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Resentment Against the Road Sign.

7th November 1918
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Page 1, 7th November 1918 — Resentment Against the Road Sign.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

THE QUESTION of road and field signs has recently come up for discussion again, the opportunity offering for securing their removal in due tithe, thus banishing some of the all-too-nutherous eyesores that afflict the country. In the midst of the controversy, a. well-known advertising manager bewailed the fact that the other side of the argument could not be put to the public as "no newspaper or journal was broad-minded enough to publish it," to which came the instant response that, if he had a reasonable argument to put forward in a few wellchosen words, the columns of THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR would convey them to a body of men to whom it was intended that so many of the signs seen on the country roads should appeal.

In accordance with that offer we give the arguments of the gentleman referred to on another page of this issue, under the title "Road Signs." His gibe at the Press is not meant unkindly, but it will do *no more than create a smile. After all, advertising revenue is part of the edifice which renders a useful service to the community using it. The advertiser is depriVed of the means of .reaching his public and of creating a demand if he does not, by providing advertising revenue, to some extent assist a newspaper proprietor to give such value as will secure a valuable client6le.

Advertising in the Press is effective because there it is not out of place, it does not jar, and does not seem incongruous. Hence the manufacturer and dealer must always use Press publicity to help him to secure his market. At the very best, the road sign could only just exert a final step-directing influence. If we are constantly being told that "Y oil" is the best for our engines, and the day arrives when we find that we. have to purchase oil on the road, a road sign at the entrance to a town telling us that "Y oil" can be purchased at such and such a garage, in such and such a street, serves an immediately useful purpose. But to have "Y oil" thrusting itself into our thoughts by glaring advertisements incongruously Placed amid beautiful scenery is certain to do more harm than good to that commodity, because w„e feel -the incongruity of the announcement and resent the intrusion. It is as intrusive and irritating as the persistent worrying of the itinerant hawker of comestibles on an otherwise quiet and peaceful seashore, as nerve destroying and pleasure banishing as *the senseless worrying of the jarveys and boatmen between Killarney village and the lake. One after the other tells you it is a fine day for a drive or a row on the lake, and each dogs your footsteps until the next one repeats the irritant, and in the outcome one wishes Killarney to We have always felt and said that the road sign has been overdone and abusedOur correspondent says-that advertisers in their own interests would not put up signs that disfigure the beauty of a favourite scene. That is exactly what does happen, and where the reasonable advertiser conducts his publicity scheme in a reasonable manner, be is followed by a host of imitators who try to go one better until the public becomes irritated ank resentful of the intrusion upon the amenities of life.

Let the AssoCiation of Motor Advertising Managers get to work on this subject. Let them agree upon limits that, whilst serving the useful purpose of telling the wayfarer who may need to pick up supplies in the course of his journey where they can be obtained, will neither offend the eyes nor the susceptibilities of the road-travelling public, and we believe that the public will be equally reasonable. But they will no longer tolerate the desecration of beautiful scenes or the vulgarization of historic spots by flaunting advertisements, for at last the opportunity has been given to them to insist on the removal of such eyesores and irritants.

"-Don't Pity the c Disabled Soldier—

Give Him a Job."

NE OF THE most serious considerations which must be taken into account by all business organizations in the early• reconstruction period that now at least is in sight, whenever it starts, is the necessity so to adapt conditions of employment in a number of directions that the soldier, broken in the wars, may have as great a chance as possible of again becoming a useful member of the country's national organization. We are carrying on at the present time with a host of diluted labour, some of it good, some of it fair, and a lot of it indifferent, all of it fired by the possibility of earning high wages, and some of iturged to unusual endeavour for truly patriotic reasons. The country will, in any case, be permanently deprived of many hundreds of thousands of its young male workers in whole or in part. Particularly will there be a shortage in the generation which has been coming of age during the past four years of war, and there will always, while we live, be that particular gap in the continuity of supply of labour, particularly of 'skilled labour. For, despite the periodic outcry as to the retention of young men in munition factories the depletion of the ranks of this class of skilled worker, for skilled he can quite well be at twenty-one, has been indeed genuine. Thanks to modern surgery and the marvellous efficiency of ambulanceand hospital organization in these awful times, thousanas andg thousands of men will he returning to civilian life, although hampered by amputation or other operation, or hindered by en feebled constitution. It is the duty of the country to be sure that adequate pension facilities are available, to make certain that bygone methods of charitable administration never again mar the sense of the nation's gratitude for such great services rendered. But it is also nothing short of necessary that those men must be given every possible opportunity to take up a share in the country's coming great industrial effort. It is understood that the insurance companies of this country propose not to vary their charges for assuming risks of casualties, if returned soldiers are employed, and this indeedis the spirit in which we must endeavour to give the man who has fought for his country equal, even preferential, treatment.

