MOTOR-CAR CENSUS

Waipa Post, Volume 43, Issue 3354, 29 September 1931, Page 3

MOTOR-CAR CENSUS

ONE FOR EVERY 54 PERSONS IN THE WORLD. The world may have slowed up during the depression of the last few years but it is not stopped, says a message from "Washington. Enough driving power has been continuously exerted and enugh momentum has been left over from brisker times to have raised the ownership of that luxury article, the automobile, 2 per cent, even in the depressed year of 1930. World registrations increased to that extent last year. That this continued momentum has not been confined to the few prosperous spots, but has been general is shown by the fact that decreases in automobile registrations are reported from only 28 countries out of a total of 184 covered by the world alutomobiles census just completed by the Bureau of Foreign Domestic Commerce. In 136 countries conditions were sufficiently prosperous to permit some additions, to the stock of operating automobiles. MORE TRUCKS BOUGHT. Averaging all of the 164 countries shows only a 2 per cent, gain, but in 30 countries the gain registered reached 10 per cent. These figures include trucks and buses, revenue producing vehicles, but the vast majority of the machines are passenger cars. Even the fact that more buses and trucks have been purchased indicates that there has been enough money and enough enterprises to go forward. A conclusion that the world has not given up in. its struggle for better times is amply justified by such a showing. Registered motor vehicles in the world now number 35,805,632, the top figure for all time. This means that there is one motor car for every 54 persons in the world. In 1929 there was one car to every 55 persons, a few years earlier one to every 500 persons and within the memory of millions of living persons there was not a single automobile in the world. EVERYONE WANTS ONE. The United States, of course, can scarcely be talked about in the same terms with other countries. There is a car for every 4.59 persons compared with one for every 4.81 in 1929. For the rest of the world, it is found that there is only one car for every 200 persons, and in 1929 there was but one for every 216. Next to the continental United States, one of its possessions, Hawaii, ranked'with a car for every 7. Canada and New Zealand share first honours among foreign countries with a ratio of one car to every 8 per-

sons. . Australia, which ranks very high with an automobile for every 11 persons, was the only country in the world which, in 1930, showed a marked decrease in registrations. The significant fact which the world automobile census reveals is the existence of so enormous a market for cars that a century of prosperity might well be based on the industrial activity required to supply automobiles. Nearly all people want automobiles. The circumstance that there is one car to every 4.59 persons in the United States and only one to every 200 persons outside the United States is not due to a dislike for automobiles among foreigners. They all want them. ______