What is the Future of Road Transport ?
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An Interesting and Considered Criticism of the Booklet Recently Issued by Mr. R. W. Sewill in Which He Deals With the Future of Road Transport and Possible Developments in Road Haulage
By 'J. A. Dunnage,
A.M.Inst.T. (formerly National SeeretarY, Industrial Transport As:ociation)
1-1E timeliness at Mr, R, W. Sewill's circulated sugT,
gestions is undoubted, and his booklet, '' The Future • of Transport, Possible Developments. in Road Hau:age," is certainly an accomplished literary production. . Yet one. earnestly hopes it will not be widely accepted as an authoritative and impartial statement of recent transport history in Britain. Since his final proposals spring from his outline of what has gone before,' the matters as to which his historical statements are not quite accurate have some importance.
To assess the probably inner thoughts of those now prominent with ideas as to what road goods transport should do, or what should be done to it, we might do worse than look back .at the history of the Long Distance Road. Haulage Committee and the Road Haulage Association. out of which, grew A.R.O. We might note who then were busiest in seeking for some control of the industry by way of an official system of licences, and who opposed such control. We can then turn to Mr. Sewill's booklet, note his evident acceptance and reasonable satisfaction at such a control, and note his feeling (see p. 0) that the slight increase, before the war, in the number of vehicles operating on C licences and the slight drop in the number with A and B licences was " somewhat alarming " from the
viewpoint of the public carrier. .
Comparing September .30, 1935, with June 30, 1938, he finds an increase of 61,000, or about 20 per cent., in the number of lorries owned by C licensees, and this he considers " somewhat alarming," Yet over the same period our exports and imports had both risen, rates of wages had risen, retail sales had risen—all roughly around 10 per cent.—and the number of persons in insured employment had increased by a million and a half, or 14 per cent. These facts amply explain the increase in the total number of vehicles on the road.
Why Haulage Fleet Was Reduced.
It is not for me to explain the small drop in the numbers of A and B licence holders and vehicles, but quite probably. (a) merger and absorption, and (h) replacement of lighter by .heavier vehicles as good modern oilers became available, had much to do with it. Anyhow, it is fashionable to talk of " removal of redundant or wasteful competition " (which means' that put up against you by the other man) as an avowed object of Government control by licensing mathinery.
Those who wanted that control can hardly now squeal if it worked out as might have been supposed. Yet do not forget that the 1935 figures of road hauliers' vehicles were higher than on " natural " grounds they would have been, for .an official S.M.M.T. publication tells us " probably due to the threat of restriction the 1934 sales of goods vehicles showed the phenomenal increase of 34 per cent. over 1932." It would be a lowly rating of the haulage contractor's intelligence not to be' sure he igured largely in this spate of "forestalling " purchases.
In 'any. comparisons of the road-transport situation since the 1933 Act these facts should be remembered, as undoubtedly they are remembered by civil servants called upon to prepare memoranda for Ministers, Small blame to Mr. Sewill for developing such arguments as seem to suit his present case, but "however we may try to deceive others; let us not cleceiye ourselves_ with arguments that
have-so 'doubtful a basis.. . -.
A trifling point,' some may feel. Yet not so trifling if it helps to represent the road-transport industry as a body of persons hard clone by, instead of as one which has been
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sadly misled by many of those it has permitted -to direct it in the 'past. Ten years ago the industry virtually asked for control and it accepted, virtually without a murmur, the control which Parliament planned for it. Road transport's quarrel with the -railways in their astute use of the Courts, placecl so handily at their disposal, is a,nothe matter altogether.
Many Prefer 1,0 be Their Own Masters
May I next underline one of Mr. Sewill's own points? He says 9n page 7: " The road haulier prefers to operate a small organization as his OWD master rather than accept offers, sometimes tempting, to become part of a very much larger grod.p, and thereby lose much of his independence."
Many do, and all honour to them. Many traders are glad that is so, and are disturbed at any threat to the continued freedom of the small man, who often renders industry such energetic and personally interested service.
But next we are told that " competition between road and rail had increased the efficiency of both services, so that the trader could count on prompt delivery and was no longer forced to maintain large stocks," and then a bit later: " The same competition, from which the trader Was undoubtedly reaping the benefit was,however, reducing rates to such a, level that, in the long run, efficiency was likely to be impaired. It was this situation which led to the Square Deal campaign at the railway companies in 1938."
