About No. 1: How it was Issued.
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The reception accorded to our first number has been highly satisfactory to us. The issuing of 20,000 copies was a bold order for a specialised journal such as ours, but we have " laid our cards upon the table " from the start. We intend to keep them there, and to tell supporters of " TFIE COMMERCIAL MOTOR" how we go along from month to month. Our advertisement tariff has been based upon an average weekly circulation of 5,000 copies, but, whatever our figures may be, the results will be certified monthly by Chartered Accountants, and, what is more to the point, the meaning of" circulation "will be defined. This is a declaration of a nature that will not permit itself to be overlooked; neither can it be excelled as a proof of good. faith and confidence. We send out this statement, straight from the shoulder, to. our friends and critics alike, that there is no test equal to the one we have ourselves arranged. A new journal is generally scattered broadcast ; but that was not the case with "Tan COMMERCIAL MOTOR." A staff of clerks was employed during the four weeks immediately preceding our date of publication. Their time was not occupied so much in scribbling names and addresses as in selecting them. They pored over long lists received from friends. trade houses and other sources in order to secure useful names and no others. Then we were provided with a revised and up-to-date list of various commercial organisations throughout Great Britain and Ireland. These included Chambers of Commerce, Chambers of Agriculture, Steamship Associations, Corn Trade Associations, Officials of State, Admiralty and War Office heads of departments, the chief officials cf the leading Railway Companies, and others of equal importance. In addition, there were extracted to receive our first number the names of the Colonial agents and leading specifying engineers. Our Consuls abroad were not forgotten any more than the Municipal and County Engineers and Surveyors at home, Editors of some 250 newspapers received the journal, with a covering letter, and the inner circle was attended to in the shape of the National Association of Traction Engine Owners and Users, the Liverpool Self-Propelled Traffic Association, and the Motor Van and Wagon Users' Association. It will thus be clear that we have taken great pains to see that the paper has been brought under the notice of useful parties, and that fact will be fully appreciated by our supporters. The whole issue consisting of 20,000 copies has either been bought by the public or carefully posted in the manner described. As a matter of fact, our list is even more comprehensive than the above summary indicates, and there is no intention upon our part to halt in the pioneer work we have undertaken both at home and abroad. We wish to remind our readers that although "THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR" is a new journal, the experience of many years in the successful conduct of other allied publications is behind it.
Motor Omnibus Orders.
English manufacturers cannot let it be too widely known that they are prepared to execute orders for motor omnibuses. The large volume of business which has recently been placed with foreign makers indicates that no time is to be lost in this direction. It is not as if there were any occasion for home builders to hide their light under a bushel, or to allow the impression to get abroad that no work has been done in England to enable our own manufacturers to turn out highly-satisfactory vehicles for this class of work. We have been struck by the erroneous nature of some recent criticisms in connection with the present "boom " in the use of motor omnibuses, because the suggestion that the movement is too new to be sound will not bear examination. It is, therefore, of interest to remind the public that the conveyance of passengers by self-propelled public service vehicles is of no mushroom growth, and that British pioneers have been struggling with that problem as long as any other in connection with mechanical road transportation. It may not be out of place to send home this fact by mentioning the paper which was read before the Automobile Club after their tirst house dinner of the present century, when the writer is pleased to recollect that he occupied the chair. Mr. Roland Outhwaite, of Edinburgh, then gave an interesting account of the early attempts which were made during the years 1898 IO zgoo. That meeting was held more than four years ago, and even the last two years have served to provide a great advance in motor omnibus construction, with the result that we have now to admit the legitimate use of the word " boom." The employment of this word is not designed to convey the impression that ultimate perfection in public passenger transport on common roads has been attained, or that a close approach to that state is likely to be secured for some years. The expression arises from, and is based upon, the fact that after a period of long and tiresome probation the business of motor omnibus companies has reached the paying stage. The tendency of conservative England to fold its arms and to wait until it is Loo late to do more than gather up the crumbs which fall from the surfeited foreigner is as undeniable as it is inexplicable. Our English makers during the years 1901-3 did not follow up the motor omnibus question w.ith that pertinacity which characterised a few—notably one—of the Continental builders. They appear to have been discouraged by the bad results of 1899 and 1900, when the chassis of pleasure and touring cars were wickedly and perversely used for public passenger service, with inevitable collapse.
English Makers Ready.
