From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Article from 'Automotive Industries' about the promising automotive market in the Philippine Islands for 1924.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 53\2\ Scan096 | |
| Date | 28th February 1924 | |
| 514 2dext Automotive Industries February 28, 1924 Philippine Islands Offer Good Market in 1924 Overstocks piled up in 1920-1921 have been disposed of and banks are in excellent condition. Sales vary with service provided. Imports are increasing. By Walter Robb Secretary, American Chamber of Commerce, Philippine Islands THE year 1924 opens in the Philippine Islands with a very promising prospect for automotive business, particularly in American cars, for while the islands remain American territory trade between them and the United States constitutes domestic trade, free from tariff charges. The Philippines suffered the slump of 1920-21 in common with other regions of the world. This slump was most keenly felt, of course, in the motor trade. Agencies found they had more than anticipated the needs of their customers and that they would have cars on their hands for some time. But generally speaking these agencies were well financed and they weathered the storm. The first half of 1923 saw the glut worked off the market. With the latter half of 1923 importations on a normal scale began and will continue to increase steadily, it may be predicted, throughout 1924. One fundamental reason why the market will be steadily better in the Philippines is that the banks are in better condition. During 1923 exports were heavy. A favorable trade balance of some $33,000,000 piled up to help the islands, but profits were taken over to a very considerable extent by the banks in payment of overdue paper of merchants, farmers and planters. This fiscal hole now is largely filled; men making money will have margins to spend. More men will buy cars. Former owners will sell or scrap old cars and lay in new ones. This will be the trend of the trade, a fact evidenced every day in Manila by the appearance of new and higher-priced cars. Money Available for Buying Philippine Islands are more nearly approaching supplying their own foodstuff's than ever before; are steadily developing their main exports—sugar, embroideries, tobacco and cigars, copra and cocoanut oil, hemp fiber and cordage, under the stimulus of good prices. Land tenure and labor conditions are such that there is comparatively a general distribution of profits from farm and mill and the Filipinos have a growing sum of money in their pockets to buy what they want. Such a country is the Philippines, and one of its chief wants is motor cars and trucks. As in other countries, for some the satisfaction of this want is a luxury; for others a necessity. More and more in the Philippines the motor vehicle is becoming a necessity, especially among the large plantation class producing crops that go into the export market. This group buys low- and moderate-priced cars for its ordinary needs in the provinces. But the prosperous planters move to a port city, usually to Manila, and buy a home where the family may live during the years the children are in college or finishing school. For the family's city needs he buys a better car. Transportation is a problem in any country; it is a particularly exacting one in an archipelago, where, at the natural boundaries of the sea, all roads come to an abrupt end. Transportation Difficult Problem The Philippines, being a tropical archipelago, with long, rainy seasons yearly recurrent, have special phases added to their transportation problem. But the foundations of a good road system were laid in the administration of the Honorable W. Cameron Forbes, formerly governor-general and recently a member of the Wood-Forbes Mission, which investigated conditions in the islands for President Harding. The system is divided into first, second and third class roads. The third class roads are poor in the rainy season; they are graded, but not surfaced, and are maintained upon the slender revenues of municipalities. Second class roads are higher grade and are better maintained by municipalities and provinces. The first class roads are surfaced. They are built and maintained by the insular government and the provinces, the law providing for their construction also providing for their maintenance. Of this class of roads, good at all times in the year, there is now a total of some 5000 kilometers in the islands. The principal islands, Luzon (of which Manila is the port, insular capital and metropolis), Cebu, Panay and Negros, have networks of good motor highways. On Luzon the system now is being extended into the great Cagayan valley of the north, the tobacco region, and very soon it will be possible and pleasant at all times of the year to motor from Manila to Aparri, the north port, on the Cagayan River, a round trip involving 1000 miles of travel. Insular road systems are supplemented in progressive provinces (many of them on Luzon) by provincial road systems, the insular highways being trunk lines. Over these highways, passenger and freight motor vehicle lines are operated, carrying passengers and products to provincial markets and to railway stations. It is by this means, chiefly, that the farm and plantation products of the Philippines reach the primary markets, save along the coasts, where small sailing craft operate in the same commerce. Because of greater efficiency, motor transportation is distancing the sailing-craft business. Spite of Kipling's oft-quoted dictum, America has succeeded in hustling this corner of the east to the point where time actually counts to the inhabitants, who are wideawake people imbued with the spirit of progress. The good roads program is on a sound economic basis. | ||