504 History of Inland Transport 



(2) The supply of milk, ice and necessaries to all hospitals 

 and nursing homes. 



(3) The supply of milk, fish and perishable produce to 

 London and other large towns. 



(4) The supply to country villages of stores not produced 

 in or near their area, such as sugar, tea, etc. 



(5) The carriage of troops or police. 



(6) The conveyance of passengers if on urgent business in 

 connection with family matters or trade. 



Lord Montagu added that " the Government would, of 

 course, have to guarantee open roads and protection for 

 loading and unloading vehicles, and provide for the swearing-in 

 of motorists as special constables, who would be thus engaged 

 in saving the community from starvation and chaos." He 

 further thought that the compilation of a national register of 

 motorists willing to lend their cars should be proceeded with 

 at once. 



The existence of such an organisation as this, with the 

 inclusion, also, in the proposed registry, of horsed waggons, 

 waggonettes and other vehicles owned by the country gentry 

 and others, might be of incalculable service both in enabling 

 the railway companies to stand against the coercion of a really 

 general strike, and in saving the transport of the country 

 from any approach to a complete dislocation, pending the 

 time when the full railway services could be resumed. 



A further example of the possible usefulness of motor- 

 vehicles was shown by a War Office memorandum, issued 

 on September 26, 1911, giving particulars of a provisional 

 scheme for the subsidising of petrol motor-lorries already 

 manufactured and owned by civilians, complying with certain 

 specified conditions, the War Office thus acquiring the right 

 to purchase such lorries from the owners for military service, 

 in the case of need. 



Measures of the kind here in question would, of course, be 

 temporary expedients only, there being, as shown above, no 

 probability that motor transport by road would ever take 

 the place altogether of transport by rail. 



Nor is aerial locomotion likely to be a more formidable 

 rival of the railways than either inland navigation or motor 

 transport by road. One may safely anticipate that further 

 great advances are yet to be made in the art of flying ; yet 



