The Transport of Light Loads.
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HIS ISSUE, which it was intended should be devoted to the transport by road of light loads and should aim to show to tradesmen all over the country .aiicl to potential users abroad just what is being done'iin the replacement-of the hersed van, the horse and tart, and the messenger on -foot and on cycle, was planned 'well before the trouble in the coal industry came to a head and our 'first acIvices to the manufacturers of ' vehicles, conversion sets, etc., were dated April 12th. There is not much encouragement at these times to produce a special issue of a journal, but, the information being available, its publication at this juncture should,, without a doubt, serve, two useful ends It should materially assist in transportation by showing the way to quicker and more efficient delivery, and it should be produetive of business to the motor industry.
We ha-re materially enlarged The Commercial Motor this week in confident anticipation that the volume of matter required it, but "press-day" operations show that it, number of interesting and highly informative articles must be held over, and we have decided, rather than• tabloid each contribution, to continue our treatment of the problem of light load transportation and its solution in our next issue, which, therefore, will be found by the tradesman, the transport manager and the trader equal in value and importance to this one and, with it, completing 'a comprehensive survey Of a vital phase of goods transportation.
Petrol Prices and Allowances for,Sulk Storage.
THE announcement of an imminent reduction in the price of petrol in last week's issue of The Commercial Motor has created intense interest throughout the Mechanical transport industry, hot that the fall was at all unexpected, but because it had seemed a-s if the industrial crisis would operate to keeps-the price of liquid fuel at a high level for an undue period.
We advanced the view, when making the 'announcement, that the reduction in price should be subetantial, even to 2s 6d. per gallon (retail price). To those consumes and dealers who are putting in bulk storage installations there should be a bigger allowance on petrel purchases than is at present given. Prior to the war, this allowance was lid. per gallon, and it has not been increased, although the price of petrol has been raised from time to time on the-plea that the cost of tins, the cost of labour in filling them and of the capital charges on the filling plant, transport charges on the cans and the cost of repairs, etc., had all increased tremendously. If the incidence of these charges has entailed an increase (as is highly probable) of 200 per cent., it is quite obvious that _the allowance per gallon to those consumers and traders who are employing bulk storage should be nearer 4d. than lid. per gallon. . . As we read the signs, the installation of pump delivery systems is being encouraged by the indirect method of getting the retail purchaser to ask for his supplies through such a system rather than by the medium of oasis. But the cost of a pump installation is very high, and it would take a consumer a considerable time to cover depreciation, interest, and other costs out of an allowance on petrol purchases so meagre as 10. per gallon. We put it to the petrol distributing concerns that they will further their own interests and will help to simplify the question of petrol distribution if they will reconsider this matter and increase the allowance substantially.
The Part Being Played by the Little Giant of Road Transport.
TEIE Liverpool correspondent of The Commercial Motor, who contributes to this issue an interesting survey of the uses to which the small capacity motor vehicle (up to 30 cwt., let us say) isaput in his city, describes this type of vehicle as the "little giant of road transport industry," and he is amply justified in awarding it that distinction. Moreover, it is peculiarly apt, because the little giant has but commenced a long and distinguished life ; it has yet to grow and reach maturity. In the fulness of time, mechanical transport must reign supreme on the road, for the barest fringe of it has yet been touched.
It may be that an excess of caution prompts many writers for the Press to eschew prophecy. It was a schoolboy who, asked to give an example, of an optimist, said that an optimist was the man who wrote the weather forecasts for the papers! As the doom of the horse as a means of transport was confidently prophesied when the first railway train performed its epoch-making journey, and the horse nearly a century later is still with us, it would require an optimist, immersed in a haze of total unconcern, to pronounce his further, or actual, doom as the result of the introduction, of the motor vehicle. But the motorvan is showing such a wonderful. capacity, not only to replace the horse, but to do its work with greater speed and regularity, and actually to enlarge the sphere of operations of its owner, that one wonders what particular trade can really afford to dispense with the motor vehicle and to continue the employment of draught animals.
The horse is losing headway in its very strong-. hold—agriculture; how, then, can it be expected to hold its own in connection with tradesmen's deliveries, in the transport of light raw ,materials and finished goods to and from the factories, and in the distribution of perishable and other products? Every advance in civilization makes us call for further facilities; we crowd more into the short span of life allotted to man, and we cannot suffer the waste of time, which is demonstrably avoidable by the employment of the modern mode of conveyance—a mode which never tires, which (proper attention being given to it) is instantly available at all hours of the day and night, and which can go from door to door and thus do a job completely, without having to form merely a part of a chain of transportation (as the railway is limited to, for example). The development of .the use of the motor vehicle for light loads and quick deliveries in -the next ten years will be colossal.