Untitled

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 78, 28 September 1918, Page 14

(By "Chassis.")

FOSTERING THE INDUSTRY.

In the report of the Balfour of Burleigh Committee, on After-War Trade the following brief view was expressed upon the causes which reacted to the detriment of the motor industry :—

"In the case of some industries which ask for aid, the present position is largely due to ill-advised legislation (the electrical and motor industries are illustrations of these)."

Commenting upon this reference, The Motor says :—From the point of view of the motor industry it is at least satisfactory to be classified under this heading rather than to be grouped with others whose troubles are laid to the door of serious defects in management, organisation, and equipment. From the manufacturer's standpoint, the causes of his difficulties are likely to make all the difference to the character and extent of the Stats assistance granted to him. The Committee on Commercial and Industrial Policy does not advise protective duties except in the interests of essential industries, among which motor engineering and rubber tyres are specified, and then only subject to the results of an enquiry as to whether the industry in question could not, by internal organisation, remedy its own difficulties without external assistance. However, the expression of opinion interests us even more as indicating what we have always maintained, namely, that the legislation which hampers and penalises the use of motors is ill-advised from the national standpoint.