USE OF PETROL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 June 1940, Page 6

USE OF PETROL

MINISTER URGES CLOSE ECONOMY VITAL BEARING ON DEFENCE. NEED OF BEING PREPARED FOR EMERGENCY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. “Everyone who saves a gallon of petrol or even half a gallon, is contributing something towards winning this war,.” said the Minister of National Security (Mr in the course of an address to the Council of the Automobile Association this morning. "I am not asking people to stick their cars in the gartge, but just to cut out needless running and reduce petrol consumption to a minimum. We want to save everything we can without causing panic or stagnation. There is no need for me to enlarge on the gravity of the situation overseas,” declared Mr Semple. "The question of petrol supplies is something over which we have no control. We can only get petrol when it can be sent here and there is some to send. The position is one that forces us to think, not every hour of the day, but every minute in the day, because the scene is changing hourly. We don’t want to be left in the position of not having any petrol here, or only a very low percentage, if we should have to defend these shores. The situation depends entirely on the sea and we are today definitely in the danger zone of mines laid round our coast, and to what extent these mines have been laid no one knows. In New Zealand we have been trying to develop our Air Force to give us some protection if we should be called on to defend our country, so that we have to conserve enough petrol to defend ourselves if raids should come here.”