The Motor Van and Wagon Users' Association.
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Its Constitution and Objects.
London must be the ultimate home and centre of any truly national enterprise or movement. Where we find an industry with its representative institutions located outside the metropolis, it can be at once concluded that, whilst of national importance no doubt, the possibility of benefit and application is peculiar to the district or area which has been thus marked out by a form of natural selection. The cottonspinning and weaving industry will serve to point the moral. The bonds of local interest failed to confine the great chemical industry of the country to Lancashire, where it first saw light, or darkness, and London provided the headquarters of the Society of Chemical Industry, because that manufacture, with the processes dependent upon it for their very life, were too wide, too powerful, and too varied, for the limits of climate, the advantages of physical conditions, or the prerogatives of inception, to fix inside any defined limits. History has repeated itself in respect of the commercial motor. Great Britain now has behind the commercial motor, to safeguard the user and to advise him, a society whose constitution has been drawn up with the aid or those who preceded it in the work of the National Association of Traction Engine Owners and Users, and of the Liverpool Self-Propelled Traffic Association. It is generally well known that the Liverpool body, as in the parallel case of the chemical industry, undertook and discharged the formidable dutie:i of the pioneer organisation, and it is gratifying to know that the analogy does not break down by being carried further, for the most cordial relations exist between the child, which is older than the parent, and the relatively new National combination which is the subject of this article. It is the duty of every owner, and prospective owner, of a commercial motor to join the Motor Van and Wagon Users' Association. The reasons are manifest, but they shall be put down in order to send them home, In the first instance, it is one's duty to warn an intending member that the Association is not an Insurance Corporation, and that he must disabuse himself, at the outset, of the idea that he can claim assistance except where a question of principle is involved. With that point absorbed, it is meet to review the constitution and objects of the Society.
Preliminary steps were taken to circularise known users of vans and heavier vehicles, and an excess of 100 promises of support resulted in the holding of the first general meeting in London, on February 24th, tool., little more than a year ago, when the rules were adopted and a strong committee elected, the gentlemen appointed being representative of varied using interests_ Lieut.-Col. R. E. B. Crompion, C.B. M.Inst.C.E., M.Tnst.Mech.F.., was elected to till the honourable office of first chairman, and Mr. W. Rees Jeffreys, Secretary of the Motor Union, was chosen as Secretary to the Association. The Society derives great strength from the fact that it is a section of the Motor Union of Great Britain and Ireland, whereby its resources are materially added to, both as regards personnel and finances. The legal talent and the administrative organisation of the largest British combination of motorists is thus attached to the interests of the commercial motor, and it must he obvious that this system of concerted ,action is eminently desirable. Any person may become a member on payment of the annual
THE MOTOR VAN . . AND WAGON USERS' ASSOCIATION, .
Annual Subscription subscription, which is at present only a modest guinea, without election, subject to the right at the Executive Committee to cancel the enrolment at the end of any year, and no further liability is incurred. The objects of the Association include all the powers necessary to protect users against undue restrictions by authorities haying jurisdiction over roads, bridges, and traffic. Members will be advised and, if deemed expedient, will be assisted in respect of actions-at-law, either civil or criminal, in connection with the use of motor vans or heavy motorcars. It is intended to originate and, from time to. time, to promote improvements in the laws and regulations affecting self-propelled vehicular and locomotive road traffic, and to support or to oppose alterations therein; and this has, in fact, been accomplished already over portions of the recent Local Government Board Order. The question of extraordinary traffic, which is sometimes raised in reference to very heavy motor wagons, has been closely studied, and the Association has ready a code of useful questions, recommendations, and recorded cases, for the guidance of its members.
There is no question that The Motor Van and Wagon Users' Association will become increasingly important from month to month. The impetus which has been given to the whole movement by more favourable legal conditions, and by the growing volume of business derived from a successful first van or lorry, points to its certain growth so long as new users will act on our deliberate opinion that it is their duty to join. They will find plenty_ of work to occupy the staff of the Association, and to account usefully for the disbursement of its income, year by year, whilst individual support to an institution of this nature is the roost effective method of securing a steady advance towards the day when motor conveyance will be supreme and unmolested. The great work of the Association during last year has been to induce the Local Government Board to issue regulations of a character which will encourage the development of the cornmercial motor, and the fact that the regulations which were issued on December 2oth last are, on the whole, so satisfactory must be credited in the main to this Association. A copy of these regulations, together with an explanatory memorandum on their working, is issued to each new member, who also receives a circular of instructions, telling him how to proceed to render an old machine legal.
All matters affecting the general body of users of commercial motors fall within the province of this young hut already powerful body, whose intention to support the user in any difficulties, be they large or small, is a source of real strength to the whole industry. The adoption of motor vans and wagons is not so thoroughly established as to render it safe for anybody to reckon upon immunity from trouble of some kind, and the daily correspondence of Mr. Rees Jeffreys places him in a unique position to afford prompt and sound advice to all who join the Association. We do not mean that any serious obstruction is possible. The difficulties, such as they are, occur more in country areas and with the heaviest vehicles, but we wish to support the claim of the Association that owners of light commercial vans should also join their ranks, because there is much in common that interests them as users of the hizhway.
16, Down Street, W.
• -• One Guinea.
W. REES JEFFREYS.