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GRAVEN IMAGE
Page 75
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ONE operator talking about another wham he knew well and liked said that in spite of this his friend was not the kind of man one expected to find in road transport. The remark was interesting because of the underlying assumption that there was a road transport type to which the majority of operators conformed. It seemed the logical next step to endeavour to fix the type by listing its characteristics.
The process was not as simple as it may have seemed. On further questioning, my acquaintance made it plain that he had some difficulty in pinning down, or at least in putting the right name to, the various attributes he thought proper to a haulier. On the other hand, he was able to describe more clearly the qualities he considered unlikely. if not incompatible. To his mind his friend was more cut out to be a professional man, or even to be "on the railways." At any moment there might have come the deprecating comment that he was a shade too respectable for his present vocation.
The point may be taken without causing offence when it is remembered how often there is confusion between what a man is really like, and what other people think he is or ought to be. The popular idea of the haulier, made up of impressions gathered at various times over the past 30 years or more, certainly represents him as ever so slightly comic. He has not the stolid background provided by some other professions and trades. He has to make a small but decided effort to keep his dignity, to stop himself from becoming a figure of fun.
IT is this point that the Labour Party seize upon. They have no interest in preserving the amour propre of the haulier, in being particularly tender towards his feelings. This may be a deplorable attitude on their part, if one comes to think of it, but it is one with which the haulier has had to reckon for some time. The Socialists, or some of them, take every opportunity they can to put him in the position of the clown. They belabour him with dummy weapons, ridicule him when it seems appropriate, and on Other occasions point him out as a bogyman.
The fact that they have no use for him is not the only reason for their conduct. There are other people in the same boat, but the Socialists do not treat them in the same way. To paint red noses on the remote and austere steelmasters would be doing too great a violence to a popular conception. Although the determination to take over the iron and steel industry remain fixed, it is expressed quietly, or at any rate with a straight face. Only when they are dealing with the haulier do the Labour Party forget their corn posure.
The popular view, of which the Socialist version is perhaps a malicious distortion, represents the haulier as bluff and practical, more at home in coping with circumstances than in intellectual pursuits, more interested in people than in ideas. This is a character of which to be proud rather than ashamed. It is still largely authentic, but there is no doubt that it was built up during the early battles over nationalization, when it was important for the haulier to let the public know what kind of man he was and to persuade them that he was worth preserving.
At that time the men who started in business after the 1914-18 war were still predominant and could not help projecting their own image. There was much talk about pioneers and about the immense park of surplus Army vehicles waiting at Slough for the touch of the wand that would transform them into the road haulage industry. It was inevitable that the popular view saw behind the haulier the figure of Bruce Bairnsfather's Old Bill.
The hallucination may have lingered on although there is now a new generation.
CERTAINLY many hauliers themselves have no time for the popular conception, and do not feel that they fit into it. They would be pleased to hear no more about the rough pioneers. They have a respected place in their social and industrial community and would like to feel that the industry in which they serve has a similar status. They may be unduly sensitive on this point. The popular image of the haulier is after all no more than a pictorial reconstruction of the abstract qualities—virtues rather than vices—with which he is credited. He does not really have to look like that, or to act 1;ke that, so long as he remains in character. And so long as he does this he need have no fear of losing public support.
An attempt to change the picture might have the wrong effect. It may be by an odd stroke of irony, or by popular instinct, that the haulier. who has stood for so many years in the shadow of nationalization, is cast by the public to play the role of the extreme practitioner of private enterprise. Whatever his politics may be, he is imagined as far out on the right Conservative wing. He remains at the same time a paragon of efficiency and even his enemies seldom care to argue on this point.
For this reason alone, it must seem strange from an impartial point of view that the Socialists are so determined on replacing his image by one that the public regard as at the opposite pole— that of a bureaucrat running a State corporation. The Labour Party must themselves see the danger. Public opinion.is not something that can safely be ignored indefinitely and continuously. It was confused at the time of nationalization by the fact that the railways and several other transport interests as well as road haulage were scheduled to be taken over. The public regarded the railways as well on the way to becoming a State corporation in any event, and perhaps mistakenly they considered road haulage as a relatively small item in an extremely large package deal.
The fairly widespread doubts that nevertheless existed were confounded in the general issue of the ownership of transport as a whole.
IF nationalization were actively pursued again with the return of a Labour Government, it would be confined almost entirely to road hiulage., unless, the Socialists decided simultaneously to try taking over some of the road passenger interests, which would cause them just as much trouble. The issue would be clear, and so would public opinion, with the picture before it of an efficient industry being deprived of the. very qualities that in the popular belief have made it efficient.
The protests of the hauliers. not altogether unheeded on the last occasion, could be decisive if there were ever a repeat performance. In view of this, the established road haulage character, whatever defects some hauliers may see in it, should not be allowed to lapse until they are sure that what is put in its place can be equally effective in attracting public support and sympathy.