LAND AND \\' A T E R 
December iS, 1915. 
THE BRITISH MOTOR INDUSTRY. 
By H. Massac Biiist. 
MATNLY by reason of the fact tliat Colonel 
11. C. L. Holden sTnany qualification?, include 
an appreciation of the problems of manu- 
facturing, the equipment of the ^lotor 
Transport Section ot the Armj- Service Corps has always 
been up to programme, an achievement exceedingly 
rare, if not actually unique. Sixty thousand motor 
transport drivci-s are at work, aiid another 17,000 
will be needed for service early next year. Nor will 
there be any difficulty about obtaining them. 
Military Motor Service. 
To whatever extent our Forces mav ha\e to be 
enlarged to bring the campaign to a conclusion in our 
favour, there will be no quosticn about getting as big a 
motor-vehicle service as ma>- be needed. In th<? 
original instance we had to supplement the productions 
of our own factories by those issuing from works in the 
United States of America. To-day the (Government 
has been enabled partially to release the British industrv. 
Thus, on the one hand, it allows a limited number of 
industrial type chassis to be supplied to lirms engaged 
either wholly or in part on war work and, on the other, 
certain firms marketing light cars are allowed to supply 
the public. The question naturally arises : When the 
needs of the Government for motor-vehicles of all sorts 
shall have been satisfied, what is the British manufacturer 
going to do ? 
In the course of this war, as a class, he has passed 
through some rather curious experiences. On the out- 
break of hostilities the British motor industry offered 
all its resources to the Government which, how'ever, did 
not then use more than a quarter of them, because the 
firriis capable of producing big vehicles and aviation engines 
are strictly hmited in number. Therefore, the balance 
of the industry obediently set to work trying to carry 
on " business as usual." Then came the "realisation of 
the amount, of ammunition that would be needed. On a 
sudden, the British motor industry was turned topsy 
turvy to produce, not one, but dozens of varieties o- 
all kinds of munitions, much of which involved 
work tor which the factories concerned had never been 
e(]uipped. This of course meant that such fresh work 
could not be produced under the most economical con- 
dition, added to which the lack of co-ordination in the 
placing of orders handicapped production. 
The essence of the problem of manufacturing is to 
Sit your machines and your hands each to doing one 
thing again and again until the demand has been quite 
satislied, in place of putting through a batch of a certain 
article, then resetting the machines to produce a batch of 
something entirely different, and so on. France, being 
a country where organisation is understood becau.se it 
lias been long practised, . never went through these 
choppings and changings whereby our motor industry 
has lost an incalculable amount in the guise of good- 
will by reason of agents, in whose businesses millions 
of money are embarked in these islands, being compelled 
to go wholesale to America for vehicles since the only 
alternative was to put up their shutters. 
What France is Doing. 
France put Louis Renault, the famous manufacturer, 
in command of what is called the Paris zone of production 
which embraces something like half the total output of 
France. The employment of a trained manufacturer 
not only resulted in the maximum output of munitions 
of war from the large number of motor and other factories 
that came under his control, but also in sending up tha 
output of the Government munition works in liis region. 
Being a man who runs his own shops for profit, 
he knows exactly how to expedite output without 
sacrificing the quality of the product. Also, the practical 
French method has resulted in the world outside France 
being able to buy nearly all the famous makes of French 
chassis from the commencement of the war to date, 
so that the link with the market has never been broken, 
as it has been in the case of our industry as a whole. 
Unfortunately in this country we have not yet 
realised the importance of the manufacturer with actual 
works experience— otherwise the production expert. We 
emplov anybody else for the business of running the war; 
but w'c do' not demand his services elsewhere than in the 
actual works in which he is engaged in peace time, fhe 
result is that we have been and will be negotiating various 
problems, not a few of which would /.ever have arisen 
had we realised what an intricate thing is the combination 
of a factory and a selling organisation, and how easily it 
can be dislocated in a manner that may need years of 
.-ndeavour to right, .^t the moment the cry is abroad 
that the British motor manufacturing industry has done 
remarkably well out of the war. With the single exception 
of a much-cited balance-sheet, it does not appear that, 
for all the large amount of extra capital that has been 
emploved bv the industry this year, more than from 
£100,000 to /i50,ooo extra profit has been made by it 
o\-er the preceding twelve months, which were not as 
profitable as the ic)i3 year. This extra profit, moreover, 
is of a purely temporary nature made at the expense of 
dislocating businesses which on the average have taken 
quite a decade to build up, and which have had to be 
thrown aside for transient work, with what consequences 
we cannot yet even estimate. 
As Regards the Future. 
We do know, however, that the result of the policy 
of causing works built for motor making to produce 
\'arieties of munitions of war, for which they were never 
schemed, and which therefore cannot be produced under 
the most economical conditions has been to establish 
the American-made motor car in the British market to 
an extent that could not otherwise have been accom- 
plished in less than five years. What you may ask is the 
alternative ? Since money had to be exported from this 
country anyway, it wotild have been more profitable 
to have arranged for our motor works to continue partially 
producing those machines which they are equipped to 
manufacture, since that can be done most economically, 
and since that would also have enabled us to keep our 
market for British motors open to some extent and, by 
exporting the same amount of money, to have bought 
from America a greater quantity of certain classes of 
munitions from firms running up new factories designed 
for that work as distinct from motor making. It would 
have been able to produce those extra munitions under the 
most economical conditions and therefore on terms that 
would have given us the best value for the gold exported. 
What is our motor industry going to do ? To-day 
you have firms like Rolls-Royce, Sunbeam, and so forth 
exclusively engaged on war work. There are other firms, 
more numerous, whose motor production is not needed ; 
but which are engaged in producing various sorts of 
munitions. Unfortunately, many of them are unable 
to pursue even their experiments against the time when 
they shall be able to return to the open market. The 
partial release of utility type vehicles has already been 
referred to. In regard to pleasure-car varieties, while 
It IS possible for limited quantities of Singer,. Standard, 
and Hillman light-cars to be released for the public, 
nevertheless the examination of the total variety on the 
market reveals that a large proportion of them are 
machines that; have either all their reputation to win, or 
which are fashioned either wholly or in part of com- 
ponents, including engines, made in America. 
This is one of the gravest penalties to wliich the 
mtive industry has been 'subject as a result of the war. 
Ihe situation, then, is that to-dav and as long as the war 
s^hall last there will be no idleness in British motor factories 
1 he problem is, howe^•er. what are our makers to do when 
they shall be free to place their wares on the open market 
again .■< That hinges not only on 'their own enterprise 
but also on what the p;;blic will be demanding It is 
a matter of investigation in a future article 
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