PETROL ECONOMY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 August 1940, Page 8

PETROL ECONOMY

VIEWS OF MOTOR TRADE FEDERATION RESTRICTIONS NEEDLESSLY ocVERE. ADDRESS TO MANUFACTURES. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. "It is apparent that there is no full appreciation of the extent to which over-restriction in petrol supplies is crippling trade and manufacturing in this country,’’ said Mr C. R. Edmond, addressing members of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation in Wellington last night. Mr Edmond is president of the Motor Trade Federation.

“One cannot avoid the conclusion,” Mr Edmond said in the course of his address, “that Government bureaucratic control of petrol is of most serious concern to every business man. It has been the means of starting a vicious circle of unemployment andtrade recession which, if left to continue, will imperil the whole foundations of New Zealand manufacturing just when it should be making its greatest strides. Other countries, particularly Australia and Canada, are expanding manufactures enormously. If New Zealand secondary industry is to keep pace, there must be no artificial obstruction or retardment. “Of recent years the motor and oil industries have contributed approximately 20 per cent of Government revenue. They have paid in direct and indirect taxation more than £10,000.000 annually. Present over-restriction

of petrol has gone a long way to drying up this source of revenue. This means the probability of increased taxation burden on this still earning profit. Whatever way this burden falls, the New Zealand manufacturer cannot escape. It will affect him in two ways: additional taxes directly paid by him. and diminution of his customer’s purchasing power through the further taxes paid by them. “It is clear from these examples that the cost to New Zealand of this socalled ‘war effort’ to reduce petrol consumption is far greater than could possibly have been envisaged by those responsible for the restriction. This I cost, with its consequent lessening of ability to provide the wherewithal to | carry on war, far outweighs the ad-I vantage of the relatively few gallons cf petrol saved. “The motor trade does not disagree with the general thought of conservation of petrol, if by ‘conservation’ is

meant elimination of waste and unnecessary usage. The objections are that the Government has been unnessarily arbitrary in its method of restriction. has limited the use of petrol beyond the point where it can be con-, sidered economically sound or helpful as a war effort, and that its failure to make a clear and concise statement of its future policy has fostered the belief in the minds of the buying public that a complete cessation of supplies of petrol is not unlikely.” i The consumption of petrol in New ; Zealand prior to the outbreak of war, Mr Edmond stated, was 100,000,000 gallons a year. It was estimated that reasonable conservation by co-opera-tion of the users would have resulted in a reduction to 84.000.000 gallons a year. The Government, however, was trying to drive the usage down to 72.000.000 gallons a year or 6,000.000 gallons a month; therefore, the whole disturbance to the motor industry and the economic, industrial and social life cf the community resulted from a desire on the part of the Government to force a saving of 1,000,000 gallons a month—irrespective of the cost to the country. The real value of 1,000,000 gallons of petrol could be better assessed if it were known that the United Kingdom’s peace time consumption was in the neighbourhood of 2,000,000,000 gallons a year, and that the world peace time consumption was 33,682,000,000 gallons a year. "The’ situation has become sufficiently grave,” Mr Edmond observed in conclusion, “to ask for the active assistance of manufacturers of New Zealand. It it hoped that they will join in an active campaign to find some means of impressing on the Government the urgent need to ameliorate the petrol position and restore the means whereby the business and economic life of the community will be permitted to function in the normal way. Another million gallons a month is needed urgently.”

AUCKLAND PROTEST •WAR AND OTHER FACTORS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND. August 19. “We are very dissatisfied with the treatment we are getting and are not convinced that the petrol restrictions are solely a war measure,” says a statement issued by a special committee of the Allied Motor Traders’ Association. The organisation is representative of all sections of the motor trade throughout the Auckland province and its statement followed the publication cf details of the much more generous restrictions it is proposed to introduce in Australia next month. “The restrictions to be imposed in Australia are much less severe than those existing in New Zealand,” the statement continues. “We do not consider Australia to be any less loyal than New Zealand, but Australia's idea of petrol rationing, ranging from 10 to 23 gallons a month, is strangely at variance with the New Zealand allowance of from four to eight gallons a month."