The Motor in the Colonies.

Progress, Volume II, Issue 2, 1 December 1906, Page 53

The Motor in the Colonies.

Owing to the legalisation of motive power on our roads m the United Kingdom, says Motor Traction, enormous strides have been made in the design and manufacture of the small high-speed internal combustion engine in order to meet requirements, and more recently the Heavy Motor Car Order has afforded wider scope to the makers of the steam lorry, who previously, m the earlier days of the motor movement, had to carry on their work penalised under a heavy handicap. Only as recently as two or three days ago it was not uncommon to hear men say that they intended buying a car but would wait until the perfect motor arrived. Nearly all the men whom the writer has heard uttering such sentiments are now motor owners so it may be assumed that the general belief is that the motor car is settling down into a standard form, and may now be regarded as fairly reliable. We would be the last to preach the doctrine of finality m anything, least of all in matters mechanical, but the experience of the past has shown that, when any master-system reaches such a point as to permit of reliable working with proper care, a stage is reached at which radical alterations cease, further improvements only lying in matters of detail, and that this stage lasts for some considerable period, until the system is superseded by another radically different. The locomotive is a case in point. Now, this is the stage which, m our opinion, has been reached by the internal combustiou " motor " using such fuels as petrol or paraffin, although we are free to admit that there is room for improvement in the details dealing with the latter fuel. In fact, the industrial motor began at a stage quite different from the starting point of the private car. In its earlier days the motor car had to be painfully evolved by a process of natural selection, or, to be more correct by the survival of the fittest, but the internal combustion motor for industrial purposes began life with the benefit of eight or nine years' experience obtained from the makers of the private car. The engine of the steam wagon, too, is the outcome of some sixty years' general experience, while the modern driving mechanism and structural parts have only been produced as the result of years of incessant work and experiment. It is the consideration of such facts that brings one to realise that the time has now come for the industrial motor to extend its scope to the colonies, where he enormous possibilities for its use in all directions. The United Kingdom, like other countries, sends out a proportion of trash among her exports, but the percentage of that undesirable commodity is less in her case than in that of any other country. One point we would emphasise with all due respect to our colonial brothers. The foreigner is said to be taking our trade by supplying what the customer wants and asks for, while the Britisher loses the contract by trying to supply what seems to him fittest for his customer's needs, not what the latter wants. There is, however,' something to be said for the British point of view! for it is no uncommon thing m our experience to come across makers who, against their better mdgment, have supplied without question goods

exactly as ordered, and have suffered by loss of trade in consequence of so doing. Again, it is no uncommon thing for orders from over seas to come to hand in which it is really extremely difficult to make out what the sender really does want We adduce these facts not with any intention of finding fault, but to show that there is a reverse to the shield. If only our colonial friends would follow the example of one or two well-known and successful firms that we could mention, by only dealing with well-known firms of integrity and by sending them an account of their requirements as regards the work to be done and the conditions under which it has to be effected, relying on them to execute the order to the best of their judgment, we would hear fewer complaints of orders unsatisfactorily fulfilled.