The imperative necessity for the use of stouter and more appropriately-designed frames, engines, and transmission systems was borne in upon our home manufacturers but slowly. Further, the 1896 Act gave no encouragement to motor omnibus construction, because the width of the vehicle was limited to 6ft. 6in. over all, and the speed to five miles per hour, when, as must necessarily be the case, the weight unladen exceeded two tons. But these disabilities were removed by the Act of 1903; and the recent Heavy Motor Car Order permits speeds of 12 miles an hour, where tyres of a soft or elastic material are used, and increases the legal width by a foot. Our home manufacturers, with ample notice in hand, have been steadily engaged in testing their new types of motor omnibuses, and are (happily for us) determined not to allow more orders to be placed abroad than they can help. They have had ample experience before them, and this determination is in keeping with England's reputation as the leaders in those branches of engineering which affect the problems of internal communication. The large number of orders that have been given to foreign builders is, so far, of small account, because the business is merely beginning, hut there is no time to be lost in announcing, as we now do in these columns, that the home trade is ready to execute orders with reasonable despatch. Clarkson, Thornycroft, Wolseiey, Napier, Leyland, Simms, James and Browne, and Straker, amongst others, have reached the necessary degree of preparedness to cope with a demand which will certainly exceed a call for two thousand double-deck and single-deck vehicles for delivery between the present date and March of next year.
Capital Wanted.
We should be sorry to think that the influx of capital will be limited to supporting only the use of these machines in London and the provinces at a time when English builders are allocating heavy sums to their production. The return upon such investment is likely to be sustained, as the field which lies before makers, apart altogether from the enormous demand for our cities, is nothing less than the last stage, however long it may take to supply and end it, in the linking up of our towns and villages with the main trunk systems of communication, and the providing of local services in every centre of population which, for one reason or another, cannot he economically served by any other means. England, the birthplace and borne of the great engineering industries, is well able, equally in respect of raw materials as of skilled labour, to produce these machines in competition with any other country. Again, there should be no delay in reaching a large and steady output. The approved types of motor omnibuses, for which demand has overtaken supply, are few and distinct. Hence it remains only to extend production and to build, without preliminary waste of time and substance in further experimenting, such as was the curse of the home industry in light ears some seven years back, when large amounts were subscribed and lost. There is room yet, in existing firms who have taken up this important branch of the commercial motor, for fresh capital which can be placed more profitably and more promptly, and with more data to satisfy the enquiries of the inve.stor, in such cases, than if it were put into entirely new undertakings. The constructor who is ready to extend is to be preferred to the promotor whose scheme is only on paper, and for which a staff must be collected before production can be organised.
Large Business Offering.
London orders have temporarily absorbed the whole available output of France, Belgium and Germany, in addition to that of our own country. There will, too, be large additional orders placed regularly by the old London companies owning horse-drawn 'buses out of the enOrrnous annual depreciation appropriations in respect of the horses and vehicles which they will reduce in number year by year. Close upon four thousand vehicles and upwards of forty thousand horses will have to give place to the motor 'bus, But, putting London out of the reckoning altogether, there remain so many places in which the motor omnibus will be adopted as to justify their being termed " legion." It is admitted by many competent authorities that the installation of an electric tramway system in towns having a population below too,000 is frequently an undertaking attended by serious financial risk. Yet there are, in England alone, upwards of Is° towns or urban districts whose residents must share in the benefits of improved locomotion, and who are sick to death of being without these advantages. Can it be expected that they will put up much longer with the antiquated horse-drawn omnibus? And what will happen when these provincial towns (in practically all of which, between the limits named, motor omnibuses are alone admissible) begin Lo move in the matter? The private capitalist in some instances, the local authorities in others, are already on the alert, and, in other towns, the proprietors of the horse omnibuses are following the lead of the big London COMpanies. The capital required is so much less than for electric traction—being on an average only one-fourth—that the matter of giving any particular locality an adequate service of motor omnibuses is comparatively a small transaction.
Foreign Machines.
Let us conclude by pointing out that we have expressed no condemnation of imported 3:chides; in fact, we regard many of them as in every way excellent. We recognise that their competition is to be welcomed and that it has served the useful purpose of causing our home constructors to set in order their houses, or, one should say, their works, to supply equally good machines on equally good terms. The present excess of foreign vehicles over the home product is entirely due to the lead they were given by the operation of our own laws, and which start has given the great advantage of standardised output to the Continental works a full twelve months before England reaches the same essential position. Output is the secret of successful manufacture, and that great power for effectively grasping the lion's share of the business in motor omnibuses will no longer be denied the British constructor. Thus it is that we seriously commend the matter of placing immediate orders with the several English firms who are ready to supply, and the placing of capital with others who are waiting for its assistance to develop a trade which is so very remunerative to the builder.