ABSTRACT
Steam wagons and traction engines used up fuel even when standing waiting; and there was always that problem of water supply to contend with. The furore about road damage and the calls to have weight spread over more wheels would have encouraged the development of the tractor-lorry. There was a large and sympathetic audience for anyone who urged restrictions or heavier taxation on mechanical road vehicles. With five times as many lorries on the road, all doing a greater mileage than their 1914 counterparts, there was a wealth of practical commercial operating experience to supplement the experience gained in wartime. In other words, lorries tended to be relatively cheap in the middle and late twenties. That year J. Blake had completed twenty years of motor mail services, having instituted a daily service to Stoke-on-Trent in 1905. There was no end to the misery heaped on road freight transport in the late twenties.
