Kitchener's Three Years.
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The close of any year marks an accepted dividingline in the march of time. The end of 1916 is of more interest than that of any year before in their lives to inhabitants of the British and Allied Empires. The eyes of the whole world have recently been turned in the direction of peace considerations, although for the time being on false premises. The year closes with indications of degrees of stress in view for transport at large which will transcend anything which has gone before. Users of commercial motors have of late found it harder and harder in practice to "keep the wheels of industry turning " in part due to shortage of materials, but much more largely by reason of losses of men, the existence of a list of " certified occupations" notwithstanding. We refer to such matters of detail later. Spare parts are another difficulty.
The conclusion of the war was indicated by the late Lord Kitchener for August next—" the war will last three years." The downfall of Kaiserdom, according to an American prophecy to which we referred a year ago, is fixed for the following February. We use the word " fixed " with all that reserve which the uncertainty of war conditions impose, yet we do feel, as the opening days of 1917 approach, that there are increasing reasons for believing that the late Lord Kitchener's utterance may prove to be not only farseeing-as is now generally recognized—but also approximately correct. How few there are who need not to-day reproach themselves for . thinking, in August, 1914, that his long-date view was impossible. The year 1917 opens with undoubted pressure upon the motor industry at large. A large proportion of that industry has been obliged to adapt itself to aeroengine, and aeroplane-part manufacture. Thin conversion has been effected in marvellous fashion, with resulting huge output. The change portends the nonreturn to the road-vehicle industry of at least one great factory, for it is cleat that the country's requirements in the future will be, as the super-first line of defence, in the category of aircraft. The absorption of materials in connection with shell production is such as distinctly to disturb the coming-through of regular output for motor manufacturers who are still engaged in vehicle production. Everybody is anxious concerning the maintenance of supplies of steel, and of certain other raw materials. Transport by rail is becoming more and more subject to military control, and to the exigencies of munition supply. Rapid transit by road continues to save the situation in more senses than one, both at home and overseas.
The industry upon which so many thousands of our user readers with advantage rely is still engaged upon a course of compulsory expansion. Outputs are universally larger now than they were at the end of 1915, yet we know of plans for additions which in some eases will mean 150 per cent. increase of vehicle output before many months are past. As to financial details, not a few of which we have been given in confidence, we may not write. There are, of course, not a few opinions concerning them but we believe the net result will be to place British manufacturers of motors of all kinds, and not least for agricultural and commercial purposes, very much more on their. legs " than they could in August, 1914, by any stretch of imagination have expected to be in about three years. The problem will later be to maintain sales, but the prospects for new home trade are so bright that the necessary interval before export trade can be fully tackled must be bridged successfully. We whole-heartedly disagree with the view, which view one sometimes hears, that orders will not flow. They must be made to flow, by known methods, by new methods, and above all by new agency schemes. The year I917—or, perhaps, at latest, the year 19[8—must and will bc the year of emancipation for the agent in the commercial-motor industry. The New Year will see the bases agreed.
The petrol situation is only critical in an abstract sense? despite the present disadvantages of a Statecurtailed supply. The year 1917 should, by the month of April or May, witness a further improvement, and this time a material one, by reason of the known launchings of "tankers," which are due and pending. if the Cabinet are too much inclined to give ear next time to railway representatives; the user of commercial motors can rely upon Sir Albert Stanley to consider the just claims of road transport fairly, and he is now President of the Board of Trade, of which Department the Petrol Control Committee is but an executive branch. It has been a blot upon the closing weeks of 1916. that road transport has been undeservedly and uselessly prejudiced by the repetition of severe rationing without real cause.
