Motor Road Transport For Commercial Purposes
(Liquid Fuel, Steam, Electricity)

ECONOMIES : FUEL 173 it is essential to raise the compression pressure con- siderably, and to pass a greater quantity of fuel into the cylinder. The net result of this is that a heavier type of engine is required for use with Power Alcohol. Government’s Hampering Restrictions. Manufact urers are not going to alter their designs of engine on the off-chance that the Government will free Alcohol for industrial purposes from the present hampering restrictions. Nor if the regulations should be altered to-day, could they reconstruct their plans by to-morrow. Some years must elapse before alcohol is available in sufficiently large quantities to enable our transportation to be independent of foreign oil supplies, and some years must elapse before motor vehicles, as a whole, are built suitable for running on alcohol. But though we are confronted with these difficulties it should be realized that they are not insuperable, and that, therefore, Industrial Alcohol—containing as it does, so long as sunshine is untaxed, an inex- haustible supply of energy transmutable into cheap light, heat and power—is bound to become a practical reality. Whether it be foreign imported or produced in the Empire is a matter which rests with ourselves. In the meantime, the change-over should be taken in hånd without delay. The first essential step is for the Government to remove the restrictions and to offer practical encouragement for the distillation of Com- mercial Alcohol tb.rough.out the Empire. Designers will then get to work. In the interval, the thin end of the wedge could be inserted by the extensive use of alcohol in conjunction with. other home produced fuels, such. as benzole, with which it will mix in any proportion. Incidentally,