No, 822. Vol, XXXII.
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Urgent Matter.
EVEN THOUGH it were in vain, one would still wish that an Act of Parliament could be drafted in a form capable of being readily grasped by the man in the street. The Roads Bill is intended to amend the law dealing with the use of locomotives and motor Vehicles on the road, but a study of its provisions, entailing references ad lib.
to ancient statutes, is quite a task. .
So far as the commercial vehicle is concerned, the new definition of unladen weight which replaces that laid down in the Locomotives on Highways Act of 1896 amounts much to the same thing in the long run, the phraseology, perhaps, being a little better.
Matters of limits on axle weights and of speed are not gone into in the Bill, because power has already been given to the Minister of Transport to make regulations under those heads.
The Bill carries into effect the -provisions of the Finance Act of 1920, which deprived road locomotives and tractors of the exemption from duties formerly enjoyed • by them. It provides the machinery by which the registration of all commercial vehicles shall be conducted, and it certainly simplifies the duties and liabilities of vehicle owners generally, even if it adds materially to those of some of them. A single licence fee, paid at the time the application for registration is made, covers registration, local and Excise dues, and it has the advantage of eliminating the chaos of "exceptions," which often made it a matter for a legal opinion when the owner endeavoured to ascertain the nature of the formalities to be-complied
with before a vehicle could take the road. .
It. is satisfactory to note that existing registered numbers will not be cancelled, but will be retained on re-registration on January 1st, and also that the registration book pertaining to each vehicle will be kept at the owner's office and not have to be carried on the vehicle. The latter provision was a foolish one and died soon after its suggestion. The existence of the book may act as some safeguard against theft, because of the difficulty of disposing of a vehicle without its accompanying credentials.
As the new licence card has to be attached to the vehicle on the near side of the vehicle, and, in the ease of a heavy motorcar or locomotive, in line with the footplate, and as we are within three weeks of the Act coming into operation and no frames or other suitable card-carrying devices have yet come on the market, it behoves owners of coMmercial vehicles at once to proceed with the re-registration of their vehicles. There are computed to be 177,000 commercial goods, agricultural, and hackney vehicles, besides 450,000 private motor vehicles, and there will be something of a rush during the next two months. No doubt, a few weeks' latitude will be allowed, as in January, 1603, but the police will, as then, begin to be officious by about the middle of the first month in the year.
On another page we deal in detail with the provisions of the Bill and with the Ministry's regulations, and we commend our readers to a study thereof.
E.P.D. Must Go! THE FEDERATION of British Industries is to be congratulated on having brought together an extraordinarily representative gathering' of the trade associations of the country. The purpose of this gathering was to focus and, afterwards, to press upon the Government the views of industry as a whole on the all-important subject of taxation..
Previously, a large number of meetings have been held in various parts of the 'country, and the information thus collected has proved conclusively that it was impossible under existing conditions for ,industry to continue to bear.the present abnormal proportion of the burden of taxation that is allocated
to it. .
Under existing conditions, there is little or no encouragement or possibility of development and expansion. Capitalists are not disposed to finance industrial concerns when profits, if any, will be drained away by taxation, and losses, on the other hand, must be met by the capitalist. The feeling of the meeting to which we refer was not merely that the Excess Profits Duty must be abandoned, but that this duty must not be replaced by any alternative method of extorting a similar revenue from industry.
In the view of the meeting, expenditure by the Government must necessarily be curtailed very materially. The sacrifice of revenue by reason of the removal of the Excess Profits Duty must be balanced by the abandonment, or, at least, the postponement, of various expensive projects which, however desirable they may be in theory, cannot be regarded as possible in practice, if the result of following them up is to ruin the industry of the country and, before long, to reach a financial position so acute that manufacturers are obliged to shut down, with the result ' that the inflated revenue ceases to be obtained and the projects for which it was raised remain incomplete and, therefore, unproductive of
the good results anticipated from them.
The industry of the country is firmly of the opinion that no consideration, however important in• itself, must be permitted to serve as an excuse for any other policy than one which will involve a drastic reduction of expenditure.
Industry and Government Interference.
THE NECESSITY for the gathering of Association representatives referred to above and for the formulation of a definite policy was by no means reduced by the speech of the Prime Minister at the annual banquet of the F.B.I. on the previous evening. Nothing that he said could be regarded as amounting to a statement of policy, or even to an indication of probable intentions as regards the future taxation of industry.
