. Signposts for the Vehicle Makers
Page 39
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It Must Be Remembered That Operators Are Capable of Making Their Own Vehicles
By "Azott"
TIlE Editor of "-The Commercial Motor ", has called attention to a matter which, by its negative quality, may cause positive action from a, to many, very undesirable quarter,
It might appear to onlookers that the transport vehicle manufacturers are not producing vehicles suitable for the jobs the operators have to do, that they do. not know it, and that nobody tells them, There has been recent evidence that the third partner in all industrial undertakings is waking up, or perhaps his representatives in the Government feel that the interests of that third, mute_ partner should in future be looked after, particularly when the other two active partners fall out and fight, or set starvation siege to each other, the third mute partner suffering the v.hile.
When, for instance, the coal owners of the first part, ouarrel with the coal' miners of the second part, the poor British public, the third silent partner, pays; he gets no coal, and yet he findsthe funds to keep the: other two partners alive, The Minister -et Fuel and Power.
Major Lloyd George; has, . to the dissatisfaction of the coaloWners of the first part, "taken action for the British buying Public in this matter of coal; he has taken the collieries away from several 'recalcitrant, quarrelling coalowners' and goton with the job of getting coal.
. That same Minister has hinted quite strongly to the gas and electricity industries of this country. to get together and do better in the future, by planning, than has ever been done in the past by the weapon of competition.
Should the seeing eye of that live Minister spot anything that • savours of masterly inactivity on the part of the section of the transport industry still retaining a modicum of internal control, is It not reasonable to suppose that he -might imbue his colleagues of the M.O.W,T. with a desire to do something about it?
In the case in point, the operators have the whip hand; they are caPable in every possible way of making their own vehicles if the manufacturing industry remains recalcitrant. One recalls similar instances; the London General and its own manufacturing organization, the Associated Equipment Company; the Midland Red; in a modified form, and, of course, the railways, which; to a large extent, have alwaY; been their own manufacturers, Such things can be done again; if necessary, but it is hard to visualize the manufacturing industry committing suicide, if the matter be debated in the right spirit. Whatever be done, it must be done from inside, in order to prevent those in control now losing their identity in an enforced reconstruction. One notes the London electricityauthorities getting together and putting forward their. own reconstruction scheme, which, incidentally, looks very like nationalization of a type, and the gas industry failing to find agreement to an internal reconstruction.