The Lighter Side of Commercial Work.
Page 8
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By Henry Sturmey.
• Large manufacturers, contractors, railway • companies, brewery firms, ironworkers, and all those having heavy loads to shift, have for some years now very largely ceased to question the practicability and value of mechanical transport in connection with their businesses. Our larger tradespeople to-day, dealing with considerable, yet lighter loads, are also using motor vehicles for delivery work as a regular and accepted thing, but the smaller tradesmen, whose loads are not so large, are only now beginning—if they have, indeed, as a class yet really seriously begun—to consider whether or no motor vehicles could be of any assistance to them in their businesses. I anticipate that, with the majority, if the idea of a rnotorvan were mooted to them the answer would be short and decisive : " Costs too much to buy, and costs too !noel' to run. Couldn't possibly pay." And at first glance, to those who have not yet fully considered the question, doubtless it does seem a suggestion inadmissible in practice. Horses are cheap enough, boys to drive them are cheap enough, and the initial expense to commence with is, by comparison, a considerable sum. Considered from this point of view alone, many do not look further, and it must be admitted that, if this were the deciding factor, motor vehicles would have no chance at all. But experience shows that it is otherwise, and the matter becomes one of machinery versus manual and animal labour. All who have studied manufacturing from this point of view have, years ago, recognised that manual labour cannot possibly compete with machine tools, but the retailing tradesman has never considered matters from, this point of view. Machinery does not and never has entered into the details of his business, and he has had no call to consider it, except, perhaps, where his office work and correspondence have become extensive, he has had seriously to decide whether a typewriter would not be a profitable investment. And011 a number of cases—certainly in the cases of all the most progressive—the consideration has resulted in the purchase of a machine, And the consideration of a typewriting machine, as against a pen and a bottle of ink, is a much more widely divergent question, from the capital outlay point of view, than the respective merits of a motor vehicle and horses with their necessary outfits. The difference in price between even the cheapest of the typewriting instruments, and the twopenny expenditure on the ordinary writing materials is enormous, the capital outlay being many hundreds of times greater, whereas with the vehicle question, the capital outlay in the one case may not be more than double that in the other. If the matter is examined closely in all its details, the same
• considerations which have influenced the tradesman in installing a typewriting machine in his office, should very speedily induce him to instal a motor vehicle in his stable. If the one will prove a paying investment, and there is now no question of that, from whatever point of view, the other must ultimately show even greater beneficial results.
It is when house-to-house deliveries within a small radius sum up the work to be done, that a motor is at a disadvantage. The other day, for instance, I passed a milkman on his rounds. He carried his delivery can in his hand, and was delivering at every two or three houses, whilst his horse, drawing three or four churns, followed him docilely, and moved at his whistle. The motor would not do this, and to be constantly getting in and out for journeys of only to or a dozen yards, or to be constantly returning over longer distances, would swallow up more time, as well as cost more trouble and more labour than could be picked up again bythe greater speed of travelling between more widely distant points, Then, again, where first cost is almost the onty consideration, owing to the sheer inability of the tradesmah
to raise more cash, the ,r() cart and the or horse, kept in an apology for a stable and upon little better food,. can never be very seriously interfered with by the motor.
But, crossing these two conditions out of our reckoning, the balance of advantages commences to tell on the side of the motor vehicle, and, the wider the range of the tradesman's ground, the more telling will be the points in favour of the automobile. A motorvan accelerates quickly, and gets over the ground in from half to one-third the time which the horsed vehicle would occupy. Where a tradesman's deliveries in one particular district happen in a few cases to lie close together, unless th( goods to each customer are bulky or heavy, the man with the basket -leaving his car at a central point—can quickly run from door to door, and then more than make up time when travelling to his next point of delivery, which may be a couple of streets off. I think it can be said that, wherever the distance between points of delivery exceeds Too yards, the motor has the advantage, and rapidly increases that advantage as the point-to-point distances widen.
It will, therefore, be seen that, for deliveries covering wide area and not too close together, the motor vehicle wil certainly score. But, when it comes to country work, go' dealing with districts from a mile upwards away from head quarters, the score in favour of motor construction rapidl; rolls up. In dealing with deliveries to country houses, t( villages two or three miles out, and such-like trade, then can only be one in it, for, with the horre, it is the timi taken in making the journey from point to point, in additior to that taken in actual delivery, which tells so heavily cn the time-sheet of the driver ; whereas, with the motor vehicle the heavy item in the time-sheet is that occupied in till delivery itself, and the point-to-point travel is got througi in a third of the time, or thereabouts, that would be occu pied with the slower means of progression.