In addition to the developments in locomotion spoken of in the previous chapter, there have been various others to which reference should be made.
The principle of a manu-motive machine, furnished with wheels, by means of which an individual could propel himself along a road with greater speed and less exertion than in walking, goes back to the very earliest days of human history, evidences of an attempt to adapt such principle having come down to us from the times both of the Egyptians and the Babylonians.
In the last quarter of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, various contrivances were introduced in our own country under such names as "the velocipede," "the dandy horse," "the hobby horse," "the wooden horse," and the particular form of bicycle known as "the bone-shaker." The last-mentioned became, in spite of its drawbacks, a craze in the late '60's; but it was the substitution of indiarubber for iron tires, and the production, in 1885, by J. K. Starley, of the modern rear-driven "safety," that established the practical utility of the bicycle. A succession of improvements followed, including pneumatic tires, free wheels, two-speed and three-speed gears, the adaptation of the bicycle to the use of ladies, and the supplementing of the bicycle by tricycles, sociables, tandems and the motor-cycle.
Cycles have been well defined as "the poor man's carriage"; but they are to-day favoured by every class of the community. Thanks, more especially, to the numerous local cycling clubs and the great touring clubs, of which the latter count their members by tens of thousands, cycles have materially developed the taste for travel; they have led to indulgence in outings or pleasure trips at home and abroad to an extent previously unknown; they have vastly increased the means of {473}communication; they have exercised a powerful influence on our general social conditions, and they have become, in a variety of ways, and with different modifications of the bicycle or the tricycle principle, an important auxiliary to the despatch of business.
Cycling has thus attained to a place of recognised usefulness in the professions, in trade, in country life, in the Post Office and even in the Army. It is no longer a hobby, a craze or exclusively a source of recreation. The cycle has definitely and permanently established its position as one of the most popular of "carriages," and, in doing so, it has itself led to the creation of a very considerable industry.
By 1895 the demand for cycles had become so great that it was then impossible for the manufacturers to meet all requirements. Over-speculation and over-production, accompanied by severe foreign competition, followed, and for a time the position of the home industry was very unsatisfactory. It has since re-established itself on sounder lines and now constitutes an enterprise of considerable local importance in various parts of the country, including Coventry, Birmingham, Nottingham and Wolverhampton.
Public prejudice and State policy were factors in the arrested development, in this country, of the application of mechanical power to road vehicles, so that while such application has its ancient history equally with the bicycle, the actual expansion thereof—on such lines that it has now become the dominating feature in road transport generally—has been brought about in quite recent times.
When, in the early years of the nineteenth century, general attention was attracted to the possibilities and prospects of using locomotives on the railway in place either of horses or of stationary engines, further projects were mooted for employing steam-propelled vehicles on ordinary roads. Trade expansion and the inefficiency of existing road-transport conditions combined to strengthen these proposals, and from about 1827 to 1835 or 1840 much enterprise was shown in the construction of steam-carriages, and more especially steam-coaches and steam-omnibuses of which various regular services, in London or in the country, were run with, at first, considerable success. The vehicles in question were designed mainly for the conveyance of passengers, and some of them {474}attained a speed of over twenty miles an hour. There were even those who anticipated that steam-carriages on roads would be successful rivals of the locomotive on rails. Alexander Gordon, civil engineer, and an ardent supporter of steam-driven road vehicles as against railways, wrote in "An Historical and Practical Treatise upon Elemental Locomotion by means of Steam Carriages on Common Roads" (1832):—
"It will be found that, with the exception of the Liverpool and Manchester line, and of those lines formed solely for the purpose of conveying heavy materials on a descending road, railways are, at least, of very questionable advantage where there is the possibility of having a good turnpike road and steam carriages.... Rail-roads have a very formidable rival in steam communication upon the common road, and the latter is of vastly greater advantage than the former."
Opposition, however, to steam-driven road coaches was hardly less vigorous than the opposition offered to the rail locomotive itself. Not only were obstructions constantly placed on the roads to prevent the steam-coaches from passing, but country squires, horse-coach proprietors, post-horse owners and representatives of the turnpike road interests combined to show the most active hostility to the new form of locomotion. The turnpike road trustees sought to make the running of the steam-coaches impossible by imposing prohibitive tolls on them. It was shown in evidence before a Parliamentary Committee that where on the road between Liverpool and Prescot horse-coaches would pay a 4s. toll, the steam-coach was charged ￡2 8s., while on other roads the tolls in the case of the latter were equally extortionate.