The prospects concerning fuel supplies, for the year upon which we' are about to enter, are neither sufficiently clear nor settled for us to do otherwise than again remind our supporters of the facts concerning coal-gas. The use of ordinary coal-gas, taken directly from town supplies through ordinary gas meters, is steadily extending, following the outstanding success which has been secured with it by Messrs. Andrew Barton Bros., of Beeston, Notts., in their motorbus undertaking, where it is found that the cost of running large motorbuses on coal-gas is only id. per mile, as against 3,1d. per mile on petrol. In this case the cost of the coal-gas is Is. 4d. per 1000 cubic ft. It may be taken, on the average, that one gallon of petrol can be replaced by 300 cubic ft.. of ordinary coal-gas. This coal-gas can be carried at atmospheric pressure in flexible bags, on the top of any van or single-deck motorbus, as at Beeston and elsewhere, and the volume which can readily be accommodated, viz., 400 cubic ft., is enough for a 15-mile run on average roads with a net load of three tons. Coal-gas can be used without any alteration to existing carburetters or air inlets, and merely at the cost of drilling a hole in the inlet pipe, between the throttle valve and the inlet valves, which hole has then to be tapped to receive the, screwed end of the gas-pipe. Where it is preferred to carry gas at reasonable pressures, such as 200 lb. or 300 lb. on the sq. in., users must purchase rigid gas-holders such as are widely used by certain of the great railway companies of the country, or of lighter types, such as those which are supplied by tne Steel Barrel Co.,• Ltd., of Uxbridge.
The coming year will be noteworthy for the issuing' of the report of the Expert Departmental Committee • of the Local Government Board on Locomotives and Heavy Motor Cars. That committee, appointed in March, 1915, recently completed the hearing of evidence, amongst the recalled witnesses being the County Surveyor of Middlesex. Its report is now in course of being drafted, and its appearance at some future date—not later, we hope, than March—will probably be the signal for the appointment of the promised Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament, to examine closely and report upon matters of traffic taxation in relation to highway maintenance.
The Driver Position.
Owners who are short of drivers cannot obtain relief by having recourse to the employment of women, except where they are concerned only with the lighter types of motorvans. -Difficulties other than the hysical have also asserted themselves, so far as this class of labour substitution goes, in respect of any general employment of women for commercial transport work. Our anticipations in this regard have been more than amply fulfilled. Few women can stand the work.
• There has been, of late, although all too tardily, a measure of preparedness on the part of the military authorities to honour the spirit of the instructions to Local Tribunals, and not to claim motor drivers for the Army without some regard to actual transport difficulties. The earlier part of the year undoubtedly Witnessed the taking of many such drivers without sufficient regard to the facts of the eases.
Possibilities from temporary help at the hands of youths between the ages of 17 and 18 are small, but one does not need to make very deep inquiries to be satisfied that perhaps only one such youth in each
six has .a suitable temperament, and sufficient selfcontrol, to permit his beg safely entrusted with the charge of anything larger than a parceicar. There is, at the other end of the scale, a possibility of relief by the employment of men above military age. This possibility, however, becomes distinctly attenuated when one pays heed io the imminent control of men in the forties and fifties under the new Man-power scheme, the stiffening of the Volunteer regulations, and the insistence of varied demands from all branches of productive agriculture and industry which have to be satisfied and met from the same source.
There is no panacea which we can-hold -out in advance to commercial-motor users who are short of. drivers. The difficulties must continue for practically another year at least, no matter when the war, may come to an end. 'The registers of different 'associations and societies are empty ; the men who are being discharged from the Army as medically unfit are, in the great majority of cases, so weak physically, or so exhausted in their nervous systems for the time being, that the wise owner will hesitate to engage them for commercial-motor driving.
Economy of motor drivers, as one result of co-operation between users to the end that parallel deliveries shall not be made along the same roads by partlyfilled vehicles contemporaneously, is one means by which indirect and partial relief may be sought, but the opportunities for such co-operative delivery are known to be limited, and they certainly do not exist for users who can at all times fill each commercialmotor which belongs to them. We reluctantly forecast that the driver difficulty will be insoluble until "the boys come back." We urge upon individual owners the correctness of the view, that each must help himself, according to his knowledge, resources and trade. There is no reservoir upon which to draw. Let each owner set about finding men, one at a time if need be, from his own district, or from other branches of his own business, and allow them to be trained on his own vehicles, under the control of his own employees. There is no other way. The makers are helpless. It is useless to look to them for aid at the present juncture of events.