.Portugal's Tariff.
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Apropos the illustrated article in this issue which deals with certain important motorbus developments in the Portuguese capital, it is not out of place that we should direct attention to the fact that Great Britain does not enjoy the "most favoured nation" .clauses. The matter, we understand, is at the moment engaging the attention of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, and our own interest has been invoked with a view to our bringing influence to .bear towards the end that there may be a re-arrangement which shall avoid any penalization of British manufacturers of commercial motors,
The Portuguese customs duties that are payable on motor vehicles and their accessories, whether these be manufactured in Great Britain or elsewhere, are uniform in respect of the following classifications : automobiles complete for two persons ; automobiles complete for four or more persons ; automobiles complete for traction or the transport of goods. Higher
• charges are in force, in respect of the imports of British origin, under the following classifications : automobiles incomplete (chassis, wheels and motor) ; motorcycles complete, including motor ; leather outer tires for wheels of automobiles ; caoutchouc or gutta
percha inner or outer tires The differentiation against Great Britain, under these headings, is, respectively, $20 against $70, $15 against $50 150 reis per kilo. against $1 200 reis per kilo., and 50 reis per kilo. against 600 reis per kilo. These adverse charges are, it will be seen, by no means inconsiderable.
The writer of the article which we have mentioned, and which gentleman is in a good position to know the aituation in Lisbon, tells us that steps have already been taken there with a view to securing an alteration in the tariff. It affords us much pleasure, therefore, to inform all interested parties that we have ourselves taken additional steps in London. We hope these may help to bring about the desired result.
Proposals for Big Purchases by the War Office and for a State Transport Company, We find, in the current issue of "The Royal Engineers Journal," an interesting article from the pen of Capt. R. K. Bagnall-Wild, formerly Secretary to the Mechanical Transport Committee at the War Office, and until recently a vice-chairman of the Commercial Motor -Users Association. Readers of THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR will be aware of the considerable services that Capt. 13agnall-Wild has rendered both to the military and civilian branches of mechanical transport. The article is one which deserves to be perused by every reader of this journal. We reprint the major portion of it to-day.
We are interested to note that so competent an authority as Capt. Bagnall-Wild, who is now identified with the Coleman-White interests, endorses our view that the existing subsidy schemes of the War Office are unsatisfactory. Re additionally indicates
that they have so far not brought about the expected results. Four reasons for this lack of response are given, and they may be added to those which we have ourselves put forward on past occasions—the facts that the 30-cwt. model cannot legally run at more than 12 miles an hour, which speed is useless, and that the three-ton model is claimed in print by the WarOffice authorities themselves to be more suitable for Colonial requirements than for home use. The selling prices to buyers are also higher than those in force for true commercial models to carry the same loads. Capt. Bagnall-Wild draws attention to the reasons why Germany is generous in the matter of subsidy schemes, and he incidentally makes clear the wellknown intention of the military authorities in this country to seize just whatever they want should occasion arise. In that latter factor lies the only justification that we have been able to discover, inasmuch as some commercial owners will prefer to make terms while they may. An important and novel feature of the article is found in the suggestion, which is amplified in some detail, that the State should spend not less than 21,400,000 on motor wagons, and should then conduct a big transport company, for ordinary commercial purposes amongst others, in order to keep the personnel up to the mark, and to get service out of the wagons during their normal working life. Whilst no doubt. to a large extent. a baton d'essai, there is no fundamental reason why a scheme of the kind should prove to be impracticable. The expenditure involved would be less than that. which is necessary to build and armour a single super-Dreadnought. The proposal should not fail to evoke much discussion in heavy traffic circles.
The Removal of Mud: Clean Streets and the Public Safety.
Our recent leading articles on the subjects of "Road Efficiency" and " Are Officials of London Borough Councils Criminally Negligent ? " have attracted much comment in the weekly journals that are primarily concerned with road engineering and surveying matters. In that there was no attack upon road surveyors in the former article, we escaped fairly lightly at the hands of our contemporaries in regard to our outspoken treatment of the subject of likely corrupt methods as a factor in the slow progress which characterizes the march of many county and urban districts towards a revision of their road-making and roadrepairing methods. Not so, however, in regard to our criticisms of the " do nothing" practice of leaving slimy mud to look after itself.
One writer who deals with the second of the abovementioned leading articles, after remarking that we passed "some very severe animadversions on the officials of London Borough Councils for not securing the speedier removal of sticky and greasy mud from street surfaces," proceeds to ask if we will enlighten them as to how we would secure the deaired end when the streets are crowded with vehicular traffic. This
non possumus attitude is, of course, typical of the old school of thought, against which we enter a protest.
It is quite a general practice, in all walks of life and in most professions, for the authorities in possession to hold up their hands in horror when any—to them— revolutionary change in system is proposed. As in medical science, however, experience shows that the settled practice of one decade may become the doubtful method of the next and the exploded fallacy of the third. The lag which has to be overcome, before
i a change s made, though it may vary, is always present. So in road improvements, possibly above all else. We object to the indifference and inaction that are evident concerning this mud problem.
