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The Use and Price of Benzole.

26th August 1919
Page 2
Page 2, 26th August 1919 — The Use and Price of Benzole.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

THE NATIONAL Benzole Association is certainly to -be congratulated upon its astuteness in enlisting the sympathies of the motor trade and users' organizations in favour of its scheme of propaganda for encouraging the general use of benzole. The Motoring Advisory Committee which is apparently farmed mainly as a propagandist body, has as its chairman Mr. Shrapnell-Smith, and contain,s representatives of the R.A.C. ; the A.A. ; the A.B.M.A.M. ; the S.M.M. and T. (Agents' Section); the C.M.U.A. ; and the A-C.U.

There is at least one danger against which the Committee will have to be on their guard. It is easy enough to use benzole in place of petrol in any engine of ordinary design. To use it with the greatest efficiency demands some attention to the carburetter and ,renders advisable a few other precautions. For example, when this fuel--is employed mineral oil is to be preferred to animal oil. Also, if the carburetter has a cork float, the usual shellac coating on the float is liable to be dissolved and consequently celluloid affords more adequate protection. .An engine may be run hotter with benzole than with petrol, so that in cold weather it may be economical to disconnect the fan or block off a part of the radiator, or to fit a cock in the water outlet pipe to control the rate of flow of the water. The -best economy will seldom he obtained without a, few road tests to ascertain the size of jet which giVes the best results. These and other points must, of course, be brought home to users generally, but the danger already man-' tioned lies in the fact that enthusiasts are liable to give even too much good advice, with theresult that people may begin to think that benzole cannot be used with decent efficiency unless all sorts of precautions are taken. In point of fact, this is quite wrong. Even a careless user can hardly fail to get better mileage. and better power out of benzole than out of petrol, though he may suffer from little troubles due, for instance, to sooting-up.

To our mind, the best possible propaganda, in favour of benzoic would consist of a substantial reduction in the price. We believe that such a reduction is commercially quite possible, and we feel that benzole producers need to be warned against too close an imitation of the petrol importers motto that "the proper price of a commodity is what it will fetch." Nowadays, strict adherence to this -principle is apt to be stigmatized as profiteering. In the near future this may be a dangerous practice, and we consider that certainly the more gracefail and possibly more politic course for popularizing a new fuel is to make it attractive by reason of its price and then to ensure that it is properly used by serving out necessary ad-, vice in. the simplest possible language.


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