Give Home Users a Chance
Page 24
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THE 15th Commercial Motor Show, which opens at Earls Court in three weeks' time. will again bear the ghostly label, For Export." For the average home user its interest will be more academic than practical, because his prospects of deriving early benefit from the technical advances that have been made since 1948, when the previous Show was held, are slender.
British operators are allowed by the Government to receive this year 81,550 vehicles, comprising 72,750 for goods and 8,800 for passengers. According to the latest statistics prepared by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, 43,669 goods vehicles and 4,584 public-service vehicles were built for the home market during the first six months of the year. Thus, only 29,081 and 4,216 units respectively remain to be distributed in the second half of the year. Under these conditions, the exhibition becomes for the home user a theatrical entertainment in dumb-show, with all the gorgeous trappings of the pantomime.
This is particularly unreasonable in a year when the industry has raised its annual rate of output by 24 per cent., compared with that of 1949, which was itself a record. Of the 218,375 commercial vehicles manufactured last year, 49 per cent, were for export. In the first half of the current year, the proportion for overseas has risen to the remarkable figure of 63 per cent. If the Government insists that the quota for the home market be strictly observed, the industry will have either to export 75 per cent. of its output in the second half of the year or reduce production. Whether that formidable quantity of export trade can be obtained depends on circumstances largely beyond the control of British manufacturers. Some makers are already regretting having secured overseas orders for which they so zealously canvassed, for, after the vehicles have been delivered, payment for them has been stopped by the country of destination. Eventually, settlement in full will no doubt be secured, but meantime a costly manufacturing programme has to be financed and adequate reserves cannot be built up because of the penal taxation on industry.
The Sky the Limit No export target has been laid down this year by the Government. Instead, the maximum number of vehicles to be supplied to the home market has been determined and all production in excess of that quantity must be exported, regardless of the troubled international situation. The time has come to change that system. A percentage figure of, say, 60, should be laid down for exports in the second half of the year, and the home operator should be allowed to benefit in some degree by the industry's increased output.
This method would allow the home market to receive another 53,965 vehicles, instead of 33,297, provided that the present rate of production were maintained. Even the increased figure would be far below the reasonable requirements of trade and industry, but it would go some way towards renovating Britain's worn-out road-transport system.