Manchester's Claims.
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There are intangible yet suro evidences that motor manufacturers and traders throughout the United Kingdom will observe the progress of the forthcoming Manchester Show with the closest interest. One hears on all sides the significant inquiry--Why Manchester? Other cities and centres are supposed to be jealous of the Show which has alone withstood the ban of official motordom in London, and it is probably coming home to the many opposing forces that there must be some good reason for Manchester's survival of a repressive plan of campaign which has driven Birmingham, Dublin, Leeds, Liverpool, and Newcastle-on-Tyne to discontinue eforetime-successful displays. Yes; there is a sound explanation of this capacity for resistance. Let us recapitulate the outstanding features of Manchester's superior—if not unique—claims to have a motor show in its midst once a year.
Manchester men are money-makers, and they spend their profits freely; cause and effect were never more complexly interwoven than in the bearing of motoring—both private and commercial—upon the functions which affect Manchester's prosperity. We write, primarily, from the standpoint of business necessities, and in that category there fall the numerous types of motorcars and utility motors for the industries and trades which are peculiar to the district. No other city in the world presents the same call and scope for acceleration of point-to-point transport facilities over exactly that range of trip-length which best suits the qualities of commercial motors, and in no other area of equally-small geographical extent does a like interchange and rehandling of raw material and of partly-manufactured, finished and packed goods occur. There are, within the country swept by a radius of 30 miles, and principally to the north-west, north and north-east of this inland port, continuous flows of raw cotton from docks and warehouses to spinners, of yarn from spinners to manufacturers, of cloth between the mills, the merchants, the bleachers, the dyers and the printers, of finished pieces to the packers, and thence of baled goods to the railways and docks. The original material is, during the several processes indicated, transferred from works to works, perhaps to and fro along the same road more than twice, and low transportation charges in conjunction with punctual delivery are factors of vital moment to everybody concerned. Commercial motors, at last, are regarded in the light of reliable conveyances, and high-speed petrol lorries are tending to break down even the fundamental difficulty of delays at places of call. The judicious use of "flats," i.e., of superimposed carrying platforms which can he slung from vehicle to vehicle, appears to us, none the less, to be essentially worthy of retention, at least in very numerous instances, as an accepted means of avoidance of terminal delays for the motors. There will, for many years to come, be the depOt-to-depot school. whew supporters adhere to the " fiat" system, end the all-motor school, but it is no exaggeration to state that Lancashire manufacturers and traders can absorb 5,000 five-ton lorries ; there are, in fact, not a few of the leading manufacturers on Manchester Royal Exchange who, as the result of actual experience, confidently look forward to their absolute independence of the railways. It may be pointed out that the total imports per the Manchester Ship Canal weigh close upon three million tons per annum, with a' total value in the neighbourhood of £26,000,000, and that the exports, which are largely manufactured cotton goods. and machinery, exceed two million tons in weight and £15,000,000 in value, whilst trade via Hull, Liverpool and Preston is also on a very large scale. The Manchester area's share is estimated to exceed a joint value of £100,000,000 per annum for imports and exports. The congestion on the local railway lines, particularly during certain days of the week, is very severe, and it is only by the adoption of independent motor transport that competitive influences and risks can be properly combated. The foregoing outline of the cotton trade's inter-movements will easily render it comprehensible that the Lancashire County Council is forging ahead with road conversions and improvements; increased votes, for the laying of granite setts upon concrete foundations, have been the order of the day for more than two years, and it is not unlikely that every main road in the County Palatine wilt be made amply strong for all forms of modern locomotion before the next five years have elapsed. This far-seeing and progressive action has practically removed the risk of litigation anent damage to the out-of-date macadamised roads, which risk was the bete noir of road-carrying companies from the year 1902 until quite recently. It is obvious that lessened costs will result—both to the motor owner and the road authority. We look, therefore, for a material extension of motor transport, all round Manchester, before many months have gone by, and to the steady maintenance of a valuable fresh demand for machines from year to year. The fruits of pending orders may not, of course, be seen until the show of 1911, butothere can be no two opinions upon the brightness of immediate prospects. Makers who" get in" now are the ones who will take the major portion, of consequential orders, in which circumstances we do not wonder that there is a sore feeling on the part of those who have contracted themselves out of the full opportunity, although a partial remedy is opened to them by the forthcoming special number of this journal, which will be published early in Show Week. On the private-car side, future shows are in the balance. We trust that Manchester's claims to recognition will be again examined, a few weeks hence, and we should like to hear a dispassionate and well-conducted debate, between those who back other places and those who have knowledge of Manchester's intrinsic worth in this connection. We believe that its case could he made so good as txi silence all rivalry, and to demonstrate the interested ineptness of the suggestion that any other city had a grievance in the matter. "Keep to the Left."
