OH,! SAY! U.S.A. !
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By "The Inspector."
THERE WAS A CLAMOROUS demand in the early days of the war for the services of the professional prophet. Quite a number of men *ere cute enough to realise that there was a lot of Money to be made by propheteering, and with remark-able ease they cloaked themselves in the conventional Mantle, and proceeded to map out with apparent conviction the course which national events would pursue in the near, or not very distant, future. The public very quickly gave evidence that it was hungry, for views in the absence of news. Anybody who was prepared to say or write What would happen-on the battlefield, or even in industrial circles at home could dispose remuneratively of countless thousands of alords embodying these Plausible predictions. Provided that such advance information" could be embellished by school-slate drawings that were intended to be diagrammatical translations of the prophet's inspirations, he presumably was able to claim large additions to his honorariums.
Truly, in the early days of the war the prophet was not without profit even in his own country. But 'shrewdly suspect, as a matter of fact, that the Old Moore profession, besides being a, very ancient one, is one that demands little more than self-confidence and some imagination. The task, in the early days so light a: one, is one, however, that, after nearly four years of war, is hedged with suspicion and commands but little respect. ,r We have almost outlived the day when we voraciously devoured any definite and inevitable conclusion as to., war's mathematical certainties. Indeed, it is particularly embarrassing nowadays to venture upon anything in the nature of a prophecy. Yet, if one is to write, and perhaps some readers may be captiously inclined even to query that necessity, one must nowadays be either a censored historian or a cocksure prophet, with such little excursions away from fact and fancy as the Press Bureau may permit. It is a case of " beforethe-war " or "alter-the-peace" every time.;
personally, have very infrequently dared to prophesy, and for that very reason I feel entitled to claim What honour awaits me in my own country, when I have succeeded in Making a lucky guess. My list of successes does not entitle me to regard the profession as likely to yield a promising future for me ! In March of the present year, overweighted with the assurances of certain of my goodAmerican friends that America was about to lick creation in the matter of standardized lorry production for military purposes, I felt impelled to submit to .the editor a short article entitled "America will make mistakes too." I suggested then that the United States decision to produce tens of thousands of standartlized lorries would not necessarily change to any great extent the lines of development for the heavy vehicle industry of the world "—to put it mildly—and now, within the last week or two—after many months—it has been announced that it has been decided by the, Army authorities in the United States to abandon the whole scheme and to rely upon the standardized models produced in the American factory.
It cannot be denied that there weie quite a number of people in this country, and not a few of them eonnected with the commercial-vehicle industry, who were unnecessarily impressed by the early statements of a stupendous programme that were circulated by those interested in the American vehicle.It must, moreover, he admitted „that to the majority of us, accustomed to think on " Ford " lines of all motorvehicle production in America., there appeared to be nothing so very outrageous in the actual quantities schectuted or in the statement as to the speed of out put which it. was to be arranged to attain. • Birt the true facts of the case are that this Liberty truck, a combination of standarcliied -components and very
little more, Was quite a second-rate effort, and there is no harm in saying so, now that the Americans have abandoned the scheme, haVe superseded some of the men who were inLeharge of it and have inaugurated a new department to get busy in speeding up the production of the best of America's own patterns of standard trucks, the like of which-1 be it remembered, we and others of the Allies have been using in-very large quantities on active service for the last few years. It is tolerably certain that the Peerless, for instance, and perhaps the Locomobile, the Packard and the Pierce-Arrow, would have seEved the purprise of the American Apny authorities far better than the much-heralded composite truck which all the factories in America were to produce. They would have served their purpose quite well enough, as they have the needs of our own Army and 'those of France, Russia and Belgium.
But none of these machines compares as a finished war vehicle with the best British makes, to :say nothing of the French and Italian models. The is a crudity about American truck design, with probablythe sole exception of the Pierce-Arrow, that puts it in a class distinct from the finished production of the British factories. And although certain misguided publicity-mongers in America were at pains to peksuade the world that the American standardized lorry was to be " it," it was not fair to the British industry and to all that it has accomplished that such boasting should go unchallenged. The best of American manufacturers would be unlikely to desire any such unfair deductions. The reaction has come more quickly than I had expected, but British users must not be allowed to forget that the British commercial lorry is probably without its equal in theworkt OD account of its extreme suitability for its task, and
generally for its value for money. .
Although there will be very large quantities indeed of American lorries in Europe when the recorkattmtion period arrives, users must be pressed to consider the claims of British manufacturers first, and they are claims which, in all fairness, cannot 'be ignored. What has happened with the Ainerican lorry is likely to happen in the case of a large number of agricultural tractors, if, indeed, it has not alreadyhappened. I write this in no unfriendly spirit to our American cousins, as all their aid is useful, although peihaps not always tob timely. We have a use here for the best that any nation can ,produce, if it be better tan our own in any or all respects, but the British industry will need every ounce of support in times to corne, and it must not be forgotten that not neces.sarily the most insistent competitor, if he be permitted, will be the Hun. American competition, and -in a smaller way that of Japan, will have to be faced, and it must be faced by the proper knowledge of all the facts. America will be under no disability here on account of such war-begotten prejudices as it is hoped Will dog the persistent efforts of the German and Austrian trader for generations to come. The American will, if our import regulatiena permit him, have, no such handicap and will probably be recommended by the feeling of comradeship bred by nations in arms together. In spite of all this the commercialvehicle user must he insistently reminded that the best commercial vehicle of almost all kinds can be produced in this country, and as such Must preferen
tially be entertained by our countrymen. .