BRITISH TRANSPORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 January 1939, Page 7

BRITISH TRANSPORT

PLANS TO MEET NATIONAL EMERGENCY

RATIONING OF FUEL OIL.

NEEDS OF DEFENCE SERVICES.

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, January 17.

Plans for the organisation of road transport in a national emergency were made public today, when a communication was addressed by the Minister of Transport, Dr Burgin, to owners of commercial vehicles. The plans do not apply to vehicles engaged on passenger services.

The proposed organisation, which is intended for war time, but requires to be brought into existence in a shadow form in peace time, starts from the assumption that, in a national emergency, the rationing of'petrol and fuel oil would be inevitable. Dr Burgin emphasises that the demands of the defence services for petrol and oil would be prodigious under war conditions. The road transport of Britain depends on imported fuel and, great as are the national resources for storage and maintenance, it would be essential to rationalise, for the purpose of the economic use of fuel, the operation of road transport with its 1,500,000 vehicles belonging to 200,00 separate owners. The scheme now announced provides foi’ the preliminary peace time organisation of industry into road transport groups comprising from 25 to 100 vehicles each and registered with the Ministry of Transport. In the meantime steps are being taken to ensure a sufficient supply of trained drivers. Dr Burgin, in a statement today, referred to the co-operation he had re-j ceived in the September crisis from the i operators of commercial road vehicles. I