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).
Page from 'The Autocar' magazine featuring various short articles and anecdotes.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 160\5\ scan0178 | |
| Date | 13th December 1940 | |
| 604 The Autocar December 13th, 1940. "THE FUTURE COMES ON SLOWLY, THE PRESENT LIES Disconnected That Purchase Tax A KIRKINTILLOCH man went to a tyre firm to settle an account for a resoled tyre. When he looked at the account he found it included a charge for the worn tyre, one for the resoling, and an addition for Purchase Tax. This seemed strange, but the tyre squad said that when the repaired tyre was handed over it became a new article in the eyes of the taxation officer because it carried a guarantee. The Kirkintilloch man thought this was funny, but he thought it funnier when he was told that if he had given the firm a used tyre for resoling instead of getting one from their stock, then the transaction (in the eyes of the law) would be simply a matter of repair and so not subject to taxation. If you don't quite get that point, read it again. This tyre firm takes old tyres and makes customers an allowance for them when an account is being paid. The Kirkintillocher had two old tyres with him. The firm passed them as fit for resoling and then credited his account with the deduction. Our hero paid his account and walked out of the building. Then he had a brilliant idea. "I can escape the Purchase Tax," he said to himself, "if I go back and order one of the old tyres to be resoled." So back he went. But the tyre people then pointed out that the tyres were now part of their stock and, if he had one resoled, he would have to pay the P.T. But you can't keep a Kirkintilloch man down. He asked the manager to resell one of his tyres to him. Then he asked the manager to resole the tyre. So there was no P.T. "My conscience!" says the Kirkintillocher. "I shall have to double my subscription to the Spitfire Fund." * * * Tribulations OUR Kirkintilloch friend was lucky. I am afraid it won't happen again because the Customs people tell me that it has been decided that re-soled tyres are subject to the Purchase Tax. In future, if the authorities are consistent, we shall also pay the tax on our shoes when they are soled and heeled, and on the patches we may eventually have to wear on the seats of our pants. * * * To Represent Edgbaston? MR. PETER BENNETT, ex-president of the Federation of British Industries and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, has been chosen as National Government Candidate for the Edgbaston Division of Birmingham in succession to the late Mr Neville Chamberlain. He is joint managing director of Joseph Lucas, Ltd. Mr. Peter Bennett. Oil and Science A WEEK or so ago I referred to a statement made ten years ago by Major Callingham, of the Shell-Mex Co., and repeated at the time of my note that no one knew exactly why oil lubricates. Now I have found something else on this subject in a new book called "How We Find Out," by Professor A.{Mr Adams} M.{Mr Moon / Mr Moore} Low, published last week by Nelsons at 5s. "We are beginning," he says, "to find out why oils are 'oily,' that their molecules are composed of very long chains of atoms which have a 'sticky' head almost like a barnacle, and that this head's affinity for a metallic surface provides a coating which slips easily against a similar coating." So it would appear that the study of lubrication is beginning to become a science, which Major Callingham told us is only a practical art but not yet a definite science. Now for Professor Low's new book, Of course, it is sold out. The only way to be sure of getting "The Autocar" is to ask your newsagent to deliver it to you every week. which joins his other volumes in my bookcase and completes a whole shelf to themselves. The fact that our friend continues to turn out books in spite of his many other activities makes me wonder whether he has invented a machine for transcribing thoughts to calligraphy so that he can "write" his books while he has breakfast or drives to his work in Whitehall. He tells me that the idea of the book came to him when he realised that but for the accident of time lack of observation there might have been radio and internal combustion engines in the time of Charles I. Things of those days were made quite as well, he says, and the standard of manufacture was often just as good as that of modern receivers. When I say that the new book is a fascinating study of the processes of research and the advance of scientific knowledge, I am not only repeating the blurb in the jacket, but admitting I can't improve on it. I recall that twenty years ago The Scientific American offered a $5,000 prize for a 3,000-word précis of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and a friend of mine, who was editing a pseudo technical journal, instructed one of his staff to reduce the winning essay to 500 words. To tell you about "How We Find Out" is a similar attempt to reduce the absolute minimum, for Low has already boiled down the whole subject of scientific research to a compactum of easily understood facts such as "a light year is the distance travelled by light, the fastest thing we know, in a year, 5,860,000,000,000 miles. And the universe is now estimated to be at least 6,000,000,000 light years in diameter" and "Now we know there is a world within an atom, particles of what we call energy which, to compare their size with that of the containing atom, have been likened to three mosquitoes in a cathedral." Every page of this book contains startling facts such as those. Make a note of it for the list of Christmas presents: it is bound to interest and be appreciated by a young (or old) friend who likes to learn how our scientists find out things. * * * Prince Charlie's Monument IN the Christmas Number of the S.M.T. Magazine and Scottish Country Life, that well-produced monthly which twelve times a year gives us cause to look forward to the day when we can again tour the Highlands (and the Lowlands), there is a A 22 | ||