LEAVES FROM THE INSPECTOR'S NOTEBOOK.
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Dodging the Holiday Travel Scramble. Gattie and H6 Scheme.
LARGE numbers pf us, in these spacious times, must have been having spacious holidays. Once more, perhaps, far afield, but wherever it, has been, Devon or Dover, Moreeambe or Mumbles, we must have noticed that a change has come over both holiday resorts and holiday makers. I dare not trust myself to write of prices for my own sake as well as that of my readers. To mild profiteering up to 100 per cent. we are all accustomed, but for eXp.erienee of the real specimen of the profiteer rampant, one must have spent a holiday and best part of a fortune at one of the many popular—or worse still, at one of the select holiday resorts of this dear Homeland.
100 lb. the Limit.
But, it is not just the question of lodging, feeding and clothing that makes holiday taking such a fearful risk of spending these days ; the getting there is an equally expensive and trying problem. First of all, of course, the cessation of all excursion and trip facilities adds a very serious burden to tens of thousands of holiday makers. But, additionally, the new stringency with which the regulations in regard to excess luggage are enforced has proved a very serious and expensive hindrance. One hundred pounds is the limit for each passenger, whether 1st, 2nd or 3scl class, excess charges amounting to very considerable sums being incurred on all luggage above this weight, and, moveover, such excesses have to be consigned by goods train—to arrive when it may. No package may individually exceed 100 lb. gross (which condition is in itself onerous as households are rarely equipped for the weighing of such packages, and it is burdensome to have to ws;c1, .s. trunk and afterwards every item that is packed in it.
By Car to the Seaside.
Adefinite effect of this renewed stringency has been the very extensive use that has been made of hackney carriages of the automobile variety to convey family parties and their luggage to seaside and other holiday resorts over distances up to as much, in certain instances that have come to my notice, of 100 miles, thus very often effecting considerable saving and most, certainly avoiding the worry and bother of luggage, cartage by rail, and of getting seating accommodation on the trains. In some parts of the country—and particularly in the North, this new.practice of road travel to the 'holiday destination has become of very considerable dimensions this year. Particularly, too, has it attracted the wealthy ex-war-worker, who thus con
trives to travel de luxe and to dissipate some of his excess profits.
Goods Carriage Forward by Lorry.
In other cases, as another direct result of the railway companies' stringency in the matter of personal luggage, several families have combined and have sent their joint holiday impedimenta forward by mass lorry, to the considerable easing of their anxieties if, maynap, it has, by this means, cost them a little more. I have already written of the bumper traffic in chars--abanes travel. So useful have the profits been in many instances, that cases are on record where owners have already ordered considerable fleets of new machines for delivery before next season. The commercial employment of the motor vehicle is enormously on the extending scale. Quite ordinary people nowadays do not hesitate to look to the road as a very practicable and timely help in their travel troubles. All this is a bull point for the commercial vehicle, and is yet another indication that there is very ample work ahead at full pressure for the industry as a whole, for the next year or two at least. As to whether we are to have the cream of it or whether we are to make a present of it to the Yankees is entirely, another question.
The Gattie Inquiry.
The investigation by Government Committee of Mr. Gattie's remarkable Goods Clearing House Scheme, if it has done nothing else, has revealed the originator and his colleagues as men of tremendous imagination and as being, moreover, blessed with the faculty of pertinacity. Seldom have I encountered a scheme of such magnitude which has been supported by more thorough and effective propaganda.. The preliminary drawings are nothing less than remarkable in their completeness' and the mastery of the preliminary detail revealed by these propagandists, if open to much destructivecriticism, compels admiration. It is my own opinion, and I find too, that of others, that the scheme in its entirety has no earthly chance of adoption--particularly in view of the new public and Press clamour for some approach to national economy. But, that some of Mr. Gattie's ideas, particularly travelling "truckers " for transferring loads while moving, may at least be tested on a full size scale at least appears feasible. What would preclude the success of the entire outfit, would undoubtedly be the impossibility of ensuring an even flow inwards all day and all night of goods for despatch. Consideration of the financial side of the scheme is, I must, frankly confess, quite beyond me—but the building is most imposing and, I should imagine, most expensive. _