For purposes of illustration, I will take British East Africa as an example. A railway runs from Mombasa via Nairobi to the Great Lakes. Forty miles on each side of this railway, generally speaking, is commercially remunerative. This is the first belt I mentioned above, the second two belts are productively a gamble for any but capitalist pioneers, and the remainder of the country is but the playground of rich colonists who can afford to speculate on likely railway extensions in the future, or else of simple fools.
I will now suppose that a reliable roadless vehicle exists which can transport across country five or ten tons of produce. What do we see? We see the first belt extending from forty miles on each side of the railway to a hundred miles, and the second two belts being pushed out, in vastly improved circumstances, fifty to a hundred miles on each side of the new central belt. In fact, we have more than doubled the central belt and trebled the belts adjoining it, and, in doing so, have more than doubled the commercial prosperity of the country.
What now is our next step in the evolution of economic movement? It is, out of the wealth resulting, to extend from our main Mombasa-Nairobi railway, metre gauge lines in herringbone fashion up to the confines of the new central belt, and at the termini of these to build receiving depôts. In place of metre gauge lines, huge roadless machines, carrying and hauling from a hundred tons upwards, will in the end, I think, prove more economical. Once these depôts have been established, the smaller machines belonging to the farms and stations can bring produce to them and dump it. Thus, by degrees, will the central railway be fed by a prosperous area some four to five hundred miles in width.
MORRIS ONE-TON LORRY
[Face p. [84]
To take another example. A transportation problem which faces every farmer is that of rapid door-to-door delivery. To-day, especially in such countries as Canada, what do we see? We see chain-tracked machines used for agricultural work, but we seldom see movement of the produce grown carried out save by horse-drawn vehicles, which can negotiate cultivated land if it be fairly dry.[[7]] Two horses cannot pull much more than a ton over a heavy field to the farm itself. At the farm, which may be fifty miles from a railway, the produce has either to be transported by cart to the station, which may take three days and two to return, or loaded into a lorry which, unless the roads are good, will take one day each way. The loss of time is considerable, and the roadless vehicle would appear to be the only practical solution. It can be loaded at the extremity of a field in any weather and condition of ground, and moved direct to the railway either by road or across country at a normal lorry speed, and carrying from three to ten tons according to size. Delivery is from door to door, and the only limitation as to load would appear to be the factor of safety of the bridges which may have to be crossed.
[7]. In Canada, snow offers a serious difficulty to movement by wagon or car during the winter months; there should be no great difficulty in producing a roadless vehicle which will cross snow almost as easily as grass land.
In waterless, as well as roadless areas, such as exist in Australia, wagons and lorries are frequently useless, and the roadless vehicle is again the solution, for it does not require a road to move along, or a well at which to seek refreshment. It carries its own roadway and its own water supply, and, if necessary, water for man and beast in districts where water is scarce.
In mining countries, such as Chili and South Africa, and in oil-producing countries, such as Mexico and Persia, the need for a weight-carrying, roadless vehicle is much felt, and in these countries, where again roads are few and bad, and water frequently scarcer, it would prove as useful as in agricultural lands.
