The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1884-1942), 19 July 1935

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The Singapore Free Press FRIDAY. JULY 19, 1935 of efficiency in the Diesel engine at which the advantages of petrol as a fuel will be cancelled out by the tremendous boon of immunity from fire. * * * * * • REFERENCE to Diesel engines recalls the fact that the local Government has its eye on this form of road transport as a means of taxation, or rather increased taxation. This has long been foreshadowed and now it would appear from the communique issued on Wednesday that the blow is about to fall, and while the Diesel engine users, both actual and potential, have been politely warned to bare their necks preparatory to placing their heads on the block, the executioner has not yet made up his mind which of his three keen axes to use—an excise tax on the oil, an enhanced annual licence fee or some other method yet to be devised. It may be called that a joint committee considered the question last year and they made some very drastic recommendations. After discussing the possibilities of a tax on fuel the committee recommended an enhanced rate of annual licence lees for petrol and Diesel lorries. These are as follows, the first figure being that for petrol lorries and the figure in brackets the licence for Diesel lorries of the same weight : Under one ton $120 ($300); over one ton but not exceeding \\>_ tons $160 (440); over \\_ tons but not exceeding two tons $240 ($560); over two tons but not exceeding 2*2 tons $320 (.$740); over 2J2 tons but not exceeding three tons $360 ($490); over three tons but not exceeding four tons $480 ($1,160); over four tons $720 ($1,560). The enormous discrimination between the two forms of transport will thus be noted and whether or not Government intends to adopt this or some other form of taxation equally onerous is not known at the moment. Leaving aside all questions of how far Government wishes to penalise road transport for the benefit of the F.M.S. Railways there is a case to be made out for increasing the taxation on the newer form of transport, though whether it should be such as to wipe out all the advantages to be gained from adopting this instead ot the more common petrol motor is very mu?h to be questioned. The Diesel engine is still in its infancy, in Malaya especially, but there is a considerable future for this type and as cheap transport is one of the greatest economic benefits a country can possess it does seem strange that Government should go out of its way to discourage it. It also seems slightly unfair that because people find a cheaper method of doing a thing Government should step in and deprive them of all the advantages by discriminatory taxation, and industries which discovered cheaper processes of manufacture giving them an increased competitive power would certainly raise an outcry if these were taxed unduly. It must also be remembered that in popularising what may be the engine of the future those who purchase such vehicles are definitely in the role of pioneers and their enterprise, if not encouraged, should at least not be discouraged. It must be remembered, too. that the widespread adoption of such a cheap form of transport as is made possible by the Diesel engine will be a tremendous boon to the people of this country—and not by any means the poorest classes—and we trust therefore that Government will bear some of these factors in mind and not overlook them in its eagerness to tap fresh sources of revenue. EVERYBODY called it 'our lane.** — and there was no official indication of any other name When work couid be forgotten and the weather was fine, though often, too. in wind and rain, it fully justified this casual title, for those ot us who preferred its quiet shade to the glamorous seashore sauntered there possessively In summer it was a green tunnel with a dusty brown floor, but in winter the bare black trees let you see through to thi' blacked ploughed land and the sand dunes and almost to the sea. There was no autumn hereabouts. As soon as the last holiday-makers had left the town the wind would blow hard from the sea across the low ground between, and the scarcely yellowing leaves would disappear in its sudden gusts, whirling through the streets and across the fields and out of sight. At one end of the lane was a rambling cottage which might almost have been a lodge had there been any great house near by to make it so We often saw the little boy who lived there taking decorous walks with his puppy His constant gravity pleased and puzzled us. and il in our lane anything could it might have alarmed us. Sometimes when we noticed the pair a long way off I would whistle and the puppy would come bounding towards us. and when he came up with us he would lick our hands and jump around with frantic Joy. The boy never ran. When he came along afterwards and saw the muddy marks jOf paws on our coats. 'Oh! I beg your pardon." he would say. T hope he hasn't inconvenienced you."' And if we tried to answer more than polite , negatives he seemed to take fright, not so much on his own account, and would hurry off. calling the dog. They were both then under some prohibition. The youngster was not shy. He walked boldly and had frank. smiling eyes in his mostly solemn countenance, but perhaps he mustn't talk to strangers. The dog could not be denied his friendly overtures, but j this rare pleasure could be curtailed. : however sorrowfully his young master I might do it. The boy never ran with | his dog nor strayed from the path into i the undergrowth and bushes and ditches among the trees on either side. ithe chief juvenile attractions. Ceri tainly his clothes did not suggest nor j encourage running, but it seemed, too. that such a process was impossible for the dignified mite. The boy and his dog. the restraint and excessive exuberance, would often occupy our thoughts as we walked along, but wo never talked about them Indeed we spoke only rarely. The trees and the pools and the grassy recesses, the way the trees wandered now into the farmland and then back again almost to the path, repaying the former trespass, each turn in the lane gave us some memory of which there was no need to speak. And in the short afternoons of the winter Sundays the sun would make pictures over the town, turning it into something you could not know. We would sit and watch through the trees until when the sun at last went, it turned FOR the Royal Dutch Airways to have two serious crashes within a week, even points so far apart as Amsterdam and Bushire, is most unfortunate in view of the wonderful record of this company but the ratio of accidents to passengers carried and miles flown is so low that one need never be deterred from air travel by such mishaps. Fortunately, the Bushire crash was not attended by any loss of life but there will be considerable regret in Singapore at the destruction of the mail, though the philosophic attitude should be that this is a comparatively small price to pay for the wonderful privilege of getting a rive and a half day service twice a week and such losses must be borne with equanimity. There is one aspect which these and other accidents have in common, however, and that is the fact that the planes burst into flames on crashing. In tne case of the Amsterdam tragedy on Sunday the machine was returning to the landing ground, having experienced engine trouble shortly aiter taking off and as a result of the crash on landing, it burst into flames. The Bushire accident seemed comparatively trivial in itself, for the plane only crashed from a height of ten feet when the starboard engine failed during tne take-off. Nevertheless, this was sufficient to start a fire which just allowed the passengers time to escape and they probably owe thenlives to the fact that the actual crash was so light that they were not incapacitated and could make a hurried exit, though there was no time to save the mails. This reveals one of the major risks of aviation, and it seems to indicate that in spite of the tremendous strides made in the science, it is not yet possible to guarantee that fire will not break out as the result of some minor mishap. Here is a problem which the best brains in the world of aviation must set themselves to solve. Undoubtedly, it is a difficult one so long as such a highly inflammable fuel as petrol is used, but some better means might be found of isolating the fuel supply from those parts of the engine which become heated in the course of working. It might also be possible to devise some method, when making a forced landing, whereby the petrol tanks could be rapidly emptied so that in the event of a bad landing the machine would not burst into flames. These suggestions may betray a lack of technical knowledge and may be quite impractical but some means will have to be found for coping with the danger. There is another avenue by which this result may be achieved and that is by the increased use of heavy oils, which are practically non-inflammable, such as that used for Diesel engines, but considerable research is still necessary before an aero Diesel engine can be constructed to give equal performance with the petrol type, in view of the superiority of the more dangerous fuel this may never be realised, but it may be possible as the result of still more intensive research to reach a stage

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