Fruitless Pressure on the Industry by the War Office.
Page 1
Page 2
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
_ Our current series of articles in regard to the War Office will again show that we disagree with its methods of bringing pressure to bear upon the in dustry. No. 1 dealt (last week) with salesmanship ; No. 2 (to-day) deals with the buyer's preference for the older scheme which applies to any maker's standard models of which sufficient totals can be registered. It seems to us that this Government Department, not unlike others that might be mentioned, is out to get all that it can, at the least cost to itself, and without regard to the ordinary decencies of commercial practice. Not a few shipbuilders have had experience of Admiralty methods, but we gather that the War Office, in regard to its subsidy muddle, has in many respects completely outdone its sister Department. Be that as it may, we do find it a matter of grave concern, from the standpoint of the owner, that undue pressure is being exerted upon the industry at large to force the sale of types which have obvious disadvantages for purely-commercial uses. The industry does not want to produce and sell these types, and we believe that it is at the moment far from giving in generally to the arbitrary and autocratic Departmental scheme.
We are in favour of proper methods of standardization, and we may once more refer to the original article which set the War Office in motion : it appeared in our issue of the 22nd September, 1910, under the title of "Chaotic Mechanical Transport for the British Army.". The principles which were suggested in that article were such that the individual good features of particular designers and makers need not be saerificed, and they might with advantage have been adopted. The present sole design, which incidentally requires the employment of the type of back axle which gives inferior clearance, is not one that deserves to be commended, to the exelueion of all other arrangements, to the commercial user. Notwithstanding the conditional subvention payments for which he may become and remain eligible, he is likely to lose more, having regard to the higher first cost and the greater daily expense of running, than he will gain by ordering a normal and non-subsidized. vehicle.
We have nothing to say against the deuble-reduetion and bevel final drive for commercial use, be it noted, because it has done splendidly. We used to be told, however, that good central clearance underneath was a vital point for military service. It is, of course, of less moment in ordinary service.
We are quite content to accept the assurance, which is given to us unofficially from various quarters, that the Treasury will not do more than it has done. The conditional offer is: an annual subsidy of 20 per vehicle, payable half-yearly in arrear ; a purchase premium of £50, payable in six half-yearly instalments, also in arrear ; an additional further purchase premium of £10. payable in six half-yearly instalments, also in arrear, for vehicles equinped for the carriage of meat slung from the roof. This is insufficient in
alucement, we repeat, to move the average buyer, especially when one pays regard to the unassessable requirements and methods of the inspection officers. Until this subvention scheme of the War Office is thoroughly overhauled, we shall remain in opposition to it, and shall urge, as we now do, that buyers and prospective buyers should think twice, and yet again, before they have anything to do with it. Later on, when it has been brought more into line with commercial ideas, we may commend it. _Now, we must strongly do the reverse. We advise buyers to keep away from it, and so to save money. Adverting to the situation in which the manufacturers find themselves, we do not wonder that they have been slow to comply. No solid inducements have been held out to them, and the likelihood of Government business is extremely problematical. One company, we know, has done extremely well by reason .o.f the alacrity with which it prepared to supply further quantities of models that happened to be of the type which it was already producing, whilst one other manufacturer has obtained a little business. Until the War Office convinces the Treasury that it must be more generous, until we see other types of final transmission admitted as they deserve to be, and until there is a real and not an imaginary Quid pro quo for the owner, we shall remain in opposition. We fail to see, in all circumstances, how there can be any rapid accession of reserve output to comply with the conceptions of the military authorities in regard to commercial responsiveness. These have, indeed, been much revised of late.
London' s Western Approaches.
It was with extreme satisfaction that we learned la4st week of the decision to make a start upon the scheme for a new highway to the west of London. We strongly supported the Roads Improvement Association, as may be recalled by reference to our leading article in the issue of tha 27th March last, in its efforts to persuade Sir George Gibb and his colleagues to increase the contribution of the Road Board from 70 per cent. to 75 per cent, An intimation to the effect that the higher proportion was available was recently given by the Board to the Highways Committee of the Middlesex County Council, and the latter body, at its meeting on the 29th ult., resolved that it will proceed on this three-to-one basis. Thus has the Road Board again shown its amenableness and reasonableness, whilst at the same time paying due regard to the facts and merits of the situation.
It will now take some five or six years before this new road to the west, which will start near Kew Bridge and pass through the northern parts of 13rentiord and Heston and IsIeworth to the main Bath Road to a point west of Hounslow Barracks Station, eau be completed. The cost of the scheme is but little short of half-a-million sterling, and the county surveyor of Middlesex has been authorized to prepare the necessary plans and estimates. Provincial contributors to the petrol and other motorcar taxes can afford to regard this projected grant with absolute equanimity. More counties will be benefited from it than lront any other single scheme of improvement, because the western exit from London affects areas in the Midlands, in Wales, in the west, and in ties south-wet. Had the scheme fallen through, by reason of a disagreement in regard to the exact proportions that were to be borne by the Road Board and by the Middlesex County Council, a splendid opportunity of improvement might have been lost for all time. It is persistent work, in a quiet and unobtrusive way, by the E.T.A., that has largely brought about this important forward step.
To Furniture Warehousemen, Removal Contractors, General Hauliers, Carriers, Etc.
