AUSTRALIA'S LORRY REQUIREMENTS.
Page 18
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
What American Makers Are Doing : What British Makers Are Noti Doing
(From Our Australian Correspondent.)
FOLLOWING on years of a perfect orgy of horrowing, most of the Australian States have now become faced with the necessity of putting their houses in order. Amongst other things one finds, practically without exception, that the various railway departments are losing money at a fabulous rate. In this connection, we find New South Wales casually talking about a deficit of £1,000,000 for the current year, and Victoria arranging to deal with one of 2783,000. The other States are similarly placed, to
reater or lesser degree according to circumstances. any explanations have been forthcoming, and Victoria has had a Royal Commission sitting, but apart from all complaints of mismanagement (and flivir number is legion) it seems certain that the neglect of Australian roads is the true explanation of actual deficits.
For years, anybody with land to open up agitated for a railway, and, if he had sufficient political pull, sooner or later got it, thereby increasing the value of the land and leming the adjacent farmers to get to the railway as best they could. The height of absurdity in this direction has been reached in Victoria at a place called Nayook, where, at a cost of some 230,000, a railway was built and left with the nearest road communication some two miles away. The sum of 21700 was required to make the connecting link, but everybody complained of having no power to build it and the Government would not. The result could be seen on any wet day, when passengers arriving at Nayook station by train would leave the railway premises and step into, mud, knee deep and consequently impassable.
This sort tif thing : the abandonment of much country and the annual loss of thousands of pounds of produce resulting in unduly increased cost of living, has focussed public attention, at any rate in.Victona, on the road question, and it is becoming realized that railways without roads are valueless and that thousands of miles of first-class highways need to be constructed. To this end more legislation is proposed, and agitation is being conducted to secure the expenditure of large sums of money, on road construction. 24,000,000 is being demanded, but whether such a sum will be forthcoming is another question. At any rate, it is reasonably certain that a large sum will be available. , ,
Up to the present 6000 miles of road in Victoria have been proclaimed main road, and out of that nearly 700 miles have been metalled and nut in a fairly good condition for traffic. The sum of money mentioned is needed to complete,the balance. All this tends to show that Victoria, at any rate. is becoming opened up for motor transport. -Included in the 700 miles referred to, which are daily being added to, there are some fine stretches of main roads admirably adapted to road haulage. To meet the conditions, American manufacturers are bestirring themselves. In the western district of Victoria some co-operative dairy haulage is being undertaken, and, over the comparatively good roads they have there, it is being found that cream can be carried to and from the butter factory at about 6d. per ton-mile. Americans are taking a great interest in this system, and, although no cars are going to Australia to-day, their factory representatives are busy preparing for the future when the vehicles can be imported. Several of the British manufacturers have a
number of vans and lorries running, and it is a pity that no direct representative of. these factories is on
the spot to endeavour to co-ordinate the work and secure detailed figures of performance with a view to future advertising.
048 I am afraid that during the present circumstances; whilst the roads are being built and Americans are organizing, so far as Australia is concerned, British Manufacturers are waiting until the war is over before doing anything. They are not the only ones who are fully occupied on war work at the present time, but they are the only firms who, as far as I can ascertain, are not alive to the future.
Another outstanding feature of Australian. condi7 tions is the numerous demands for heavy haulage.
One cannot get away from the fact that people de mand vehicles to carry loads of from five to ten tons. The only possible explanation for this demand is the local labour conditions, labour being both scarce and expensive. Four years'ago, buyers demanded six and seven-ton lorries, which were duly supplied with more or less disastrous results, which might have been
avoided if the manufacturers had retained factory representatives on the spot to educate the selling agents.
\ The unsuitability of these vehicles for ordinary mechanical road haulage, having been discovered, the people moved in the direction of the use of trailers, and quite a number of makeshifts of one kind or another, has appeared. American manufacturers, quick to realize the demand, have recently been placing on this market commercial vehicles and trailers complete, the latter being provided with a suitable drawbar and rubber tyres. This is the kind of competition British manufacturers will have to be prepared to meet if they are to succeed on this mar ket. It is no use offering "a three-ton vehicle and stating that a trailer can be added when American manufacturers offer the whole for an inclusive price.
I feel sure that mechanical haulage will sooner or later cure the Australian farmer of his obsession about ,big loads. In all good time, the three-ton vehicle will come definitely into its own, and, until it does, local prejudice must be respected by those who_ seek to do business. It is a noticeable fact that
' American manufacturers have taken care to land a.
sufficient number of vehicles and trailers to be able to use them for advertising purposes, and for booking orders, against the time when shipments are resumed. British manufacturers will assert that war work is preventing them from doing anything of this kind,
but it is a fact that in the middle of 1915, most of the leading British manufacturers of commercial vehicles
shipped a few standard lorries to Australia, presumably, for demonstration purposes. The pity of it is that they have not had their representatives on the -spot to watch, and advise them on the trend of public: opinion. Now that the winter is coming on, I km convinced that it would be possible to ship a ma.xithum of a dozen British commercial vehicles to Australia as suit
able demonstrators to hold the market. If these were of a kind to meet local demands and were properly pushed by the manufacturers' own representatives,'I am convinced that much might be done to prepare the market for the fight that is corning after the war. To be quite plain, four or five British manufacturers. shipped standard lorries to Australia in 1915: can one of them tell me to whom any of these vehicles was , sold? Does he imagine that his sakent is spending money to advertise the purpose of these vehicles for the benefit he may possibly derive some years hence If not, what steps is he taking to have it done'? American manufacturers of commercial vehicles have been in just as difficult a position as their British confreres so far 'as the Australian market is concerned, but they have sent their vehicles here and have seen
to it that their own representatives have followed them up and are advertising them in their interests.