,Railways and Road Transport.
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IT IS UNDERSTOOD that several of the principal' ' British railway companies have been pressing the ' Ministry of Transport to define their powers (if any) in respect of the haulage of goods by toad motors. which do not make contact with a railway system at 7 any point in the journey. . It has become common -knowledge in the highest official circles of railway management that the,eiaini is to be pressed, and it ie., new stated very confidently that Sir Eric Geddes has decided forthwith to appoint a committee to examine the whole situation, and the rights (if any) of railway -companies as regards powers to carry goods by road. Labour and motor transport organizations will, no doubt, be represented on the committee.
The Upholding of Rates and Fare Schedules.
THE YEAR 1920 has been a year of trial and experiment. for many. Competition among haulage contractors and motor,coaCh owners was keener, not because business was less but because the number of vehicles on the road:was-greater and because many vehicle owners were unaware of the teal cost of running them. Foreseeing the trap into which so many new-comers into haulage and passenger, carriage were likely to fall, we have made it our business to .enlighten them upon the whole question of-running costs and standing charges and upon the rates that should be charged in order to cover, all outgoings, and to. show a fair margin of profit. We have dealt with the subject persistently,' and haVe unflinchingly upheld the reasonableness of the rates advocated by us. If 'there is one comment which, occurring in our daily correspondence, it equally persistent, it is to the effect that the small haulier finds it hard to get these rates, and there is a tendency for the owner who is his own driver -to overlook the need for including his own pay qua driver in his standing charges. He is allowing himself to be blinded to the fact that he is making no proper provision for the time of idleness during whieh an overhaul is necessary. We have had eases quoted to us where a man with nearly a thousand pounds embarked in his venture, and, driving himself, is making five pounds a week. Such a man is not, receiving a fair return for his work, for the capital, at stake, mad for the business _risk he is running. • . The clearing houses have net helped the haulier— rather, they have played into the hands of the pro, (lacer of merchandise, and particularly to those running their own vehicles. ' Thoneed for co=operation and close working among hauliers, to prevent the cutting of rates, and equally among coach aWners to secure schedules of fares which shall be remunerative, is very great.
A Profit on the Sevenpence1
N THE various notices that have appeared in the Press forecasting the reduction of sevenpenee in. theretail Price of petrol, resulting from the removal of the tax at the beginning of this year, lt.is mentioned that this reduction is a result of an undertaking -given a. long time ago. When the sixpence tax was first imposed, it was stated that the petrol earnpares were obliged to add sevenpence to their price and gave an undertaking that an equal reduction would be 'made: whenever the duty was reanoved. Incidentally, motor users will not have 'forgotten that an increase of sevenpence a gallon was notified only very recently, so that -with the tax removed, the price is no lower than it was a few months ago, including the full tax without any rebate. Our point at the moment is, however, the odd penny which makes' up the -severipence. This was originally put on, we are told, to cover the cost ofcollection, leakage and waste. In the interval between the imposition and the removal of the tax, one assumes that the cost of collection has increased owing to the general rise in wages. Moreover, in that interval the price has risen materially, and, therefore, the loss of a given percentage -owing to leakage and wastage must represent a bigger sum than it did. It seems to follow thatit a penny was the right -allowance to make some time ago to balance these three .considerations, they cannot now be balanced by anything less than twopence, and, perhaps, even. threepence. The increased -value lost through leakage and other causes has, of course, been long ago offset by, at least, equivalent increases in price made on that account. It would, therefore, seem that the reduction at the beginning of 1911 should have been eightpence or ninepence rather than sevenpente. The point is, perhaps, not a very important one, because, as we are so often reminded, the petrol companies can charge what they like provided that their prices are not so exorbitant as to kill demand. One fancies, however, that; had oasts gone the ether way, we should have been told readily enough that, though an. extra penny had to be added in the first instance, it was impossible now to take off anything more than a halfpenny at the outside.
THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR Ca'canny v. Increased Production.
I T IS universally acknowledged by all employers and others who have studied the question, from every point of view that the only method ' of bringing down prices without selling products at a loss and without intensifying the present. urgent matter of unemployment; is to produce more without increasing the present establishment and labour charges.
High prices are the cause which prevent the exploiting by our manufaeturrs of• many otherwise pro mising fields in our Overseas Dominions and foreign
-countries. Increased production at lower costs will certainly tend to decrease rather than to aggravate
unemployment. It is of little 'lie producing expen sive articles if the sale of them is necessarily restricted by their cost. America, in spite of its heavy labour charges, is able to produce inciter vehicles at a reasonable figure, and is, conseqiiently, obtaining the pick of the foreign markets and is able to dispose of a vast quantity of machines.