The Chairman of the meeting pointed out that British industry is perplexed by an unstable exchange, high taxation, financial stringency, and excessive costs. In reply, Mrr Lloyd George could do no more than reiterate the intention of the Government to introduce a measure to deal with key industries . and with " dumping. He did certainly :add that they would do what they could in the matter of the rates of exchange, but throughout he made a great point of industry's own desire not to be unduly interfered with by the Government. We cannot but think that manufacturing industries have rather over-emphasized this side of their policy, making se much of it as to give an excuse to the Government not only for refraining from interference, 'but for abstaining from any positive measures of assistance of any kind. It is a curious thing that, while many industries, including that with which we are most nearly concerned, are, loudly demanding some sort of temporary assistance from the Government, any member of the Cabinet can always get applause from any considerable body of manufacturers by stating that industries must be left as far as possible to work out their own salvation, interference by the Government being avoided at all costs.
"The Commercial Motor's" Articles on Repair
Methods. .
IN an early issue-of The Commercial Motor, in all an the next one; we shall commence the
'publication of a series of articles which strikes us as being of an important character and which has earned the commendation of those manufacturers, agents, repairers, and managers of fleets to whom (for the purpose of opening the sources of the needed information) we have mentioned the scheme. The aim of each article of the series is to explain carefully and to illustrate the methods adopted by the makers when effecting a complete overhaul of a chassis. Our contention is that " service" can best be developed throughout the country by and through the local agents and repairers, and that it should not be necessary to send a vehicle to its makers when a complete overhaul becomes necessary or desirable. The talent for effecting a complete overhaul exists in the country: what are lacking are, first, experience of the matters that, with any one particular chassis (for every make has its peculiarities of wear), call for definite attention in a general overhaul ; second, knowledge of the best and quickest way to dismantle or to reassemble ; third, the best and Cheapest way to conduct certain operations or effect hertain adjustments; and, fourth, the correct materials to use and. the right dimensions to which to work (other than normal fitting) in replacements. : it is the common experience of manufacturers to receive letters from repairers propounding what, to the writers, appear to be problorns—problerna vrhieh, however, have long ago been solved by the makers or which never really existed.
We have obtained our information firstehand, and we have asked manufacturers to be frank with us. We are pleased to say of the British manufacturers ee
so far visited by us that the works and the methods employed have been thrown open to us and that there has been every evidence of a complete willingness to help us in the work and thereby to assist the owners of .vehicles and the repairers to whom.the work. of overhaul is being entrusted.
The Advertisers' Exhibition.
N OPENING the Advertisers' Exhibition, Sir Robert Horne had some very apt remarks to make on the value of publicity, and the disadvantages attending the somewhat modest attitude so frequently adopted by British manufacturers and the British public.
In the ease of the latter in particular, this modesty is in our opinion, more .often than not, false. Its basis is little more than a habit of depreciating, in conversation and in writing, anything that. chances to be British. As a nation we glorify the brains and methods of our trading opponents and vilify our own. This sort of thing is, of course, arorse. than no pub-: licity at all, because it is actually negative publicity, having a direct tendency to decrease business. Public men have sometimes said, or been reputed to say, that they would rather that people abused them than they were not mentioned at all, but we do not believe that negative publicity can be otherwise than harmful to industry.
This in fact, is a different case. The abuse comes from opponents and is, therefore, discounted by open-minded men. In just the same Way,. if a traveller for some firm of motor manufacturers takes a lot of trouble to abuse some other particular make of vehicle, the prospective buyer may be fairly certain that he does so because that particular vehicle is his most seriotis competitor. Thus abuse by an opponent may be good publicity,. but abuse by our our awn friends is certainly bad.
We do not propose for an instant to take advantage of this opportunity for magnifying the good business results of regular publicity. We may, how eves, express our view to the effect that there" are many manufacturers who do not utilize the. facili ties for publicity that they have purchased to any
thing like the fullest possible extent,* pay for advertising space and then to occupy it with inadequate. and unattractive matter is to throw away the greater part of the money "expended..
Sir Robert Horne -touched. upon one point which is not suffieie.ntly appreciated in all quarters. He referred to the contention sometimes advanced that, if a firm spends a large sum of money upon "advertising, this cannot be the firm with whichto deal, because the money must, be forthcoming out of profits and the prices charged to the public must be inflated accordingly. We are not prepared to argue as to the degree to,whieb this contention holds good in the csise of firms which are merely retailing other people's products. In the case of the manufacturer, as the President of the Board of Trade pointed out, the argument is quite unsound, because good advertising on a laege scale creates markets for the firm's products, with the result that these can be produced in far larger quantities, the overhead charges are diminished, and the cost of the goods to the public is lessened despite the advertising expenditure.
We would commend this line of reasoning also to those of our readers who are interested in motor coach services or haulage concerns. Judicious advertising in either case will help materially towards securing regular patronage and, therefore, full loads.
If full loads are the rule, the prices charged can evidently .be materially lower than if full loads are only the exception. Thus, for instance; if a motor coach proprietor spends money carefully but freely on local publicity, the chances are that the resultant patronage will be sufficient toenable him to charge even lower "fares than his more parsimonious competitors.