There were pioneers in those days who devoted time, toil and fortune to attempts to establish steam locomotion on the roads, only, one after the other, to retire from the contest discomfited and impoverished.
Among them was Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, who laboured for five years and expended ￡30,000 on his attempts to bring steam-carriages into practical and permanent use. Finding, at last, that the turnpike trustees controlled the situation, Gurney and other steam-carriage builders petitioned Parliament to investigate the subject of the opposition shown to them, and a select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed for this purpose in 1831. It reported in favour of {475}steam road-carriages, and recommended a repeal of the old turnpike Acts. A Bill to this effect was passed in the Commons but thrown out in the Lords. Disheartened by his losses, Gurney ceased to build and to run coaches on his own account and tried to form a company. He failed in the attempt, and he then appealed to Parliament to make him some recompense for all he had done in the interests of the public. A proposed grant of ￡10,000 was objected to, however, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Gurney got nothing. Concluding that it was useless to continue his attempts in the face of so much discouragement, he sold off his stock-in-trade and retired from the business.
By 1835 nearly all the steam-carriages had been taken off the road, and by 1840 the considerable industry which had been developed was engaged almost exclusively—so far as it survived at all—in the production of traction engines, only spasmodic attempts being made between 1840 and 1860 to produce improved types of steam-carriages for private use.
In 1861 traction engines had so far increased in numbers that a Locomotive Act was passed mainly to fix a scale of tolls applicable to them on all turnpike roads; though this Act further stipulated that each "locomotive" should be in charge of at least two persons, and that the speed should not exceed ten miles an hour when the vehicle was passing along any turnpike road or two miles an hour when passing through a city, town or village. An amending Act, which became law in 1865, laid down that each locomotive should be in charge of three persons; that one of these must walk in front carrying a red flag, and that the maximum speed should not exceed four miles an hour on the highway or two miles an hour in passing through a town or village. Various other restrictions were also imposed.
It was this "red flag Act" that virtually killed off the self-propelled road-vehicle business here for the time being, except as regarded traction engines proper. A few enthusiasts made steam-carriages as a hobby, and certain manufacturers made them for export to the colonies or to India, where there were no such restrictions on their use as in this country. In India, especially, these carriages were found very serviceable in localities then unprovided with railways, though any {476}manufacturer who even tested their capacity on a public road in England was liable to prosecution.
British inventors, thus effectively prevented by hostile legislation from improving self-propelled road-vehicles, turned their attention, instead, to tricycles and bicycles, while continental inventors, not being hampered by legislative restrictions in their own country, first converted the tricycle into a motor-vehicle, then applied the motor principle to four-wheeled waggonettes, and finally evolved some useful types of motor-vehicles which, by 1895, were being widely adopted on the Continent and more especially in Paris.
A few bold pioneers who introduced them here were repeatedly prosecuted and fined. The general position had, in fact, become even worse since 1865, because not only was a motor-car still regarded in the eye of the law as the equivalent of a traction engine or "locomotive," but, under the Highways and Locomotives (Amendment) Act, 1878, every county council was authorised to exact up to ￡10 for a licence which would allow of the use of such traction engine or "locomotive" only within the boundary of the authority in question, a fresh licence being thus required for each county council district through which a vehicle might pass. The only exceptions were locomotives used solely for agricultural purposes. Notwithstanding all these restrictions, there were—exclusive of vehicles of the agricultural type—about 8000 traction engines in use on our roads in 1895.
Much vigorous and practical protest led to the passing of the Locomotives on Highways Act of 1896, which became the Magna Charta of automobilism in this country. Making at last a distinction between motor-cars and traction engines, it relieved from the said restrictions any vehicle, propelled by mechanical power, the weight of which (unloaded) did not exceed three tons, or, together with that of a trailer (also unloaded), four tons. It further sanctioned the driving of such vehicle at a speed of up to fourteen miles an hour, but gave authority to the Local Government Board to reduce the speed if it thought fit—an authorisation of which the Board availed itself by fixing the speed limit at twelve miles an hour.
