From Bombay to Burma and Simla to Ceylon.
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The Cheapness of Kerosene—The Indian R.I.A.—Thc Supersession of the Bullock-cart.
(From Our Own Correspondent.)
A Bombay Grievance.
A growl reaches me from Bombay to the effect that the motor regulations of that city appear to have been drawn up by some genius who has missed his vocation. In most countries, at any rate, in many parts of India, firms who stock motor vehicles for sale are permitted to take them out for testing purposes and for exhibition, to intending purchasers without payment for each vehicle, the fees becoming payable as soon as the machine changes hands. In Bombay, my correspondent assures me, so long as a dealer keeps his motors within doors there is no trouble, but should he test one or show it on any public road, he is promptly pounced on by the municipal Shylock for the tax. I feel sure that this effect was never intended, and that the rule will be amended.
Electric Vehicles.
The price of petrol is again causing attention to be directed to electrically-driven vehicles, the price of current in the ports of Calcutta, Bombay, Rangoon, Madras, and Karachi being fairly cheap when used for commercial purposes. It was at one time fully expected that Edison's much-talked-of storage battery would solve the problem here, but it has not done so yet. On the other hand, kerosene can be obtained in hundreds upon hundreds of towns in India, and petrol is obtainable in all the large trade centres, but as the former is much cheaper, seeing that we have oil wells in both India and Burma, it is likely to come to the front in a country where mere cheapness is held in the highest esteem. We shall, perhaps, hear more of kerosene-driven vehicles in the near future than we have done in the past.
Fine Openings in Burma.
It is in Burma that a great spurt in the use of commercial motors is likely to take place as soon as roads fit for such traffic are in existence. I am glad to see that the Government of India has just. allotted to the Government of Burma a sum of 3,0110,000 rupees to be used specially for the construction of roads. This grant will certainly pave the way for commercial motor traffic in several parts of that Province where it is now unknown. Yet this grant is as nothing compared with what is to come. The Government of Burma, as I told you in a previous letter, put forward a scheme some little time ago, backed by the Burma Chamber of Commerce, for the expenditure of not less than 35,000.000 rupees on new roads. As I write, a telephone message reaches me that this scheme, which involves a small tax on all the rice exported (Burma being one of the largest rice producers in the whole world), has been sanctioned by the Government of India. This heavy expenditure will be spread over a number of years, but. when it is completed, Burma will be a new Province with hundreds of commercial motors acting as feeders to the main line of railway that traverses the country.
It was obviously the duty of the Government of India to construct these roads itself, but the merchants are so anxious to have them that they have agreed to have their exports of rice taxed in order to secure better means of inland transport promptly. In this connection your manufacturers will do well to remember that the following firms are interested in motors and have something to do with the commercial vehicles already in use in Burma:—The Rangoon Motor Transport Co., Ltd., Mackenzie and Co., the Motor House, Messrs. Watson and Co., all of Soolay Pagoda Road, Rangoon ; and Rowe and Co., Dalhousie Street, Rangoon. All these firms are in a Large way of business, and are in the "know" as to what is going on in the motor world around them.
Commercial Motors for India.
The last of the Lieutenant.-Governors of Bengal, in one of his closing speeches, referred at length to the gross cruelty rampant in every town in India in connection with transport by archaic bullock carts, and he hoped that the day was not far distant'when the bullock cart, which had come down to us from far-off, forgotten ages, would give place to the up-to-date, rapid and always efficient commercial motor. He seemed to think that the unspeakable cruelty perpetrated on the bullocks by fiendish drivers, in spite of the police and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, was sufficient in itself to ban the bullock cart, were public opinion asserted ; but it takes a deal of public opinion to sweep away the customs of centuries.
However, the goal was nearer than the late Lieutenant-Governor expected. Th'e fact is that the Army Department in India has an immense amount of transport work to do all the year round, but especially in November, December, January, February, and March each year ; and they have, I now learn, been hankering after commercial motors for some considerable time. Now a fleet of really good commercial motors costs money, and the Government of India have only money to spare just now for building a quite unnecessary capital at Delhi, they already having fully equipped capitals at Simla, and Calcutta. But the Army Department are not to be done by this canital-loving Government. The commercial motors they propose to purchase would not only be able to do their work quickly and well, but would have time to do work for others into the bargain. If they could show the Government that the commercial motors they require could be made to pay, there would be all the more chance of setting their requirements sanctioned. So the Army Department are circularizing. public bodies and Chambers of Commerce inquiring if merchants and others would find it to their advantage to use these commercial motors for transport purnoses. There is no doubt about it. If the Army Department will arrange to loan their motor lorries regularly and at a reasonable price, there will, I fancy, be no lack of custom. And once merchants get used to motor lorries they will go in for a supply of their own.
It may possibly pay your commercial motor manufacturers to keep an eye on the Army Department in India. or. better still, to inauire at the India Office. London, how the pronosal for commercial motors of sorts for the use of the Army in India now stands. The early bird catches the early worm ; and, if this Proposal roes through, as it almost certainly will sooner or later, the worm should be one of very fair proportions. At any rate, the matter is worth some investigation. I have now done.my part: it is up to your readers to follow up the trail. And you may take it from me that, if the Army Department hays their way in this matter, the other departments of Government will use it as a precedent to obtain a surnly of commercial motors for themselves. Precedents are great things in India and, in cases such as that under consideration, always lead to more busi ness, repeat orders, and so forth. A. or C.