Next week's issue of THE COMMERC/AL MOTOR will be an enlarged one ; further, over and above our total of newsagents' and subscribers' orders, we shall post several thousand copies of the issue direct to members of the above trades. The issue will be No. 2 of our new "Trades Campaign" series, the objects of which are to rouse people who should become impressed by the imminence of the great Show at Olympia, and to urge upon them the claims of commc.rcialsmotor transport at the present juncture of events. The months of June and July, this year, are to be decisive months, in regard to many considerable developments in transport work Labour and railway conditions partly account for that fact, but other reasons undoubtedly need to be sent home, in collated form, in order that they may be appreciated by parties who still adopt an attitude of passive resistance towards modern methods of road conveyance, and to hasten the taking of active steps for their own preservation by those parties. The sure way to stimulate business, in these days of increasing competition, is to acquaint those who are engaged in any trade of improvements in facilities for the conduct of their work, by means of which they can effect undoubted economies. The influence of next week's issue of this journal, whether it be censidered on the whole as a single production, or in detail with respect to its performance and technical data, cannot fail to be beneficial. New recipients will, we know, become regular readers in large numbers, and perusal of its contents will be effectual in causing them to enter the dates for the Olympia Show in their diaries.
L.C.C. Pertinacity in Its Policy of Over—riding the Borough Councils.
The L.C.C. Highways Committee—which misnomer we pass for the moment—merits congratulation, whatever our views may be in regard to its misapplied energies, for the pertinacity with which it seeks to evade the opinions and wishes of the London Borough Councils. This ambition of one of the two classes of elected bodies for the Metropolis has once more been defeated, and now by the direct vote of the House of Commons as a whole. The occasion arose on Friday last, when, on the second reading of the Council's Tramways Bill, the House of Commons adopted the following instruction to the Committee to which the Bill will be referred :—" That it be an instruction to the Committee on the Bill to insert a provision in the Bill making the erection of trolley vehicle equipment on, over, under, along or across any street or road in the County of London subject to the provisions of Section 23 of the London County Tramways (Electrical Power) Act, 1900."
The above-quoted instruction, which was carried by a satisfactory majority, brought four projected trolleybus schemes under the provision of the 1900 Act, which Act authorizes the re-construction to electric traction of certain old horsed tramways, and provides inter diet that the Council shall not apply the overhead system of traction to such tramways without the consent of the road authority. The Council desired to free itself of this local control and
direction, but unsuccessfully. Seeing that the trolleybus system necessitates the use of posts or wires, for the purpose of working-the lines, it will be clear that the only course open to the Council was to drop the proposal, which we now learn is to be done. We cannot agree with the Highways Committee— we again wish to draw attention to the misnomer—in its report to the effect that the House of Commons must have reached its decision " under a misapprehension of the circumstances, and without due regard to the great value of such schemes in linking up and consolidating the present tramway system." Our reason for failing to agree with the highways Committee in this regard is now given. The L.C.C. is wrong in arrogating to itself any general highways powers. It does not possess those powers, and it is not the highways authority for London, although pretensions to that effect are frequently advanced. The L.C.C. has limited highways powers in so far as it is under statutory obligation to maintain its tramway tracks, and in so far as it is responsible for the Thames Embankment, certain of the bridges across the Thames, and particular other relatively-short lengths of highway. The highways authorities for London, in the true sense of the term, are the Borough Councils. Thus, incidentally, one of the supposed fundamental reasons for accepting the L.C.C. claim to be the traffic authority, either now or in the future, is not capable of demonstration by analogy with big provincial cities, and this fact should be at once apparent to our readers. We are strongly opposed to the removal of the obligation to consult the Borough Councils. Those Councils have at least as good a claim as the L.C.C. to represent the electorate. Here. again, we have a point of difference, when it is sought to establish comparisons with big provincial cities. In those cities, the conditions in which are stated to be held so dear by the L.C.C. wire-pullers when it suits them, the highways, the police, and the traffic are under the one authority, arising from the one exercise of the ballot, and in those cases once annually. In London, as a State capital, the police are necessarily directly under the Government, through the Home Office ; the highways, by reason of the true incidence of rates, are very properly under the Borough Councils ; the traffic, by reason of necessary regard for impartial treatment, falls under the police. The L.C.C. wishes to be both suppliant and judge, but considerations of equity and fairness can never allow this position to arise. Why does not the L.C.C. pull up the obsolete horse tramways, which are still to remain, and ask the L.G.O.C. to do all that is necessary in the matter of passenger transport along the routes in question'? We see no objection to that eonrse. The roads would become more effective in their traffic capacity, and their surfaces less damaging to all ordinary vehicles, were the rails to disappear. and were the decaying tramcar not to be temporarily continued. The motorbus is the solution : extensions of street railways were recommended by a Royal Commission which sat more than eight. years ago, but the investigations of the body were made before motorbuses had justified themselves. A new inquiry to-day must produce another result. We record the decision of the House of Commons with the utmost pleasure. We shall not rest in our active propaganda to hinder, and, as we hope in the end, definitely to prevent, the L.C.C. from becoming the highway authority for the Metropolis. Its commitments and policy render its aspirations wholly inadmissible, although we concede that compensation for its once-successful tramcars should be given every consideration when the right time comes. We fail to see how the L.C.C. can establish a right to representation on such a Traffic Committee, because that would merely lie duplication of other local-council representation. Concerted action by the Borough Councils. in regard to the traffic problem, has now become eminently desirable. They are the parties who are concerned, and whose hands are not tied.