Fartunately, labour is• gradually., realizing its Mistake in adopting a ea'canny policy. A remarkable,
although unofficial, statement recently made at a meeting of the, Institution of Mechanical Engineers by a member of the Amalgamated Society of En gineers foreshadows a welcome change of opinion amongst the working classes. This particular member stated that the mistake of the ca'canny attitude is being generally recognized amongst British workmen, and he amplified this. statement by saying that the average man prefers payment by results to any other method. .
Many sections of labour appear to have become somewhat tired of the hot-headed men with Bolshe vistic tendencies, accompanied hy subtle oratory but achieving remarkably few results, except in a retrograde direction, and are likely to welcome the saner counsels of the many capable thinkers amongst them.
QUarterly Licences: A High Charge to Taxi Owners. •
IN THE House of Commons recently Sir Park Goff asked the Minister of Transport whether something could not be done in the interests of ownerdrivers of taxicabs, who now have to pay the whole of their substantial annual taxation in a lump at the beginning of the year, or else, if they take Out quarterly licences, have to pay in the aggregate an extra 30 per cent. for the privilege.
He was informed that the Minister regarded the issue of quarterly licences at all as an important concession, and that it was impossible to allow any particular class of motor User the privilege of taking out such licences on payment of only 25 per cent. of the cost of annual licences without making this same privilege general. .
Let us think for a moment what this "important concession" amounts to from the motor owner's standpoint. Instead of paying the whole of his money at the beginning of the year, he pays it in quarterly instalments in advance. That is to say, on the average he has the use of 75 per cent. of the amount of his tax for a period of six months. For this he has to pay an extra 30 per cent. on the whole amount of his tax. This is at the rate of 60 per cent. per annum on the whole amount, but as he only gets deferred payment in respect of three-quarters of the amount he is really paying the Ministry of Transport about SO per cent. per annum interest on what, for this purpose, may be regarded as a loan. This strikes one as the sort of "important concession ') that a good many money-lenders would be pleased to make in respect. of comparatively small amounts against the security of an insured motor vehicle.
c2 So much for the importance of the concession. If the Ministry could arrange the same kind of thing
on a larger scale, the problem of financing our national expenditure would be very completely salved. Would it not by possible fel-. their associations to arrange to borrow sufficient sums at a reasonable rate of interest in order to enable owner-drivers, otherwise unable to do so, to pay the whole tax-in advance and so escape from this extortionate. rate of usury ?
Next as to the point made by Sir Eric Geddes that it is impossible to give a concession to one class of user without giving it to all others. This is obviously absurd. For years past, in .connection with the petrol tax, concessions, were given to some and withheld from others. It would 'be perfectly simple to arrange, if it were desired, that, in respect only of hackney carriages licensed as such and not having seating accommodation for more than six persons, the quarterly licence fee Should be only 25 per cent, of the annual licence fee.
Presumably, the real idea of charging xtra for the quarterly licence is that, if this were not done, gocd many private motorists might lay up their oars for one of the. winter quarters and so get off cheaply. As things are, nobody can escape with less than the full annual payment, unless. he dispenses with the use of his car for at least six months in the year: The precaution taken in order to prevent private motorists getting off cheaply is absolutely unnecessary in the case of cab proprietors, especially those of the ownerdriver class.
Sir Eric remarked that the collection of quarterly licences would involve increased administrative work
and expense: It would not be difficult to find a business concern which would undertake to do that work for something considerably less than SO per cont, per annum on the capital concerned.
Training the M. T. Officer.
THE APPOINTMENT of a distinguished engineer as civilian professor at the R.A.&.C. -College i.S.an indication of the intention of the military authorities to ensure that the inechani-. cal transport officer of the future shall be thoroughly trained in the mechanics of his profession.
If, during the War, some of the R.A.S.C. officers found themselves handicapped by reason of a lack of expert mechanical knowledge, it was not their fault, but that of the system under which they had been trained. It is hardly reasonable to expect a man to be an authority on both the horse and the motor
vehicle as well..
The fact that the war was necessary to demonstrate completely the ascendancy of mechanical transport in inodernwarfare, mereover, is not necessarily an indication that military foresight had not been exercised. 'It has taken a great deal of time and a vast amount of propaganda to convince many business firms that, in certain directions, horse transport is both inefficient and out of date. Competition also has had to play its part in their conversion. Moreover, in the Army, the reformer has ever to contend with tradition, and to deal gently with that precious psychological factor called esprit de corps. These facts the critic of the pre-war R.A.S.C. training must bear in mind. . . .
There is every reason to believe that the lessons of the war have been well learned, and the appointment to which we have 'referred above, gives evidence of a full appreciation of the necessity of a thorough mechanical training forming an important part of the make-up of the complete R.A.S.C. ofh.6er of the future. .