The Last Hundredweight.
Page 5
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By "The Inspector."
WE ARE GOING TO BE badly bitten by the craze for standardization before we are through with this fighting business'. While
• vi are still at war, simplification of requirements, whether civil or military, is, without argument, eminently desirable– We are glad to submit to the piquant flavour of the standardized loaf, of which, be it noted, no baker can tell you the constituents for two days together.
Standardized ships here, standardized boots in France, while in Germany the mere Hun man, ,woman and child are nearly standardized to death already. Much of this is, undoubtedly, necessary in war time. But there are' signs that, in our zeal to make good the slackness and omissions of the past, we shall be asked to standardize far too much when peace comes again. We must look to it that the scream for quantity production does not kill initiative and impair our British quality. Do not let us go Ford mad.. Let us learn the Ford lesson, but master it properly. And it is a far more abstruse lesson than many would have us believe.
We are in for an era of standardization such as has never been known. We hear arguments in favour of non-competitive Construction, and of co-operative design. But these are programmes fraught with not a little danger to our national capacity for good sound production, and for individual, if insular, design. As in other matters, we shall probably not do so badly in the long run if we make haste a little slowly. There is much that wants overhauling in our national peacetime organization, but there is no need to pull down the house in order to repaper the walls or to re'tarnish the rooms.
Of course, I. as an engineer, am with the new movement to standardize the multitudes of small. essentials, in which no advantage accrues from variation. We know, most of iis, pretty well all there is to know about screw threads, pipe sockets and the like. But obviously finality is still far to seek. So let us be very careful not to tie our hands for the fleeting satisfaction of having a shot at the world's-records in quantity production. Let us remember that some of the biggest businesses in this country have been built upon a policy of deliberate caution.
I am of opinion that, so far as our own industry is concerned, attempts to standardize types between maker and maker-and this has already been discussed seriously—would be disastrous to its future. But what should be done, without the slightest hesitation, is to standardize load capacity. Let Acts of Parliament and local regulations look'after speeds and axle weights, but the manufacturer should hasten to protect himself by the elimination of untruthful, or at any rate unnecesSarily optimistic load-capacity ratings.
For the protection of Britiah factories against the importation of American and foreign-built chassis of which the load capacities at present are so frequently overstated; the base upon which all load capacities should be rated ought to be R. A. C. engine rating and gearing. This might be modified; perhaps by some factor representing chassis tare weight, in order to handicap the flimsily-built machine furnished with a big powerful engine. There is, of course, room for discussion as to the best rating factors to adopt.
It should be quite Possible to settle upon a scare of load capacities which would meet the requirements ()Ian trades requiring the modern aid of mechanical transport. The object at which to aim is the elimination of the unfair competition of the salesman who will, to meet some quibble of a prospectiveclient, finish his ]owing panegyric of the three-ton Loadshifter by adding in a confiding manner, "But she'lleasily take another 10 or 15 hundredweight. You ;needn't be afraid of overloading her. We make a practice of putting' the capacity low in our lists, be. cause we know we've got such a margin."
The three-ton Loadshifter is sold to carry another half-ton. The genuine three-ton -Rival remains unsold. A new back axle, countershaft, springs and, perhaps, frame, are soon wanted for the Loadshifter, and the type gradually gets a bad name. But for the time being it doesa lot of harm to other makers, to agents, and to users alike.
I know of 'a well-known model which was designed as. a 30-cwt. chassis, put on the market as a 30-cwt, -2-ton model (exclusive of body), at alater stage sold as a 50-cwt lorry, and now, with stronger springs and a. few other weak details remedied is sometimes offered as a 60-70-cwt. lorry !. Its proper classification all along should have been a "50-cwt. chassis exclusive of body," • Standardized load-capacity, ranging from 5 cwt.. to 6 tons, say by 5-cwt. increments up to 1 ton and then by 'steps of 1 ton up to the legal limit, all exclusive of body would, at One step, abolish the ridiquloua anomaly of the 35-cwt.-45-cwt. chassis, the uncertainty of which is only comparable with the equally foolish 'engine ratings which have so long been used to tantiilize the touring-ear buyer.
I have alivays considered the official description of an engine as, say, 17-26 h.p., to be a confession of uncertainty as to performance which reflected no ciedit upon those who should know what the brake-horsepower should be. I never quite fathomed whether the intention was to suggest that the engine would develop 17 and might be squeezed up to 26, or if it were to be sold as a 26 with the 17 put in as a "saving clause," in case nothing better actually happened. Similar criticism may be brought against the 35-cwt, lorry of which the failure to have more than a ton and a quarter is explained by the "after-the-sale" amplification that the 35 "included the body "—whatever it might weigh, it should be noted.
In my opinion, machines should not be sold as 35-45-Cwt. models. Buyers should have the assurance that two tons means two tons, that a 43,ewt. model is not made, and that the overload which' they are tolerably certain to attempt on occasion should be on the basis of 40 cwt., and not 43 cwt. or any other indefinite figure.
Overloading will never be eliminated, but it Should not be deliberately encouraged by professed uncertainty as to individual chassis capacity. ' And the responsibility for its consequences should be very decisively placed on the shoulders of the user. Some makers anchlmany salesmen deliberately invite overloading in the anxiety to make sales. They would make more in. the end if they deliberately forbade it,.