To Our New Farmer Readers.
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T C HIS ISSUE of The ,'ommercial Motor must , necessarily come into the hands of many new readersamongst farmers and agriculturists.
Their presence at the Royal Show will provide the opportunity for coming into close acquaintance with the paper, and with its staff specializing in the branch of industry in which they are concerned, and we shall welcome every opportunity afforded to our staff to render all possible help and advice in Collneetion with the application of power to the operations of the farm and to farm transport.
From the inception of The Commercial Motor in 1905 one of the planks of its platform has been the encouragement of the development of the use of the motor vehicle for the transport work of the farm, and the motor exhibits at every Royal Show, from that year onwards, have been inspected and dealt with in such a manner as shall prove helpful to those at whose service the special knowledge of the subject at the command of such a journal as The Commercial Motor, could be placed. .
The latest application of the internal-combustion engine to the cultivation of the soil and to the driving of farm machinery, has throughout been dealt with most fully in the columns of the paper, this particular side of the motor movement being handled in chief by an expert on the subject, who was first a qualified farmer and an authority on agricultural matters before he studied the application of power to the industry.
Our own belief is that the fringe of this applica tion of power to the work of the farm has scarcely been touched. The movementhad developed slowly, but surely, up to the outbreak of war, but, during hostilitiesi, it received a decided impetus, and, with a shortage of horse-s added to the call for graater production from the land, the agrimotor proved its worth and capacity in the stress of a great need. The shortage of horses continues and is likelyso to de; the need for greater production -of all crops also continues, and this increase will surely be encouraged by better prices and better and more reliable conditions for growers. We have been able to show that motor power o-n the farm is cheaper than horse power, and we have shown, which is really more important, that its use enables ploughing and preparation of the land for seeding to be carried out, much earlier in the year, with the utmost of reli ability, and that, owing to the greater speed of working, had weather interferes less with the work than if horses were employed, and, in con-sequence, the seed is sown earlier and the young plants are' better able to stand a hard winter.
With the agrimotor,the farmer is better able to plan out his work, and is better able to rely upon his programme being carried out. It is as. much on these side issues Its on that of cheapness of work that the agrimotor scores, and it is, therefore, with supreme confidence in the future of the-use of power on the farm that space in The Commercial Motor will continue to be devoted to this subject.
An Epoch-marking Change.
THIS PARTICULAR ISSUE of The Commerci41 Mt or marks a-n epoch in its career— quite kpart from being probably a record for isize. The great change has been taking place gradually, and finds its completion in this issue. With the co-operation of those clients of ours who have hitherto occupied advertising pages in amongst reading matter, we have been enabled to position all advertisements, either before or after the text pages, so that the reading matter throughout is not interrupted..
The change has been made primarily in the interests of our readers and for the general improvement of the appearance of the journal. It has not been made without gaerifice on the part of our advertisers and ourselves, but, once decided upon, and the rea-sons for it explained to those most deeply concerned, we found that the change was, almes. without exception, welcomed. Nevertheless, it must be obvious to everyone„ qualified to form an opinion that only a strong journal could deliberately carry such a change into effect. .
For our own pat, we certainly think that not only is the appearance of the reading matter in the journal improved, but that the Value of its advertising spaceis enhanced by the addedinterest and appreciation on the•part of the readers who, in the case of The Commercial Motor, are all men of business.
The October Commercial Vehicle Show and Visitors from Overseas..
HIGHLY important period in the history of -the commercial motor industry will occur four rdonths hence—about the middle of October, when the first, commercial motor vehicle exhibition since the outbreak of hostilities will be held at Olympia, London.
It is imperative that attention should now be drawn to the matter, because the intervening time is none too long for notice to be given to agents and
potential buyers overseas, who will wish to get ahead with their arrangements for a visit to this email.try, in order to learn, at first hand, the developments in motor transport—goods and passenger—in .munieipal vehicles, and in agrimotors.
British manufacturers of commercial motors are paying a large amount of attention—a full measure, in fact—to the requirements of Overseas users, and it is not, going too far to say that, for sound reliable service under difficult conditions the British vehicle is unsarpassed. That fact was fully demonstrated in the work done by the Mechanical transport section of the Royal Army Service Corps, on the various fronts upon which the victorious British Army fought. Never did transport. let the Army down; in fact, the motor transport worked wonders under conditions so difficult that it is inconceivable that anywhere in the world can motor vehicles be called upon to do their work under more unfavourable circumstances: Reliability in running a transport. service is a vital factor towards success, and it can only be secured if the industry supplying the vehicles is sound, and, itself, able to be relied upon to carry out all orders promptly and, throughout the life of the supplied vehicle, to render " service " to its user. The British motor industry is in that sound position, and it fully appreciates and understands all that is implied in. that word " service," and is prepared to render it honestly and well,
Overseas motor users know all this, and may be expected to attend the London shOw in October in largenumbers. We hope that, in the course of a tweek or two, the management .committee of the Society of Motor Mannfacturers and Traders—the body organizing the shew—will be able definitely to announce the actual-date.
