Our "Show Opening" Number.
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Next week's issue of this journal will be available immediately before the opening of the forthcoming Olympia show, seeing that its publication date is Thursday, the 17th inst., and that the opening ceremony will take place on the next day. It will contain a well-arranged, concise and informative Buyers' Guide, concerning the following: (a) vehicle and tractor makers' models and types ; (b) the same for accessories ; (c) the same for supplies ; (d) the same for tires ; (e) the same for bodywork and wheels. These lists and points will help buyers. All Home owners and users of commercial motor vehicles will find that the contents of the "Show Opening" issue of THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR are of special interest to them, and, by reason of the special Municipal section which will be included, we are adding several thousand copies to our circulation, so that the principal officers of the county, municipal., urban, rural, and harbour authorities of the United Kingdom may be properly informed, ready for the opening of the Show, of the up-to-date position of the movement. Other important new purchasing sections, from whose ranks we find more and more evidences of interest each month, and to whom the issue will also appeal, include the general managers of those gas works throughout the country which do not belong to the local authority, and Boards of Guardians generally. Our next issue will be fully of equal importance to the "Show Report" issue which will follow it. We anticipate that it will greatly strengthen the case for visits to the Show by the important and newly-attracted interests which it will influence.
Printed on the Rotary.
It does not pay a printing and publishing house to make use of rotary machines when the circulation of a .journal falls much below 20,000 copies a week. The turning point in efficiency of production is usually found to lie somewhere between a circulation of 18,000 and 20,000 copies weekly. By efficiency, of course, we infer ability on the part of the Editorial staff to take in late advices, particulars of new models, and other .current information of importance to its supporters, up to the last-possible moment, as well as the best printing results. This journal, during the past 12 months, by reason of successive increases of circulation, has been obliged to close for press earlier and earlier, until the situation arose, in spite of the fact that copies were not in the hands of subscribers and readers until Thursday, that it became almost a physical impossibility to deal with more than a page or two of fresh "copy" on a Tuesday.
The change in method of production, under which as many copies can be well printed in an hour as it was previously possible to print in three hours, took effect last week. Many of our readers will probably have noticed evidences of the change, and we have already been gratified to receive various communications, in the nature of congratulations and inquiries, as to the alteration of make-up and other points.
This important forward step on our part, which is wholly attributable to our consistent policy of moving ahead year by year to meet the requirements of the industry and the movement, puts us in a position to cope immediately with all imminent and future increases of circulation. We naturally regard the occurrence as one which marks a red letter day in our history, because this unavoidable adoption of fast rotary printing, to the exclusion of flat printing, in connection with the Royal and Olympia Shows and our new "Trades Campaign" issues, provides yet another outstanding proof of the welcome development of commercial motoring, and of interest in it, for which causes the writer has now worked for some 17i years in all, and for 84 years as Editor of this journal, in conjunction with many devoted co-workers.
Finance of the Construction and Upkeep of Roads.
We shall continue to publish, so far as the space at our disposal permits, from week to week, particulars as to the provision of revenues to meet expenditure upon the construction and upkeep of roads, with reference to various European countries, in the shape of the general report of the Secretary of the County Councils Association to the recent International Road Congress, and other selections from the Congress proceedings. Whilst we are unable, by reason of pressure upon our pages in anticipation of Olympia, to give more than a further two pages from this report in to-day's issue, and to look forward to its completion next week, we may appropriately now quote the conclusions of Mr. G. Montagu Harris.
Conclusions.
1. The expenditure on the maintenance and improvement of :—
(a) The roads which serve as main routes of communication between important places in any country, or (b) The roads which are used mainly by long-distance traffic, unless such expenditure is borne wholly out of national revenues under a system of State administration of roads (which system is practicable and suitable in the case of some roads in some countries), should be mainly paid for out of national revenues, whether or not such roads are locally administered and maintained, subject, where local administration prevails, to the supervision of a central government authority both as to efficiency and expenditure.
