A COMPARISON OF NATIONAL CONDITIONS
The Fortunate Position of Great Britain--Causes of Rapid
Development of Motor Transport--The Big Influence of
London--Position of the Movement in European Countries.
In considering how far any form of subsidy scheme has been, or could
be, truly successful, we have to take into account first of all the
national and local conditions governing the use of motor vehicles in
ordinary commercial service, and it is satisfactory to be able to
record that a consideration of this subject leads to the conclusion
that the position of Great Britain is peculiarly advantageous, inasmuch
as the number of industrial motor vehicles in service is vastly in
excess of the total requirement of the British Army, a state of affairs
a parallel to which does not exist in any other European country.
The economical use of motors in trade and industry depends in the
first case very largely upon the quality and quantity of the national
roads. Great Britain is fortunate in the possession of the finest road
system in the world. We are not limited as regards motor haulage by
the absence of thoroughfares between our industrial or residential
districts, and it is possible to deliver goods to practically every
house or even cottage in the kingdom, without having to traverse
anything worse than a short distance of rather rough country lane or
private track.
There is no doubt that London has been very largely responsible for
the enormous development of motor transport within the British Isles.
It is generally considered that Paris represents the nearest approach
to London for purposes of comparison. Nevertheless, the population of
Paris is only about half that of London, and the area within which that
population is included is only about one quarter. In other words, the
density of population of Paris is double that of London, which means
that the average distance to be traversed in delivering goods to a
given number of people is much smaller in Paris than it is here. Now
the motor vehicle is able to show superior economy over horse-drawn
traffic mainly where it is able to make use of its capacity for speed
and its ability to cover, without tiring, long distances in the course
of a day. For house-to-house deliveries the motor is at a disadvantage,
since while it is standing waiting before a door it represents a larger
idle capital than the horsed cart, and the investment of this larger
capital can only be justified if it results in the vehicle performing
in a given time a far larger amount of work than would be possible if
horses were used.
Taking, for example, the case of a 2-ton motor van capable of running
about 100 miles in the course of a working day, the ideal condition is
represented by a run under full load from the warehouse or store to
some point about 50 miles distant. Here the whole load is delivered,
and a complete return load is found. Such conditions are seldom
available in practice, but the nearer it is possible to approach to
them, the more likely is the motor to prove a profitable investment.
On the other hand, supposing the car to be used for house-to-house
work involving, let us say, 100 deliveries in the course of a day with
a total distance covered of only about 10 miles, the motor may cover
this distance in traffic in something like an hour, whereas a horsed
vehicle might take two hours. The saving in that case is comparatively
small, and represents, let us say, only an additional 10 deliveries or
an advantage of 10 per cent. extra in the work done in the day. On the
other hand, the cost of the motor is very much higher, and it is more
than likely that on economical grounds the operating concern would not
be justified in adopting mechanical transport.
Applying these examples of extreme cases to the general proposition,
it is quite evident that both the larger population and the more
scattered distribution of population of London make the metropolis a
far more favourable nursery for the industrial motor than, let us say,
Paris, or, for that matter, Berlin or Vienna. The great London houses
have found that their conditions of delivery into outlying residential
districts have been on the whole very favourable to motor transport,
which they have consequently adopted extensively, favouring as a rule
vans carrying loads varying between 25 cwt. and 3 or 4 tons, according
to the nature of the goods to be handled. By establishing motor
services they have been able in many instances to dispense with local
distributing depôts in the environs of London, and they have found it
possible greatly to extend their areas of direct delivery. One of the
consequences has been that people resident 20, 30 or even 40 miles out
of town are now able to place orders at big London houses, and to have
the goods delivered direct to their own doors the same day, or at the
latest on the following day. This delivery is effected without any
unnecessary handling, and without any of that delay which must result
if the railway is used as an intermediary.