Road Transport Organization.
0 NE OF THE matters connected with the transport industry upon which too much stress cannot be laid is the necessity for a thorough organization of the trade to facilitate its development, and to enable if to meet anyemergency that
may arise.. , . • Movements are constantly taking place in all parts of the country, and sometimes purely local happenings are exaggerated to dimensions of universal importance, whilst national events are dismissed with scant eoneideration.
'ft is a strange fact that the-thing which is most near seems the most real, but in perspective, it is insignificant. What the transport industry needs in the many problems with which it is confronted in every localiti is not so much local organization as national organization decentralized. In an industry of such potentialities, there ought always to be room for men of vision, of energy, of executive and administrative ability, but, if local movements aie unduly exclusive in their tendency, progress outside a certain eircrinascribed area is impossible. , The railways would never have reached their present position of importance were it not for the unity in control, with sub-division of responsibility. We hazard the thought that every section of the transport industries should have a national parliament representative. of the whole, where common counsel and action can be taken, and the problems which are peculiar to the industry may be thoroughly and searchingly investigated in the light of the fullest information available.
Where there is a compatibility of local interest on a common basis, it is wasteful and absurd to administer separate remedial dispensations when a diagnosis establishes the existence of a uniform ailment. . D20
The New Ministry and Its Staff.
IT IS TO BE observed that in a somewhat scathing report on the expenditure incurred by the Ministry of Transport, the Select Committee on National Expenditure picked out the Read Department of the Ministry as being apparently the only one in connection with -which some economies could not be readily effected.
It seems, M fact, to be assumed by the Committee that the Road Department must grow and becou..e
• more expensive, and will be justified in so doing in View of its work and the large funds which it must administer. The Ministry is, of course, a new one, and the scale of its various departments is, probably, a fairly accurate measure, not of their importance, but of the importance which it was expected, in the first instance, would attach to them. If this be correct it follows that experience ie Showing that the roads and road traffic are, in proportion to the railways and other kinds of transport, a more important
factor than was anticipated. .
While sympathizing with the general call for economy in Government departments, we cannot help feeling that sonic injustice may be done in the case of a new Ministry of this kind. Everybody wished to see great results following almost immediately upon its inception. SuCh results were impossible to secure • promptly, unless very adequate staffs were, employed. The Minister, liable to he criticised for apparent inaction or slowness of action, would, naturally, tend to err on the side of over-staffing. Then, again, by the time the Ministry was formed it was apparent that the value of money, for some time to come, could net be anything approaching its 'pre-war value. A man may hold on to a job in a Government department, eventhough he has grounds for complaint that his salary has not risen in proportion to the price . for
commodities. Should he sacrifice his position, he sacrifices also contingent benefits, to secure which ultimately he has already, in effect, given years of work. . • .
When a new Ministry is formed the ease is different. A good raw can only be induced to join its staff if the pay is ateleast fairly generous. There is noquestion of resignation or refusal to accept a position occasion-, mg the loss of benefits, towards securing which work has already been done. One would, therefore, expect the average salary in a new department to be somewhat higher than in an 'old-established 'one. It is stated that, in the new Ministry of Transport, the. higher-paid posts are in an unusually high, proportion as againg-t the lower-paid posts. This would seed to indicate extravagance, until we discover that the limit beyond .which the Committeeregards posts as being on the higher scale is &150-per annum, which, from all one hearseis about the level of income that a roatl scavenger expects at the present day. We can, hardly expect a man of intelligence to do good work in a Government department, administrating the roads, on a salary which is not substantially better than that obtained by a man who merely scrapes up road refuse, We refer to the matter because it seems to us inevitable that, if economies are effected by sedulously cutting down salaries, th.e efficiency of the administrative staff must be affected even more seriously. We cannot expect good constructie work from a Ministry the staff of which is Paid upon a scale that cannot conceivably attract even men of average brain. We must, therefore, steer between the two extremes ahd, while avoiding wilful waste, must also avoid the parsimony that seems likely to be encouraged by the publication of the most damaging extracts fromsuch critical comments as those which have recently appeared with reference to the Ministry of Transport.