Mid - week Slackness a Laundry Vans.
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One of the many common incidents of the past., which have to-day become invested with an unusual degree of importance, is the slackness of occupation for certain trade motorvans on certain days of the
week. We may take the particular case of motor vans which are owned and worked by laundries. Numbers of these vehicles have little or nothing to do on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and a very con siderable waste of potential value is the conssquence. Prompted by the publicity which has been given to the working of our "Freight Exchange" since it was established on the 8th inst., several laundry proprietors have appreciated the alternatives which are now aN ailable; no longer do their motorvans stand practically idle on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
A typical letter, from a well-known laundry in Kent, includes the following :—" We shall be glad to en
deavour to assist anyone inquiring in this neigh bourho.od on Wednesday or Thursday of any week. We have four vans at present running, of a capacity of four tons, two tons, two tons, and one ton, respectively, and they are all fitted with box-van bodies. We have offered our services to firms in the neighbourhood, whilst we are also carrying fruit and market produce to market for the farmers heie." We believe that those who are responsible for the conduct of certain laundry businesses, and with whom we have exchanged correspondence on this subject, are by no means alone in their preparedness both to help other members of the trading community, and' incidentally to make a reasonable profit, whilst at the same time keeping their men and plant more fully occupied. We believe, too, that the laundry trade only typical of others, although the particular days of the week upon which activity or slackness is the rule may not be the same as in that trade. The fuller utilization of such facilities avowedly in some cases due to the existence of our "Freight Ex change," might very well be extended, in numerous centres and districts, by direct communication between likely parties. We hope, now that the germ of the idea is sown to practical effect, there will be a multiplication of personal efforts to reduce wastage of capacity, and to improve the transport position of those traders who happen to be badly placed by reason of the war. For some reason or other, be it by happy coincidence or deeper cause, owners in the laundry trade do not appear to have suffered much by impressment of their moter vehicles, although many of them have suffered very heavily through the less of horses. The laundryman who is left with his motorvan will not wish to help a competitor in his own industry, apart from the fact that the busy days of both fall together. It is for other trades to look to their •interests by hitving recourse to that help.