Roads and National Defence
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AN increasing number, of references is being made to the importance of roads and the transport media which use them as vital factors in any general scheme of national defence.
The leading qualification in connection with this is that a road vehicle possesses a marked degree of flexibility quite impossible to any railbound means. There is an old adage that all roads lead to London, and thus, if any one road were to be seri ously damaged, another could, fairly easily, be taken. This applies not only to the capital, but to every other place of importance in the United Kingdom.
It may be suggested by road critics that many important routes also include bridges. Unfortunately, this is the case, and, incidentally, many of the bridges belong to the railways, but we believe it to be a fact that it would. be a much simpler task to make a temporary repair of a road bridge than of one which has to carry trains. The limit of weight in the majority of road vehicles is much less, and the surface does not have to be meticulously levelled. In this connection we suggest that it might not be too far-fetched to consider the provision, at strategic points, of bridge-repairing material, which could easily be conveyed to any required spot, and which would enable any gap in a road bridge to be made good—possibly in the course of only a few hours. In most cases a few girders and stout flooring are all that would be required. Temporary repairs made in this manner would necessitate merely the building up of slight ramps. As was proved during the Great War, the reconstruction of roads damaged at other places than on bridges can also be carried out with celerity. Apart from this, in few instances is a road destroyed for its entire width as the result of damage by bombing; usually, there is sufficient space left to enable at least a single line of traffic to pass.
Important Countries Eliminating Imported Fuel THE extent to which totalitarian countries are rendering themselves independent of outside supply in those two vital necessities of modern life, liquid fuel and rubber, is gradually beginning to dawn upon us. Herr Hitler has said that within four years all liquid fuel used in Germany must be home-produced, and when the Fuhrer says that something must be done, it usually is done. Long before that time, however, the Reich will probably be quite independent of imported rubber. So far as liquid fuels are concerned, Germany imported 53 per cent. of her supplies during 1935 and made the rest at home: Last year, the import percentage had dropped to only 26 per cent., whilst the production of synthetic petrol rose from 365,000 tons to over 1,000,000 tons. In Italy, Benito Mussolini has ordered that from 1938 onwards all public transport services must operate on home-produced fuels. Coming from the all-powerful Duce, this is a significant command. It is probable that next year 63 per cent. of Italian public-service vehicles will be running on producer-gas, 32 per cent. on benzole and commercial alcohol (both home products), and the remainder on compressed gas town gas, butane, and similar products.
Road Transport and the Budget IT was unusual to find in the Budget statement isuch little reference to the motor industry, which is to be congratulated upon the fact that no further taxation has been inflicted directly upon it. Many sections will, however, undoubtedly join in swelling the national defence contribution." On the commercial side, apart from producers, a considerable number of operating companies will shoulder part of the burden. The contribution closely resembles the excess profits duty of the war period, and it will hit not only those who are making money from rearmament, but others who are benefiting by the general revival in trade not traceable to this cause. There is one reference to the motor-vehicle duties, it being proposed that the unladen weight of a goods vehicle shall, for taxation purposes, include the weight of any separate receptacle carried by it "if any goods or burden are loaded into, carried in and unloaded from the receptacle without the receptacle being removed from the vehicle." This indicates that a container placed on and removed from a vehicle, either empty or complete with goods, will not be considered as part of the unladen weight, but it must be loaded and unloaded away from the vehicle.