AUTOMOBILES AND HORSES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2862, 20 January 1909, Page 68

AUTOMOBILES AND HORSES.

The fight of the horse-ca,r men against the trolley-car is remembered by all (writes the U.S. Director of Office of Public Hoa<ta in the S.F. Chronicle). Tho claim was then made that 2,000,000 horses would be I thrown, out of work, and that horso- ' breeders would starve. The trolley is wellnigh universal, and 1 yet more horses are raised each year than the year before, and they bring- batter prices. Ine horse interests have ever fought the automobile. There have been thousands of columns of argument published against it, and short-sighted men have advocated such heavy taxation agiainst it that a great and ever-growing industry would have been sadly hampered had half the unwise legislation planned been put into execution. Now highway experts, aided' by the motor oar in/terests and 1 a powerful association of London and its suburbs, have turned like ths trodden worm and started an attack on the horse. The claim they advance is that the polluting of all public thoroughfares 16 done, not by automobiliets, but by horses ; that if no horses were allowed to drop organic matter on public- thoroughfares the dust nuisance would soon be naught but an unpleasant memory. They advance tho logical statement that the nuisanre created by hundreds of thousands of horses is detrimental to public health and a menace to the pavements, and they a^-sort that the oontiuual cleansing of the streat3 because of this traffic imposss a vast and unjust tax upon the citizens. THE COMING OF THE SMALL CAR. Slowly but surely automobile manufacture 15 the world over are being forced to recog-nise the impoirant part rhe small car or voiturette is going to play in the motoring world during the next two or three years. The tendency amongst some j of the largest and most: conservative car manufacturers in Europe is now towards ] the medium-powered and medium-priced I oaj:. It is recognised that the big-powered ] expensive car has very nearly reached its j limit, whereas there exists a growing — and I what will in a very short time be a big I demand' — for small, reliable cars selling at ' between £200 and £300. In New Zealand, with its inferior roads, spelling big tyree expense, as compared with motoring on the fplendkl Continental and English roads, ] the voiturette must eventually be recog- ' n'sed as the more suitable type of vehicle for our conditions. Excepting in a matter of high sneed, the small car can practically accomplish anything on our roads and t lacks that the powerful touring car can do, and what is more to the point, at con«'<lerahlv le-s expense. Of courso there will always be a certain section of motorists who will have power and «peed at ;iny oo>t, and 1 be prepa.re.rl to cheerfully foot the bill, but on the other hand it will be found that the majority of prer-ent-rlay motorists will in time come bark to the medium-powered car: whilst their experience will have its effect on tl>» selection of ears by new devotees of the rj»w mode of locomotion. The feature of the <wo bie European shows just hold in England— viz., the "Olvmpia" (London^ and thr? '"Salon" (Paris), has been the attention an en to small cars.