N.Z Must Still Economise In Use Of Petrol

Chronicle (Levin), 1 August 1949, Page 5

N.Z Must Still Economise In Use Of Petrol

WELLINGTON, Aug. 1. Britain had asked that New^saland should continue to economise on her use Of netrol and that'wou'd be done as long as was nec'essary, said the Minister of Finance, Mr. Walter Nash, interviewed today. "The prospects for the motorist in regard to petrol- might he better later on, but I don't know how much later on," he sai'd. Petrol consumption had heen among the important topics discussed at the Finance Ministers' conferenee and afterwards, he said. A difflculty was that some of the petrol produced and refined in the sterling area still required dollar expenditure for machinery and

1 equipment. 1 petrol used in sterling area ex-j eee'ded the quantity produced and paid for in sterling, there was ari increase in the drain on the sterling area's resources. So long as thq use of petrol involved a reductiorl in the sterling area's dollar re4 serves, economy in ■ consumptiori would be necessary and New Zea-; land would continue to help to the' maximum. Mr. Nash said that the petrol question was an involved one. The vital factor was the baiance of payments involved between the sterling and dollar areas, and the Uniled States was planning to increase her sterling expenditure oh oil production by .establishing refineries in Britain and elsewhere.