2. It is desirable to abolish, so far as possible, all tolls on public roads; but it is equitable that the owners of vehicles which, on account of theta. weight, or weight combined with speed, or any other exceptional circumstances connected with. either the vehicle or use of the road, cause special damage to roads beyond the wear and tear of the ordinary traffic of any district should be subject to special taxation, the proceeds of which should be earmarked for expenditure on roads. 3. Borrowing money for new road construction and for the periodic renewal of the surface coating of a road is consistent with sound financtal principles' provided that the loan period in the case of loans for renewals is kept well within the life of the surface coating. G. MONTAG17 Hymn, M.A.
It only remains for us to add that these interesting conclusions commended themselves to the Congress as a whole, and we take the view that, so far as they go, they are worthy of neutrality on the part of manufacturing and owning interests in the commercial-motor industry and movement. They certainly call for no hostile attitude.
It goes without saying that the practical expression of these resolutions, in the several directions of administration and supervision which are involved, as well as in respect of the gradual and tactful application of inevitable changes of method and control, remains to be worked out by the State and the Local Government officials who will in the future have to deal with the developments that inevitably lie ahead of all of them.
We do enter one protest, however, in regard to the foregoing resolutions. There is no justification for taxation exclusively in respect of one form of road transport, and the fact that the annual maintenance cost of Piccadilly is more than met at the present time by the proceeds of motor taxation, to which fact references will be found elsewhere (pp. 464-6), is a case in point. Why should owners of horse-drawn vehicles, bicycles, and other non-mechanical units, pay nothing'? If there is to be a tax per vehicle, it is quite ridiculous to omit all the lighter types. Something in the nature of a sliding scale will have to be introduced, because the ordinary traffic of any district will, in the very near future, be motor traffic of all kinds. When that time comes, the basis of No. 2 of the above conclusions will be contradicted by facts as they exist, and, which will by then be recognized. We may state, finally, that we are in a position to inform our readers and supporters generally that the proposals of the County Councils Association, for the early appointment of a Departmental or Select Committee, will not be favoured by the Government. The view will be taken that, pending the report of the Select Committee on London Motor Traffic, which committee still continues to sit under the chairmanship of Sir George Toulmin, no Government Department will give encouragement to the appointment of further committees of investigation. In these circumstances, of which we are able to make the firstpublished announcement, it looks as though there would be more time than was anticipated for the Commercial Motor Users Association, and its allies on the Joint Committee of Mechanical Road Transport Associations, thoroughly to prepare their case for statement in due course. Advance Olympia Particulars : " Before the Show" Details Make Way for the Forthcoming " Show Opening" Number.
THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR has described and illustrated no fewer than 22 new models for Olympia. This advance information, much of which cannot have failed to have heightened the interest in the forthcoming exhibition, has been published by us, during. the past few weeks, inclusive of to-day's issue, in respect of models of the following approved and successful makes :—Mass ; Lioorne ; nurtu ; Renault ; Bristol Tramways; Globe ; Girling ; Dorman ; Tylor ; Straker-Squire ; Thornycroft (2); Comrner
car ; Bayard (2); Napier ; Lacre ; ; Albion ;
If ; Dennis ; and Tilling. Our new "Trades Campaign" missionary work has not been allowed to hinder visits by members of our staff for the purpose of keeping in close touch with manufacturing developments of the kind, and this maintenance of our reputation for first-published particulars of new models is, we know, very widely appreciated. It convinces owners and prospectiveowners that the industry is really alive and progressive. Other advices are in hand, at the moment of going to press with this issue, with regard to some eight additional new models, and our current description of these will bring up the total to the round quarter century of first-published new descriptions.
One important bearing of this subject of a satisfactory total of new models, in preparation for a great national show, is the stimulus which it gives to influential parties who may be wavering in regard to paying a visit. From our correspondence with close upon 400 municipal and other local authorities throughout the country, we can state with the assurance which arises from exact knowledge that this has been the case in regard to Olympia. It has frequently proved the decisive factor. Home buyers from a large number of local authorities will go to the Show, and they will undoubtedly go with the intention of making purchases. These gentlemen, it must be remembered, have the rates behind them, and they will certainly find at Olympia, both in the machines which are exhibited and in the testimony from satisfied owners in corresponding branches of public life, that which they seek. We are helping them. Their accession will strengthen the C.M.U.A.