PETROL RATIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 83, 4 October 1940, Page 9

PETROL RATIONS

CRITICS ATTACKED

MEMBER URGES PUNITIVE

ACTION

"I cannot understand the mentality of those person's who criticise the Government for restricting petrol," declared Mr. E. P. Meachen (Government, Marlborough) in the House of Representatives today. "People with private cars can think themselves very lucky that they get any measure of petrol at all."

I Mr. Meachen referred to the amount lof petrol required for war purposes, ! particularly in the training of airmen. "The amount needed is simply staggering," he said. He pointed out that with I a certain type of plane in use in New j Zealand each 100 horse-power required six gallons of petrol an hour. A machine of 600 h.p. would therefore require nearly 40 gallons for an hour's running, and some required that before they were warmed up on the ground. "I think it is time that the Government took action against some of the statements made and the literature issued," said Mr. Meachen. "I have here a pamphlet giving twenty reasons why the restrictions should be relaxed. Who are these people?" Mr. S. G. Holland (National, Christchurch North): They arc the people whose living is taken away. Mr. Meachen: There will be no living for anyone if we do not keep on with the methods we have adopted. ■Mr. W. J. Broadfoot (National, Waitomo): Why can other countries be more generous? Mr. Meachen said he understood that the newspapers had had the right to peruse some of the communications that had passed between the British Government and the New Zealand Government. "Knowing that, I cannot understand why every newspaper, instead of criticising, is not helping with leading articles and in its news columns to keep the good will of the people in the methods that have been adopted," he said. „