Looking After The Halfpence

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29384, 10 December 1960, Page 12

Looking After The Halfpence

Since price reductions are rare in these days of rising costs it may seem churlish to quibble about a halfpenny a gallon off the price of petrol. However, there seems no particular reason why this price change involving the awkward halfpenny should , have been made now instead of a more convenient reduction by a penny a little later. The point is that motorists would not ■have lost anything; the halfpenny would have gone into the pool to help pay for a later and larger reduction—or to obviate a later increase. The

whole question of petrol prices (and perhaps taxation, too) will have to be re-examined early next year when high-octane fuel goes on sale The Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr Holloway) might well have left his successor to decide next week how prices should be balanced and whether the immediacy of an almost nominal saving is worth the trouble of dealing in halfpence. Now that Mr Holloway has decided to exercise his powers it may be hoped that costs will not take too long to fall to' the point where we can dispense with the odd halfpenny.