Admitting that the French Government could not stipulate any degree of standardisation until they had first obtained a numerically adequate supply of vehicles, one would have thought it possible at least to do something towards standardising the driving control. In some French subvention models, the hand-brake lever is nearer to the driver than the change-speed lever; in others, the opposite arrangement is adopted. Frequently, both levers are of equal length and almost indistinguishable to the touch, which must make it far more dangerous to put a new driver on to a subsidy car when required urgently for night work.
The French subvention trials have been held annually, usually in the months of August and September, and have not been as a rule of a very arduous character. While accompanying the competing vehicles, the writer has been forced to the conclusion that the object of the authorities was rather to pass for subvention any reasonably efficient machine, than to weed out a considerable number and depend only on the most durable. As a rule, during these trials, the competing lorries are parked at Versailles, from which centre they run out daily over a limited number of routes, generally of a very easy character so far as gradients are concerned. An interesting and potentially valuable feature of the annual French trials has been the compulsory use on all the cars of a variety of fuels. On some days petrol has been used, on others benzol, and on others again a half-and-half mixture of benzol with denatured alcohol, which latter for practical purposes may be regarded as the same thing as methylated spirits. In this way, the French Government have endeavoured to make themselves at least partially independent of any temporary stoppage in the imports of petrol, though so far as we can see at present no such stoppage is in the least degree likely during the present war. Benzol can of course be produced in limited quantities in this country and in France, and if the emergency arose, the supplies of benzol could be greatly increased at the expense of simultaneously laying up stocks of other products not at the moment marketable.
As regards alcohol, a considerable quantity of beet is grown in France, from which either sugar or alcohol can be produced. As a rule, this beet is used mainly for sugar manufacture, since this is the more profitable method of employing it, but in emergency it could be utilised for the production of a very fair quantity of commercial alcohol, thus, roughly speaking, doubling the available stock of home-produced fuel.