PREACHING TO THE CONVERTED IN 1922.
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The Salesman's Task, When Orders Can be Obtained Again, will be More Competitive than Constructive, says "The Inspector." The Owner Knows a Lot About the Lorry To-day.
0 WING to the complete interruption of all normal trading activities by the events of 1914-1918, and to the consequent and continued dislocation of industry—boom and slump alike being detrimental and disturbing—it must be admitted that for seven and a half years we have not approached such conditions of business as might properly be compared with those to which we had become accustomed in pre-war years. We have had a period of utter dislocation, then a hot-headed patch of artificial prosperity overwhelming in its promise and in its performance, followed by many months of depression of which the like has never been known. There was depression after the South African war within many of our memories, but depression of such a nature that we should almost have welcomed it to-day.
One day, not so very far ahead, we must inevitably start business again somewhat on the old lines • of supply and demand, of competitive search for markets, their discovery and satisfactory exploitation, the levelling of facilities for manufacture to something approaching the requirements of the time. These recent nightmares of swollen manufacturing outfits, of abnormal labour demands, continuous strikes and threats of stoppages, cessation of demand, inequality of foreign exchanges, swollen credits, overloaded stock and store rooms, uneasiness, suspicion and nervousness of each day's transactions, and of stifling taxation—these nightmares must inevitably pass. True, some of us will pass with them, but those who remain will have trade to deal with that will compare, so far as business conditions are concerned, with that we had to tackle rather over seven years ago.
We shall, in this industry of ours, have orders, stocks, and manufacturing programmes all bearing pi cportionate relationship to each other, maybe on increased scales, but proportionate much in the old way one to another. And yet the commercial vehicle world will have to conduct its business with full knowledge of one all-important change that has taken place almost imperceptibly—so that but few of us have noticed it. So far as home trade is concerned at any rate, the day has gone for ever when it was necessary to preach from the text " horse versus motor." There are very few business men to-day who are not quite fully convinced that the self-propelled vehicle is an all-round better proposition than animal haulage. There are still horses, but their uses are daily dwindling, and the streets of the Metropolis and, to a less extent,sof the big provincial centres, such as Birmingham, Glasgow, and Manchester, are evidence of the change.
Seven and a half years ago it was still necessary for the salesman to have to occupy a very large part of his time in the endeavour to persuade horse owners of the advantages of the new method. It is not quite easy to realize the 1914 state of affairs, yet it is only during and since the Great War that the change has taken place, that everyone at home has learned the lesson of the complete eclipse of the B243 horse for all but a few specific uses. The war and its mechanical miracles educated us all to the idea without our realizing it. We were a little astonished at the complete ineffectiveness of the cavalry, more so perhaps than at the motorization of almost the whole of the supply-column units.
When good business comes again, as come again it will for those of us who have outlived the worry and starvation of to-day, we shall again have sales and inquiries and tenders and contracts and all the paraphernalia of buying and selling, but we, shall, with few exceptions, be preaching to the converted a very different state of affairs from those that pertained Prior to 1914. To-day, railways and corporations, big and little traders, hauliers and carters, tinkers, tailors, and candlestick makers, all • alike know of what the motor vehicle is capable. In 1914 even, numbers of them still had to be persuaded that there was an efficient substitute for the horse.
Only the farmer and a few of the smaller tradespeople remain. The farmer is learning, but the job is a slow one, interrupted by the curious oscillations of the revenue line in agriculture. The smaller trader has not yet got the ideal utility van ; the nearest solution to his hand is the Ford, and that will by no means be the last word for the tradesman's light van. Municipalities and other public bodies have all finished with the horse. The tramowning authority has, too, in his heart of hearts finished with the tram, but he cannot find courage yet in all cases to admit the logical substitute ; he still toys with the trolley wire and with a vehicle tied to it. Of fire brigades, we have the same to write: the brigade depending on horses will shortly be ashamed of and with reason. The demand for fire-engines is, even to-day in mid-slump, quite satisfactory, and every authority with the money to spend orders its fire-engine and extends its insurance.
The coming improvement in our trade will present a new set of requirements. Motor lorries and other heavy vehicles are going to be sold in keen competition against other similar models. Maintenance costs will be deciding factors in many new cases. Types will have to develop and be exploited. But there will be no further need at home here to "talk away" the horse. Poor, patient brute, his number is up, his substitute has been found, and, sooner or later, in all but a few cases, he will have to be pensioned off or disposed of otherwise. At the moment sales are bard to make,, because no one has any money left, and there is little enough to carry. That is all. There will be Countless opportunities, but it will be a case of selling one industrial model against another, not of taking a horse in part exchange! The steamer, the petrol chassis, and the electric wagon are all here and will stay. The early ABC of the industry's propaganda is made, at home and everywhere abroad. The new publicity and pushfulness must be on the lines of increasing trade, quicker deliveries, cheaper overall transport costs, but no longer on the lines of "better than the horse."