The Editor's "I."
Page 2
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For the Brussels Congress.
I was rather upset, early last week, when the proof of my paper for the Second International Road Congress came hand It arrived, from Paris, printed only irs French, and the title is : " Conditions d'exploitation des transports en commnn par voie de terre et par vehicules aulres que les tramways—avantages, iriconvenients, capacites, prix de revient, etc." I ant busy with it there are 12 pages, three tables and a curve. My linguistic freedom was much-more spontaneous 15 years ago, when I had charge, for three weeks, of a French engineer whose firm had purchased the rights for :a certain plant and process. Again, in 1897, when T went to Paris to report on the first, " Poids ',rends " and the Serpollet steam tramcars, I was comfortably able personally to conduct a party of far-seeking Englishmen round the sights." Now, through lack of occasion to use the language. it is a struggle to get on with it as I should like. My principal assistants go to Paris, Berlin, or elsewhere on the Continent, nowadays. I shall, however, have to go to Brussels in July.
A Motorist-Politician-Soldier.
The Earl of Derby, G.C.V.O., P.C., as Lord Stanley, was Postmaster-General when the first motor-mail contract was signed. That was for the service between Liverpool and Manchester, in the year 1901, and shortly after his return, with Lord Roberts, from South Africa. Not many months later, the then Lord Stanley, as Financial Secretary at the War Office, was chairman of a special committee which Viscount Midieton (then Mr. St. John Brodrick) appointed to consider, at the instance of the Read Carrying Co., Ltd., the earliest proposals for the registration and subvention of commercial motors. I drew up the suggestions, and was one of
-three to submit them. They were " pigeon-holed on the plea that too much money was asked. Lord Derby, as a supporter of motoring generally, is worthily following the example of his late father, who became president of the Liverpool Self-propelled Traffic Association in 1896 and took an active part in that body's work until his death last year. When the next Unionist Government is returned to power. I expect to see Lord Derby in high office, and there is no question that his deep interest in Home Defence will enable him to appreciate the danger of the many weak highway bridges to which this journal has strenuously directed attention.
Motor-borne Advertisements,
There was a day wht.n breeers did not miverlise, and when one never saw the name of Allsopp, Bass, Guinness or Worthington anywhere but on a bottle-label. Everybody advertises nowadays, or, if in trade, should do so. I believe the Board of the 1,,C1.0.e. is being converted, and that I have had not a little to do with internal support, which the company's .secretary (Mr. John Christopher Mitchell. as all may read on thousands of bus-sides, be it known, in defence of Mr. Mitchell. because an exacting Commissioner of Police will not accept. initials) is now receiving. Who can gauge the -possible results? Why, the company, through its conductors, has easy and inexpensive means of access to the hands, not to mention the eyes and the pockets, of something like one million passengers per diem! I have been a consistent advocate of advertisement of another kind, though not oblivious to the exceptional value of the distribution facilities which are
at the free disposal—fur their own purposes, naturally—of London omnibus companies, and that is on motorvans.
It is, now, generally conceded and recognized that motorvans offer permanent scope for new publicity, and not a phase which will soon end. The ambulatory hoarding, whose positive cheapness per sq. ft. per annum I explained for the first time in No. 2 of Tie COMMERCIAL MOTOR, will go on like the brook of Tennyson's poem and of reality, for ever. I cannot imagine an advertiscrnentless world ; hence, the literal use of the daring words " for ever." Sky signs and aeroplanes will not displace road motors, in this regard ; one can be too high, too mach above the heads of those CO whom it is desired to appeal, sometimes. The bill-exposing aeroplane would be a case in point. Its rarity, for a year or two, may draw a few devotees—with the aid of the news columns of, for sake of example, " The Daily Mail." One must not, too soon, forget the exploitation, in quite a series of issues, of the obus, the shrapnel, the invader, and other odds and ends about or from that mysterious airship I Let me grant, unstintingly, the value of hypothesis, mystery, and a receptive public. There will, no doubt, he a short " run " on aeroplane publicity, but the time will come, and very soon too, when a return to terra firma, where one finds the common people— the consumers—be it also remarked, will be the vogue. During the air spell, the, steady-going trader, who primarily wishes to deliver goods to his customers punctually and to add to his address lists, will go on increasing his road-motor fleets. He has found that the advertisement value of the motorvan is even-more substantial and solid than that of the best-placed hoarding; he has realized, further, that the potential client can thus be converted to one in being. The idea that motor advertisement would quickly become too common to be a balancing factor against the cost account is exploded. It should never have raised its head. Just as fixed street-side advertisements, which occupy costly though small areas upon walls or other supports, are multiplying yearly, so are the more-attractive, more-seen, and more-paying announcements upon self-propelled lorries and vans. It is, indeed, a poorlyemployed vehicle which is worth less than £50 or £70 a year on this score alone.
The Maple Way.
The directors of Maple's, the great carpet and furnishing house of Tottenham Court Road, W., Paris, New York, Buenos Ayres, and other places, are believers in commercial motoring. 1 was introduced to two of them, at the Hotel Russell, one forenoon recently, when transport questions were under discussion, and I was much impressed by the practical knowledge which these gentlemen already possess. Several years back, it goes without saying, they did not know a live back axle from a " dead " one, or a carburetter from an ignition plug. Now, I learn, several of them drive their own cars. For example, on the occasion mentioned, Mr. F. A. Dinham, at the wheel of his splendid 35 h.p. Dennis landaulet, took me and others of the party a pleasant run along the Great North Road, and landed us back in town on the stroke of the projected time for completion. I was told he had done very little driving up to then, hut he shaped like a master-steersman. His evident intention to reach perfection in the handling of a motorcar is typical of the thoroughness which characterizes everything about Maple's. This house now owns 30 commercial motors.