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Show AUTO COST IS BGHT BILLION Vast Sums Spent Each ' Year, Yet Money for Other Needs ; 'ihe financial side of the automo-j automo-j bile business Is interesting but puzz-I puzz-I lirg The best estimate of tho annual expenditure on motor cars In this country for 1921 makes the total out to be 57. 783. 000. 000, distributed as I follows. New cars ! . $1.448,0.00,000 Depreciation l,800000,000 Interest 296,000.000 I Tires . ,.,f 4 50.000.000 Casoline 829,-60.0,000 Oil 1 75.0i0,O(iil tiarago 502,000,000 Repairs and supplies . . 1.000,000.000 insurance i85.ooo.ooo Taxes 275.000.000 Drivers' salaries 600.000,000 Road maintenance .. . 180,000,000 1 Total $7,783,000,000 That is to say. we are spending approximately ap-proximately 8.000 million dollars a year on something that did not exist twenty-five years ago. Wher.. does the money come from? For what would this 8.000 million dol-lars dol-lars be spent If there wero no motor ears? When a man buys a car and spends, say. a thousand dollars a year on it In Interest, depreciation and sup-I sup-I piles, what does he economize on? Does he take It out of his savings or i what he otherwise would have laid up ; lor a rainy day" But savings and ln-I ln-I vestments have also increased during I this period. Does a family after it owns a motor car spend less on cloth-' cloth-' Ing or food or theatres, books or sum-I sum-I mcr resorts or golf? Or does it spend .more? is there a saving on shoe J I leather by using rubber tlres But i more is spent on shoes and clothing than there used to be. So of almost everything site The only lines In j which a definite falling off can be discerned dis-cerned and ascribed to the introduction introduc-tion of the motor car is In carriages, city stables and tho like, but this Is little eonipared with what 13 spent on motor cars and motoring. The building of railroad mileage has been virtually at a standstill for a number of years, though tho population popula-tion and business activity of the country coun-try has been Increasing. It may bo isald. then,, that a large part of the money spent for motor transportation would othorwlse havo been put into I spur line railroads, electric railways, or else, which Is more probable, there vould have been much less In the way of transportation facilities available and consequently less wealth created The creation of rail lines covering the network of highways over which motor cars travel would probably bo prohibitive In cost. A saving In the wages of farm workers has been another source of Income for automobile Investment. |