Putting these three quotations together, something emerges which is not pleasant reading for the small man who we are truly told, " prefers to operate a small organization as his own master,– Unless that small man rears up very forcibly he may not much longer be able to operate as he wants, and my doubt is whether the proposals of Mr. Sewill would safeguard his independence any' better than those of, say, Herbert Morrison or those assumed to be cooking up in the Ministry. .
Let us keep examining those three quoted sentences, for they have a peculiar importance. There is something radically wrong with them. Although to generalize has dangers, I will venture some way. First: So long as the railways are quite unable to furnish an accurate costing of any single truck-load movement, or even any train movement, who is to say at what point competition becomes uneconomic?
Secondly: While road-vehicle design, fuel usage, and general operational efficiency are still capable -of vastly greater sheer progress, and while the outgoings of road transport concerns are weighted down by a savage penal tax which now far exceeds what is called for to maintain its proper share of our public road costs, where is the sense of efforts to solidify, much less to peg upwards, roadtransport charges? Thirdly: If there were any weight in the idea that transport rates offered by the carrier to the trader had reached any generally uneconomic level—that implying very low prices—would not one expect to find a fairly wholesale voluntary surrender of C licences and a handing over of blocks of traffic to the bargain-offering hauliers? The statistics Mr. Sewill uses do not show that this was
happeaing. .
The Root of the Matter?
No, I do suggest we try to shut our ears to propagandist Phrases and tendencious arguments, so that we can think
clearly. . .
Is not tloa projected road-rail agreement on
rates chiefly
for the protection of those blocks of cal:afar which are interested in both• services? Does not the " drive " and the public argument in that sense come mainly •from the people who see their own business futures linked with those particular interests? Are the small men in the road transport industry really enthusiastic about being tied up in those matters, and losing an important part of their. freedom of action? I doubt it.
Some Simple Basic Truths Incidentally, before even the .exponents of rates agree-, ments get too enthusiastic about. them, they might do worse than study American railroad history, and the early P.L.A.and-whatfinger rates history over here, to "note how persons who have reluctantly signed a rates agreement with their confreres and want to evade it for the ,benefit of particular customers, find the task not beyond their wit. Although I am at one with Mr. Sewill in wanting ro see a strong and successful road transport industry as an inherent part of our industrial make-up after the war, I
also want to see it adaptable, mobile, pr-ogressive, inven
tive, enterprising , . and I doubt whether those qualities would .have, much scope under such a scheme as Mr. Sewill suggests. •We both agree that " individual enterprise Must be "retained " and that " nationalization of all forms of transport a . . is not a practical proposition "--at this stage, anyhow. With the reasoning that leads film to that second conclusion I also agree, i.e., the difficulty of bargaining with 60,000 haulage concerns to buy their businesses, But he overlooks, I feel, the real factors that make these varioos means for transport so dissimilar, and so make it unsound to suppose that a uniform solution of the problems of each must be sought—or even might well be sought.
Railway and canal transport need the sole use of given strips of land before they can exist.' Air transport needs no track, but needs landing grounds that can :he privately
or publicly—or even 'internationallyowned. Shipping needs no monopoly use of a track; but wants specialized, and perhaps exclusive, terminal facilities. Passenger road transport may, er may not, needspecial track • facilities: although even when it has them' it does not monopolize them. Goods road transport needs no monopoly, not, any specialized track.
These simple truths are basic to -the whole problem of' transport's future, and if we let them be obscured for the sake of any selfish financial groups, and succumb to propaganda 'that enforces any uniform and .all-gripping centralized control of every type of transport service when peace is regained, we shall not be planning so that each shall give its inherently best service to the comthunity, but rather bolstering up the inefficient andT outmoded at
the expense of the efficient and modem.
Why Must We Have Uniform Charges It seems to run through Mr. Sewill's argument that a uniform system of, charging is, for some all-impelling reason, needed. Why? A uniformcharge for loaves of bread of a standard weight and standard chemical composition is one thing, but a uniform . basis of charging for goods road transport, when we recall the diversity of loads in kind and weight, diversity of vehicles in capacity, age, and pefforrnance, diversity of destinations, and so forth: does not, in my opinion, make sense. Indeed, the road man's present system of charging according to cost of service (which, in small units, he can assess with reasonable accuracy) is at least no. less scientific than the railways' empirical plan of charging " what the traffic will bear," conceding what they must off their standard rates when trade is bad, and sticking toughly to their on terms when trade is good.
