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Show 1921 to Be Motor Transport Year According to This Expert Who Says Business Efficiency Demands the Greater Use of Automobiles. Trucks fc-xport Market Offers Great Opportunities to American Motorcar Manufacturers; Farmers Own Many Cars and Trucks By CHARLES CLIFTON "' President National Automobile Chamber of Commerce. TH18 year will be a trannporiation ear. Kvery buinH and every product is called upon to face its part In the reconstruction. Waste must be cut. Kxtravagance muni le eliminated. Kfficient methoda must prevail. The salesman who goes afoot or depends on Irregular train service when he could douliln his productivity by usinic a car must fro into the discard. The real extate man who depends on trolleys alone will find his business -seriously curtailed. The farmer who depends on a tram to ronnect him with the town will find his family discontented, his farm shunned by the hired man and his Drofits reuchinif the zero muni The farmer, moreover, ia the heaviest buyer uf cars, owning over a third of all automobiles registered. The rural districts of the I'nlted States purchased liuer cent ofUJl..4s20 motorvehk-.le -output, (if the cars in this country 23 per cent are owned in communities of 1000 population or under, and i5 per cent in owned in districts of o'lOD population or under. : This Is to bo a year of conservatism. M'tl HO 000 11-' .Iis.ono 1S13 45.000 1M r..4S .. s2.u lflU l.i3.IT lf!7 47 ISIS 1.1(1.(3; nif t,;4.oi( i;o j. 240. ooo Kstlmatrd. , In 1K11 general business conditions wt.en the weak will go to the wall and I th Mirons; wtll add to him strength. 1 Feopl will want cam. Uut they will not ask at In ara Ron by: How much fpeed? How I much comfort ? How much preetiff? The test will be: How much economy in transportation? How much vain to my buHineww? Th.-sr are question whit It fh auTo mobile can annwr with t-ati5fat tiun to the sternest Interrogator. In a yer when efficiency In transportation will be essential, the pasrieiia:er car und truck will huv an opportunity to prove their worth to a defrre not realised in the times of fuperproeoerity. We may or may not see the volume of orders which piled into the fartorten I In tlte first half of s20. That period r prnenled the d-mnd of a market which had been starved for two years, plus the hnmedlat e requirement of the day. On the other hand each succeed suc-ceed inK year bring greater need lor hauling of aoods and paasengers from point to point, greater economic in time. Consequently production schedule sched-ule are likely to xtiow a steady g row th as tune goes on. Thm in ml vacant optimism. A fore- ram w it htjut tactn would, ltd fed. be like a ship without a rudder, directed by the pairing breeze. Prophecy mum be guidi-d I y the hard logic of the known -lemt-nts. We know that fundamental business condition nre roi:nd. We know that th automobile is one of the primary triinsportat ion unit.. We know that the owner reaiisea to an increasing degree that the potine. sion of a car Is an exteraion of his power in burinr. as well as a wid u- j er of bis social contacts. l.et us examine th- fundamental i business condit tons. The country is I rich Products abound. Kventual prosperity ts inevitable. The tiittl harvests have been better than aver-! aver-! ae. Labor Is more plentiful and more : efficient than during the war and postwar post-war years. The foreign ex'hanx sit- uatioo is improving. Ttailroaii re , btfr able to handle long haul husi-j husi-j ness. Cars and truck are avaiNhle ' in greater numbers than ever before. I Bus mens contract ion ha been due ( to a shortage of credits, not to a lsk of Kood. After th war, after the blah pric s and specula) ton. a period of I pruuing was liievitahle. Whn on : looks bark to 173 and to one realises that the readjuatment baa come mith surprlntnrly smalt din-comfort. din-comfort. Price declines have taken place ranidly. and m soon as the puh-realizes puh-realizes that t he loweM price -v-li huve been reached there will be a reetirge of trade. The degree of buMns uhltjtv to be found among th ma n ufact rirri of crsrn aiMl trucks ts shown bv the growth of the industry. For twenty years the making of mptorvf hirl-n hrtu been gaining steadily. One exception is to be found in the year lft!S when the producers of passenger cars voluntarily volun-tarily curtailed their output In order to make airplanes, part, and other instruments in-struments of war. .Hera ia the record Year. Number .I.Tito 1 oa . ; IT AtH t4 ;i .?:. .' ftfit l!o 2 tOA l"'7 i4.ia 10. : - ". Ann J1'i. 1 ;7 7 1 , U7,00 w-re bad, but ntutorvehtclc product nn iadan-ed or r the only preeedlng year ! for which ntatistics bad been gathered lri snd probably abosred soma gain ! over M'i2. althouah there were not j records kpt for l0tt. 101, 1i0j. Th I I! figure 1p from the government j cepBMji, whereas not until Is ft 3 did the I manufacturers collect statistics for the industry as a hole. In l!o; ths output of manv Indus-jtries Indus-jtries was .h-av(ly curtailed but all reordH for the making of automobiles were broken. Thia gives some Idea of the vllality of tha automobile industry. indus-try. cauHing It to advance in times of; drprestiion. The atamlna Is not due solely to the creative brains of th automobile In-dutry. In-dutry. It rests on an even firmer basin; the insintent demand of modern clvillxation for betier transportation, coupled with the breakdown of atreet railway lines In many suburban communities. com-munities. There are T.aftft.ftao mm In conn-try conn-try and about sOfl.GO trucks. The passenger pas-senger mileage of automobiles in 111 was Ohm 000.000, whereaa the passenger pas-senger mileage of railroads whs 4.-ouO.ftoo.OOO. 4.-ouO.ftoo.OOO. Of the motorcars 0 per cent are used mora or Wm for business. busi-ness. ft per cent of the mileage is 'Unitarian, rim! the full service of trucks, of course, is devoted to commercial com-mercial ef f icirtcy. When one looks forward, therefore Into 1 42 1 with its readjuxted finance, its storehouse, filled with goods one must read there a steady demand for automotive products. Kspecially ia this so w ben it Is realized that automo-I automo-I He salesmanship Is in the early atagea of development. Tit export urn k Af hardtr has been touched. Thf, for'rn shipments of -nntorvfludea in the fiscal year M?0 w.-r pino times rs larre as any pre-wi pre-wi r veor Th" rat'o of cars to popu-lat'on popu-lat'on In he I'nited Htntes i 1 to 14 in c.reat Britain it Is 1 to H. But the businenn appeal Is hot the so1 claim of the nr. The fact that the automobile Is a vital transportation nit sera as s ftrm foundation for he indust-v. It j Sriire stability in the times of"com- merca upset, and it entitles the cart srd trurk to th highest eon4rm t ion in the public rnfnd. ni util.tv of the; I car and iru. ir la fact to which we i msv pont with pride. I But the car wins its wav Info the h-art of the people also hef-uee it aids them in th" fundamental riaht, of the pn-iilt of happiness. i The fimtlv csr is one of the rreat- 1 est relfivations for our hlrh speed civ-I ilii.twin. I hve no patience wlh I those hi wish to ji out healthful' play Th enphn.si tod-av is too mu'h fin b othr direction It is snlendtd to think the cir -Hdfnr to the W- I fici-nc- of over 7 0t0 Ywners' but ! is ful'.v as rrsftTvins to- think f.f ' these f.-ireM ;-s thereby gaining a re-laxation re-laxation :it.d rer-r-ation to which thev are jutly entitled. |