"NEVER SO ACUTE"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 173, 24 July 1942, Page 6

"NEVER SO ACUTE"

CITY FUEL POSITION

DEMAND AT WINTER PEAK

More severe winter conditions in Auckland have brought a sharp increase in the demand for fuel, and distributors are besieged daily with orders for coal and firewood for domestic delivery. These orders, it is stated, must take second place to Ihe demand for essential industries, and the difficulty of coping with them is greater each week.

"The position has never been so acute," said a leading city distributor to-day. The stocks in the firm's depots had been cleared out early in the winter, and since then coal and firewood had left the sidings immediately on arrival. The waiting list of orders was growing, and much time was being taken up in answering urgent inquiries and explaining the position to people clamouring for supplies.

Until this month, he said, the demand was much below the average for winter in Auckland, due to the mildness of the conditions and to the action of a considerable number of people in making provision in March and April for the needs ahead, but now the cold, sunless days, coupled with the prevalence of seasonal sickness, had raised the consumption of both coal and firewood to the midwinter peak. July, he explained, was always the peak month of the year, and around this peak the normal demand curve was fairly evenly balanced on both sides.

In the absence of the usual supplies of tea-tree blocks, said another authority, mill-wood, mainly pine blocks, was beiog sold, and was serving as a reasonably satisfactory substitute.