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HAVING been for more than
fifty years a very keen whip and in use for many of these years to drive at
a speed of from twelve to fourteen miles an hour—twelve on an average, and
fourteen where the course was level or on a slightly descending gradient—the
best pleasures of the road were well known to me. Many a time did I say in
the past that if I were a Baird of Gartsherrie, or a Merry of Belladrum,
that I would have the finest four-in-hand that could be turned out for
money. But I always had a hankering after the road power vehicle, my leaning
being towards the mechanical, and my reading telling me how the successful
steam carriage had been crushed out eighty years ago by the ill-judged
opposition of the landed interest, and the domineering selfishness of the
railway magnate, who were blind to see what they are seeing now, that the
road vehicle is a friend and not an enemy to their prosperity. But for their
dead-set against it an efficient system of mechanical road transport would
have been in operation eighty years ago, and the extravagant expenditure
would not have been incurred upon the countless short-distance branches,
which are so serious a handicap to railroad companies financial success, and
give so inefficient a servi:e to the districts through which they pass, the
intermediate stations bring often a mile or even two miles from the places
to which the company professes to carry passengers and goods—witness
Chirnside in Berwickshire, Kincardine on Forth on the Fife coast, and
Muthill in Perthshire. These are but specimens, there are hundreds of others
throughout the kingdom.
When Gottlieb Daimler
demonstrated the feasability of power traction, by the use of light fuel in
the explosion engine, my interest was at once excited. I had the pleasure of
taking part in the first great demonstration of the practicability of
mechanical road locomotion—the 1000 miles tour from London to Edinburgh and
back in 1900, which was so ably organised by my friend, Claud jJhnson, the
Secretary of the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland—a club
consisting then of a handful of enthusiasts, but winch now numbers nearly
8000 members, and is housed <n the finest club-house in the world.
That tour was convincing. It
was possible to observe many faults and deficiencies, just as Puffing Billy
or the Rocket were poor things in comparison with the railroad greyhounds of
to-day. But it was easy to see that the power was there, and that invention
and experience were certain to bring about practical development and
successful control of the power, resulting in efficiencys just as in the
case of the railroad engine. But sanguine as we on that expedition were, I
doubt if any one of us dreamt that the development would be so rapid, and
that in twelve years the fast horsed vehicles in such a city as London would
have dwindled down, as they did, to a five or even less proportion to the
hundred of the fast vehicles on the street. Such a peaceful revolution has
never taken place with similar rapidity in the history of the world. Now the
numbers give still further witness to the predominance of the
mechanical-carriage, and the proportion of power-commercial vehicles is
rising daily. hey will soon in their turn be predominant. Opponents
resolutely shut their eyes for some years, They pooh-poohed the whole
movement, persuading themselves, and endeavouring to persuade others, that
motor-traction was a temporary fad of the rich, and would soon begin to lose
its fascination, like diabolo or ping-pong. My dear friend, Lord Ardwall—now,
alas, no more with us—was one of our keenest opponents. I remember well when
the Bench was in the retiring-room at lunch, about eight years ago, his
putting on the most truculent expression that his abounding good-nature
would permit. "My dear fellow, said he, "you will see, in another ten years
there won't be half the motorcars on the road that there are now." All I
said was, "Oh, indeed." It would have been vain to argue the point. Two
years later, and I said to him on a similar occasion: "Ardwall, what is this
I hear. Motors have been seen carrying you and yours down m Dumfriesshire
lately—surely that can't be true." "Oh, well," he replied, "it's the young
people, they would have it; they said they could not go to their friends as
their friends came to them, and the boys made out that they must be able to
get to distant shoots; but, said he emphatically, to show a rag of
consistency, "I hire, I have never bought one.' How many thousands of
similar cases have there not been, There is one comfort for those who have
to listen to the sighs and groans of the laudator temp oris acti that
whether he wears his mourning weeds till tempted to yield to a new
fascination coming slowly over him, or whether he clings to the last to
memories of his good old time, it is for his time only, and those who follow
have no memory of a former attachment. The man who feels that he must "dree
his weird" because of the abominations of the autocar, will, like Disrael's
"Boots of the Red Lion, and chambermaid of the Blue Boar," who denounced the
ignominy of railroads, have passed from the scene, and the power-vehicle be
a matter of course to all, as -s the railway train, which caused much strong
language seventy years ago.