By thus extending their field of operations, the big London houses
have come directly into competition with the larger trading concerns
centred in towns some distance from London. These local concerns have
found that they were losing business to the London houses, and have
been compelled in the interests of self-preservation to endeavour to
retain that business by offering equally good and prompt facilities
for delivery. Even so, some portion of their trade is necessarily lost
to them, and they are compelled to seek new fields. In order to do
this and to resist competition so far as may be, they are practically
forced to adopt motor transport, and in their turn to extend their
area until it embraces other towns and villages at a greater distance
from the metropolis. Thus, the influence of London steadily spreads
outwards encouraging the adoption of motor transport in other towns.
A similar phenomenon takes place in a smaller degree round all of our
very numerous big industrial cities, with the result that the motor van
and the motor lorry have become familiar objects in every part of the
country, and have, so to speak, acted as a moving advertisement of
their own utility.
This process, coupled with the comparative excellence of our roads,
has favoured the general adoption of motor haulage by traders of all
classes throughout the country. The railways have in consequence
felt the effects of the competition of the motor vehicle, and have
retaliated by putting themselves into possession of considerable
fleets, in order to secure the rapid distribution of the goods
entrusted to them for delivery. In some instances, railway companies
have established services in country districts to act as feeders to
their branch or main lines. Simultaneously, the general development,
initiated in the first case by private enterprise, has become so marked
and has proved so conclusively the reliability of the heavy motor, that
Government Departments--notably the General Post Office--have been
impressed with the great possibilities of the new transport, and have
adopted motor vans for long distance services as well as for local
distribution of mails in great cities, as being more direct as well
as more economical than the old arrangements with the railways. This
applies particularly to the carriage of parcels.
Side by side with this development has come the astonishing progress
of the passenger motor vehicle. Here again, London has been the big
moving influence. The greatest city in the world has grown from small
beginnings according to its own sweet will. It has not been laid out,
as have younger towns, with any clear scheme in view for meeting the
growth of traffic requirements. Here again, the nearest parallel is to
be found in Paris. Portions of that city are still similar to, or even
worse than, London in this respect, and are traversed only by narrow
and winding roads laid out on no intelligible scheme. Paris, however,
has the advantage that for the past one hundred years definite methods
of improvement have been pushed. Control has remained vested in the
same departments, and the policy has been continuous. Consequently,
the network of small streets has gradually become subordinate to an
admirable system of main thoroughfares of great width and beauty, at
the intersections of which are wide open places generally utilised for
the erection of some of those fine monuments so dear to the French
nation.
Other and newer towns, of which Berlin may be taken as a fine typical
example, have been from the first almost wholly constructed in
accordance with a definite town planning scheme, and in all their later
developments the tramcar has been regarded as a necessity of passenger
transport, and every provision has been made to ensure that a complete
system of railed traffic should be in every way facilitated, and so
far as possible prevented from injuring the natural and architectural
beauties, which must at all cost be maintained in the interests of
trade prosperity as well as from æsthetic reasons.
In such cases, the motor omnibus has from the start come into direct
competition with the electric tramcar, the latter being generally
supported by enormously influential vested interests, the strength of
which has been such as to cripple, or almost entirely prevent, the
introduction of public service motors. Both in Paris and in London,
conditions for one reason or another have opposed the universal
adoption of railed transport in the streets. So far as London is
concerned, the tramcar is useful and possible in suburban districts,
and as a means of bringing people to within a short distance of
the central areas. Beyond that point, its extension is probably
impracticable, and is certainly open to very grave opposition, which
has up to the present prevented the completion of anything approaching
a comprehensive tramway system from north to south or from east to
west. The central area a few years ago was served by the horsed
omnibus, and it was with this vehicle and not with the tramcar that the
motor omnibus in its early stages had to compete. Consequently, it was
given a good opportunity of proving its desirable qualities and was not
hopelessly handicapped by being set, when in very early and imperfect
stages of development, directly against a more or less perfected system
of passenger transport on rails. London has thus proved to be the
world’s biggest nursery of the motor omnibus. Its early imperfections
caused plenty of grumbling and a certain amount of inconvenience, but
it was realised all along that it was only a matter of time before it
would oust the horse omnibus from the streets.
