The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11th. 1902. THE COMING OF THE MOTOR.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 11734, 11 September 1902, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11th. 1902. THE COMING OF THE MOTOR.

When, on the occasion of the local Coronation celebrations, an automobile was conspicuous in the procession, the vehicle was in all probability regarded more as a curiosity than as a practical illustration of a potential revolutionary agent destined to play a great part in the field of industry and commerce. Yet that was what the vehicle really signified. -So far the most that has been heard of the automobile has been in connection with racing or pleasure. Still, as a Home paper points out, while it may not be anything to a fruit or vegetable grower to know that a racing - car can scorch over the ground at so many miles an hour, the development of the motor industry, so that motor trucks could regularly scour the country, not quite at this pace, but still with reasonable speed, should mean very much to him. It is worth his while to contemplate a vision of such trucks, furnished with refrigerating chambers, bringing his produce steadily day by day to the eager public in the towns'. It is worth his while to think whether combination to hasten this future is not possible to him. The possibilities.of the motor, in this connection, are perhaps considerably greater at Home than they are here, for the reason that the railways are privately owned. The' National Fruit Growers' Association complain that the railways do not provide reasonable facilities for getting the fruit from the producer to the consumer. The misguided, wooden selfishness of the railway companies' policy with regard to carriage rates is very largely responsible for Ciie trouble. Railway sluggishness! and.'delays also contribute their share; and, in the atraeuce of refrigerator car», the fact that soft summer fruit will not k*ep completes the mischief. . As is pointed out by the growers, the fruit has to be rushed to tfafl market the moment it arrives, at the town railway terminus, wjtb {&& inevitable —' f "~ •• <r «r «r. ...■-• *-

consequence that the supply of fruit alternates violently between a hopeless glut and a hopeless scarcity. In the latter case the public suffers directly, and the result of a succession of gluts must lead to the same end. When there is a huge over-supply of strawberries or raspberries, whicli have" to be sold quickly or not at all, prices inevitably tumble down to figures which are absolutely unremunerative to the grower, until finally he fails to sec what good he gets by continuing the business1 at all. All these causes wox-ked toegther to produce the lamentabLe and ridiculou scase of the Devonshire man who had to sell his strawberries for jam at a penny a pound when the West End of London was ready to pay a shilling a pound for them whole. Here, of course, the railways are the property of the State, so that the objections do not apply. But there is no reason why the automobile should not play an important part as an adjunct to the railways. In the Taranaki district, for instance, and especially on the Plains, the automobile might with advantage be utilised in connection with the dairying industry as a quick and economical means of transit. In the organisation of such a service co-operation would be necessary.