Soldiers who have not been disabled in one way or another will, in all probability and in view of their chevrons, have little difficulty in making good their claims for employment, if they be but given an equal chance_ It is, however, more particularly with the disabled that manufacturers and heads of great production and traiing organizations must concern themselves. With proper training and additional safeguards and assistance they can be turned into first-class material, many of them. With the objectlesson of the war's great employment of mechanical transportin all the fields of warfare before them every day for the past few years, many of them, to our knowledge, are wishful of finding employment in some way or another in the motor industry. And always assuming that that industry rises to the great opportunities which are opening for it, there should be no very great difficulty in discharging obvious obligations by, at least, affording the returned soldier every opportunity that is in our power to secure employment of as highly-skilled and well-remunerated a nature as can be contrived.

The disabled soldier in particular is going to be an enormous charge on the sympathy of the whole world for the next 40 or 50 years. A good start on the right lines in tke coming days of reconstriction will do much, if not everything, to avoid those shameful hardships which have followed earlier wars when such men are years older, and when the sense of the nation's gratitude is necessarily a little dimmed in the historical perspective. It is better for such men to be trained operatives than Chelsea pensioners.

We have almost effected miracles in the training of women and other,unskilled labour during the past few years, and it should certainly not pass the wit of man to contrive equal success with. the returned warrior.

The Return of the Male Bus Conductor.

WHAT LOOKS very much like an inspired paragraph has recently appeared on the subject of the replacement of girls as bus conductors by discharged soldiers returned to their old jobs. After a polite reterence to the willingness of the women to abide by the original terms of their undertaking and to give place readily to the men who 022 were previously employed, we get what appears to be the real pith of the story. This is that conductor's work has in many instances proved rather too heavy for the girls. . It is fairly clearly indicated that, in some cases, there has been a notable falling off in takings without any corresponding apparent decline in the number of passengers carried. The explanation offered is that the girls have not been able to cope with the crushes that occur--at certain hours of the day. Certainly, the conditions under which they have carried on the work have been unusually bad. The collection of fares inside buses has been continually impeded by the presence of strap-hangers. The difficulties of the collection both inside and out have been magnified by the inadequate lighting of vehicles and of streets. However, when all is said and done, there is good reason to believe that the girls have not been able to return to the companies takings equal to those which would have been handed in if the old male conductors could have been retained.

It is not suggested for a moment that there is any more tendency towards dishonesty among women than mea engaged in this work. It is, however, probable i. that there has been rather less energy and certainly , considerably less physical stamina. At the end of a long day, girls have not troubled much to take the outside fares. Possibly they have been rather encouraged to slackness, by the temporary difficulty of maintaining an adequate service of inspectors. Moreover, they have doubtless felt that, at a time when labour is difficult to obtain, little delinquencies would be passed over lightly which at. other times might have led to heavy penalties being incurred.

Altogether, it jooks very mach as if the bus conductor's job is one of those which women will fail to retain as soon as demobilization has begun to make Substantial progress. It is not even a question of their retention of the job being contingent on their willingness to accept a. lower wage than men. An inefficient 'conductor may easily. involve losses -to his employer vastly greater than the total wages that if would be necessary to pay to get a thoroughly efficient man. In other words, when efficiency is obtainable, comparative inefficiency is not worth a lower wage but, in fact, becomes worth less than nothing.

Road Improvement and the Money Therefore.

IN A BRIEF ARTICLE contributed to an evening paper, Mr. Francis Wood, the author of. " Modern Road ,Construction," drew attention to the great necessity for a national scheme of road reconstruction and also to some of the difficulties accompanying the practical progress of such a scheme under present conditions. He reminds us that the specimen pavement laid by the Road Board at Sidcup has given exceptionally fine results.

The general adoption of this system, however, would involve the use of immense quantities of bitumen, the price of which has risen to such an extent that it is estinsated that the work could now cost not much less than three times as much as if it had been carried out before the war. Mr. Wood puts the total figure at £200,000,000. Of course, if we are to be involved in a scheme of these proportions, the question arises as to the source from which the funds are to be obtained. A loan of .2200,000,000 would involve payment of interest at about £10,000,000 per annum. Taking into account the repayment of the loan itself, a sum would be required of perhaps £30,000,000 per annum. One naturally asks whether this ought to be obtained by meant-.of taxation of all forms of traffic using the roads, or whether it ought to be regarded simply as a national charge because the roads are, in fact, national assets available and useful to every member of the community. Possibly the right solution is a compromise between the two. Every road user ought to bear some share, but those who make special use of the roads would probably be prepared to bear a higher share than others, because they would benefit more directly frcm improvement. One thing is, however, abundantly clear, and that is that if motor vehicles are to be taxed for road reconstruction, they must certainly not be taxed in any other way or for any other purpose, local or national.


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