A great impetus was given to the use of light vehicles, and November 14, 1896, when, under the Act, the motor-car became a legal vehicle in this country, is known in automobile {477}circles as Emancipation Day. But the Act afforded no relief in the case of motor-vehicles suitable for trade or public service purposes. Within the weights specified vehicles of these types would have been commercially unprofitable because they could not have carried a paying load. Above the said weights they were still regarded by the law, and were subject to the same regulations, as road locomotives or traction engines.
Strong representations on the subject were made by the Royal Automobile Club (then the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland), the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the Commercial Motor Users' Association, which bodies claimed the right of the trading interests of the country to a greater degree of reasonable consideration. These further protests again led to good results. In 1903 a Motor-car Act was passed which, among other things, raised the speed limit to 20 miles an hour (subject to authority given to the Local Government Board to reduce the limit to 10 miles an hour in dangerous areas), and provided for the licensing of drivers and the registration and identification of cars, with a view to checking reckless driving; while power was, also, given to the Local Government Board to increase the maximum weights allowed by the earlier Act. In January, 1904, the Board appointed a Departmental Committee to inquire into the question of increasing the maximum tare, and, after taking counsel with technical experts, trading bodies and commercial authorities, it finally issued the Heavy Motor-car Order, 1904, effecting changes in the maximum weights (unladen) as follows:—
MOTOR CAR MOTOR CAR AND TRAILER
Act of 1896 3 tons 4 tons.
Order of 1904 5 tons 6? tons.
This Order, which came into force on the 1st of March, 1905, made possible the provision of commercial motor-services, and the full development of the motor industry, on present-day lines. It led, especially, to the creation of new types of vehicles previously unknown here, and, by allowing "heavy motor-cars"—the designation now applying to motor-vehicles over two tons in weight—to take their place in ordinary road traffic, foreshadowed changes in inland {478}transport to which one could hardly attempt, at present, to fix any limit.
In respect to pleasure cars, detailed figures published in the issue of "The Car" for December 14, 1910, show that the number of these (as distinct from heavy motor-vehicles), registered in the United Kingdom at that date, and allowing as far as possible for those which had lapsed, was 124,860. Of motor-cycles there were 86,414. These figures convey some idea of the extent to which the automobile has been not only substituted for private horsed-carriages, as used for ordinary urban and social purposes, but adopted, also, for those longer journeys or tours which the improved means of locomotion have brought so much into vogue.
How the country is being opened up more and more to motor traffic may be shown by some references to the work in this direction by the Royal Automobile Club and the Automobile Association and Motor union.
Founded in 1897, the Royal Automobile Club is an influential body with many-sided activities, including the provision of a club house in Pall Mall well deserving the designation of "palatial," and typical of the high standing to which automobilism has attained. More, however, to my present purpose than the social advantages offered by the club is the fact that the R.A.C. not only advises its members or associates as to the best route in regard to any tour they propose to make by motor, at home or abroad, but provides them with a complete typewritten itinerary and specially-designed maps for such tour, the information given being kept up to date by means of reports made by the members themselves. The inquirer is given, also, a guide-book for the district in question written from the point of view of the traveller by road; he receives some confidential notes concerning the hotels en route, and he may arrange to retain the services, for periods of an hour, a half-day, a day, or a week, of local guides—clergymen, writers, secretaries of local societies and others—who are qualified authorities on art, arch?ology, architecture, natural history, topography, etc., besides having an intimate knowledge of the localities visited. In the Club itself there is a well-stocked "Travel Library," from which books can be borrowed. Should the member or the associate on tour come into conflict with the law in regard to alleged offences under {479}the Motor Acts, the R.A.C. will defend him in any police court in the United Kingdom free of charge, though it reserves to itself the right to refuse such assistance in the case of those who may have been guilty of inconsiderate driving.
Much has been done by the R.A.C. in the provision of road direction posts. It has, for example, put up posts or direction boards along the whole of the Great North Road from London to Berwick. It erects danger signs at especially dangerous places, though at these only, as it considers undesirable any undue multiplication of such signs by private agencies. The R.A.C. is, further, most vigilant in defending the common interests of motorists when these are endangered by Parliamentary Bills or in other ways.
The Automobile Association and Motor union also has its Touring Department, for home or foreign travel. It offers, like the R.A.C., free defence of members prosecuted for offences against the Motor Acts; it has an "hotel system" of its own, and it has shown much activity in the placing of direction posts and danger signs on important roads throughout the United Kingdom.
