The Relative Minutiae of 1914 Sink into Insignificance.
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We cannot write at length of 1914, beieause the. claims of 1915 are upon us. The changes that were brought about by the declaration of war in August last have been carefully recorded by us, week by week, during the past five months. They are of recent occurrence : no useful purpose can be served by recapitulation or reiteration. We therefore dismiss the year 1914, happily in some senses and sadly in others, by devoting to it only the few lines which make up the remainder of this paragraph. The past year has seen the initial stages of the development of selling propaganda by U.S.A. makers ; it has witnessed a combination of effort to advance the just claims of the battery-driven vehicle ; it has, largely through our awn intervention, seen effected the revision of the Australian tariff to the end that fa,irpiay shall be given to importers of steam wagons ; it has been peculiar for contemplated legislation in respect of roads and traffic, the whole now suspended by reason of urgent calls upon legislators which were not foreseen when they originally promised to give prompt attention ; it has, unfortunately we think, helped forward, though only temporarily we are convinced, the cause of tramway reactionaries, in that a profit charge, has been placed, under pretensions which do not bear analysis, upon motorbus traffic on a modern highway, in the County of Middlesex to wit ; it has greatly benefited the cause. of the parceIcar and the light van, and has given unprecedented opportunities to makers in these sections of the motor industry ; it has been a year of progress for the four-wheel drive in America and France, and in the minds of British manufacturers of ordinary types ; it has been favoured by master cart-owners and team-owners as the year of acknowledgment by them that commercial motors cannot be resisted ; it has, we finally conclude with personal satisfaction, justified our anticipations in respect to the standardizing of run-diameters for the wheels of commercial motors.
Many other events and occurrences have, for national reasons, now to be omitted as relative mimetire. We do not attempt any full review of 1914. We should not, in fact, have dealt with the past year at all, but have alone renewed our practice of looking ahead rather than backwards, except for the fact that the outstanding feature of the year has been the triumph in war, from the originating cause which we have again.roarle dear, of the commercial motor.