The Petrol Tax.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19258, 13 March 1928, Page 8

The Petrol Tax.

We printed a special message yesterday from Dunedin which seems to suggest that the request of the South Island for as large a share of the petrol tax as would correspond with its share of the motor vehicles in the Dominion is about to be granted. The message is certainly a little indefinite and a little guarded, though it is not clear whether it is the Prime Minister who is allowing himself a loophole or the President of the South Island Motor Union who is anxious not to appear too confident. Although we are told that " the decision of the

"Prime Minister to remove the possibility of injustice must be regarded "as extremely satisfactory," it would appear that all the Prime Minister has actually decided to do is to " endeavour " to see that the allocation of the petrol "tax should approximately conform " with the number of vehicles in each " Island." That in any case is all he has promised to do, and his promise takes effect only after the recommendations of the Highways Board regarding secondary roads come to hand and the Government has ascertained the average maintenance cost per mile. The Prime Minister could still say, if he were that kind of Prime Minister, that he had not found himself able, in the face of the recommendations of the Board and its engineers, to arrange such an allocation of the tax as the South Island desires. He could even say that his attitude, and the result of the negotiations, have been misunderstood by the President of the Union, and it is a fact that we have no direct statement yet from his own lips. It is to be hoped, however, that he will remove all these doubts and possibilities by a perfectly plain statement here in Christchurch. The people of the South Island, as he knows, have made up their minds that what they are asking for is reasonable, just, and necessary—especially after their discovery that the Main Highways Act does not, as they once thought it did, give them statutory protection against the.North Island in spite of the fact that it expressly admits the principle of a proportional allocation of revenue.