News of the Week Why a New Director of Producergas Vehicles ?
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JUST after last week's issue went to press it was announced that Viscount Ridley was resigning from his office of Director of Producer Gas Vehicles and had been appointed Northern Regional Controller of Production under the Minister of Production, Mr. Lyttelton. He has been succeeded by Sir Alfred Faulkner, who was Permanent Under-Secretary of the Mines Department from 1927 to 1990, and since then Permanent Under-Secretary for Petroleum. He attained the age of 60 on July 3.
Whilst we welcome Sir Alfred, and have no reason to ddubt that he will follow in the footsteps of his excellent ■ predecessor, and whilst we congratu late Lord Ridley on what we understand to constitute Promotion, we do very definitely regret and deplore the change.
Lord Ridley had been in office one month. During that time he had gone hammer and tongs at his job. He had shown himself to be a man of outstanding ability, and he possessed, from past experience, exceptional knowledge of both producer gas and motor vehicles. He knew their respective technicalities inside out.
As Director of Producer Gas Vehicles, Lord Ridley had made himself personally acquzeinted with the leading personnel in the producer-gas world, and had won their confidence. He had familiarized himself with the construction and working of all the well-known plants; he actually went to the trouble of driving himself a number of vehicles equipped with plants representative of all the main types in use, in order to get first-hand information so that he could judge for himself their relative merits.
It was his duty tO act on the Minister of War Transport's scheme for converting 10,000 vehicles to producer gas by using the Government Emergency Producer, while bearing in mind that the House of Lords had approved another scheme for converting 50,000 vehicles by using not necessarily the G.E.P.
He came to the job open-minded, perhaps, indeed, with prejudice towards the Government scheme, -for he had voted against the alternative proposition in the Upper House. Never2.19.
.theIess, his single-mindedness, so far as the welfare of the nation is concerned, and his fair-mindedness with regard to the organizations working for the betterment of producer gas—the activities of _which he had investigated thoroughly—appeared to be swaying him to the course that offered the wider scope.
He was originally put in office as an independent authority who could take decisions unbiased by local or personal interests, but it is • thought in some well-informed quarters that when he thus showed himself to be independent, another (likely to have leanings towards petrol), was chosen to replace him. ' • Frankly, we are bewildered by the change, but we can hardly imagine
that the grounds for the above view are real; It would be a scandalous waste of effort, however, were Sir Alfred to do anything but avail himself of the eminently good work that Lord Ridley has done, take up the strings from where they were relinquished, allow himself to be swayed by the opinions that his predecessor had formed, and follow up the decisions' he had already taken.
• Finally, it would be pitiful indeed if anything were now done to destroy or damage the happy situation that has been created among the producer-gas chief interests whereby their full 'do-operation might be weakened.