And now man, with the aid of
the petrol motor, has achieved flight through the air, fulfilling the last
of Erasmus Darwin's prophecies, of what he expected from steam. Many were
the efforts of enterprising inventors to produce a steam driven
dying-machine, but all in vain. The accomplishmerit of such flight was
brought as near as possible by the ingenious and inventive Hiram Maxim, but
his failure was a demonstration of the practical :impossibility of flying on
a heavier than air machine by steam-engine power. If he could not do it,
safely be assumed that no one else could succeed. But in less than ten years
the petrol engine has enabled aviators to demonstrate that flight through
the air can be accomplished successfully. Whether this will lead, as some
enthusiasts declare, to the mails being carried on land or across the seas
by aeroplane is a different question. I shall only say that, looking at the
matter all round, "I hae ma doots." That aviation will take an important
place in war both on land and sea, where much must be risked, is beyond
doubt. And it is certain to become a sport. The idea is fascinating, and its
very risks are magnetic to draw the adventurous to try their fortune. But
its application to regular daily services is a very different matter, there
being good reason to doubt whether it could ever be as efficient and as
convenient as a service on terra firma. These last two words recall to me a
story of the old lady whose son was an enthusiast balloonist, and who tried
to persuade her to make an ascent. "No, James, no," she replied; "I prefer
to stick to terra cotta'!
The advent of the power
vehicle has once more brought the road into a position of prominence in the
interest of the public. When the railroad absorbed the mass of the traffic,
the construction and upkeep of the road received little attention. Men
without skill in road-making were appointed surveyors who had no training
for such work, and the workers on the road were too often phys^ally unfit,
being given wages as if they were able for efficient work, in order to keep
them off the rates for relief of the poor. With the introduction of power
traction, the necessity of skill in the making and management of roads
became at once apparent, and the consequent increased burden upon the rates
caused the Government to perceive that some aid must be given from imperial
sources to encourage the local road authorities to improve the condition of
the highways. This has led to my being provided with a really useful hobby,
which it s probable will be my last. When H.M. Road Board was appointed, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer did me the honour to invite me to take a seat on
the Board, and although my acceptance has led to many a long journey by day
and by night, and will continue to do so, the work has been most enjoyable,
and all the more so because of a growing confidence that much good is being
accomplished. Besides consulting with the local authorities who apply for
grants, and advising them as to the best means to be used for road
improvement, much work of investigation has been carried on by the Board to
ascertain how to select material that shall give the best results—what size
of pieces to use for different layers of the road crust, what material to
use for binding the metal together, how to provide a resident carpet at the
surface, and how to consolidate the whole so as to give a surface which
shall be impervious to water and shall have lasting qualities, so that the
extra expense of providing and. skilfully laying shall so diminish the cost
of maintenance, as to bring the overhead expense down to the level of if not
below, that of the present unsatisfactory and inefficient roadway. Many an
hour have I scent in the laboratory of the consulting engineer of the Board,
my friend Colonel Crompton, and also at times in the National Physical
Laboratory at Teddington, where testing machinery both novel and efficient
has been erected, by which various combinations of road metal and bituminous
binder can be tried under practical road conditions, by wheels moved over
specimens of the road crusts, at fixed pressure corresponding to that of
road traffic. It s possible already to appeal to work actually done in
counties near London and elsewhere in demonstration of success, and in
London itself, the Thames Embankment, which formerly was as bad as the worst
road iť the country, and was shunned by all drivers, is now the most popular
approach to the City from the West, 1500 to 1600 vehicles passing over it
every hour of the busy time of the day, and although It is never watered in
the daytime, even in driest weather, it shows no dust rising from this heavy
and continuous traffic.
Much remains to be
accomplished, and while it is being worked out, the Road Board will very
surely be favoured with many a shower of acrid crlicism, and many a
questiona sked: "Why does the Road Board do this, and why doesn't it do
that?" Well, as I have more than once said to colleagues on similar Boards,
I say now: "The man in a public position of administration who is not
prepared to submit to be abused is not fit for his post." The first
essential for efficiency is that he shall be resolved to fulfil his duty,
regardless of what critics may say or do. He must be willing to submit to be
"Damned with faint praise when
well-laid plans prevail,
And to be rudely censured when they fail,"
leaving what he knows to be
conscientious and wise actings to find their vindication by the test of
time, if he is well assured that the course he has taken is right.
