The American Invasion (No. VIII).
Page 19
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A Letter from a British Correspondent in Russia, who Welcomes It.
The Editor, THE COMMERCIAL Morrog.
l.1452] Sir,—To the ordinary man in the street, highly interested in the development and future of motor haulage, and very dissatisfied (sic) with the slowness of the said development, the attitude of the British manufacturers against the flood of American motors which is going to swamp the land before the said manufacturers are in a position to stein it, is very interesting.
Providing the flood of American motors, pleasure and commercial, are of good quality and cheap enough, the ordinary man certainly has nothing against them. What he wants to see swept away is horse and roan traction, and if the American invasion will help to do that, as it certainly will, then if the British manufacturer knew his business he also would welcome it.
The correspondence in your columns is interesting, but nearly all of it deals with the question from a very narrow point of view. The talk of help through Protection is absurd, as expounded in your paper, England wants Protection against rubbish that should never be allowed to land, but she wants all she can get from the entire world which is of good quality and contains new ideas. Protection against good workmanship and ideas would only stifle eon,petition and send us to sleep again, and surely we have under our eyes now a very serious example of what our last nap is going to cost us. We are learning at terrible cost from Germany the meaning and worth of organization and efficiency in war. If we are wise we shall take to heart what those two items mean and apply them to business, and certainly America (and Germany) can teach us a lot.
The lesson we are learning from munitions could be applied with good effect to business in general in Great Britain, certainly to that part of it concerning the motor industry. In these days it is organized effort which counts and saves cost. Our motor industry is in parts splendid, full of ideas, full of progress. but as regards delivery is "pretty damned slow."
Please do not let anyone take the trouble to say " impossible" to these brilliant ideas of a dreamer, who knows them to be quite impossible, but who also is quite confident that, in a year or two they will have arrived and be part and parcel of us. The brainless onlooker will welcome the flood of American motors when it arrives and the British manufacturers who can see a bit beyond the immediate present. should do the same. Should any deserving firms be sent to the wall through it then they must get themselves a Government capable of looking after them, but the remedy is nol to be found in shutting good work out ; that is the wrong way to do it.
The firms who are going to welcome with open arms the men of the Mechanical Transport when they come home should remember that owing to lack or spending facilities these selfsame men will have in their possession a considerable amount of loose capital which the needy manufacturers could nndoubtedlv get hold of if they plucked up courage and offered about 6 per cent.
By the way, talking about solid tires, what has happened to them under the strain of war Did I read something about brown paper or did I dream it? I certainly did read something about strips coming off, apparently long ones.. Of course, I nut all that down to Mechanical Transport making the mistake of taking tons instead of hundredweights when reckoning out the extreme load, In Parliament it was eiven out that we had at the start of the war the tidy amount invested abresd of four thousand million pounds. Even if Our Colonies wanted half that sum, could not the motor industry and the Road Board have done very well indeed with the remainder ? Of course, some idiots notice that whereas before the war we could not afford to vote any amount for anything now, we give out three million pounds a. day and smile all the time. If, just to keep them quiet, one tells them that that is "Diplomacy," they do not seem to be much wiser.
Many of the smaller firms now struggling. to turn out complete motors with inadequate capital and equipment would be far more use to the industry if they would specialize on parts only.
If the American motor invasion is to be scotched legitimately our entire industry must be reorganized, standardization must be adopted as much as possible, and the capabilities of each firm must be studied. Of course, no one will contend that, now we have ideal models, vast improvements are necessary and will come in time, but if the great experience of this war was thoroughly well sifted, sufficient reliable models could be decided upon and made in large quantities, bringing in standardization as much as possible. It strikes an onlooker that it is a waste to build any motors for pleasure only • why not interchangeable bodies? Perhaps it is too early to ask for this. But given a number of power cranes, perhaps one in each garage, there is no reason against it that the uninformed onlooker can see. We shall all expect to see that in the near future. The poor mortal who has no mechanical knowledge dreams of one chassis delivering an unholy number of loaded bodies in a very short space of time. He dreams that where delivery took days now it only takes hours, and in the ease of local delivery, minutes instead of hours. Carter Paterson, Pickford, etc., please note.
Personally I would like to see the mark of the ideal Engineers' Committee on every motor part, and the mark of the ideal Tire Committee on each tire, giving a guarantee of best possible workmanship. One thing is pretty sure ; that is, taking roads as they are made nowadays, that no mechanical transport should he shod with metal (excepting those concerned in the making); they cause too much road ruin and are an eye (and ear) sore. Not that anyone can be honestly content with the progress of the rubber tire ; beyond the one invention of the pneumatic, that ground seems to be pretty barren. Why cannot the manufacturers turn some kind of strengthening ray on them ; it might improve the resiliency also. The more one reads one gets the impression that in the next few years business is going to be terribly bad, that all progress will be arrested, in fact that the world will be at a standstill during the process of recovery from this war. Whereas the obstinate optimist knows very well that things must go twice as fast as before to make up for lost time, that humanity in general is learning vastly from this war, i and 'that the said humanity n general will have gained immensely in intelligence and the ability to grasp opportunities, and beyond that will require to be very well governed and led before it is satisfied. This war is making us show through bitter necessity what we as a nation are capable of.
With Germany setting the pace we have to hang on, if America will oblige us by doing the same. In the motor industry of course we shall have our usual grumble, hot I for one cannot see us getting left. Therefore America should have our best thanks ; she is helping us in the war and will force us to mend our ways in motor production. May she keep on shoving, We shall be quite an enlightened race by the time she gives over.—Yours faithfully, A CORRESPONDENT IN RUSSIA.