SABBATARIAN
Page 46
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To Banbury came I. 0 profane one! Where I saw a Purim:re-one Hanging of his cat on Monday, For killing of a mouse-on Sunday.
WITH the growing interest in what is happening in other countries, and especially in Europe, the last may not have been heard of the proposal that lorries, or at any rate heavy lorries, should be banned from the roads on Sundays. The idea has -already been given an airing in Parliament, and as recently at last summer it was the subject of a question to the Minister of Transport, Mr. Ernest Marples, in the House of Commons. For the record, It May be noted that he turned the idea down completely, adding the comment that it would have a serious effect on supplies.
This does not mean that the proposal will not come forward again. Exactly what organizations or individuals are backing it may not be as evident as one would like. It approaches the delicate problem of what should or should not be done on Sundays from almost precisely the opposite point of view to that of the majority of the sabbatarian sects.
Only the very extreme school of thought is in favour of prohibiting all Sunday activities indiscriminately. Its disciples would not merely close public houses, theatres and cinemas. They would also, for example, stop railway and bus services and close garages and restaurants, as well as newspaper offices—although it is true that most of the work on Sunday papers is done on Saturdays. Even here, however, the intention is certainly not to stop people working in order that other people may have more opportunity to enjoy themselves.
IN this respect, the proposal concerning heavy lorries may be regarded as unique. Its deliberate purpose is to give the motorist unrestricted use of the roads on Sundays, when he is using them almost entirely for pleasure. The lorry driver is not being treated as just another Sunday worker who ought to be saved from himself or from his employer. The people who take this attitude would probably like to be equally forbidding towards the motorist. His presence on the roads is resented because it interferes with the holiday spirit!
The principle ought to be followed farther. There are many activities that we count as pleasure and that are interfered with because of the insistence by other people that they should continue working throughout the weekend. The quiet enjoyment of a Sunday newspaper—which, as I have already been careful to point out, is mostly produced on Saturday—may easily be disturbed, if not ruined, by the noises from a neighbour's radio or by the resounding tinkle of an itinerant ice-cream vendor. The logical consequence might be a ban on bells and broadcasts alike.
There is another unusual feature about the attack on the Sunday lorry—and this will explain my opening reference to Europe. Among the British the Continental Sunday is celebrated or notorious for its comparative freedom. It comes as a surprise to learn that in some European countries, including Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Western Germany, there are already bans on heavy lorry traffic on Sunday, and in Austria the prohibition extends to Saturday afternoons. Like tha fox in the fable who had lost his tail, some of the afflicted operators, or at any rate the Governments representing them, would like general bans.
c14 British operators as well as their contemporaries should have no difficulty in making out a strong case for leaving things as they are. None of them sends a vehicle out on Sunday unless it is essential. There is the strongest possible inducement not to do so in the statutory requirement to pay double wages for the work and to make up the pay even when the actual time spent working may have been very little. In spite of the extra money he receives, the driver is not generally anxious to work on Sunday. He prefers to spend the day in what he. regards as the traditional way, and would not therefore demand to be sent out on a vehicle when it was not clearly necessary.
Instances where the work is necessary include milk collection and possibly also the distribution of newspapers. There will always be the occasion when a factory or a ship is held up for lack of -a vital part that can be supplied only by road. If the journey cannot be undertaken over the week-end, there may be a substantial loss in production during the following week or a serious delay in a sailing.
MANY long-distance operators work out a plan that includes Sunday because by this means an extra trip is possible each week. The driver returns to his base on Sunday. If he were not allowed to work that day, he would either have to be brought home by some other means or (probably more likely) would have to stay near his vehicle on both the Saturday and the Sunday night, so that he could make the return journey on Monday. Such an arrangement would please neither the driver _nor his employer.
It might please the customer even less. He ought -to appreciate to the full Sunday travel by the vehicles of hauliers, for it means that, wherever the goods originate, he can have them delivered to his premises first thing on Monday morning. He does not have to keep stocks unnecessarily over the week-end. • The advantage is becoming all the greater with the trend towards the five-day week throughout industry, and with the consequent growing difficulty of getting goods into a factory if they arrive later than the middle of Fridayiafternoon.
In fact, the shrinkage of the working week is one of the points made by hauliers in their request for a quicker turnround of their vehicles. Sunday prohibition would aggravate this part of their problem. It would reduce, if only to a small extent, the number of deliveries that could be made on Mondays, and would in this way make the effective week even shorter than it is likely to become. If the trader or manufacturer wishes to begin his own week promptly on Monday, the services on which he depends must begin their own week earlier, which usually means on Sunday.
The haulier ought to have a seven-day week at his disposal, even if in practice he does not use the whole of it. To the extent that he is forbidden to work on Sundays, the operator must concentrate his activities within the remaining six days. This must increase congestion during the week, and it probably also means that the haulier will need more vehicles if he is to do the same volume of work in a shorter period.
In view of the many difficulties that would follow the embargo on Sunday road goods transport, it would be better, before the matter was even considered, to analyse the real inconvenience to other road users caused by the comparatively small number of lorries that are seen actually travelling on Sundays.