A special feature of the A.A. and M.U.'s operations is the patrolling, by men in uniform—and provided with bicycles or motor cycles—of 14,000 miles of roads throughout England, Wales and Scotland. It is the duty of these patrols to give to members information of interest concerning the road, to warn them of any dangers on the highway, and to render them all possible assistance in case of need. They are able to undertake minor roadside repairs; they procure, in case of need, fresh petrol supplies from the nearest store; while each is qualified to give first aid in case of accident, much excellent service being rendered by them on the roadside not only to members but to the public. Agents and repairers have also been appointed by the A.A. and M.U. in all important cities and towns and in numerous hamlets at intervals of a few miles along every main road. The agents receive or deliver letters or telegrams, and are helpful in many ways to the members.
In addition to these central organisations in London there are now Associated Automobile Clubs throughout the United Kingdom which show a great deal of local activity and offer many advantages to their own members.
{480}
It is, again, the now general use of the automobile that has given to the improvement of the roads the greatest degree of stimulus it has received since the days of McAdam and Telford.
Speaking generally, excellent results have followed from the policy adopted by the State in transferring the charge of main roads from turnpike trustees to the county councils, and, also, in encouraging rural district councils to pay more attention to local highways other than main roads. In 1908-9, for example, the county councils spent on 27,749 miles of main roads a total of ￡2,739,591, and the rural district councils spent on the 95,144 miles of road under their own control a total of ￡2,160,492 on maintenance and repairs and ￡52,067 on improvements. Nor is there any reason for supposing that, under the conditions operating to-day, this expenditure is wasted or ill-spent, as was the case with so much of the outlay on roads in the pre-McAdam days of non-scientific road-making.
While the roads were being adapted to the requirements of ordinary traffic, their shortcomings from the point of view of the traffic of motor-cars and traction engines were made apparent, and called for special attention. It was not only that the suction of the india-rubber tyres raised clouds of dust and, also, injured the macadamised roads by depriving the top layer of stones of their proper binding, but the greater speed at which the motor-cars were driven made it especially necessary that the roads should be alike wide and straight, with as few awkward, if not dangerous, turns, twists or corners as possible.
The increasing use of traction engines is indicated by a report on the county roads issued by the Kent County Council. The number of traction engines licensed by that body during the year ending March 31, 1911, for use in the county, was 101, as compared with only 37 in the previous year.
Action was called for all the more because cycling and automobilism have increased the use of the roads of the United Kingdom in general to an extent that probably surpasses their use even in the palmy days of the Coaching Era. At that time it was almost exclusively along the main roads between leading cities that the coaches went in such numbers; whereas cyclists and motorists in search of the picturesque may discard main roads and proceed, instead, along highways {481}and by-ways where the stage-coach was never seen. The sum total of the road traffic to-day may thus be in excess of that of the Coaching Age, though, perhaps, appearing to be less because it is better distributed.
For like reasons it became necessary that not only the main roads, but the highways and by-ways, also, should receive adequate attention.
Under the Development and Road Improvement Funds Act, 1909, there was constituted, in 1910, a body known as the Road Board, having for its special function the administration of a "Road Improvement Grant." The Board was to have power, with the approval of the Treasury, (a) to make advances to county councils and other highway authorities in respect to the construction of new roads or the improvement of existing roads, and (b) itself to construct and maintain any new roads, which appear to the Board to be required for facilitating road traffic.
The funds available for the Road Improvement Grant arise from the motor spirit duties and the motor-car license duties, the last-mentioned being ￡1 for motor-bicycles and motor-tricycles, of whatever horse-power, and from ￡2 2s. to ￡42 for motor-cars, according to their horse-power. Motorists thus directly contribute towards the improvement of the roads, and the principle involved is the same as that under which road-users formerly paid tolls on turnpike roads; but the present application of this principle is obviously a great improvement on the system of turnpikes, with its excessive cost of toll-collection and other disadvantages.
The amount likely to be available for grants by the Board is estimated at about ￡600,000 a year; but, owing to an accumulation of funds before operations were begun, the Board started with resources amounting to ￡1,600,000. The grants actually made to September 30, 1911, were:—
￡
Improvement of road crusts 321,445
Road widenings and improvement of curves and corners 44,856
Road diversions 16,906
Construction and improvement of bridges 23,947
———
Total 407,154
{482}
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, however, 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 commercial 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 ............