ABSTRACT
A transport operation covering the same distance with an identical lorry would cost less in Sicily than in Belgium. If transport based on low costs of labour passed a frontier and entered a country with comparatively high costs of labour, the structure of costs of the “cheap labour” was carried into that of the “expensive” labour. An equalization could only be achieved by a correspondingly more rapid development of productivity of the railways which may hardly be expected despite the congested roads which impede the development of road transport to an ever-increasing extent. If one assumed, however, that the efficiency of vehicles of equal standard was everywhere the same and that the drivers met identical requirements, the nominal wage and the costs of the working conditions would acquire an increased importance. Consequently special problems of wage policy would arise within the transport industry.
