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Andy, this time you signed up to your sinister trait, but please, I'll continue explaining to Howard the point of my proposal. However, let me explain, that in my published letter on the Dover Mercury, and in my representation to the Secretary of State for Transport of February, to which I received a nice reply from the Gov. office, I did not mention anything about restoring churches, so you have charged you cavalry too soon, Andy, and you ought to know that without infantry support, cavalry doesn't stand much chance against concentrated fire.
Anyway, Howard. The continuation of the idea is as follows. A lorry pays on a few hundred miles of motorway in Europe a lot, lot more than fifty pounds. Also a car pays much more than five pounds. Also, a lorry transitting through an Alpine tunnel pays much more than fifty pounds, and a car so much more than five pounds. You can check out on internet if you wish, as to what tolls cost, or I might do it myself one day and let you know. So, the idea of imposing 50 pounds and 5 pounds is in no way out of the blue or too much.
It would correspond only partly to European toll-reality.
That 5 pounds will not send any car owner bankrupt I believe we all agree on. That 50 pounds will not send a haullier bankrupt is also no over-statement, as the transport firm can add 50 pounds to the invoice which the importer must pay to the transport firm, and importers of factory equipment or of fruit and veg can definitely afford to pay the extra 50 pounds, so it won't be ultimately at the expense of the haullier.
So, as a heavy goods vehicle carries on average, I do say on average, as the weight does vary, 20.000 kilogrammes of freight, this fifty pounds per truck would add up to quarter of a pence per kilogramme of product, a figure too fractional to even effect the retail price of the transported product, hence it would not damage in any way the economy.
I'll let you consider this, after which I'll return before long with the final phase of the consideration. Please let me know if you believe I am wrong so far, and if so, why the Europeans impose tolls, without being wrong, but at a much higher rate that I am proposing for port-service tolls.