CORPORATION TYRE PRESSES.
Page 24
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An Expert Comment.
The Editor, THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR.
[1567] Sir,---We must admit that the article headed " Why Not Corporation Tyre Presses?" on page 322 of your last issue arrested our attention, and caused us considerable surprise. Having ourselves installed a tyre press a considerable number of years ago, it may be suggested that we are interested parties in commenting on your contributor's article, but when we mention that the total of tyres dealt with by us in twelve months now approaches four figures, and we are capable of doing still more, we think we can say at any rate as regards this particular district that commercial motor vehicle users have nothing of which to complain. Your contributor asks why the heavy commercial vehicle should not receive some Government assistance, but we do not quite understand the connection here,. as though the Government undertake a large proportion of their own repairs, they still find it necessary in our experience to rely upon contractors for certain work.
We would submit that neither in the case of the Government, nor of municipal authorities is it in any way likely that facilities for commercial vehicle owners are going to be so well fulfilled as by private enterprise, but, apart from that, does your correspondent realize that a municipal corporation should not assume the function of a trading organization competing with the ratepayers of its own district. Certainly we had thought that the tyre presses installed all over the country were quite ample to deal with requirements in any large centre, but if.your correspondent refers to places out in the country, then presumably there would not be any corporation to come to hist,.help, nor if there were would there be sufficient work to make it worth while running a tyre .press.
There is also the question of responsibility for fitting tyres, and we can assure your contributor it is not exactly like shelling peas, for there are all sorts of difficulties and variations to be met, and the reputation ofa firm which -possesses a competent technical staff to deal with all these things is to our
e58 mind a point which the commercial vehicle user does not lose sight of. In our opinion, the firms which have been sufficiently progressive to put down tyre presses years ago, and after much hard work for some years, have built up a business which they had the foresight to see was coming along, have in all fairness the right to expect the reward for their enterprise and so long as a district is well served by them what object is there in having corporation lyre-presses ? There is another aspect of this matter, and that is the possibility of any corporation extending its trade programme, and even supplying tyres, and in th'at case the M.T.A. trading conditions will certainly enter. These trade conditions for solid tyres are now by way of being put on a much more satisfactory basis, and in our opinion, any corporation Should patronize traders in their district rather than compete with them. It will be bad enough if corporations get into the market for supplying current for electrically driven vehicles, which will niost.likely.lead to other trade extensions, ars& we should be very sorry to see your contributor's idea entertained for a single moment. .
What is suggested in regard to tyre fitting is, in our opinion, quite foreign to public facilities' such as weighbridges, which appeal to all sorts of. braes, and could not be provided by private enterprise. As we said before; certain agents had the pluck to go into this business years ago when there was little or nothing to do, and now your contributor comes along suggesting that after the trade has been worked up a corporation should.Step in and take the benefit. There are some things that can quite well be done on a municipal basis, but in our opinion the motor business is,certainly not one of these. The subject...opened up by your contributor contains rather more than appears on the face of it, but we will not trouble you at further length, hoping that perhaps some of our trade friends .will also be sending in their views on the proposal, and in these we shall be as much
terested as anyone.—Yours faithfully,
PARSONS AND KEMBALL, LTD.,
Southampton. Per pro HARRY PARSONS.