BRITISH CARS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 17, 4 January 1927, Page 6

BRITISH CARS

PREFERENCE AT A TOLL GATE. NOVEL ACTION BY HUTT LANDOWNER. Recently at the British motor show at Olympia both Mr Bruce, Prime Minister of Australia, and Mr. Coates. Prime Minister of New Zealand. offered some very candid criticism of the models shown, incomparably beautiful as some of them were. They pointed ou.t plainly that if the small proportion of British made cars sold in Australia and New Zealand was to be increased to any considerable extent it would be necessary for British manufacturers to construct cars suited for Australian and New Zealand road conditions. where steep grades and rough surfaces were the rule and not the exception as in England and on the Continent. Sir James Parr, in his speech at a recent Royal Colonial Institute dinner, returned to the subject, pointing out that only 15 per cent, of the expenditure of £4,500,000 last vear in New Zealand on motor-cars went to British makers. A Wellington citizen. Mr. W. H. George, of Manor Park Haywards, has decided on a novel method of arousing public attention to this disturbing fact by offering to give preferential treatment to British cars so far as toll charges are concerned on the new traffic bridge over the Hutt River connecting Stokes Valley with the Hayward Road, (states the “Dominion’’). Mr. George has dispatched the following cablegram to Sir James Parr in the hope that it may strengthen his hands in drawing the attention of British manufacturers to New Zealand requirements:— “As a private Wellington citizen t strongly endorse your statement at Colonial Institute dinner deploring small proportion British cars sold here. Reasons you adduced are quite correct. What most New Zealanders waut is a high powered cheap cqr able to negotiate steep grades and rough roads that ahouud here; not a low powered highly finished expensive one. It is the absence of this tvne that accounts for poor sales, not lack of good will. As some concrete evidence of my personal interest and concern at this serious state of things. 1 may add that I am adopting a somewhat novel method to draw further attention to the matter. In consequence of the Hull County Council’s inability to construct a much-needed bridge over the Hutt River at Haywards, I have liuilt a toll bridge myself. It opens on January 15. 1 am giving twenty, five per cent, preference in toll charges to British-built cars. Perhaps British toll gates might follow suit and thus do a little more towards helping to keep some millions of British capital circulating within the Empire instead of going to further line the pockets of American millionaires and seriouslv menacing domestic trade both in New Zealand and the Motherland.”