The Need for a Gas Transport Association.
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AS STRONGLY as .ever do we feel that the coalgas movement requires at once the fostering care of a powerful representative body—one, perhaps, in which the interests of the user predominate—in order that the difficulties that beset it may be met and oYereorne by the combined forces that could be brought to bear. of repressive legislation there may be little to fear, but it is absolutely necessary. that a member of Parliament—more than one,• if possible—should be posted with all the facts in connection with coal-gas as a petrol saver and as a means of maintaining necessary and essential transport services. Departments need to be interviewed in order to prevent the introduction of avoidable restrictions on its production or use. The need has to be urged in the right quarters for the granting of facilities for the production of, gas and the provision of the raw materials, of transport, and of labour, whilst, facilities for the repair and even the extension of the coking plant must be secured. There is much to be done in effecting the establishment .f the means for roadside supplies of gas for road transport and for power. application on the land. The gathering of information from suppliers of materials, vehicle converters, and users,'• and its dissemination will be extremely useful. The co-ordination of efforts to develop the employment of compression for gas storage is a vitally important matter.
There is, in fact, need for a Gas Transport Association (if we may, for the purpose of elucidating our contention, coin a name), or for a joint committee representative of existing associations. But the new organization, whatever may be its constitution, should be thoroughly representative of all interests. The user, we feel, should have a big part, as he is the principal actor. The gas-producing concerns must be strongly represented, because with their sympathetic help many difficulties are removable. Then the middlerrien must be allowed to have their say in the matter. In fact, it is only by bringing these leading interests around the same table that the movement can be rapidly advanced.
We strongly urge immediate constructive action on the lines mentioned. The Commercial Motor Users Association, the British Commercial Gas Association, the Agents' Section, Ltd., the Royal Automobile Club, and the Automobile Association strike us as being qualified to constitute such a body as we have suggested, and we need hardly say that any help to the desired end that can be given by THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR shall be given. We should like to hear within the next day or two from readers who think with us concerning the need for a body that, now coal-gas has become accepted as an alternative fuel, can put up a strong fight in its favour. .
Pluck and Thoroughness when Re-designing.
LITTLE OF our national stock-in-trade that is not already in the fiercely-boiling melting • pot of war is destined to escape similar "heat treatment" during the period of recovery and reconstruction that Must follow. Methods have, with remarkable rapidity, been adapted to Our new-found conditions and, there is little doubt, will, with comparable facility, be again changed to accommodate post-war circumstances. Practically. nothing of our'peace-timemethods has been found suitable for the new needs, and our fine capacity as a nation, little suspected and ill advertised; has discovered itself in ruthless national iconoclasm. Where models, too, have -not. proved adaptable, so far as time and urgency of demand. have permitted, radical alterations or entirely, new plans have been adopted with little care for what had hitherto been "good enough' for father so: it's good enough for me." There has been a ruthless slaughtering of precedent and an unwonted and unexpected willingness to east old habits and traditions. to the four winds of heaven.
War's demand S are always urgent ones. There is seldom time to start de novo with design or pattern.• What is to hand has to be adapted or modified so far as time and .material permit. Output must not be hindered at all cost. Better it is to carryon with what-can be had at once than to face an interval in the continuity '-of war supply. Only where-. nothing reasonably adaptable exists, then is it a case for a clean sheet of drawing paper AS a commenCement.
Industrial chassis, with the exception of models for entirely new Purposes, are :now in their thousands on war service but for detail modifications much as they were in July, 1914. There has been no time for radical redesign, were it:necessary, but to suppose that great changes will not occur when peace again gives the designer a free hand is to imagine a vain thing.
And . while we are redesigning, let us do it very thoroughly. Let us not be too hide-bound with either peace-time or war-time -convention. Garretts, the , old-established traction engine ana: steam wag6n builders, have had the boldness already to turn 'their loco boiler right round on their new agrimotor. Might not consideration be .suitably given to many equally radical changes in our accepted commercial and othet chassis designs? In any case, the -Undoubted claims of the four-wheel drive, and the chain track, and other innovations, will have to be considered very seriously, and the vast aircraft -experimenting will suggest in numerable engine modifications. The war will leave us with a great crop of lessons for the peace-time designer, and we confidently anticipate an era of more daring originality in all classes of design than has existed heretofore.