PROTECTION IN BRITAIN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17945, 24 November 1932, Page 2

PROTECTION IN BRITAIN

INDUSTRY’S NEW LEASE OF LIFE

‘ ‘AMERICAN CARS RUN OFF THE

MARKET"

MELBOURNE, Nov, &

Motor manufacturing is one of Great Britain’s key industries which have been given a new lease of life by the protective tariff, according to Mr. S. F. Edge, the well-known British motor car builder, who arrived from London in R.M.S. Orford on a visit to relatives at his birthplace, Concord, N.S.W. Speaking of England’s changed fiscal policy, Mr. Edge said there would have been no motor industry in Great Britain to-day if a protectionist policy had not been adopted. Aided by the tariff manufacturers had so increased their output and reduced the price of then' products that American cars had been run off the market. The British industry was now concentrating on the economical baby, car to suit all pockets, and was turning out cars of this type built for Dominion conditions. Jhe proselective gear, which had been adopted by two of the leading English firms, had also been instrumental in dealing a death-blow to foreign competition. A feature of the depression in Great Britain has been the return of the bicycle to popularity. There were more bicycles in England to-day than thoic had ever been, and the motor bicycle had suffered a severe setback. The best of bicycles could now be purchased in England for less than £4. Mr. Edge first _ drove a motor in France. He predicted in 1895 that the motor industry was going to bo greater than the railways, and everyone laughed lat him. When ho designed the first big Napier car his assistant engineer was Mr. C. S. Rolls. In 1900, with Mr. Napier, he built a car which attained a speed of 86 miles an hour, but it was so heavy on tyres that the tyres wore out on the journey from Paris to Bordeaux. The following year they made a light car, which weighed 17cwt., hut had difficulty in getting springs for it in England. Eventually they obtained springs from a spring-maker whose only recommendation was that his grandfather had made springs for the Duke of Wellington’s carriage. He drove the car in the Gordon-Bennett race from Paris to Vienna, and won. There were 170 cars in the race, and the roads were so dusty thgt he had to steer by the tree tops. Mr. Edge added that developments in motor engineering were so rapid at the present time, notably in the matter of gears, that the present motor car would soon be obsolete. A great future was ahead of motoring.