PETROL RESELLERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 2, 3 January 1942, Page 6

PETROL RESELLERS

LACK OF BUSINESS

MINISTER'S STATEMENT

A reply was made last night by the Minister of Supply (Mr. Sullivan) to representations by Mr. C. R. Edmond urging immediate v assistance to enable petrol resellers storing petrol to remain in business. Mr. Edmond, who is general secretary of the New Zealand Retail .Motor Trades' Association and also of the New Zealand Motor Trades' Federation, stated that unless immediate action was taken many resellers, because of the loss of business arising from the petrol restrictions, would be forced to close down. He asked whether, if a business was closed down, it would be possible for the reseller to resume operations when petrol became available again. The Minister, in his reply, has given an assurance that licensees will not be deprived of their licences mere- - ly because the petrol restrictions make it impossible for them to carry on at present. "Mr. Edmond's various representations have been considered by my colleagues in both the Government Cabinet and the War Cabinet," said Mr. Sullivan. "They could not, however, agree to Mr. Edmond's suggestion to compulsorily close down hundreds . of resellers outside the motor trade (of which Mr. Edmond is general secretary), in order to assist those inside the motor trade. Neither could they see their way to close the commercial pumps and compel business people who owned them to pay an extra threepence a gallon to the motor trade resellers for their requirements. "Neither was it possible to see the logic of Mr. Edmond's case that petrol resellers inside the motor trade had some special claim on the Government's bounty not possessed by the many hundreds of other business people outside the motor trade whose business has suffered as a result of prevailing war conditions." ARMY PETROL. ; Mr. Sullivan said that a special endeavour was to be made to keep in business petrol resellers storing Army petrol, and as soon as the survey authorised last fveek and now proceeding was completed, steps would be taken to provide some form of assistance for those responsible for the care of Army petrol. "In regard to the supposed 'quan-1 dary' that petrol resellers were in because they j would 'lose their licences if. they closed down, I am assured by the Bureau of Industry that no licensee will be deprived of his licence merely because he has not enough business to warrant his keeping open under present petrol restrictions," the Minister. "There would, of course, bo some cases where all possibility cf carrying on a petrol reselling business will have disappeared after the warsuch as the closing down of Public Works camps at which there are now resellers' pumps, the diversion o/ traffic to new roads, and so on. I repeat that licensees need have no fears that they will be deprived of. their licences merely because the petrol restrictions make it impossible for them to carry on at present."