The Royal Show and the Show Question.
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HE Slat Royal Show, organized by the Royal Agricultural Society of England, is being held this week at Cambridge, and on other pages of this issue will be found a full report, thereof— not to be confused with a forecast, compiled from material supplied in advance by the exhibitors, and subject, in many cases, to correction, because of the many reasons which compel and involve changes plans before the Show is opened to the public. Our report has been written, after a careful examination, by expert writers, of the exhibits seen on the showground.
The Royal Show came under the ban of the Commercial Vehicle Committee of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, and, as a result, extremely few exhibits of motor vehicles driven by internal-combustion engines will be found on view. There are, however, a large number of steam wagons, steam tractors, traction engines, agrimotors, implements and sundries, and we feel sure that the impression will be created amongst a large and powerful section of the community that the steam vehicle makers are going ahead, producing new and clever designs, and' that they are showing much more enterprise than the makers whose designs are based upon the employment of petrol as a fuel.
The impression that the motor vehicle industry is dropping back (or is content to stay where it is, which is a fallacy, because there is no such thing as standing still) will strike home with startling force next October when users really grasp the fact that there is to be no commercial vehicle .show that autumn. We have discussed this subject with men prominent in the industry until we have almost commenced to feel discouraged. The absence of a show means that in the two years' gap between the show of 1921 and the show of 1923 (for we are optimistic enough to look forward to one being organized in that year) French, Italian and American (not to say German) manufacturers will be able to sell all their old types of vehicles, unloading them upon the market at prices ruinous to the Britiah industry, simply because the latter can offer nothing new, nor attract buyers from all over the world to see more advanced ideas and improved methods. The suspension of the show means the loss of a tremendously valuable incentive to produce the more attractive and more saleable vehicle.
When our foreign competitors have, at our expense. cleared their existing stocks, as the' result of :Our two yews' somnolence, they will have drawn level with us, and then will come the terrible struggle for supremacy. At present we hold a lead which should never have been imperilled under any consideration, and we can only marvel that but one leading manufacturing concern and six smaller ones stood up in support of a 1922 show.