The Supervision of Agrimotors: Transport for the Produce of Newly-tilled Areas.
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The Government, acting through the Ministry of Munitions of the County War Agricultural Committees, continues to make strenuous if somewhat-late efforts to supply agrirootors, in order to facilitate an increased production of food in the United Kingdom. We hope that claims of existing farmers will be given the preference which they deserve, for it will indeed be false economy if the experienced farmer, who is already occupying arable land, is kept short of mechanical aids while these necessary forerunners of food production are relatively wasted upon grass-land, golf-courses, parks and commons. Mr. Prather°, the President of the Board of Agriculture, speaking on the 17th January, at Hereford, and addressing an audience of farmers, dwelt upon the fact that his department had obtained a valuable concession from the War Office, in that the military authorities were prepared to repair the new agrimotors when they were put into service, and to allow the military depots to issue supplies of petrol, paraffin and lubricants for them. It is true, too, that schools are already in existence at which men are being trained to. drive the agrimotors, and this step is one in the right direction. None of the arrangements of which we have so far heard deals with the vital matter of expert supervision. Here, we feel, there is an opening for co-operation with Lord Devonport, the Food Controller, and M. Edge, the Director of the Agricultural Machmery Branch of the Ministry of Munitions. We are hopeful that it will be possible to provide expert supervisors from the membership of the Commercial Motor Users Association. There are, at the present time, not a few motor-haulage contractors who have been obliged to lay up parts of their fleets, by reason of shortages of labour, supplies or materials. Many a motor wagon has to remain in depot because it cannot be repaired. Despite these circumstances, the expert heads of the businesses have to do their best to continue to carry on the internal transport of the country, and thus to help to " keep the wheels of industry turning!! But their whole time is not occupied, although some of them may be surprised to read that statement.
We believe that at least 100 good men, with the necessary administrative capacity and mechanical knowledge in combination, can be found amongst the membership of the C.M.U.A., and rendered available for this important national work, if their services are officially sought for the purpose of undertaking the duties, which must arise for discharge by somebody in matters of inspection and supervision, when the contemplated large numbers of agrimotors are brought into work.
A corollary to the extended use of agrimotors, for the production of crops in new areas, and in some cases in localities where tillage has not before been undertaken on a large scale, is the conrequential re
quirement of now transport facilities. Here, again, the co-ordination, of the services of, say, 100 expert motor-haulage contractors will be. of the utmost value in the national interests. The two schemes lend themselves to ready co-ordination. The joint announcement by the Secretary of State for War and the President of the Board of Agriculture, under date the 24th ult., which we publish elsewhere in this issue (page 988), confirms the important decision that the War Office is ready to undertake "to man, repair and keep running the motor tractors which will be placed at the disposal of War Agricultural Committees for ploughing and other agricultural operations!' This undertaking is one which can be materially aided by the organization of assistance of the class which we have indicated, but it is, of course, a matter in which the membership of the C.M.U.A. can be better utilized after an official re-. quest than by voluntary offer.
Petrol According to Urgency.
Reserves and new supplies of petrol are considerable, but the demands upon them, both immediate and prospective, promise to be even more considerable. The Petrol Control Committee, under date the 22nd ult., has issued a notice in this sense: We reproduce it on page 486.
It will be observed that, as from the 24th ult., no new application for petrol will be entertained by the Committee, unless the said application is in effect endorsed by one or other of the Government Departments as being required for war or national purposes. All sections of commercial transport which are directly or indirectly concerned with munitions transport, the transport of war material, the transport of food supplies, or the increased bearing of the land, will no doubt be given what they want. There is little prospect, however, that commercial-motor users at large will be able, in the new circumstances which will soon obtain, to secure more than the existing rate of 66 per cent, of their declared requirements of June last, when their current licences expire at the end of May. We wish it were otherwise. The new circumstances are : (a) the effects of increased risk of losses ascribable to the newt raider and submarine campaign of the enemy ; (b) the amazing increases of consumption for the aircraft services ; (c) provision to supply the new agrimotor programme.
Coal-gas for Chars-a-banes- That or Nothing!
We can hold out not the slightast hope that owners of motor chars-&-bancs will get any petrol next season. They may as well reconcile themselves to that condition of affairs, and lay their plans accordingly forthwith. They are legally entitled, it is true, according to the decision of a Scottish court, to use small quantities of petrol for the purpose of warming up the carburetters of the vehicles in their depots. They may even find themselves deprived of that small right, not by -any challenge of the decision to which we refer, but by reason of the absence of any licence to buy even a few pints of petrol. Two alternatives remain : the use of petrol substitutes, and the use of coal-gas.
