RETAIL PETROL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20079, 27 October 1939, Page 11

RETAIL PETROL

HIGH COAST CHARGES

RUATORIA ON THE PEAK

RANGE OF DIFFERENTIAL

Gisborne motorists may feel that tile cost of petrol is putting the use of cars in the category of luxuries, but their situation is less difficult than that of country and Coast users of motor vehicles, for whom the differential on Wellington ranges up to a peak of 8d per gallon, this peak being reached at Ruatoria, in the Waiapu Valley. There the cost of petrol works out at 3s Id per gallon under the new scale of prices announced to-day.

For the whole of the Gisborne district, the wholesale and retail prices are based on Wellington, with the differential calculated upon the haulage. The differential charge on Gisborne sales is 4d per gallon, and the retail price of first-grade petrol here is 2s 9d per gallon. The following differentials apply to the respective country and East Coast centres: — Hcxton, Manutuke, Matawhero, Tatapouri, and Patutahi, 4*d per gallon on Wellington, retail price 2s 9kl for first grade spirit; Muriwai, Ormond, Te Kareka, Waipaoa, and Puhn, 5d per gallon, retail price 2s lOd per gallon; Ngatapa, Whatatutu. and Waimala, 5i per gallon, retail price 2s lOld per gallon; Tolaga Bay, Tokomaru Bay and Te Puia, 6d per gallon, retail price 2s lid per gallon; I-licks Bay, and Te Araroa, Gjsd per gallon, retail price, 2s lljd per gallon: Tikitiki, 7?. per gallon, retail price 3s Old per gallon; Ruatoria, 8d per gallon, retail price 3s Id per gallon. Resellers of petrol in the district arc concerned at the increasing cost of their stock-in-trade in its relation to the handling charge of 3d per gallon. They feel that, as a result of the further rise in prices, there will be a drop in consumption, and that their overhead costs will have to be spread over a smaller volume of business. A movement to seek an improvement in their allowance for retailing service is being organised, with a view to covering not only the recent increases in petrol costs. bu + also those which are considered to be inevitable in the near future.