The Retardation of Business.
Page 2
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By Henry Sturmey.
Why doesn't everybody who has goods to collect and distribute use motors? This is a question I have been more than once asked, and it must be admitted that, when we sec the success with which the use of the commercial motor is meeting in so many businesses, the question is by no means an unnatural one. So far as the constructors are concerned, it is, perhaps, as well that things should be as they are, for, were everybody to" speak at once," supply would be wholly unequal to demand, and an unhealthy boom would result, which would react upon the industry in the long run. It is better, therefore, for all concerned, that progress should be slow, if sure. Matters will be all the sounder in the end.
Progress is more rapid, as I have already mentioned in these pages, with large business houses having large trade connections, large load requirements, and large available capital, than it is with the smaller concerns, and it is more particularly to the latter—the tradesman using, say, a couple or three horses and one or two vans—to whom I refer. Now, in all branches of trade, the business man is averse to trying experiments. He wants the other fellow to do that, and he wants to be absolutely assured of success in any new venture before he starts, or virtually so, and, to the man with small capital, success is more important than to his larger neighbour, and every factor, however slight, which casts any doubt on the probability of success, has great weight in his considerations.
One of the commonest and most potent factors in holding people back from the use of the motor vehicle is the advising friend. With scarcely an exception, these are all " wet blankets." As a case in point, a tradesman who had had unending trouble with horses had a motor vehicle brought to his notice, and its advantages pointed out. He rather liked the idea, and " thought he would." Anything was better than horses. Then he mentioned the matter to his friends, and one and all united in dissuading him from his purpose. The troubles they predicted were many and various ; at any rate, all agreed that the troubles with his horses would be nothing to them. He would need to employ a skilled mechanic to look after it, and the mechanic wouldn't know anything of his master's business, and the expense would be enormous, and it would be always breaking down, and would be in the repair-shop for weeks at a time, and what would his business do when that was going on, until the poor man didn't know whether he was on his head or his heels, and he decided, for the present at least, that 'twas better to face the ills he had, than fly to others that he knew not.
Again, there is the case of the man who, years ago, with an enterprise ahead of the times, made the fatal mistake of trying some contraption, of a wholly unsuitable chassis, fitted up to look like a delivery van, with the inevitable result. All over the country, samples of these derelict crocks, like the proverbial skeleton in the cupboard, are scattered, and every time the idea of a motor vehicle is suggested to a tradesman within zo miles of one, its unsavoury memory is made the " awful example " as proof of certain failure, and it is infinitely easier for the traveller in motorvans to start on virgin soil, than to attempt to break down the prejudice these wretched abortions have built up.
Further, there is the man who is not mechanical. He does know something about horses, but, as to motorcars, well, " he don't know nothing about 'em, and don't want to." It's all very well for him, he will tell you, when you quote the success of a rival with a trade vehicle; he likes tinkering with machinery, and is quite happy putting in an hour looking over it every day, but "that's not my line at all," and so his rival is let walk over him, and filch his trade when, if he has no inclination for it himself, there are more than one of his staff who would be just delighted to have the opportunity of taking on the job, and learning something about cars.
This general ignorance of the subject is, indeed, a very strong factor in dissuading business men from making the venture. As a rule, they know, or have heard, of the troubles of others with pleasure Cars. They do not enquire properly into the circumstances, so often due to the purchase of damaged, second-hand cars, and they hesitate. "I'm not so conservative as not to know they're bound to come," said a grocer to me, only a few days since, " but they're not for me yet awhile. I don't know anything of machinery, and, while horses are trouble enough, I reckon motors are more. Why," added he, " there is a doctor who has a car here, and he thinks nothing of getting on his back under his car for an hour in the evening, when he has done his rounds. Well, now, I'd be no good at that game at all."
Taken together, unfamiliarity with the subject, and a dread of launching out into the unknown, as well as serious doubts as to economy and reliability, form the chief obstacles to-day in the road of progress. " Don't tell me I could work more cheaply with one of them things than with horses," said another man to me. " I couldn't, and it will take a lot to convince me otherwise," Such a man is hard. indeed to convince, but, when proof strong enough can be adduced, even such as he will come into line with the rest. What is wanted to-day, as much as anything, to convince the hesitating and doubting ones, is, not one or two, but a few dozen, carefully itemised cost sheets of, say, a couple of years' work with cars of different calibre in various branches of industry, with some account of the nature of the delivery rounds and the methods adopted of dealing with them, and I am sure, if the Editor of "THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR" would open his pages to the publication of such invaluable data, there would be many who could give such information, who would do so pour encourager les autres. [Our pages are still open for that purpose, and many useful particulars of costs and performances were published in our special van numbers, and in the preceding eight special issues that were devoted to particular trades.—ED1
I would suggest that experiences be asked from specific trades, from time to time, and that a series, in greater detail, might contain the experiences of, say, grocers (a) with town and (b) with country connection. Let us first have the experiences of those replacing a couple of light horse vans with, say, a to-cwt. to 15-cwt. motor, following this with a further series of experiences in the same trade with vans of larger capacity, say, I-ton to 2-ton vehicles. Makers' estimates of costs of working are all very well, but they are only estimates, and what is wanted to convince is the actual figures and results of independent users.