482 History of Inland Transport 



Inasmuch as applications were made to the Board up to 

 June 30, 1911, for advances amounting in the aggregate to 

 close on ^8,000,000, there would seem still to be a great deal 

 that requires to be done to the roads of the country to adapt 

 them to the traffic conditions of to-day. It will be seen, how- 

 ever, that the combined operations of the Royal Automobile 

 Club, the Automobile Association and Motor Union, and the 

 Road Board constitute, in effect and more especially from 

 the point of view of provision of facilities for through traffic 

 under satisfactory conditions a national road policy far in 

 advance of anything this country has ever seen before. 



These road improvements appeal to the motorist, delighting 

 in cross-country journeys, still more than they do to the urban 

 trader, whose road transport does not, generally speaking, 

 extend beyond a certain radius. But within the limits of 

 such radius the substitution of commercial motors for horse- 

 drawn vehicles is undergoing an expansion which seems to be 

 restricted only by the extent of the motor-car manufacturers' 

 powers of production, while already the use of so many com- 

 mercial motors is accentuating certain changes in commercial 

 conditions which as it is one of the objects of the present 

 work to show have ever been powerfully influenced by the 

 transport facilities of the day. 



With the large wholesale and retail houses the use of the 

 road motor is a matter not simply of economy in transport 

 but, to a still greater degree, of doing a larger business, in 

 less time, and over a wider area, than if horsed vehicles were 

 used. 



When urban traders send motor-vehicles a distance of over 

 twenty or even thirty miles into the outer suburbs, and when 

 those vehicles can cover from fifty to sixty miles in a day, 

 distributing fresh supplies to suburban or country shopkeepers, 

 delivering purchases to local residents, or calling on them to 

 leave groceries, meat and other household necessaries, the 

 possibilities of an expansion of business by the said traders 

 are greatly increased, more especially when the local residents 

 within the radius in question find that if they give an order to 

 the van-man, or send it by post one day, the motor- vehicle 

 will generally supply their wants the next day or the day 

 following. Under this arrangement the big traders, or the 

 big stores, in town are enabled to make their already big 



