RED PETROL.

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 41, 16 August 1918, Page 11

RED PETROL.

Beginning with April (states The Motor) the French military authorities have docided to tint, all their petrol red, in oriiev to prevent it being sold or given

to unauthorised persons. It is stated that an experiment with tinted petrol w*s made in one motor depot, with the result that the consumption immediately dropped considerably. It is concluded from this that the fuel was passing into the hands of persons who had no right to it, and that these persons discovered it was too dangerous to take petrol which declared itg origin to every observer. Up to this month, those persons who secured petrol for military work and 1 made use of it in their own interests were punished merely by the withdrawal of further supplies and the seizure of stocks in hand. In future the authorities will hai'e the power to prosecute in the criminal courts all persons using petrol for their private convenience when the stock has been granted them for work of national importance. A motorist who was granted petrol to be for the transportation of flour, is to be prosecuted because his car was found outside a. confectioner's 6hop on one occasion, and outside a general store, used by a lady, on another day.