by the undercutting of rates. He pleaded for co-operation throngk the medium of the association.
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Mr. E. H. Edwards (general manager of the Lancashire United Tramways, Ltd.) said he believed that there was a great future for the motor coach and catering business. All that coach ownera wanted was a fair return on capital invested and for work done.
The meeting subsequently dealt with a short business agenda, and a unanimous decision was reached that members of the association in future would refuse to lend coaches to, or borrow from, owners who were not members of the Liverpool and District, Cheshire and North Wales Coach Owners' Association.
Motor Coach Fleets and Remunerative Operation.
WHAT is the smallest number of vehicles that can he successfully operated on a business basis as a motor coaching enterprise, pure arid simple? When the ranks of those who call themselves coach owners are carefully analysed, it becomes evident that the vast majority of coach owners are also haulage contractors or motor traders or automobile engineers, etc. The primary cause of this is the fact that motor coaching is a seasonal trade, confined almost entirely to the months from Easter to
mid-October. Therefore, unless very good prices can be obtained consistently throughout the season, it, is essential that owners should seek other pursuits during the `` close " season. Many of the single owners, one obrerves, have during the winter months been using their coach chassis with haulage bodies, and whilst this course has been adopted on a far smaller scale than in previous years, there are evidences that coach owners, speaking of them as a united entity, are distinctly averse to this procedure. Excepting for the conveyance of football teams and their followers, there is little business to be had during the winter months in the matter of coach hire. All owners, big as well as small, are in this state of inertia, but the bigger firms, by reason of their wider interests and more manifold pursuits, haulage, . repair and overhaul departments, bus operations, etc., manage to keep going fairly well. With regard to the small fleet owners, one of our readers declares that the operation of a fleet of four vehicles does not yield . sufficient return, spread over the period of a year, to warrant a business' being maintained exclusively as a motor coach concern. The statement is an interesting one, and stimulates the question as to what is the smallest practicable fleet that could be operated to ensure a reasonable return over the period of a year, assuming the motor coach side to be a separate entity' •