NOT YET PAST

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 75, 26 September 1933, Page 6

NOT YET PAST

THE DAY OF THE HOESE

WINNING ON THE FARM

EVIDENCE IN ENGLAND

The two great revolutions in the road transport of Western civilisation were, first, when the horso came out of Turkestan via Babylonia and supplanted the ox and tho ass, and, secondly, when the internal-combustion engine came out of the mind of the inventor and supplanted the horse, says a writer in tho "Manchester Guardian." Tho first process is complete, except, perhaps, for parts of Bast Poland and Albania; the second process is not yet complete, and, in view of the Salter Report,'the recent decision to abandon the Olympic Horse Show, .the mcchaniisation of Bussia, the Blue Bird's latest record, the Altantic flights, and all the other day by day manifestations of tho progress of mechanics, it is of some sociological importance to try to fix the position of the horse today, at least in England. It is a particularly opportune moment for doing this, as tho three great shows —the Shire, the Hunters, and the Ponies—have been concluded at the Agricultural Hall at Islington, and the latest figures of the .entries made and estimates of the " public interest ; taken are now available. ''" ' '"'

THE LUXURY HORSE. ■ The first point that conies out from a study of these figures is that, in spite of bad times, the number^ of entries on the whole was no less than it was three or four years ago. Thoroughbred stallions are down, hunter geldings are up, pony mares greatly up, but the general average remains fairly constant. I discussed these figures with somo of ,tho officials of the different horse societies, and they agreed that the following conclusions might fairly bo drawn from tho statistics. First, that the number of horses being bred today does not compare with the number thirty or even twenty years ago; to that extent tho petr'ol-ungine has triumphed. Secondly, that tho numbers ten years ago wero about the same as tho numbers today. Indeed, there was a considerable increase, which was noCmaintaincd,' in tho yoars 1927, 1928, 1929. To this extent the horse was holding its own against the petrol-engine, and. was eveu regaining lost ground when the economic slump somewhat diminished the demand for thoroughbreds. Thirdly, and unexpectedly, that even tho slump has not impaired tho demand for hunters and polo ponies. In" 3933 the 427 packs of hounds in Great Britain arc still functioning; 3(5 polo engagements, lasting anything from a d&y to a week, arc dowiv x f or decision, this season at Hurlingham, Eanelagh, and Boehampton; and even in horse racing where the breeding figures have to some extent fallen off, in 1932 the actual number of races was 40 more than in 1927. VANISHED SUBSIDY. Tho present and immediate future} therefore, of what might bo called the "luxury horses" would be comparatively secure if the annual Government subsidy of £30,000'-had'not been cut down in 1932 to £8000 and in 1933 to nothing. The Hunters' Improvement Society can, and is going to, replace the subsidy out or! its reserve funds for threo years. After that period it can do no more. The horse in agriculture mustered over 2,000,000 in 1931. About that time tho era of mechanisation started in earnest, and tho numbers fell in four years by 00,000, 90,000, 00,000,- and 110,000. Then farmers began to wonder if the tractor was all that it was claimed to be. ■ After all, the poor old horse had something to be said for it. It is cheaper to buy; from tho age of two to the ago of, say, twelvo its working capacity does not depreciate, which is more than can be said for any motor vehicle in the world; it docs not require a skilled mechanic nor, except for shoes, a supply of spare parts; it consumes the produce of the English farms instead of tho produce of Oklahoma and Mosul; it roturns manure instead of sump-oil, a,nd in these days of falling prices of everything except motor fuel the cost of its keep is steadily going down. So the farmer is thinking twice about the tractor, and tho nuuiber of horses on tho land in Great j Britain, which fell by 110,000 in 1925, only fell by 24,000 and 25,000 in 1931 and* 1932, a decline that can be safely ascribed, not to the decay of the horse in agriculture but to the decay of the economists' and politicians' capacity to run the world. ' . . .[ , ; IN TRANSPORT. . It is common ground between the! defenders and attackers of the horse in transport that its future, if it has a futurtf, lies in "short-hauls." The defenders cite the costs of keeping motor-lorries hanging about for hours, and then desperately . manoeuvring backwards and forwards, in congested dock areas, round big markets, or near/ railway termini,, compared to the cheapness and adaptability of. the horse as a short-hauler.' ,'As for traffic congestion, they say, your motors cannot go more than six or seven miles an hour in Oxford Street. So why complain about a horse than can do five? But there is a fallacy in this argument. The speed of congested traffic depends ftn the | speed of the slowest vehicles, and congestion in one street is often caused by.a: block a mile away. The horses holding up traffic at the Mansion House may well have repercussions in the Strand, and I Jiave often seen a single van in Jormyn Street exorcise" a deplorable influence on the main east-to-west flow of fast traffic in Piccadilly. At present the short-haulers of London are holding their own, especially in the eastern and south-eastern districts. At the drinking-troughs in By ward Street, Holland Street, Tabard Street, and Tower Bridge Road, all in the S.E. 1 district, and Leman Street in E. 1 the number of patrons if anything showed an incrcaso in 1932 over the previous year. TWILIGHT COMES. But even the unfailing turnout of over 600 entries every year in the Easter Monday' van-horse parade in Regent's Park or tho 1500 entries in the two Whit Monday cart-horse parades in Regent's Park and at Ealing cannot convince me that the day of the horse as an urban short-hauler is not almost in its twilight. And in' these days of carbon monoxido and klaxons and glass-surfaced roads'l do not suppose the horse will be sorry. , Already the London County Council is considering tho possibility of taxing horses in London/a line of action which would go far towards driving them off the streets altogether, and only a few days ago the subject appeared, but was not reached, oil the agenda of the council. It is a curious point' that the apparent triumph of the motorist in getting all the roads of Britain so "glassified" that the horse almost slipped out of transport without, having to be pushed is now one of the chief causes, on wet days, of motor skids and accidents, and it is the prayer of every motorist than the roads will be converted into rougher surfaces on( which neither car will skid, nor, incidentally, will horse slip. •