In Paris also, the motor omnibus has been given fair chances, and has
proved its worth. It has been employed partly on routes involving
narrow roads and stiff gradients where trams would be dangerous, and
partly on other routes the natural beauties of which are so pronounced
that it was generally felt that the laying of tramway lines, or the
creation of any permanent blots such as are occasioned by the erection
of standards and wires, would be altogether a desecration.
The motor omnibus, after passing through its novitiate, has proved
in the most practicable possible way the advantages of road motor
transport to the general public. It has hit the short distance traffic
of railways very hard, and has compelled these latter in self-defence
to inaugurate motor services of their own, especially in country
districts not well fed by the railways themselves. It is impossible to
say to what a great extent the development of motor transport is the
result of the anomaly under which the road passenger traffic of London
is not controlled by the local governing authorities, who possess
in other cities licensing powers reserved in London to the Chief
Commissioner of Police. Other great British cities, as, for example,
Manchester and Birmingham, for many years refused to allow the motor
omnibus to prove its worth for fear of competition with tramways owned
by the municipality, which, being itself the licensing authority, could
refuse to give facilities under which any competition with its own
concern could come into existence. It is only lately that the prolonged
experience of London has proved to all these authorities the enormous
utility of the motor omnibus, and its spread to every great city has
either become an accomplished fact, or an inevitable development of
the near future. Paris, with its smaller fleet of motor omnibuses, has
not exerted a similar influence in anything approaching a similar
degree throughout the provincial towns in France; and Berlin, which has
very nearly tabooed the motor omnibus altogether, has done practically
nothing towards the encouragement of motor transport in Germany. It
is rather a curious fact that this policy should have been maintained
in Berlin for so long, seeing that for many years past the German
Government have been paying huge sums in the shape of subvention, with
the sole object of encouraging the national use of trade motors. In
all probabilities, the process of ocular demonstration on the streets
of the capital would have been more effective than the whole of the
expenditure that has been incurred.
From what has gone before, it will be seen that circumstances have
all worked together to cause the development of motor transport of
Great Britain to be far more rapid than in other countries. Added to
this is the undoubted fact that the genius of the British engineer
is best expressed in something substantial and durable. The heavy
industrial motor is more typical of British tendencies than is the
light fast car. As regards the latter we may be good imitators, and
may be well able to keep on equality with competition. As regards the
former we can do more, and we have shown ourselves able to lead the
world and to produce finer industrial motors than can be obtained
in any other country. Even the progressive engineers of the United
States acknowledge that they must draw their inspirations in this
movement from Great Britain, and are not infrequently to be found in
this country studying what has been done, and learning lessons which
they will apply at home and which may serve to bring them into strong
competition with us, but are very unlikely to make them our superiors.
The general result of all these influences has been, as already stated,
that Great Britain is the only European country in which the industrial
motor is, in times of peace, used in numbers greatly in excess of the
possible military requirements of our own forces. Consequently, the
problem before our War Office has not been to encourage the use of
heavy transport, but to direct the tendencies of design and popular
taste into the channels in which they could be made to fall into line
most completely with military requirements.
Next after ourselves, France is fortunate in the possession of the best
road system of any European country, and this has helped industrial
motor development to progress with fair rapidity, though not at such
a speed as to enable the country to be self-supported as regards its
needs in military motor transport. Germany, with a less complete road
system, involving in many parts very severe gradients, has had more
difficulty still in filling its military requirements, while Austria
is in a position somewhat akin to that of Germany from this point of
view. Consequently, in all these three great countries, the subvention
scheme has had to be rather a scheme for encouraging the use of
motor transport of any kind than an attempt to direct designers into
any particular channels. Conditions in Belgium are somewhat akin to
those obtaining in France; and, generally speaking, other European
countries are so badly served by roads and so unfavourably situated
as regards their requirements for the haulage and delivery of goods,
that the development of industrial motor transport on a large scale has
been out of the question, and consequently, the establishment of any
subvention scheme would have proved futile. We are now in a position,
with a fairly clear conception of the conditions obtaining in each
of the countries concerned, to consider in more detail the nature of
the schemes evolved in the interests of military transport, and to
ascertain how far those schemes have been brought to successful issues.