The Haulier Clapped in Irons
Page 25
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
WHO could have foreseen, when the licensing system was introduced, that A licence operators would eventually become restricted as to routes in the same manner as B licensees? Yet that is the position in which the hapless haulier finds himself. When applying for the renewal of his licence, he must—if, during the previous currency period, he has branched out into a new sphere of activity or extended an existing interest—prove up to the hilt the need for his services. He has thus no greater security or hopes of success than has a newcomer to the industry.
Who will deny that that is iniquitous treatment to mete out to a man who has sunk capital in a business and is fulfilling a public requirement? The object of this crushing policy is to co-ordinate transport in the public interest. The effect is to cause wastage of capital, insecurity and stagna tion of enterprise—certainly not in the public•interest.
What incentive is there for the efficient haulier to strive to develop new markets for his services and diminish the vast pool of unemployment? He knows that his efforts may be brought to nought when the renewal of his licence becomes due. He knows that he may be forced to dispose of some of his vehicles and dismiss some of his drivers if he cannot quibble so cleverly in the traffic court as can the railways.
What better example could be found of the penalizing of an enterprising haulier than the Aberdeen fishtransport case? In that instance the applicant, who is held to have changed the nature of certain businesses which he has purchased, has been refused permission to operate 16 vehicles which he has acquired since his• original licence was granted. His crime? just this—he has built up a lucrative business, at economic rates, which is the envy of the railways. Public opinion, if it counts for anything, is on the side of the road operator ; but the railways have power and money. Will the Appeal Tribunal decide that the protection of railway interests is more important than the rendering of efficient service to the Aberdeen fish industry and, indirectly, to thousands of consumers in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, London and elsewhere?
That is a question the answer to• which the industry anxiously awaits. If the decision goes against the haulier, all the resources of Parliamentary influence must be used to shape the law into a form that will permit the unhampered expansion of legitimate trade for the good of the general public.