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Next Year and 1924.

25th October 1922
Page 30
Page 30, 25th October 1922 — Next Year and 1924.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

A Few Leads to an Industry Now in a Transitional State.

By E. S. Shrapnell-Smith, C.B.E., M.Inst.T., President of he Commercial Motor Users Association, Chairman of the Standing Joint Committee of Mechanical Road Transport Associations.

THE MECHANICAL road transport industry, in common with others, is in a transitorial stage. Can one commit to paper a few leads -which shall not partake of guesswork or prophecy?; One can certainly try thus to record the outcome (4 some, if not all, recent impressions and observations.

Users at home are again to be projected into the throes of taxation conflicts. An effort is already launched to reduce taxation upon private motorists, and to dissemble upon the point of who is to make good the shifted burden. The plea is that taxation must be according to user, ignoring purposes of use, but the Government has promised to reconsider and reexamine the complete case.

Motor Taxation.

The enforcement of a motor spirit, tax as regards levying it is hut one side of the question. Proposals are afoot for sliding scales according to spirit content, with samplings and testings galore, plus trispections and supervision to prevent evasion. rhere are elements in these schemes which indicate the necessity of a parallel for motor-spirit control largely comparable to that for potable alcohol, not excluding the equivalent of " proof" spirit as a basis of the tax with degrees (percentages) above and below. It can be done, no doubt, this raising of money for the Road Fund by taxes on motor spirit, but investigation in detail can alone determine how much and at. how great cost and loss to the user.

The other side of the question, and in my view the one that concerns every user most vitally, is the possibility of enforcing the sale of motor spirit to motor owners in any relation whatsoever to the pence per gallon in fact paid in respect of the fuel as in fact delivered to the consumer ? I shall require tn be satisfied, as a member of the Government Committee before which the whole matter is to come, that a motor-spirit (petrol) tax will not add to the profits of the petrol importers and distributors whilst entirely failing to ensure "taxation according to user." The petrol people must be called upon to prove that no very large quantities of spirit can be sold in such admixture that they bear only 2d. or 3d. per gallon, or even nothing per gallon, compared with a theoretic 4d., 5d., or 6d. of anembryonic scheme on paper. There must be proof that the anomalies and inequalities of a petrol tax will not far and away e7eeed the admitted anomaly of the vehicle tax as regards the owner whose vehicle is used only for a small mileage each year. No form of presentation or levy of a petrol tax can get over the admitted anomaly -with regard to it, viz., that -using the same spirit, the owner in a busy city or a hilly area pays much above the average per mile run.

Next year arid, I forecast, much of 1924, will be needed to reconsider takatiOn difficulties, those which are basic and of principle first, and thereafter those • of incidence. The latter, if pressed, may raise issues not far removed from class-warfare.

Road Improvement a.nd Maintenance.

It. is too often forgotten that roads in Great Britain cost Some £12,000.000 annually before motor vehicles had exceeded a negligible proportion of the whole. Doubling that outgoing, as everything else but income has doubled since the war, it is fairly

safe to state that £24,000,000 of the £38,000,000 likely to be expended during the current financial year on road improvement and maintenance is the equivalent of the old cost of the roads in pre-motor days. _ What., then, about the other £14,000,000? Are motor owners not doing their share, private and commercial alike, in finding 80 per cent, of it

Next year and 1924 will provide still further wonderful proofs that it pays to do a job well, to make roads good and strong in the first instance, or on their reconstruction, and thereafter to re,ap the canjoint benefits of better life at lower maintenance. Dozens and dozens of cases are emerging • where g500 or £600 a mile per annum is falling by half. Methods are not always at faultwhere the converse holds : improvement and strengthening may be in course. The proceeds of motor taxation in 1924 will go three times as far as they did in 19201 Think what that means. Therewill be money over for bridges and for connecting or by-passing highways.

The influence of six-wheelers and pneumatics for heavy loads will also be very apparent, next year and in '1924. They will both help to reduce the cost of road maintenance. Users in many branches, goods and passenger, are preparing to turn to them for relief from certain troubles. Where the loads can be. got, the divisor provided by a six-wheeler keeps down costs per ton. At a time when France is extending the. six-wheeled motorbus, can our passenger undertakings leave it out of account where the police do not, as in London for the present, say it nay?

Traffic .Regulation.

The problem of regulating motor traffic in rural areas is becoming acute. Next year, or in 1924, this problem will come to a head.. It is in the interest of the community that such traffic should pass, but not unconditionally. Taxation is already in force as a condition precedent, in conjunction, usually, with local licensing if passengers are carried at separate fares, The use of by-roads and narrow highways is somewhat chaotic, and tends to get worse. Something must be done, but it cannot be the exclusion, for the benefit of the vehicle catering for two or three, of the vehicle serving 26 or 30 people. Regulation shculd be on a basis which will not extend to exclusion in any but dangerous cases insusceptible of amelioration. There is another Government Committee examining the whole of this. intricate subject. The road is the best link, and for every person who can move about in a motorcar not fewer than twenty are desirous and ready to do so by char-itbalms or motor coach. One-way traffic, passing places, widenings and new roads—all must be utilized, with the minimum of delay.Next year and 1924 are likely to provide experiences which will finally range' the general sense of the community the side of such heavy motor traffic, facilities for it, and above all fair play for those whose lansiness it is to accept the grave responsibilities and risks involved by conducting it. It, is probable that next year and 1924 will give rise to various overt and covert moves by the railway companies. Road transport men ask no protection. Let the railways do their worst, i.e., their best, on their rails. 'We can and will meet them in fair and self-supported competition on the roads.


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