The concluding paragraph
which follows was written at a time when I little thought that another
"Jotting" would be necessary to make the record of past experiences complete
to date, and that it must refer to war. The sudden outbreak of the greatest
war the world has ever seen has to be added to the experiences of a life,
during which many striking episodes have occurred, but never one to be
compared with this. Its suddenness is like that of two former cases of the
letting looseof the dogs of war, when the cry of "Peace. Peace,' was upon
men's lips. History tells us that on an occasion near the close of the
eighteenth century. William Pitt, speaking in Parliament, said that while
'twas not wise for the politician to prophesy, yet never, so far as he could
discern, had there been a more hopeful prospect of European peace than at
the time at which he was speaking. Yet the horrors of the French Revolution,
and the ravages of the long wars that culminated at Waterloo, were then at
the very door. Lord Granville made a statement to a similar effect
immediately before the outbreak of the Franco-German War in 1870, followed
as it was by the atrocities of the Commune. And now. one of our leading
statesmen, speaking doubtless with a knowledge of what was the mind of the
Cabinet, made a similar statement, with in a very short time before a treaty
binding the. nations of Europe was spoken of in tones of contempt as "a
scrap of paper, " to be torn up with the cynical acknowledgment that to do
so was a "wrong," and excused on the unblushing application to such a case
of the maxim, "Necessity knows no law. The other day the Chancellor of the
Exchequer expressed the thought of statesmen before the opening of the war:
"Everything was as clear as
dawn, not a cloud any where. Not one of our representatives in any part of
the world had the least idea that war was near."
Once more the soil of Europe
is being stained with the blood of thousands of a small but gallant nation
who admittedly have done no wrong, because they are honourable enough to
fulfil their solemnly undertaken engagements, a nation calling itself
"great" breaks its solemn word, admits it is doing "wrong," and for its own
ends carries out its expressed intention to "hack its way through," and
Great Britain has been compelled, if she was not to be an associate in so
gross a breach of honour and humanity, to draw the sword in support of her
pledged word.
This a thing to be
legitimately proud of, that the nation responds as it; has done, is still
doing, and will still do, to the call of duty, and faces the sacrifice,
great though it must be, with a cheerful spirit. One who is nearly an
octogenarian might have felt himself for that reason shut out from active
participation in the work which such a crisis calls for from the citizen.
But I am glad that work has been found for me which is from old association
congenial, and may, it is hoped, be of some service. The Territorials of the
ancient. Royal Burgh, near which I live in the holiday season, were
mobilised at once on the breaking out of the war, being called away to guard
the Forth Bridge and the neighbourhood of Rosyth. Thus there was no officer
or drill-sergeant left in the burgh, from whom any instruction could be
obtained for men willing to join an emergency company, so that more citizens
might be trained, in case their services should be required later. his
difficulty having been expressed to mo, it was a real pleasure to offer to
do drill-sergeant, if men wished to come forward.
They did come forward, and on
applying to the Commander-in-Chief in Scotland, he informed me that while
such men could not be enrolled in any official organisation at present,
there could be no objection to training being given to them, which might
make their attaining efficiency more easy, if later they were drafted into
any official unit. Accordingly, for more than two months some
five-and-thirty or forty men have presented themselves at drill three nights
a week, and I have been grinding them as I did when I trained my company
fifty-five years ago. Their regular attendance and steady conduct are a
symbol in our little community of what one is well assured is the feeling of
the whole nation. If the same number of men in proportion can be enrolled in
every place of the same proportion and size as my small burgh, Lord
Kitchener would find his second half million rough hewn, and ready to take
their places for more complete training. No one can doubt that this would
facilitate their being made efficient, so saving time. By the liberality of
gentlemen in the neighbourhood, rifles are being obtained, so that I am able
to give them instruction in the handling of the weapon, and prepare them for
rifle practice at the minature target range belonging to the Terriitorilal
company, now mobilised. It is a joy to be thus able to give, even in my old
age, a little help to a great work—the work of ensuring, as Disraeli said,
that "right be done," and to take a small part in what thousands of men and
women are doing voluntarily to help those on whom the active and the trying
work must fall. I have also been training about thirty boy scouts, there
being at the moment no scout-master available. It is probably the last
opportunity I shall have of doing something for King and country—small, but
it is all I have to give.
And now, kind reader—for you
must have been kind if you have come to this page—I wish you a hearty
farewell, happy if these Jottings have wiled away a few hours of leisure,
still more if in wandering through them a flower has been plucked here and
there because it gave pleasure, or a fruit has been found that has been
worth gathering. The putting of them together has revived many a memory of
kindly intercourse, and many a grateful thought for kind deeds. It was by
suggestion and not of my own motive that I was led to put the Jottings
together; but I have found the doing of it pleasurable, and would fain hope
that to those who have read them there may also have been some pleasure at
times, as the reader made his way through the autumn leaves of a long life.
And so, once more Adieu. |
