PETROL RATIONING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 January 1940, Page 5

PETROL RATIONING

NO EARLY EXTENSION LIKELY IN BRITAIN

SUPPLIES WELL MAINTAINED. EFFECTIVE INTER-ALLIED CO-OPERATION. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Janaury 11. At present, it is understood, the Government does not contemplate any further early restriction of civilian, petrol consumption, though the position will .naturally he carefully watched in relation to continued supplies and the essential, needs of defence.

The next issue of petrol ration books for private motbr-cars will cover a period of three months from the end of January. Apart from ordinary supplementary allowances, which generally speaking will be made on the existing basis, there has been some relaxation of the regulations in respect of large motor-cycles. The extension of the basic rationing period to three months is evidence of the Government’s belief that the existing supplies and stocks are sufficiently satisfactory to justify a longer-range policy in petrol rationing. Anglo-French economic co-operation is fully effective and close collaboration between the British and French Governments has been assured by contacts between the respective Ministers concerned, who have established complete identity of views. PROHIBITION IN GERMANY. Considerable use of private motorvehicles, which the present scale of petrol rationing -in .Britain permits, may be compared with the edict published in Germany on November 1 forbidding the use of motor-cars for private purposes and giving the police the right to halt motorists and question them on the purpose of their journeys.

Restrictions here are cheerfully accepted by the British public, which realises that continued supplies on an adequate scale are only available because of the efficiency of the Royal Navy and the courage and tenacity of the tanker crews.

In 1938 Britain required to import 3,000,000,000 gallons of petroleum products, which meant that every day of the year three or four large tankers had to discharge at British ports. The number of tankers now in commission is larger than at the outbreak of war, when the total tonnage was 3,279,000.

TANKER LOSSES’MADE GOOD. Total British tanker losses up to January 7 amounted to 68,000 tons, or 2.07 per cent, of the whole, and this deficiency has been more than made good by new building, acquisitions and in other ways. The same is true of the French tanker fleet.

The Germans have recently published figures designed to show that British tanker losses are 4.51 per cent of the total fleet. This is entirely false. They also give a figure for tanker tonnage now under construction in England, with which they doubtless hoped to elicit particulars, which it is not in the national interest to publish. Germans can draw little consolation from the true facts, which prove conclusively that German activities have not interfered with normal supplies of petrol and oil to the United Kingdom.