16 Timehri. 



Not only has the world war caused a tremendous speeding up of 

 mechanical development and invention in the matter of road transport in 

 Europe, but the congestion on the railways of Canada and the United 

 States, due to war work, has been the means of initiating in those 

 countries an era of long-distance transportation of freight by road. The 

 first sign of this development was the decision by all the automobile 

 manufacturers to make deliveries by road, and early in the war it was 

 common to see long strings of fifty or more new cars being driven on their 

 journey of perhaps a couple of thousand miles, for delivery to purchasers. 

 Early in 1916, I myself counted a train of forty-eight large motor trucks 

 arriving in New York from the Middle West. Eegular services of freight 

 transportation by motor truck have been inaugurated between New York, 

 Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, St. Louis, and even to Los 

 Angeles and San Francisco. 



Of course it cannot be expected that the cost of long distance freight 

 transportation per ton mile can ever be as low for road haulage as by rail ; 

 this is in the very nature of things well nigh impossible. On short hauls, 

 however, and by short hauls 1 mean anything up to a couple of hundred 

 miles, motor truck haulage of freight has come to stay, for although the 

 actual cost per ton mile is in favour of railway haulage, there is the corres- 

 ponding disadvantage of re-handling freight at each end of the railway 

 journey which can in many instances be obviated in the case of motor 

 trucks. This point was well illustrated in the simple case of a friend of 

 mine moving his furniture from New York to Philadelphia. He calculated 

 the cost of railway transportation plus the cost of getting his goods from 

 his house to the freight station i n New York and from the freight station 

 in Philadelphia to his new house, and was able to effect a considerable 

 saving by sending his goods all the way by road, the motor truck stopping 

 to pick up the goods at the door of his house in New York and delivering 

 them at the door of his house in Philadelphia. 



And having come to stay, there can be no doubt that the motor 

 truck is destined to play an important part in the development of British 

 Guiana, for as will be readily seen, the initial investment required to in- 

 augurate a daily motor service into the interior will be but a small 

 fraction of the cost of inaugurating a daily train service. It goes without 

 saying that neither railway service nor motor truck service can be 

 operated on a paying basis at the very beginning, hut the great dis- 

 advantage railway schemes are under in this circumstance is the huge 

 expenditure necessary before even one engine and car can be operated. 

 The cost of building road-bed, rails and ties is the same whether the 

 trains be run every ten minutes or every ten days. I am even prepared 

 to venture the opinion — and in this I know full well that there are many 

 who will disagree with me — that the solution of the problem of develop- 

 ment of the hinterland does not lie entirely in the carrying out of railway 

 schemes in the first place, but in a well-planned and well-built system of 

 highways suitable for treight and passenger motor traffic, that could be 

 supplemented by light electric railways when and where desirable 



