Double Vision
Page 46
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
NO serious opposition is likely to be". made to the proposal from the honorary officers of the constituent bodies that the National Road Transport Federation should be dissolved. The correet procedure will have to be followed, including confirmation by the Council of the Federation next month. As the Council members are for the most part the honorary officers, disagreement can hardly be expected. At the most there could be adverse comment from some of the rank and file of the constituents.
Operators, especially those who remember the early days of the Federation, have the choice of two points of view. The official line in 1945, when the Federation was formed as a result of the merger of several road transport associations, was that the new central body. would at last provide a united voice for the whole industry. . Governments, political parties, the railways and other interests would have to listen to that voice. The divergent aims of hauliers, C licence holders and -passenger operators would gradually become reconciled as the advantage S of having a single organization Made themselves plain. Indeed, some of the merging associations catered for all three types of operator.
This variation in membership presented a problem to which the Federation was the only apparent solution. Completely separate associations from the beginning were feasible at• national level, but not in most of the areas, where the expenseof keeping Up three establishments would have presented a grave obstacle to the plans for a merger. Within the Federation, a single area office and a single area secretary could serve the needs Of the members of all the constituents. This procedure was adopted at the outset in nearly every area and in one or two cases has continued until the present daY., IF the formation of a federation were merely a question of expediency, its purpose wouldbe bound to disappear as circiunstances Changed. It Would be no more than a temporary device like the booster mechanism of a space satellite, designed to bi jettisoned as soon as the cargo it carried was safely in orbit. . There is no suggestion, or even hint, in the constitution of the Federation that it
not intended to last for ever. This does not mean that the idea • was absent from the minds of the founders, for it would hardly have been tactful of them to express it at the time.
Even in those now defunct associations that catered for all Operators there was growing dissatisfaction with their constitution.' Their community of interest had been closer when the road .transport industry was young and up to about 1930. -Licensing, first of passenger and then of goods Vehicle Operators, 'shifted the focus of attention. The decline inahe number of operators Carrying both passengers and goods is symbolic of • the division' that took place. Within the goods transport industry, almost as wide a fissure opened between the haulier (including the B licence holder) and the trader carrying his own goods.
Survivors of those days tell. Of the growing •difficulties experienced in the associations that still tried to be allembracing. Each of them had to have a separate establishment for each of the three main interests it served. General meetings became wearisome when for most of the time only one-third of the members present were actively interested in the subject under discussion. Points of dispute B28 tended to divide the association in accordance with the functions of its members. Those problems that could not be solved were tacitly ignored.
Many dissatisfied operators, therefore, must have welcomed the Federation as a means of keeping unwanted companions at a distance rather than as the triumphant unity of a great industry to which some of the less cynical of the founding fathers may have imagined their efforts were tending. If in those hopeful days at the end of the war there was a genuine apocalyptic vision, to most people it was at best a ease of double vision. They may have seen the Federation as an organic growth, but also as containing within itself the seeds of its own decay.
In the course of 18 years the edifice has encountered a number of shocks. As soon as it was formed, it had to cope with the new circumstances caused by the election of a Labour Government. Before long, there was the threat of nationalization, which soon became reality for some 3,000 members of the Road Haulage Association, whereas the members of the Traders Road Transport Association escaped scot-free, and the ambitious scheme for taking over passenger transport was diplomatically shelved. Then came the rapid increase in the number of vehicles on C licence, a rise that completely changed the balance between haulier and ancillary user.
When the constituents, and especially the professional carriers, had cause to be so preoccupied with their own affairs, it is not surpriSing that they neglected the Federation. Some of its functions fell into disuse, and its staff declined in number. Only during the first two or three years and for a few months at the end of its life has the Federation had a full-time official secretary. There can hardly be any surprise that, for most of the remainder of the time, it has made no great stir in the world, nor that so little fuss is being made about its dissolution.
Is there any significance in the fact that the end should have come now rather than at any other time? I am inclined to think that there is, especially on the goods side. The secession of the P.V.O.A. need cause no surprise. Whether or not it Was hoped that other passenger organizations would seek to join the Federation, the idea was not taken up. The organizations have joint Machinery of their own for dealing with common problems, and it seems logical, that the P.V.O.A.. should seek closer alignments there instead of maintaining a link with a completely different form of "road transport. • • There are also several bodies of traders that take a particular.interest in the running of vehicles by their members. There was never any .question that they would come into the Federation, since transport was not their sole concern. It is possible that the T.R.T.A. will tend to move closer to them now that the Pull of the Federation has ceased.' After 30 years' of licensing, traders with their "own transport no longer Think of themselves as a special class of haulier, as they may well have done in the early days of road transport.
The line of division seems more and more to lie between private and professional carriers. This has been strengthened by the drastic changes that are taking place on the railways. Dr. Beeching and Mr. Marples plainly see an affinity between the railways and hauliers. The farreaching consequences that may flow from this will obviously be facilitated by the absence of any ties such as that imposed by the Federation.