Peasants v. Motor Conveyance.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 8, 1 June 1906, Page 196

Peasants v. Motor Conveyance.

It is in the nature of things that new inventions breed antagonism, as every stride forward m the province of mechanics means an attack on some vested interest of hand or animal power. The inventor of the spinning jenny saw his invention smashed up by an infuriated mob ; blackguardly remarks were made in livery and bait stables about the father of railroad travelling ; and, to-day, horse owners squirm at the rising tide of motonsm. But the mechanical marches on : to attempt to stop it is to confront the mrushmg ocean with a mop and pail. Hardships are occasioned by its advance. We do not blmk at the fact, and can and do sympathise with those who suffer ; yet, in course of time the pressure is removed and new spheres are found for labour by the very invention which caused the disturbance. Comparative quiet follows until the advent of another mechanical upheaval. This by way of introduction to a tragi-comedy in the Russian town of Shepetovka, m which Count Josef Potoki creently introduced a 20-h.p. German Daimler lorry for conveying the products of his sugar factory to the neighbouring railway station, the sugar having been previously carried in carts belonging to local peasantry. The peasants rose to a man m defence of their menaced interests, but, instead of destroying the motor, they adopted up-to-date means — almost as effectual — to reduce the innovation to impotency : they struck in a body. As the manager of the Potoki estate could not dispense with the peasants, there was no help for it but to come to a compromise, which took the form of an agreement to use the lorry only for consignments winch they cannot get to the station with their horsedrawn carts.

The question of subsidising motor 'buses for war purposes is one that is already receiving the close attention of the English war authorities. The Naval and Military Gazette (England^, m discussing the approaching death of the omnibus horses, which are at present subsidised by the English authorities in the case of war, says :—": — " Can we not enlist on our side the very circumstances which have combined to place us in this position ? Most people are by this time aware that the self-propelled vehicle consists in general of two parts — the framework, or chassis, which carries all the mechanism, and the body, which is the part carrying all the load. Pleasure vehicles have been constructed in such a manner that the body is detachable from the chassis, so that a waggonette may be transformed into a brougham, and a brougham into an open carriage, without the slightest alteration of the chassis itself. In the case of a motor omnibus, the body is permanently fixed, but if there were any necessity to do so the bodies could as readily be made detachable, and the chassis made ready for any form of body to be attached which has been built to fit it. Does not this indicate a new method of meeting the new circumstances ? A time will come, it is agreed, when there will no longer be enough draught horses to meet the requirements of the army for registration purposes, and therefore it is for the State to consider how it will best be able to adopt itself to the altered conditions. And from this it is not a very great step to endeavour to reverse the process, and adapt the new conditions to the requirements of the State. Suppose we were to say to the omnibus companies : ' Make your chassis of a uniform size, and make your bodies detachable ; we will then register your chassis for use in case of war in the same way as that hitherto adopted in the case of your horses.' Instead of store wagons, forage wagons, general service wagons, and so on, our mobilisation sheds would be kept stocked with motor bodies to suit these various purposes, all uniformly fitting the standard chassis."