Conclusion.
Page 3
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Too many people have been moving about with glum faces. There was, we know, a period of reaction after the ever-to-be-regretted motorbus " boom" of 1905, when our advice, that vehicles should be ordered " by the score, instead of by the hundred," fell upon unheeding ears ; next came the unrequited expense of the R.A.C. trials in 1907; thirdly, until a few months ago, many intending and prospective buyers simply marked time and watched, is within the past three months that the change has come der the scene, that order-books have filled, and that indications of bright times ahead have been multiplied. We ask manufacturers who have not yet participated to waken up to the meaning of these facts : the vehicles ou offer by the laggards in this trade must be either unsuitable or too costly, unless their selling organisation is faulty. Which is it '? We do not believe that so-called dearness or cheapness counts as much as appropriateness to the purposes of employment and service, and the hum of business is now cheering makers at opposite ends of the price scale. We are satisfied that more by way of explanation lies at the door of certain sales departments, or, rather, the monumental lack of them, of follow-up systems, and of the men who know enough of their special trade to close deals. The undue cutting of prices is a sorry game, with but one outcome, and we deprecate it as unnecessary : a business man will pay a fair price for what he wantsfor the right article.
We decline to assent that the air of depression should continue: its causes are weakened, and it must be dissipated soon. Most of the discarded, rejected and secondhand omnibus chassis, the troublesome surplus of 1906
1907, have now been absorbed. They have injured legitimate business very severely, but we wish their purchasers no ill-luck with the bargains (sic) thus secured; the commercial and trading community at large has realised that motorvans are not bringing losses upon those who own and use them, which result the motorbus dOnicle foreboded ; a Chancellor of the Exchequer has, in the House, given world-wide testimony to performance and economy figures which first appeared in our pages; householders, various traders, butchers, bakers and candlestickmakers all want motor delivery. They are getting it, and the rate of alteration from old-time methods is now being accelerated. The industry is not going down, but is making headway ; things are not bad with it; gloomy statements can be applied only to the few, and not to the whole ; the swing of the pendulum has come.