LORD NORTHCLIFFE VISITS HENRY FORD.

Otago Witness, Issue 3331, 16 January 1918, Page 54

LORD NORTHCLIFFE VISITS HENRY FORD.

THE FORD TRACTOR, WHICH PROMISES TO REVOLUTIONISE FARM WORK. "In declaring war the United States did the best thing that has happened for the world."—Henry Ford. Lord NorthclifEe has. been to see that great mechanioal genius, Henry Ford, and sends this account to the Times.

" Henry Ford, the billionaire antimilitarist, is a good-looking, thin-visaged ascetic of 54, whose appearances mingles that of the Bishop of London and Sir John Hare. Originally seized of the belief that Germany could be argued into peace, he is now throwing his inventive genius, energy, and capital into the prosecution of such an effective 1 waging of this war as will, he believes, bring about the end of all wars. His particular weapon is a miracle of mechanical ingenunity, the Ford tractor, which promises to revolutionise farm work as completely as the Ford car has changed cheap automobile transit. Henrv and His Machines.—

" Henry Ford has the enthusiasm of a boy for the ' back to the land' movement. Talking with him as we sped out of Detroit, which has almost suddenly become the fifth in dimension among the cities of the United States, it was difficult to realise that his is the master mind of the great factory whose 41,000 hands lately drew up to salute President Wilson, and whose chief owner pays supertax on a private income of £7,000,000 per.annum.' Mr Ford is a great lover of Tennyson and the author of one of the best books on American -birds.

"He is a very large-sized person mentally, and full of fun about his aims and his work, and not at all resentful of criticism. The car which beai's his name is a subject for humour in every newspaper and music-hall in the United States, and I am revealing no great secret when I say that Ford stories are just as popular in the inner recesses of the White House as they are in the newspapers. The tangible fact remains that the statement ' every third a Ford' is true, not only in the United States, but through the Far East, South America, and Canada.

" There is even a sprinkling of them in England, though not such a number as to make them a characteristic part of the national life to an extent that can only be comprehended by those who can look up and down American streets. Their nicknames are legion. Almost every town has a different name for them. In Detroit they are called ' Henrys.' Mr Ford told me some of the newest stories about the car, but his mind was on the tractor which hag been his life-dream. We passed the tiny farm where he was born, and where, long before he invented his car, he designed a steam tractor. " The tractor itself is a small piece of machinery about the length of a Ford motor car. It can be used either as a stationary engine, or to propel ploughs, mowing machines, reapers and binders. The 1917 pattern, which Mr Ford is building for England for the purpose of fighting the submarine menace, is 25 horse-power. It is literally' true that a boy or girl with neither mechanical nor agricultural knowledge can drive it. I mounted the tractor and ploughed a halfmile furrow with ease and accuracy at a speed of between three and four miles an hour, and with no time lost at turning. • i' ord's Farm Tractor.— " Mr Oliver, whose family have been malting ploughs for a century, was introduced as the inventor of the tiny plough which proves so successful on every kind of soil and every angle of undulation. Roughly speaking, the tractor resembles one of the early racing motors, with a very long bonnet. It is low, steered by a wheel, and when pulling a set of disc seems fairly to romp across country. It is started with petrol and driven by paraffin. It has a strong electric headlight, so that it may just as easily plough by night as by day. In a few minutes the machine can be adapted to stationary work. " It is difficult to arrive at its cost at the present moment, but Mr Ford's eventual idea is that one day, when the war is over and things are normal, it may be sold to small farmers at less than £IOO. Just now it is necessary to put every tractor through a gruelling test before it is sent to England. ' Tho tests we witnessed were of such a nature as to astonish us that the metal could stand

the strain imposed, light as is the present machine. Mr Ford is making every model lighter than the previous one. He has no - belief in heavy machinery. He has a theory which he has put into practice in the form of models that locomotives and waggons are much heavier than they should be, and while I was Svith him he marked with chalk several portions of the tractor as involving unneeessarv metal.

During the time we were viewing the demonstration at the farm nobody made any reference to the other giant factory and the town which has arisen around it where Mr Ford ejects 30CO complete motor cars and motor waggons even' day. I asked to see it. The factory itself has a dailv permanent population of 41.0C0. •

" The whole establishment is unlike anything I have ever seen. On. entering its mammoth maze one first sees the Ford English School. Over 100 languages and dialects are spoken by the workmen, and there is a large teaching staff engaged to give the necessary instruction in English. "Mr Ford moves about his army of workers as though he were but one of them. He is regarded as a co-worker, and in no sense as a 'boss.' He sees to it that every one of them gets a minimum wage of £1 a day. " 'I hope you observe one thing about the establishment,' he said to me as I was leaving. " I remarked that I thought the men were of healthier physique than most of those I had generally seen. " ' Not that only,' he replied, ' but I hope you noticed that there is ho hustling. I don't ajlow it.' The Liberty Air Engine.—

"The task of bringing out those -jSOOO motors a day proceeds so smoothly that Mr Ford is able to devote his whole time to the tractor, and to give sympathetic assistance in regard to the Liberty air engine, of which, the Americans are naturally, proud. It is gratifying to notice the absence of jealousy with Avhich all the automobile firms in the United States have combined to use their united effort to build the aeroplanes that the Americans firmly believe will eventually pulverise Germany.

"Mr Ford is enthusiastic over the resources of the United States for aircraft, and insisted upon our going to see one of the great woodworking factories, where the wings of the aeroplanes are being built. Gradually the whole resources of the builders of motor car bodies and furniture makers are to be transferred to the aeroplane. " Before saying good-We to Mr Ford I asked to see that which I knew he possessed—his first-automobile. He built it in 1893, at a time when his countrymen were under the impression that steam or electricity would rule as a propellant. It is a small, low, four-wheeled, leversteered, chain-driven machine, built on the light lines of a bicycle. He told me that as he drove about Detroit 24 years ago he did so amidst the ridicule of a population which now looks with admiration on what is one of the best single enterprises in the world—an enterprise whose construction of tractors for the British farmers is to be the main instrument in the cultivation of the 3,000,000 extra acres in Great Britain." >