JANUS
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WRITES
Institutions have a habit outliving their inspiration'
APART from comments in the technical journals, scarcely a ripple has marked the disappearance on May 1 of the National Road Transport Federation, after some 18 years. In a way, this is even more remarkable than the dissolution itself. At first glance it seems natural, if not inevitable, that road transport operators would wish to link themselves together for common action over a wide field. This is certainly how the situation presented itself to the leaders of the industry during the late 'twenties and early 'thirties. Most of the associations then set up catered for all goods operators, and in some cases for passenger vehicle operators as well.
In retrospect the reasons are clear. Commercial vehicle users had a common enemy in the railways, who were trying with all the considerable influence at their command to have restrictions and handicaps imposed upon their "upstart" competitors. There was no licensing system creating artificial barriers between the various types of operator, as is the case today. The urgent need was for unity among the road transport companies, growing more numerous each day but largely unrepresented in the seats of power.
What has happened since 1930 to change the situation? The effect of the licensing legislation has been important. It divided goods carriers into two broad groups and set the passenger vehicle operators completely apart. After the war, the threat of nationalization drew the industry together again for common protection; but once again the treatment meted out to each of the three categories was different, and each found it more convenient to fight by itself or seek other allies. In the meantime (in 1945) the federation had been formed and launched. In the atmosphere of mutual congratulation surrounding its early years, the tendency was to take, its functions for granted and not to inquire 'too closely into their importance.
Institutions have a habit of outliving their inspiration. The original impetus towards unity had largely died away before 'the Federation was born. There was general awareness of the fact that the empire of the railways was crumbling. The main purpose in getting together had changed. The urgent need now was to make the public and the Government realize that they were now living in a road transport economy and that they had to accept the consequences. An adequate road system must be provided quickly and forward planning of towns and other communities must be in a direction where full use could be made of the many advantages that road transport could give.
From the viewpoint of today, a federation of road operators might have seemed the organization ideally suited to the new task. Attacks by pressure groups have not been taken seriously, especially when the group (while obviously seeking the interests of its own members) has an aim that is simultaneously for the benefit of the community. Road operators, and everybody else as well, would gain from a more up-to-date approach to transport questions. The Federation did not neglect this aspect of its work. It collected information from its members, submitted proposals
r t 0 to the authorities, kept in touch with interested politicians, took a keen interest in vehicle matters, and in other ways behaved as a typical pressure group.
More was required, however. The inculcation of a proper attitude towards roads called for a crusade. The constituent bodies making up the Federation had other problems on their hands. In general, they saw that the crusade would be to their advantage, but from a purely selfish point of view the individual operator was not convinced that his personal gain would be commensurate with what he would be required to contribute.
STILL .FLOURISHING
Moreover, there was already in existence the British Road Federation, and it is instructive to understand why this body has flourished while the N.R.T.F. has given up the ghost. Road operators are members of the B.R.F., but it also has representatives of other road users, of the manufacturers of the vehicles, of the suppliers of the fuel they use, and of the makers of roads and road materials. Most of these interests can see an immediate advantage in better roads and in getting together to promote their construction. They constitute an ideal pressure group, with a worthwhile object that will also help them in their own activities.
An idealist might disagree. The critics who call the B.R.F. a pressure group invoke all the pejorative associations conjured up by the description. If they have a bias towards the railways, they are fortified in their criticism by the impossibility of envisaging a parallel body dedicated to rail instead of to road_ Such an organization would have' to include the producers of the rails and other equipment, the locomotive manufacturers, the National Coal Board, the railways themselves and various bodies representing road users.
A weakness would be the inability to produce a constructive policy, and in particular to propose seriously an expansion of the railways. As in the case of the National Council on Inland Transport, the hypothetical organization would be constrained to declare again and again that it had at heart the true interests of transport as a whole and that, through integration or divination or whatever process it might adopt, it was seeking a more rational distribution of traffic among the various forms of transport. The fact that the solution so persistently involved a transfer from road to rail would be considered as no more than a coincidence.
At least the railways can speak with a single voice. In the drive for better roads, the situation is more confused. The categories of road user are at times even in conflict with each other. Vehicle manufacturers and road builders approach the subject from almost opposite points of view, and would have very little contact but for the accident that one of them makes the surface on which the products of the other move. What binds these disparate interests together is the crying public need for more and better roads. The B.R.F. is performing an indispensable service to the community.