From time to time there have been echoes of internal quarrels between the Motor and the other industrial and financial interests: for example, shortly before the war, when Viscount Nuffield described home steel prices as "an absolute ramp" and the steel industry generally as "fat cigars and nothing to do," and threatened to buy his steel overseas. But with regard to the non-competitive question of road safety the other interest's have- we may safely assumeexerted whatever influence they possess in this congection in support of the views of the motor interests: the road safety question has been set aside as the "special province" of the motor interests and the various spokesmen and mouthpieces of the other interests have at least refrained from any embarrassing comments. In America a prominent part has been played in the fight for road safety by insurance groups. There is no parallel activity in Britain, and we may reasonably attribute this, in part at least, to the fact that here some of the most powerful insurance groups have, large investments in the motor industry. Here then, finally, we discover the root or fundamental cause of the inaction of the Governments and therefore of the motor slaughter. The motor interests have convinced themselves that "restrictions" on speed and the drivers would fatally damage the motor industry in both the home and the export markets, and so far the Governments have accepted their view. Without this root or fundamental opposition the opposition of the smaller motor interests and of the individual drivers (such as this was) could have been overcome without difficulty and without this the genuine traffic problem-freed as this would have been from the complication of largely uncontrolled speed could also have been solved without undue difficulty. But this- the joint belief of the motor interests and the Governments- has been, as it were, the inner citadel constantly sending out reinforcements to these outlying positions: the inner, scarcely admitted, but "unanswerable " argument. *The attempts to end or even to reduce the motor slaughter *Viscount Cecil has put the position in this way: "One cannot help feeling that if the official mind regarded the safety of the population with the same degree of solicitation as it displays towards the prosperity of the motor trade we should be much further advanced than we are." (Ped. Assocti. News Letter, January 1937), and again, in the House of Lords: "The motor companies are very powerful and very wealthy, and their customers have, unfortunately, a passion for speed. The combination of those two factors has been too great for any Government to face. I do not make a charge against one Government or another, but so far no Government has been prepared to face that combination, or, if they have, they have very soon withdrawn." (21.1145).
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have thus been fatally thwarted from the start: at the best there has been uncertainty and hesitancy; at the worst there has been sabotage. The greater degree of consideration given by the Governments to the cyclists as compared with the pedestrians, is also only explicable in these terms. From the point of view of the drivers, the cyclists are a far greater "nuisance" than the pedestrians, and the drivers detest them still more bitterly. Yet, until recently, they have been at least listened to by the Government, and, though, generally, they have been left to the mercies of the drivers, their wishes in matters of detail have been granted. This is not because cycling is a healthy recreation for millions or because it is a fine sport. It is not even because it is the means of transport for millions of workers and for millions of others in their private affairs. It is because the manufacture of cycles is an industry of at least relative importance, and the same line of reasoning has been followed, that "restrictions" on, or extra duties for, cyclists would harm the industry. The recent rear-light measure, passed despite the protests of the cycling organisations, and against all the lessons of experience, suggests, however, that these limited favours are to end, and that here, as in every other direction, the motor interests are to be supreme. It is interesting and amusing to note that the motor propagandists have attributed this (relative) influence of the cyclists to their "voting power," as if, if voting power were the dominant factor, the situation would not be dominated by the pedestrians. It is perhaps hardly necessary to add that the motoring propagandists see in " voting power " a thoroughly undesirable influence: as in every other direction their outlook here is thoroughly and bitterly anti-democratic. Of course, with regard to the export trade, it is now clear that this has not been nearly so well managed as we have been led to believe- how little we of the public still know about these things! how vast remains the conspiracy of silence on all matters touching profit that, in fact, so far from its having been developed simultaneously with the home trade, to a large extent-