THE MOTOR

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 22, 27 January 1915, Page 10

THE MOTOR

(By "Autos.") RETAIL DELIVERY. The gradual ousting of the horse by the motor is likely to be accentuated by the heavy drain on the world's supply of horses thrdugh the war. The effects will no doubt be felt in New Zealand as well as in the Old World, as buyers for the Allied Powers ba-ve been operating here, as in Australia and America. There is, therefore, a positive encouragement for business firms to take up motor transport. So far as the carrying concerns are affected, it may be said that for them the problem is solved. Motor transport undoubtedly payß and there is no indication of any tendency to go back to the horse. Indeed, the transformation is rather increasing in speed. The heavy motor lorry— the truck, as the Americans call it — is a success. There might have been doubts some years ago, but with proper attention and businesslike methods of adopting the heavy motor to the operations of the proprietary firm the heavy motor, in spite of the capital outlay, will almost invariably show an advantage. The real problem is that of the light delivery van or vehicle for retail work. Here we are undoubtedly in a "transition stage, and while large firms in the grocery, drapery, or laundry lines may find the 1-ton delivery van of various makes satisfactory, the small tradesman would be just as likely to suffer a disappointment with similar vehicles. _ The problem exists in every large city where motor traction is on its trial. Mr. G. Hamilton Grapes, the well-known motor expert, was especially struck with the difficulty presented during his last visit to Europe, and he was not satisfied that any vehicle he came across — and he looked hard for the, ideal— would fill the bill. The case in question is that of a retail tradesman doing a fairly extensive business within a radius of say two or three miles of his shop. For him the 1-ton, delivery van is too expensive in first cost and too expensive in upkeep for the quantity of business he does. It is an axiom of motor delivery that it pays best when the vehicle is kept with a good load running hard all day. This is where the big store comes in and wins. The business fills the van and keeps it going and the fuller it is and the harder it is kept going, short of overloading and overspeeding, the cheaper it makes distribution of goods to customers. That is why the large grocery stores in the big cities can keep one, two, or three delivery vans in profitable employment. It is unquestionable that facilities for increasing the speed of delivery are of great assistance in building up business, and a highly organised motor delivery system by a large city firm with universal delivery in the city and suburbs makes it much harder for the local and suburban grocer Or tradesman to compete. With the telephone so widely used as it is in Wellington the housewife can lung up the big city grocer and give her order and gets the goods quicker than she could by waiting for the local grocer's clerk to come round to the back door and take the order there to deliver it later in the day. It is a problem therefore for the tradesman in the smaller way to hold his end up against increasing pressure. Customers are so exacting now-a-days. Formerly, in the days of careful housekeeping, before we heard so much of the cost Of living, the housewife used to study the management of the household better. She used to look ahead and take a stock of the whole situation, and then give the grocer a large order, which involved probably only one call a week. Large stocks were kept in houses f and the problem was simple. Now the big order is spread into a multitude of Small orders, and the cost of distribution is naturally increased — apart from motor delivery. This means that, as the size of orders has decreased,' so directly has t*he required frequency of delivery been 1 increased. In other words, the tradesman of to-day must be prepared to i spend more time and more money on the j maintenance of service than did his predecessor. It is probably not too much to say {hat, despite all improvements of transport, the cost of delivery of household supplies has increased, and may be expected to increase further relatively to the total value of those supplies. Hence one of the factors in. the rise in

the c»6t of living. So far as the small tradesman is concerned, whose bufiinera is more or less fluctuating and intermittent, it is quite clear that the big delivery van has no advantage to offer. What he wants is a small vehicle carrying not more than about sowt, to make frequent journeys out and home, as the needs of the day's business call. It must be a cheap vehicle, it must be reliable, and it must not cost much to run. It must be a handy 6ort of little affair for dodging about with an order here and order there, justifying its existence by the diversity of its functions and the rapidity with which it covers the field. I' or a business of the kind suggested it is probably far more economical for the tradesman to have two or three of the vehicles in question rather than one delivery van. The question then comes up : Is there a motor vehicle that fills the needs of the small tradesman on the lines suggested. Observers of motor traction m the streets of Wellington will have noticed two forms of motor vehicle for the purposes indicated. These are : (1) the motor-cycle and side-car used extensively by the G.P.O. for the\r mail collection, and also by many small tradesmen in all sorts of lines ; (2) the Motortricycle or tricar, of which the G.P.O. has one or two examples and private firms several. The tricar appears to be growing raoi<e and more popular here, as it has done in th« cities at Homo. The advantage" the tricar has over the fourwheeler ia in the much greater cheapness, the low build giving easy exit and ingress. The advantage it has over the motor-cycle and side-car is that it is more weather-proof. The tricar cajnnot, however, be said to be the laet word iv the matter, and it may be that eventually a vehicle will be evolved at a low price, which in appearance, handiness,. noiseleasnees, and economy will come a great deal nearer the ideal. But we haven't got it yet. Whatever may happen to Germany politically, industrially it will still possess highly-trained workmen, its asset of scientific industrial research, its patient, efficient methods of manufacture and of salesmanship. These are qualities only destroyed by the extinction of a people, and this is not possible. It is not wise or justifiable to count on any lasting commercial animosity against Germany, and the powers of renaissance of a country and a people after a great war have been shown by France to be phenomenal. So that in the end the battle of commerce will be decided by the relative fitness of the nations concerned to manufacture efficiently just as it has been before.— Mr. L. H. Pomeroy in "Automobile Engineering and the War," a paper presented to the Institution of Automobile Engineers. According to Irving Cobb, the American journalist, who spent some .days with the German Army at Laon, north of the Aisne, and was afterwards interviewed by Lord Kitchener on the subject, the Germans have a short way with broken-down war automobiles. When they smash up an automobile in their campaigning, they capsize it at the roadside, strip it of its tyres ; draw off the precious gasoline, pour oil over it, and touch a match! to it. 'What .remains offers no salvage to friend or enemy either.