Petrol substitutes are in the main derived from overseas ; these are, therefore, liable to all the interruptions which adverse shipping conditions involve, quite apart from the stringent view which the Treasury continues to take concerning the effect of such imports upon the Exchange situation. There will, no doubt, be a certain supply of petrol substitutes. from America but in strictly-limited quantities. Paraffin itself is included in this category. Coal-gas .alone offers to char-h-bancs owners the opportunity of their continuing to earn a living from Easter next. to the end of September. Now is the time to equip the vehicles. The necessary equipment is a simple matter, as regular supporters of THE ComraEaeran MOTOR are aware. We gave full particulars in our issue of the 2nd November last, and we seriorrily commend study of them, and action upon them, to every char-à-banes owner in the country. The.capital outlay per vehicle is under £20; the saving on fuel cost, as compared with petrol at present rates, is not less than lid. per mile run. No vehicle lends itself more readily to the adoption of coal-gas as a fuel than does the motor char-h-bancs, seeing that the superstructure of the vehicle normally includes a wholelength canopy—or at least fixed standards—upon which the flexible gas-holder can be carried and secured.
Private and Trade Removals : Contemplated Prohibition
Unless Under Permit.
It is clear that the Government will not stop short at. requisitioning 30,000 men from agricultural pursuits for military duties. The intention is present, equally in the War Office, the Ministry of Munitions, the Department of the Food Controller, and in other branches, to leave no step untaken of which the result may be the checking of unnecessary civilian activities.
THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR is naturally concerned with most of these changes, in that motor transport enters into all of them. So far as the use of any of the vehicles themselves goes, the changes may involve nothing more than class of employment, although in rare cases that very change itself may result in the staffing and manning afresh of vehicles which are now compulsorily in depot for want of either personnel or repairs. The Government aloue, now, controls man power, without which mechanical devices cannot be used.
We have good reasons for stating that, amongst the new schemes for the better employment of road transport which are at the moment engaging the attention of the Government, the Ministry of MuMtions and the War Office ate considering the expediency of prohibiting as from an early date all private and trade removals, except under permit. This contemplated action is due to the belief that large -amounts of labour and transport, which are absorbed for the vast majority of such removals, are more urgently wanted for essential national purposes.
Here we are clearly concerned with a proposal which may touch anybody or any business at any moment. It is one that may actually determine the possibility or impossibility of any property development during the remainder of the war ; it is one that will certainly check mere waste of men and vehicles for the sake of caprice, by those who are under no real necessity to change their abodes, or their places of business, at any particular date. We are inclined to think that the Surveyors Institution, the Auctioneers and Estate Agents Institute, and the Furniture Removers and Warehouseraens Association, will submit their respec u16 tive views concerning the probable effects of any such order to both the War Office and the Ministry of Munitions.
Some restrictions in the indicated directions appear to us to be inevitable. One can well conceive that, round about next quarter day, 10,000 men and 2000 vehicles might be low estimates of the labour and plant occupied with private and trade removals. It is not for us to claim the requisite knowledge to assess the percentage of un-national work in such removals, but it is readily conceivable that it might be not lower than 50 per cent. If so, how much better will the men and transport be employed, if they be strictly on Government service of a national character. All civilian work must be justified, nowadays.
Agent or Branch ?
The sixth article of our series "1917: the agent's year" will be found on page 480. It is from the pen of the same agency-member of the industry who wrote the fourth article. He seeks to make a case, and in our opinion very largely succeeds in making a good one, for the claims of the independent agent who has already decided to move with the accelerated times in which we will, at some future date, again begin to live commercially. He adds to the points of interest which within our knowledge this series is presenting both to agents and manufacturers for their respective consideration: He helps to make it clearer that after-the-peace output of British commercial motors can only be absorbed and marketed if preparations of a very direct kind are made betimes. That is the kernel of the situation, as we have ourselves presented it from the outset of the series. Facilities , create trade. The determining line, between agent or agency organization, may in some cases be 'hard to fix. It is almost too much to hope that every centre of population, production, shipping, or trade will have in it a sufficient number of agents to go round. The establishment of their own branches by all large commercial-motor manufacturers in some areas would appear, therefore, to be nothing more than a bare necessity. We can conceive no reply to this viewpoint of the manufacturers who hold it. Perhaps some existing agents of resource may be able to put one forward In the absence of any unforeseen contention, we must hold to the unswerving conviction that the manufacturers, writing generally, will have no alternative left to them but to open at least a proportion of their own sales depots. We do not seek to lay down that such a policy on their part should be to the exclusion of the independent agent. Very much the reverse. We want to see the independent agent turn to account the openings and prospects which are undoubtedly now on offer to him, not in all cases voluntarily at the hands of the manufacturers, but by reason of immediate and prospective trade circumstances arising from the war. The key to the future is "service." The man who gives it will get the business. The mere laying down of so much bricks and mortar, cement and corrugated iron will not carry the day, nor the reward, in the competition that is to come. There must be those combined personal qualities as to which we wrote at length last week, when we devoted ourselves to indicating our conception of the pressing preaent duties of the chief sales manager of any commercialmotor undertaking.
Volunteer Heavy Motor Transport.
Army Council Instruction No. 90 of 1917 lays down the conditions upon which Motor Volunteer Corps will be recognized by the War Office. Each county can have its own corps, and each corps will consist of two or more squadrons (light or heavy). A light squadron is to comprise 56 cars and 20 motorcycles ; a heavy squadron of 24 lorries, 8 cars, and 12 motorcycles. The C.M.U.A. is taking up the formation of a corps for the County of the City of London.