PRIDE OF OWNERSHIP SIR,—In his excellent article Mr. Wilkins stresses
the difficulties of a car owner when he has actually obtained his new car, but hardly mentions his previous tribulations. Perhaps the story of Mr. X may be relevant.
Early in March Mr. X decides to sell his very reliable but over-large 1937 car and buy a new car of the famous Brown-Jones make. In the usual way he places an order through his local garage with the distributing agents in his zone. The latter state that they expect to deliver the new car about mid-May.
In April the papers mention that a very large export demand has set in, and that deliveries to British buyers may be delayed by two to four weeks. Mr. X takes this philosophically. It does not much upset his plans if he does not get the new car before the end of June.
June arrives, waxes and begins to wane. Mr. X causes enquiries to be made from the distributing agents. They merely reply ' Nothing doing'—they are very good at that.
Enter July. With great courage Mr. X writes direct to the Brown-Jones organisation:, The reply he receives is stately, if stereotyped. It assures Mr. X that he is a valued customer,
it informs him that the Brown-Jones organi- sation has complete trust in its distributing agents, and it delivers a homily about the export trade and its value to the country. The inference is that Mr. X is doing something to thwart Britain's trade recovery. Naughty Mr. X. About this time the purchaser of Mr. X's car points out, reasonably enough, that he cannot hold his original offer open indefinitely. Mr. X must have a car as he lives five miles from the nearest station. Mr. X drops £30 and again appeals to the Brown- Jones organisation. They reply with magnificent irony that there is nothing they can usefully add to their previous letter.
At the end of July Mr. X commits his final beiise. Having damaged Britain's export trade, he has the effrontery to enquire from the distributing agents where he stands on their waiting list. The reply is prompt and crushing. The waiting list is a ' trade secret.' It is in fact in the same catalogue as some revolutionary mechanical discovery. Mr. X has been where angels fear to tread. Never- theless he has achieved something because the agents say that there is a faint chance that he may get his car late in September.
And then the fool goes and spoils it all.
He writes again to the Brown-Jones organisa- tion, They say that there is a faint chance that he may get the car sometime in October. —Yours faithfully,
C. C. MILLER
Hedges, Little Gaddesden, Berkhamsted
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