Mr. Sewill observes, seemingly with approval, the-present tendency of hauliers to form groups among themselves', but mourns, that such grouping will not provide units large enoughto enable a.. uniform system of charging to be enforced; so that " some overriding authority would still be necessary." Again 'I ask, why? Why this passion for centralized control of anything and everything? When a thing is, or is in danger of .becoming, a monopoly, and when it is something each citizen is alrnost obliged to have,, yes! Control is in the -Nation's interest if it will nut conduct itself other than anti-socially without control, but
one would require a lot more proof than has yet been .offered that such is the sad case of any great number of the road haulier small men.
, No. Those who shout that road transport to-day must have some overriding authority to govern its every action are either (a) letting theory run away with them, and falling victim to parrot cries, or (b) are trying to persuade ainoffendina, "trustful, decent-minded small hauliers that they cannot manage their own affairs but need to have, and to subscribe to the maintenance of, Some overriding authority or leader unfortunate word) to keep them out of Mischief. The -schoolboy who does not like this idea usually has .to give in to superior force, but the adult need not yet do -so, at least, not in Britain.
Mr. Sewill Quotes a Doubtful Analogy
Mr. Selaill mentions, as a possible analogy, the -Milk Marketing Board, but goes on to show the slight value of his analogy by reminding us that it deals "with only one commodity.He might have added that broad problems like the allocation of supplies between richer and poorer direct consumers of liquid milk, for processing into dairy products for deferred consumption, for use in quite other manufacturing industries, etc., were strong reasons why some central planning was here desirable; further, that the average farmer was far more interested and capable as a grower than as a marketer. He could also have added that co-operative marketing. of farm products (with but
a minimum' of central supervision' as to grades, etc.), as distinct from full control by a central board, had proved very successful in "many countries, and could have done here if the farmers' "general bent had turned them that way.' So on the whole his " milk " analogy doesn't take Mr. Sewill far.
. We then get to the real kernel, the creation of a Road Haulage Board or an amalgamation Of all existing hauliers' associations to form a body which all hauliers would be force a to join—and then obey. Wisely, he says little yet of what penalty should fall on a haulier who, after joining under force, did not in some detail obey. But he does say enough to show that this is the negation of the freedom for which we' suppose ourselves to he fighting. Shades of the Melchett plan, the " Industries (Enabling) Bill," which• did not get much sympathy when first introduced but is, still lurking about in the pigeonholes, and was not a bad model for war-time controls. The Corporate State (which has now fallen down in Italy) to be set up by stages at home! And not differing all that from Belloc's " Servile State."
' A Kind Thought for the Trader
On page 15 Mr. Sewill tells us that " the "Trader will Benefit,"_ but, the main advantage seems to be that instead of a traffic manager settling a question of rates in 10 minutes'. chat with hi a friend the 'haulier, he will have
" right of appeal to the Road and Railway Rates Tribunal " or to a Liaison Committee of Road Hauliers.
Again a flinging away of one of road transport's advantages, and a parallel sought with rail where there need be none. The sittings of the Railway RatesTribunal were of benefit to ,the paper maker, • printer, and technical journalist, and provided many interesting weeks away from the office desk for sundry traffic men, as well ash-enitmerative briefs for learned counsel, but to British industry as a whole the results, after 1928, were dubious: so that the chariii of Mr. Sewill's suggestion will appeal even less to your many industrial readers than, perhaps, it does to myself,
I do suggest, in conclusion, to the small men in road transport that they should keep their wits about them, pierce below the surface of the stream of interested propaganda now issuing forth to tell them how they can most conveniently submitthemselves to be ham-strung, and insist that A.R.O., the machinery of which circulated this pamphlet (although insisting that it took no responsibility for the contents), shall be controlled and directed from the _rants to work out a policy which shall safeguard the right of each small man to conduct his business as may seem best to him, so long only as he obeys the common law of his cduntry and obeys the obligations that fall to him as a decent oitizen,