeals, all of which had come from the London and North Eastern Railway Co.
Mr. Roland Jennings, M.P., mentioned that —there were about 3,000 hauliers in the Northern Area, hut only 1,000 were members of the Association, although no haulier could afford to ignore it.
An attack on Sir Josiah Stamp for his alleged grossly unfair statements regarding the road-transport industry was launched by Mr. Sewila who remarked that at a recent meeting of a railway company, Sir Josiah had said that oilers were not paying their fair contribution towards the cost of the roads. Referring to the railways' flatrate system. Mr. Sewill said its purpose was to drive operators off the road, and the Government should not tolerate it. Within the next few weeks, he continued, the completion of the amalgamation of the R.H.A. and the Commercial Motor Users Association was expected.