The War Office and Registered Owners of Wagons and Tractors.
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It has now been arranged that a meeting of oe Hers of registered wagons and tractors will be held, at 112, Piccadilly-, W., on 'Monday, the 31st inst. Any such owner who does not receive a notice on or before Saturday next is invited to inform the Editor of this journal, by whom the meeting is being convened. The objects in view are: (a) to permit an exchange of views upon the existing registration and hiring terms in the War-Office scheme ; (b) to decide upon a plan of concerted action in respect thereof ; (c) to adopt such resolutions as may he thought expvdient.
We again insist that joint representations can alone be effective, if better rates of payment and more-reasonable conditions with regard to notice and periods of hiring are to be secured. We have neither the desire nor the intention to embarrass the War Office, or idly to dissipate that nueleas reserve of mechanical transport which has been sornewhat-laborionsly built up by the officers and inspectors concerned. On the other hand, we are convinced, both by the communications that have been published in our pages and by additional verbal intimations. that eel, tam n fundamental modification of the present arrangements is a mutual necessity.
To "Arrive Out"
Early in the New Year.
Publication of " The Dominion and Overseas Ii-sue is timed hy us, as was the case last year, to allow copies to be in the hands of recipients early in the New Year. In just a few cases, mailing will not immediately folluw printing and wrapping. In relation to this well-considered progremme, under which THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR conveys the first New-Year particulars to the Colonies and other parts of the world, we may briefly quote from our references of nearly a year ago (issue of the 25th November). We then wrote: " The Christmas mail for Australia and New Zealand has already gone; that for our great Imlian Dependeney nbout to leave. In Great Britain, of course, all w ho really have business or other correspondence with our Colonies and Possessions study these matter, We did so pri ir to he announcement of our Seventh Export Special."
Appropriately enough, while we are upon this topic of correct mailing dates to allow an export issue to reach its widely-separated destinations early in the New Year. there has come to hand the annual circular of the PostmasterGeneral with regard to Christmas. It is reproduced, for the general information of all our readers, on page 138.
It will not take any supporter of this journal long to realize that, if the issue is to be of the New-Year order, publication by us on the 9th December, with prompt despnteli in most cases and slight " bolding-up " in others, exactly meets the obvious requirements.
Telephone Communication with Cab-ranks Which Have No Shelters.
We announced, nine weeks ago, that we had taken up the matter of London's deficient means of telephonic communication to valeranks. We are now able to make an interesting dual announcement: in the first place, the • necessarysteps are completed for the equipment of an electric-light standard in Kensington High Street with it one-way-call box, duplicate receivers, and bell; in the second place, the Commercial Motor Users Association. to the advantage alike of cab proprietors and the cabusing public, will defray the cost of the experiment.
Up to the present, intending hirers by telephone have • been able only to call up a shelter-rank—of which there are comparatively few—or a district-messenger office. They are now to see a new alternative put to the test. The trial outfit is to be installed in connection with one of the now-unpopular ranks, vie., that immediately to the west of Earl's Court Road, in the main Kensington-Hammersmith high road, close to Olympia. This rank, although licensed for 17 haekney carriages, seldom has more than two cabs upon it, under existing conditions of isolation.
The Tubes' Retort.
It is undeniably evident that the managerial authorities of the Underground railway systems of the Metropolis continue to leave no stone unturned in order to secure the largest-possible share of the passenger traffic of London. It is by no means an easy task to influence people to travel underground and to puzzle their brains with problems 'le to the quickest subterranean way to anywhere. In the straggle for supremacy between the tubes, the trams, and the motorbuses of London, the odds have been severely against the tubes. Yet it cannot be denied that the enterprising policy of the Underground directorate is on the
whole " making good." Recollecting that the tubes themselves are largely out of sight, and hence out of mind, it is clearly arguable that their growing elientNe is being .secured because of the Underground companies' praiseworthy methods of publicity. During April and May of this year, a series of cartoons, entitled " London Traffic Qdotations," was published in this journal, and we are in a position to know that the second drawing--a pictorial caricature of the tubes' catch-phrase " Quickest Way to Anywhere " was viewed • with misgivings by many Underground officials. A very-clever poster, entitled " Oar Road is Our Own," has now made its appearance throughout the Underground system ; its implication is that highway repairs do not delay passengers in the tubes. In April, 1909, we protested, in our editorial columns, against the lack of advertisement from which the London motorbus suffers. The time is now at hand when effective poster demonstration trinAt be made in order to counteract the claims of the underground railways, and we are conceited enough to consider that there could be no better rejoinder to the tubes' retort than an adaptation, as a poster, of the cartoon to which we have already referred. We should be happy to facilitate its use for such a purpose.