PETROL PRICES

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 75, 28 March 1936, Page 10

PETROL PRICES

POLICY OF FIXATION

SUCCESSFUL OPERATION

"The petrol price fixation scheme recently adopted in the Wellington metropolitan area has worked most successfully," said the Minister of Industries and Commerce" (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan) in an interview today, "but experience has shown some difficulties to exist and some slight readjustments are necessary which will appear in a new set of regulations."

Wellington, said the Minister, was a kind of laboratory for the time being, and before the scheme was extended to other places he wanted to have it absolutely right in Wellington.

An officer of the Department had been instructed to proceed to Christchurch to investigate the position there, said the Minister, and when his report was presented it would be determined whether price fixation would be adopted in that centre. He wanted to make sure that no further adjustments would be required before the scheme was extended. He did not want to rush in' and then turn back. In Wellington the scheme had worked remarkably well with the co-opera-tion of all concerned, including the oil companies, which, despite difficulties that had presented themselves, had given friendly co-operation all round. In Christchurch there were points of difficulty that did not apply to Wellington and they -were being investigated by the officer whom he had sent there.