The steps which are necessary are indeed so simple that they should be obvious to all who are not deliberately unwilling to recognize them. The county surveyor of Kent, for example, who—tardily if not grudgingly—is now patted on the back by his brother surveyors up and down the country, chiefly because it is too late in the day for them to do anything else, did not achieve the splendid results for which his area is far-famed without simple beginnings. It may surprise many of our readers, and particularly those road surveyors who peruse our pages, to know that Mr. Ma,ybury made a start with instruments no less commonplace than buckets, shovels and brooms. He merely got rid of the dust from some of his worst highways by the use of those simple articles. Similarly, one way to begin to get the mud off surfaces such as those which are to be seen in Holborn, Theobalds Road, and Hart Street, W.C., is to use metal scrapers and squeegees, or short-handled stiff brushes and sharp-edged metal pans. The suggestion that the traffic does not allow this is bald evasion, of the issue.
Let the Holborn Borough Council authorities recall the City of London practice, if they doubt the ability of street-orderly boys—now a dwindling total -to be of use in the densest traffic. The pretence, which is put forward by one critic, that nothing can be done, is a gross example of the obstructive attitude which we have in mind. Not only are there lulls in traffic, during any particular hour of the day, but there are specific periods, due to the holding up of traffic by the police, when not only individual cleaners, but gangs of such men with the simple implements that are indicated above, might do useful work, help to make the streets fit. for modern rubber-tired traffic. and, above all, reduce the number of accidents which occur, and for which it is fashionable at the present time to seek to lay the whole blame on the motorbus or the motorvan. Youths might now be employed to pick up mud, with hand utensils, in much the same fashion that they once picked up horse-droppmg,s. Clean streets mean safe streets.
The S.M.M.T. and a Prize to Encourage the Development of Home-produced Fuels.
We make a brief announcement, elsewhere in this issue, of the decision of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders to offer a prize of 2000 guineas for the satisfactory production of a fuel of home origin on a commercial scale and at a commercial price. This decision of the Society is one which will be well received in all trade circles, for recent and threatened increases in the price of motor spirit have caused no inconsiderable measure of alarm.
The petrol-importing companies have been able, it has to be noted, to protect the interests of commercial-vehicle owners to a slight extent, compared with those of pleasure-ear owners, but it is not going too far to say that upheavals of a serious nature must occur soon, in many quarters where large numbers of petrol-driven vehicles are owned, if prices are allowed permanently to remain in excess of Is. per gallon. We need point only to the present state of the London taxicab industry in justification of this assertion, but the lot of many big carrying undertakings is but little less endangered by the prospect. The first intimation of the intention of the Society was conveyed in the course of an interview with Mr. Edward Manville, its chairman, during the recent private-ear Show at Olympia, in the columns of our contemporary "The Motor "—vide the issue of that journal for the 12th ult. Since that date, it is evident that the matter has engaged the close attention of the Council and the Committee of Management, with the result now seen.
The prize is undoubtedly one which should cause physicists and other scientists of standing to devote attention to the problem, and it goes without saying that outlets for the largest conceivable production are assured. Although the demand for petroleum-derived motor spirit is going up by leaps and bounds in all parts of the world, there are sound facts to support the view that the annual production and marketing of, say, 50,000,000 gallons of a home-produced fuel would make the present importing companies take a very different line from that which they have recently been able, and in a measure forced, to adopt_ We desire to direct particular attention to the stipulation that any new fuel, if it is to stand a chance in the competition which is forecasted, must be suitable for present-day engines, and presumably for present-day carburetters. In order to come into its own, any such new fuel must, we might add, be of such a nature that, on its being emptied into the existing petrol tanks, it can be used without more ado and preferably with a greater yield in effective work per gallon than is now given by a gallon of petrol. Those desiderata are hard to meet.
The Reversal of the Horse Regime.
The House of Commons was dominated by horse interests by a majority of those who believed in the superiority of animal haulage—when the Motor Car Act of 1003 was passed into law. The retention of the red light behind, the requirement that the back number plate should be illuminated at night time, and the specific strengthening of the obligations upon a motor driver on his being required to stop by anybody in charge of a horse, are points which show how unnecessarily inimical to the future of motoring was the attitude at that time—less than ten years ago. Everybody connected with motor vehicles will be aware that the Motor Car Acts, the various Orders under them, and numerous local by-laws, have almost invariably been construed by magistrates to the disadvantage of the motor driver. Now, happily, there are indications that the attitude of the House of Commons is veering round to the side of the motorist, and that, should motorists be so disposed, which we do not believe is the case, they are in a position to "get back" on the horse-owner. It was overlooked, in all probability, by our frenzied legislators of some nine years ago, that their many provisions and regulations might later on serve as precedents, once motorists secured the ascendancy, for restrictions to be imposed in turn upon horses and horse-drawn vehicles. That opportunity is Close at hand. Horse interests are in the minority already. We briefly reported, a week ago, the decision of the Liverpool City Council to make it compulsory for all vehicles to carry and expose.' a red light behind after the usual lighting-up times. This local by-law is, so far as we know, the very first example in the country of the application of a regulation that was devised— unnecessarily, we think—for observance by motorists only. The foolishness of requiring red lights to be placed at the back of vehicles which are amongst the quickest on the highway, the while no such requirement was applied to slow-moving .horse-drawn vans, timber wagons, and like obstructive units, must be apparent to all. We welcome the precedent which has been set by so progressive a community as Liverpool, because we detect in it the beginning of the reversal of the antimotor policy of the horse regime.