ORGANIZING A STEAM MOTOR INDUSTRY.
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IN A. RECENT ISSUE one of your contributors ex-pressed very clearly his opinion to the effect that the steam wagon and tractor industry has itself to blame if it does not increase to very much greater.
dimensions. He referred to a lack of enterprise among steam lorry manufacturers as compared with builders of petrol vehicles. To ray mind, this lack of enterprise is to be found not so much in the individual as in the industry regarded as a whole. The steam people have always been unwilling to work with the petrol vehicle manufacturers, or even to approve any community of action among themselves. The result is that, when any question of legislation bearing upon the free use of the highways, or any opportunity for getting a grip of new business, comes up for consideration, the petrol vehicle industry can, and does, make its views and its coherent policy felt. The steam manufacturer grumbles because his interests are not watched and his views are not expressed, but cannot make good the deficiency because he will not cooperate with his fellows with a view to doing so. In the long run the whole tendency resulting from this state of affairs must react to the detriment of the steamer.
There is just the same lack of any willingness to cooperate in working up new markets; though such co-operation is far more necessary to firms having small outputs than to those which are producing large numbers of vehicles. If steam vehicle manufactueers are not individually big enough to support active propaganda and representation with a view to developing Colonial and foreign markets, then such should be run collectively.
To take a somewhat parallel instance, we find that the electric vehicle people have formed a strong comMittee and adopted means by which their special propaganda can be pushed forward. They collaborate in this work, not with a view primarily to getting people to buy one particular make of electric vehicle, but for the'purpose of ensuring that they will consider the advantages of the electric method. . Then, again, the British makers of magnetos have co-operated and are, quite 'wisely and properly, rubbing into the mind of the public the fact that the British magneto • is a thoroughly good thing. Their association does not push one particular magneto: it merely says "Buy from one or other of our members, who are building good magnetos in this country," This is not the full extent of its work, because it also concerns itself with the possibility of arriving at standards that shall make, all its members better able to -produce a good -article at a low cost.
There is much that steam vehicle manufacturers Might do in their common interests if they got together and used their influence in the aggregate. It is extraordinary that they have never yet done so, and in this respect they stand alone in the motor industry. The manufacturers of petrol-driven commercial vehicles have seen the advantages of united action, and are daily applying them in their dealings with the Government, with a view to safeguarding the future. The same is true of car producers and of motorcycle manufacturers. The aircraft people have not attempted to direct the wonderful development of their industry without forming a strong society for the purpose. The electrical industry has had its financial position revolutionized for the better by bringing its leading manufacturers into associaotion with one another.
It would be possible to multiply indefinitely in-. stances which all lead to the same conclusion, namely :—If the manufacturers in an industry will not pull together and work at least partly in the interests of the industry as a whole, that industry will never develop arid prosper as it should. Irthe criticisms of your contributor are justifiable (and I cannot think that they are wholly grdundless), I believe that the fact must be attributed first and foremost to the adherence of the steam, vehicle manufacturer to the obsolete principles of -complete individaalism and
distrust of his fellows. SUPER-HEAT