• THE POST OFFICE AND MOTOR VEHICLE&
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Has Not the Time Arrived for the Post Office to Motorize its Service More Completely ?
By" Vim," WE WHO believe in private enterprise, as opposed to nationalized) industry, must always be grateful to the Post Officefor retaining; almost alone of the large Government departments, the principle of relying on outside contractors to provide most of its main machinery—its transport. Ministers may come, and ministers may go, and postage rates may be crippling for ever; but transport contracting seems to be in no real danger of being replaced by a Government-owned mails-carrying system. This country is already receding from the peak of the after-the-war effort to nationalize industry, so I suppose we may take it that the Post Office will continue to have the greater part of its motor transport supplied by private enterprise.
Strangely enough, when we consider how wrong has been the plan of increasing postage and telephone rates with the object of "making the service pay" at the very moment when business men had come to the conclusion, that the only way to make trade pay was to bring prices dawn and so increase demand, the Post Office has from its earliest days been the supporter of every new means -of transport. Had it not been for the subsidies granted ,to' the pioneers of steampropelled vessels, it is doubtful whether the supersession of the sailing ship would have been brought about until many years latter than it was. The railways were readily supported when they came on the scene.. In its turn, motor transport was taken up by the Post Office long before it had been generally recognized that the homeless carriage possessed possibilities for conveying goods. Aeroplanes received recognition as soon as they could fly, and if air companies have net got all the help they hoped for, it is an undeniable fact that the Post Office displayed more faith in air transporW,t its commencement than did commercial concerns with goods to send abroad.
Post Office Enterprise Not at Fault.
That this readiness to encourage and adopt new inventions for speeding up transport is due to the permanent officials–of the Post Office, who have inherited splendid traditions, rather than do those statesmen who take charge of the department as a change from running the Navy or education, I have not much doubt. Nor have I much doubt that those same permanent officials would resist as stoutly as they could any attempt to abolish the principle of contracting for their transport, which has proved so satisfactory up to now.
But somehow or other I am inclined to think that the Post Office, after having been one of the very first to give motor transport the chance to prove itself, has been tardy in making full use of it. I am not now referring to the fact that horse-drawn mail vans can still beacon in large numbers in London and other places ; I dare say there are,good reasons why these have not yet been abolished_ I am referring to the fact that practically the whole of the pillarbox clearing, and of the house-to-house delivering of letters, are still being done by postmen on foot and on cycles. I eannot imagine that any modern business concern, faced with the problem of picking up small goods from scores of depots and bringing them to a central office and of delivering small goods to thousands of addresses in the same neighbourhood, would be content with such a method, particularly if the El4 value of the goods necessitated employing men. instead of boy messengers. .
When the motor vehicle was in its infancy, we used to hear it argued that, however suitable it might be for conveying bulk loads, it would be much too expensive as a substitute for tradesmen's carts and hand-barrows. The same argument was employed to prove that steamships could only have a limited application. The prophets left out fromtheir ealcu= lations the factor of "convenience," which has a nasty way of upsetting paper figures. To suggest that there would be any " convenience " in using motor vehicles for delivering mails in congested districts, where offices are congregated like cells in a beehive, or where private dwellings are clustered almost as thickly, -would be ridiculous in the extreme ; but the whole of the country is not thus congested. Suburban and country towns offer very different conditions. There, the distances between the postmen's places of call should make motor delivery well worth while, and if this be true of the distribution of mails, it is truer of the collection of letters from pillarboxes.
A Purpose for the Light Parcel Car.
A motorcycle and sidecar, or a light parcels-car, driven by a postman, accompanied by a lad who would perform the actual work of dropping the letters into the boxes of private dwellings under the supervi,sion of the postman, would enable one man and ft boy to do the work of perhaps two or three men, according to 'circumstances. On pillarbox clearing work a similar vehicle and complement would effect an even greater saving, and would enable boxes to be cleared more punctually than they are now in many districts. To those who consider that the bicycle is good enough for the jab, I reply: that it may be in some eases, but in general it is not. In bad -weather, when the roads are heavy or high winds prevail, the postman who is burdened with a full sack must walk the greater part of his journey. Where there are hills, or when the weather is hot, he is commonly obliged to foot it and to trundle his machine by his side. From. the humane point of view, a change is about due ; but ruling, out this as being quite incompatible with lousiness considerations, I believe that the Post Office has not moved rapidly enough in modernizing its local services. The transference of mails in bulk from centre to centre seem i to have received all the attention. I know two or three garage proprietors who hold contracts for supplying motorvans to carry mails from one town to another, and they have nothing but praise for the fair and intelligent treatment which they receive from the officials with whom they deal. Why should not garages supply motorcycle combinations or parcels-van for local collection and distribution? Or, and I sacthis to save myself from getting into hot water with hauliers, why should not haulage contractors supply such machines ?—after buying them. from garages, of course!
It may be that the Post Office has made some sort of test to see whether economies could be effected by the moans here put forward ; but, if so, were those tests conclusive ? The public does not demand economy only from the postal authorities ; it demands improvements that make for efficiency. Motor manufacturers and agents should not be content to allow the motorization of transport to effect itself in its own sweet way and at its own sweet gait. It is their place to watch that it does not lag behind anywhere, and to give it a prod where and when desirable. What about a prod in this quarter, and now