Effects of Recent Transport Strikes.

Progress, Volume VII, Issue 2, 1 December 1911, Page 899

Effects of Recent Transport Strikes.

OUR ENGLISH CORRESPONDENT. Colonial readers are, by now, well aware that the Old Country has been undergoing the inconvenience incidental on the recent strike of railway and general transport workers. So completely have the usual means of transit been disorganised that the public generally have been at their wits’ end how to transact their accustomed business.

One of the immediate results of these strikes has been that the demand for commercial motor vehicles has increased immensely. It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and in this case it is the motor manufacturer who has profited by the misfortunes of others. Prom all over the country commercial vehicle orders have been pouring in, and the demand is, already, far in excess of the supply. One firm, I am' informed, has received orders which will keep their present plant fully occupied for at least three years.

The strike has demonstrated to wholesale firms and to cartage contractors that it is vitally necessary for them to have autonomy in the matter of delivering goods. The cessation of the railways has been the means of compelling them to overcome whatever fears they may have had as to the potentialities and of the value of motor traction. In other words, they have been literally “pitchforked” into buying commercial motors for their own use. The result is that the “Trade” has received a stimulus which is likely to put it in a position which it might not otherwise have occupied for many years to come.

In this item of news there lies a moral. It behoves the .New Zealand business man to put aside that futile habit of attempting to compute on paper the relative merits of horse and motor traction; and to do more than merely “flirt” with the latter. Let him believe the sound truth that the modern commercial motor is an economical and reliable article, and is, in fact, something more than the potential successor to the horse. It has “made good” in the face of extreme odds. He who takes it up now runs little risk of making a bad investment —always provided he chooses the right type of vehicle and one eminently suited for his specific service.