Are British Lorries Unsuitable for Australia?
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TT is very difficult to understand upon what 2-grounds the Commissioners of the Raih9tyS Department of the Victoria (South Australia) Government base their assertion that American lorries are of improved design, and have advantages which -British lorries do not possess, in accordance with which belief they are proposing to place an extremely important order for motor lorries with an American manufacturer at a price which, according to The Daily Telegraph, our informant in this matter, is £22 higher than the price for the British production. We give due credit to American truck manufacturers for the quality of their work, but we cannot agree either that it is better than that of their British rivals or that the latter are not perfectly able to.,turn out vehicles which will satisfactorily accomplish any task that can be set them in the Antipodes.
There is a feeling amongst representatives in Victoria of-the leading British manufacturers that a distinct pro-American bias exists in the Railways Department there, with a corresponding prejudice against British goods. If so, it is a very great pity, because it has really seemed, since the Dominions and the Mother Country came so close together during and subsequent to hostilities, that there has been a distinct advance towards interImperial trading. The markets of the world have for many generations been so completely open to the British manufacturer that it required a great upheaval, such as was provided by the war, to convince him of the need for developing trade• with our overseas Dominions. That conviction has now been reached, but it must be quite clear tn the "youngest student of political economy that trading cannot be one-sided.
With the wealth of experience at the back of the British manufacturer of motor vehicles there is no reason for supposing that he cannot produce the best in the world; there is, in fact, every reason why he should do so, and not the least is that it is his firm desire so to do. What is not always understood is the fact that any production should lie designed for the job for which it is intended, and be constructed of the material and provided with the equipment which are entirely suitable for the conditions of employment It is for the potential buyer to set out those conditions. We emphasize this point because we have deliberately inserted in this issue (concurrently with our protest against the proposal of the Victorian Government's Railways Department, an article from a man who (we may here mention) is connected with the motor industry in Australia representing a British concern. He makes certain criticisms of the British bus chassis, with which we propose to deal in a subsequent note; but we do not suppose that the points to which he alludes can have influenced, even partially, the idecision to place the lorry order in America. We hope that British manufacturers will leave no stone unturned to secure the order for this country, because not only must other orders follow the direction taken by the first, but the xaniple of Victoria might be followed in other States of the Empire as the outcome of the creation of the impression that the British vehicle was inferior in some way or other to the American.