Next after ourselves, France is fortunate in the possession of the best road system of any European country, and this has helped industrial motor development to progress with fair rapidity, though not at such a speed as to enable the country to be self-supported as regards its needs in military motor transport. Germany, with a less complete road system, involving in many parts very severe gradients, has had more difficulty still in filling its military requirements, while Austria is in a position somewhat akin to that of Germany from this point of view. Consequently, in all these three great countries, the subvention scheme has had to be rather a scheme for encouraging the use of motor transport of any kind than an attempt to direct designers into any particular channels. Conditions in Belgium are somewhat akin to those obtaining in France; and, generally speaking, other European countries are so badly served by roads and so unfavourably situated as regards their requirements for the haulage and delivery of goods, that the development of industrial motor transport on a large scale has been out of the question, and consequently, the establishment of any subvention scheme would have proved futile. We are now in a position, with a fairly clear conception of the conditions obtaining in each of the countries concerned, to consider in more detail the nature of the schemes evolved in the interests of military transport, and to ascertain how far those schemes have been brought to successful issues. CHAPTER X BRITISH SUBSIDY TYPE MOTORS Early Subsidy Schemes--Amount of Subsidy--Standardisation of Driving Control--Important Mechanical Features--Provision for Working in Convoy--The “Chain-Drive” Controversy--The Present Position.