Many and ingenious have been the theories which . have been advanced, from time to time, to account for the apparent perversity with which we, in this country,
keep to the left " on the highways—at any rate, so far as our use of road vehicles is concerned. Now that definite public attention is at last being directed to the expediency of dividing road traffic still further, by the confinement of slow-moving conveyances to the sides of the highway, it is of interest to consider the origin of the rules of the road as they exist, at the present clay, in various countries, In so far as early historical writings make reference to the right hand as the superior side, and since centuries of custom have perpetuated this distinction, it may reasonably be assumed that, where no particular reason exists for preference, the_ rightliand side is the one which i is more likely t4) be eliosen for any specific purpose. In the case, therefore, of our British rule of the road, it is probable that some discriminating circumstance originally decided that we must " keep to the left." It does not seem likely to have been a matter of chance. To account for this choice, the most-generallyaccepted theory -and certainly the most-picturesque one-is that it arose from the course which was necessarily adopted by the jousting knights of mediawal times in single combat. They, with lances couched on the righthand side, charged at each other to the left of the dividing tilting-board. During the journeys of these warlike gentlemen and their retinues on the public highways, it is probable that the same " rule or the road " would be observed at passing places, if for 110 other reason than to keep a possible enemy within easy reach of mace or sword. It has been suggested, somewhat ingeniously itmust be admitted, that foot-passengers invariably kept to the right of a passer-by in order to interpose their shields, which it has to be presumed were invariably carried during walks abroad. We can only accept these interesting inferences as correct, if we assume that the more-peaceful inhabitants perforce adopted the man. uerisms of their soldiering neighbours. All this is very interesting, but it presupposes that, if the rule has not since been varied, on the Continent, where the teurnament originated, all the knights must have been lefthanded ! At the time of the Preneh Revolution, however, it is recorded that, in France, the rule was changed to its present condition, in order that foot-passengers should meet, and not be overtaken by, wheeled traffic on the line of division between road and path. The ride of the road is now " keep to the right " in almost all other parts of the world, excepting where Anglo-Saxon influence exists. In America, nevertheless, the traffic follows the same rufe as throughout the major portion of Europe, The first French railways were constructed by English engineers. Hence, upon them, the rule. is the same as in Great Britain. International maritime law requires ships meeting at sea to pass " port to port," or, in other words, to keep to the right. What the International law as to aerial navigation will be, eventually, renutins yet to be seen. Discrimination will have to be exercised vertically as well as horizontally.
Recently, in France, Count Jean de Subran-Ponfeyes hiss advanced the following theory in connection e ith this subject. It is permissible, he says, to assume that mail and pasting vehicles were amongst the earliest regular users of the Toads. In France, such conveyances were driven by postillions, who always rode astride the lefthand horse of a pair. In order that they might preserve the axle-caps of their vehicles from damage, they kept ti the right of the highway, so as to expose to passing treffie the wheels which they could watch with hut little difficulty. Similar vehicles in England were driven, as a rule, as four-in-hands, and the "'whip otempied the Tight-hand box seat. He kept to the left of the roadway, in order to expose the right-band wheels of his coach. Whatever may be the true origin of this Varying rule of the road in different countries, it is futile to deny that the opposing regulations. which are in force in Great Britain, for foot-passengers and wheeled traffic,
are fruitful of much disaster in our large towns. The pedestrian who, keeping to the right of the pathway, step s off the kerb, is alnays iu imminent danger of being run down by some vehicle which .1S coming up behind him while observing its rule " keep to the left." Were one rule adopted for both classes of traffic, this danger would be non-existent.
Tramcar or Motorbus?
Many instructive figures can be obtained, by calcular ion, from the Board of Trade Annual Return on tramways. We have alreadya week ago—referred, at some length, to certain figures from the report for last year, which was issued less than a fortnight ago. Few people are aware of the first cost of an electric tramcar, but weventure to say that a less number has troubled to study the difference between that cost and the total capital outlay before the vehicle can be run in service. The cost of a double-deck car varies from, say, £460 to £800, according to seating capacity and the nature of the electrical gear.
y the time, however, that this type of vehicle can be turned to account for passenger conveyance, the cost per ear has risen to anything between £3,000 and £8,000. If we take, for example, 20 established undertakings of authorities and companies, whose ownership of ears averages 53 each, we find that the average cost per car is £107. whilst the total capital expenditure per car, by the time these cars are in service, averages no less than £5,634 per vehicle, or eight times the first coat. This enormous outlay is, however', not the most-disconcerting factor in the situation. That, we think, is provided by the miserably-low number of route-miles that can be served, and which, for the 20 undertakings in question, averages only 13.3 miles. That means the provision, at an average total cost of close upon £300,000, of travelling facilities for a distance inferior to that served by single motorbus routes in London. We are confident that this point of low route-mileage requires to be enforced, and it is one with which the writer will have much pleasure in dealing more. fully on an early occasion.
Saving the Nation's Money.
An interesting summary in regard to the financial advantages to he gained from the adoption of long-distance, motor, parcel-mail services in this country, the establishment of which, upon 13 routes has been re.eorded. from time to time, in this journal, will be found on page 484. It is barely 10 years, since the original, motor, parcel-mailthat between Liverpool and Manchester— was inaugurated under the supervision of Messrs. H. C4. Burford and J. S. Critchley, with steel-tired Milnes-Daimler vans, arid it is -hardly credible that the running difficulties of those early days should already have been surmounted in every department. The writer well remembers the frequeney of complaints from inhabitants of villages and towns 'between the cities named above, due to the rattling of the steel-tired wheels over the paved roads which were included in the itinerary, for, of the 30 miles between the terminal post-offices, no fewer than 17 miles were at that date payed or partially paved with setts. With the change to solid-rubber tires, which took place within one year of the opening of this first motor service, 90 per cent, of the contractor's troubles disappeared : the cost of running, in spite of the disproportionate extra payments for the rubber tires which were available in those days, gradually became satisfactory; the reliability of the. service, which had previously been distinctly variable, became uniform and real. We have not the spare at our disposal to trace the steps which have resulted in the state of affairs to which Sir Henry Norman, the Assistant Postmaster-General, gave publicity last week, but to-day's achievements are excellent. Seeing that, under the old Parcels Post Act of 1882, the railway companies took 55 per cent, of the gross postage paid by the public, and that the postal staff had both to load and
unload the hampers at the termini, we do not wonder that there has been so great a saving, which is in the neighbourhood of 10. per parcel conveyed.