Wheels, Rims and Tires: a Feature of Next Week's Issue.
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Next week's issue of this journal, dated the 9th inst., will be largely devoted to the publication of particulars and illustrations concerning the up-te7date fittings, devices, models, and types of "Wheels, Rims and Tires" connected with utility vehicles. At the present juncture of events, when an enormous amount of extra attention has been drawn to commercial motoring by reason of recent strikes, and when decreases in the price of raw rubber are causing an unprecedented demand for rubber tires and their appurtenances, we feel that all owners and intending owners will desire to be informed, as fully as is possible, of the opportunities for choice which are avail able to them. Less than nine years ago, the cost of solid-rubber tires for even a one-ton van was prohibitive ; upon the earliest commercial vehicles in this country, of those constructed under the Motor Car Acts, the machines to which we refer being the Milnes Daimler vans which first undertook the LiverpoolManchester motor mail in 1902, tire cost was in the vicinity of Sd. Per mile run. A year later, upon the Eastbourne motorbuses, which also happened to be of the A.Elnes-Daimler make, the cost had been reduced to 4d. per mile run. Now, as is generally well known, a five-ton petrol lorry can be run at a cost for tires but little in excess of 2d., whilst a double-deck motorbus in the country can be run at 1.5d., and a City-owned motorbus at a trifle above Id., and sometimes even at less than that per mile of service. Facts and achievements such as these have naturally led to the cultivation of fresh trade by manufacturers, and the recent establishment of a Tire Section of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders is an occasion which deserves to be marked in some way. Our issue of next week will mark it, and we have decided to print an extra 2,000 copies, thus bringing the total circulation of the issue to a. figure in excess of 10,000 eopies, in the assured knowledge that it will he well received and closely watched.
Never before have the best examples of " Wheels, Rims and Tires," together with details of the fittings and accessories pertaining to them, been brought effectively under the notice of existing and intending owners, as they will now be presented in this forthcoming issue of THE COMMERMAL MOTOR. We shall describe and illustrate supplies which are snitable both for the heaviest and the lightest classes of commercial motors, and, for the assistance of those of our readers who are owners of motoreabs, smaller sizes of motorvans, or tricycle carriers, we shall direct attention to the claims of pneumatic tires. There will be published, also, in their due relation to application both to solid tires and pneumatic tires, information in respect of detachable rims and flanges, removable tires, and interchangeable wheels.
We are confident that many of our supporters will themselves be surprised to find how great is the variety of excellent fittings now upon the market, and how carefully designers and makers have studied the convenience of owners, with the guiding influences of reasonable cost, length of service, and elimination of time-wasting perpetually before them. The issue will be on sale at Olympia next Wednesday.
Mr. Walter Long and: Motor Traffic.
We report at some length, elsewhere in this issue, the proceedings, on Thursday evening last, on the occasion of the reunion dinner. at the Royal Automobile Club, to mark the tenth anniversary of the presentation of the judges' report upon the third series of public competitive trials, for commercialmotor vehicles, which took place in Lancashire between the years 1898 and 1901. The Editor of this journal was responsible for the organization and conduct of the competitions in question, and the certified accounts for the 1898 competition, which are reproduced on page 182 of this issue, are of more than historic interest. They show how a considerable sum was collected by the writer of these lines, more than 13 years ago, and how the full amount which had been offered in prizes—in spite of the comparative failure of the competing vehicles—was duly paid over to the manufacturers. Several speakers, and particularly Colonel Holden, F.R.S., R.A., testified at the proceedings on Thursday last to their conviction that these early pioneer tests helped to give to Great Britain her present lead in the application and production of commercial motors of all types, but our chief interest is to draw attention to the magnificent•speech which fell from the lips of Mr. Walter Long. Taking, as one would expect him to take, a broad view of motor traffic in relation to national progress, Mr. Long announced his adherence to the view that the vital matters of bridge and road construction, reconstruction and strengthening should be increasingly treated as a concern for which the national Exchequer should be responsible. There is little doubt that the old trouble of risk in relation to extraordinary-traffic claims, which were for many years, and are in some counties still, the bane of owners of heavy traction engines, will surely disappear, in relation to owners of motor vehicles, before the onward march of systems of road construction and maintenance which exclude the use of water-binding. We believe that. the remaining few obstinate local authorities must at once abandon that archaic and out-of-date method of road making, failing which revision or practice on their part it is clear that motor-traffic interests will now be able to substantiate against them charges.of both misfeasance and negligence. It is almost inconceivable that any local authority can hereafter lay down a metalled road which is not held together either by a bituminous or a pitch binding. In conversation, no doubt, apart from the reported speeches, views were exchanged between Mr. Long and his hosts for the evening, on important questions in regard both to roads and vehicles. Right away back to the year 1901, when he made a soecial trip, as President of the Local Government, to attend a meeting at the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Long has been ever ready to hear about and to alleviate the grievances of owners of heavy motors. He was responsible for the increase of unladen weight, from three tons to five tons, in the year 1904, and we venture to say that he will, in the near future, whether he remain on the Opposition side of the House or his party find itself in power, continue a staunch upholder of the reasonable claims of those who have at heart the best interests of improved opportunities for internal communication and transport by means of commercial road motors.