MOTORING NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 61, 1 August 1914, Page 7

MOTORING NOTES.

A meeting of _ Mie executive of the 1. aianaki Motoring Association was held lust evening, when the rules were considered and drafted. I,t was decided to unite niotori.-ts in other centres' of the jirovinu,. to hold meetings and discuss the proposed Motoring .Hill, and K-lso to consider the question of all'iliatni<> ur joining t-ne Taranuki Association Dr. .Simpson, president of the Canter-' bury Automobile Association, and also of the Provincial Motor Union, probably spoke for thousands the other day when he said that if there was to be a tax, it shou.d be based either on the weight ot the ear or on tin; tyres, it wasi, he said, the 'heavy ear that damaged the I roads, and a tax on that 'basis or on tyres would get at the man who. used the roads most or damaged them most, and who, therefore, should pay. The proposals of the Bill were akin to those in force in the Old Country, but tihey were open to grave objections, said Dr. Simpson. For one thing, motorists objected strongly to the proposal that owners of taxi cabs, which used the roads and streets continually, should pay but one quarter of the rate levied on private owners, and that owners of commercial motors shold get oil' lighter sti 1, despite the fact that it was their lighter waggons that did most of the damage. The proposals, in any case, tended to make class distinctions. There was no reason for that, and motorists resented it. The money raised by the tax, the doctor said, was to be spent on the improvement or unkeep of roads, and motorists felt that they shoiild have some voice in the allocation of the money. If the tax had to be spent on roads, they wanted to be in a position to say which roads. It had been suggested that in each centre therv should be a committee of five members —two from the local authority, twj representing the motorists, and, say, the public works engineer, and that tiiis committee should allocate the money; and, as a provisional proposal, this at least recognised the right of motorists to a voice in the expenditure of the funds brought into existence through their taxation. As things stood, he fuily expected that means would be found for neutralising what he considered the inequitable 'horse-power rating basis. Anyway, makers in Great Britain had designed cars purposely with this end in view, and what had been done there would be taken advantage of in New Zealand if the Government insisted on adhering to the horse-power raiting basis. In Britain this end was gained by keeping the same bore but lengthening the stroke and increasing tlfe revolutions; in other words by producing a high efficiency engine; and if the present rating principle in the New Zeai'and Bill were adhered to, then ears of the kind referred to would be imported to the serious disadvantage to builders of slow speed engines. One car 'he knew of was rated as 32-horse-power in America and as 16 h.p. in Great Britain; yet, if brought here as a 3'2-h.p. car, it would carry a tax of, say £lO, while if imported as- a 10h.p. car, it would only pay, say, £3. lie knew of a 50-h.p. slow-speed engine, and would undertake to get another engine with only half of that cylinder capacity, but developing twice as much horse-power, yet that car would pay only one-third the tax payable on the slow speed engine. If the Government must tax on horse-power rating, motorists (said the speaker) felt that there .should he only two classes of cars: namely, cars under 20 h.p., with a ta.\ of £2 on the one class and £4 on the other. But no doubt these and other practical criticisms -will be carefully considered by the Government and in Parliament, probably with the result •f a reasonably good working measure reaching 'the statute book.