Page 100 - Bulletin 9 2005

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The Cape Argus Weekly Edition:

THE AUTOMOBILE
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[THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24]
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A little announcement in today's papers is much more significant than may appear at
first sight. It relates to the founding of the first Automobile Club in South Africa. Seeing
that motor-cars are comparatively a new thing in Europe and America, and particularly in
conservative England, which did not all at once take kindly to them, these Pilgrim Fathers
of the new locomotion may be congratulated on keeping South Africa well to the front. In
Cape Town itself the motor-car is becoming a fairly familiar object; but the enormous cost
of these vehicles will prevent for a long time any such prevalence of motor-car driving as
bicycle riding showed within a very short period after the first “safety” made its appearance
in our streets. The names of the Automobile Clubmen are before the public. It would be
very interesting if we could ascertain with whom rest the honours of the bicycle pioneers in
South Africa. The difference that the bicycle has made to the life of people all over the
civilised world, is a subject not beneath the dignity of history. It would certainly have made
the voortrekkers rub their eyes if they could have foreseen that Boer cyclists would be
employed in a South African war. The bicycle belongs to the closing years of the last
century, as the locomotive belonged to its earlier years; and although the motor-car was
included in the achievements of that marvelous mechanical Nineteenth Century, its
development and popular adoption belong so much to the present time that we may fairly
allot the Twentieth Century the motor-car to go on with in its list of achievements, with the
dirigible balloon thrown in. At present the only thing that stands in the way of a wholesale
adoption of the motor-car, is the cost. The newest, and we believe the finest car at present
in Cape Town, cost four hundred pounds; while it is well known that very much larger
sums are being spent upon single cars in Europe and America. Even well-to-do people will
hesitate before spending so much money on a carriage that will not hold many people, and
that will necessarily cost much more than an ordinary carriage in repairs. Every car has
concealed on board quite a workshop full of tools.
England, which gave the world the locomotive, and so many other mechanical
inventions that have changed the face of society, cannot at all claim any pioneering honours
with respect to the automobile. For some reason or another France took the lead this time,
just as she is doing with the balloon. The King has really done a public service in helping to
overcome British prejudice by popularising the motor-car. Nearly all the Royalties, by the
way, seem to have taken very kindly to the bicycle, probably as a real relief to the
monotony of their ceremonious lives. How great were the difficulties to be overcome in
England may be inferred from the state of the law which not so long ago placed the
automobile in the same position as the traction engine, and required a man to walk before it