Improving the Prospects for Beet Haulage
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TT is common knowledge that we have taken a !considerable interest in the subject of the haulage of sugar beet. Our costs expert. S.T.R., has for many years kept in close touch with this activity and numerous articles by him have described the conditions under which this branch of road transport is conducted, and pointed out ways in which those conditions might be improved. At the same time they have emphasized that adverse conditions are in themselves justification for obtaining rates which might. without appreciation of the existence of those conditions, seem high in relation to the tonnage conveyed and the distance over which it is hauled.
S.T.R. has never attempted to conceal the fact that, in his opinion, much of the congestion at factory yards has been due to lack of organization amongst hauliers themselves. Some of it has always been the result of poor loading facilities within the yards, but absence of co-operation amongst hauliers has always been an important factor. Time and again he has called for some measure of co-operation, or some pre-campaign meeting of all hauliers engaged in sugar-beet transport, so that they can get together, make known to one another the contracts they have secured and come to some arrangement whereby deliveries to the factories are made evenly throughout the campaign and not in the sporadic manner which persists even to-day, notwithstanding the amelioration of those conditions brought about by the institution of the permit scheme.
It is of interest to note that, at long last, some notice is being taken of these exhortations. In Shropshire it has been agreed that arropen meeting shall be called, with a view to all sugar-beet hauliers getting together and planning their work in connection with next season's campaign. It will be as though they were all members of one concern, conveying material from a wide area to a central point and doing the work in such a manner _that there will be a minimum of interference and congestion, with their consequent delays.