ALIEN’S PETROL ALLOWANCE

Evening Star, Issue 24055, 29 November 1941, Page 15

ALIEN’S PETROL ALLOWANCE

CHARGE UNDER EMERGENCY REGULATIONS

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, Nov. 28. Surprise was expressed by Mr J. L. Stout, S.AL. to-day that an enemy alien should have been given special consideration in obtaining large quantities of petrol by special license to travel from one end of New Zealand to tho other while ordinary citizens were limited to short rations. * To a question how this position came about, Sub-inspector Hewitt, who was prosecuting for the police, was unable to give an answer, but he agreed with the magistrate’s comment, as also did *'<r T. P. AlcCarthy. who appeared for the defence. The defendant was Otto Schnell. who was charged under the Aliens Emergency with having in his possession more than six gallons of ipetrol permitted to him as ait enemy alien, and with making a false statement Oto the oil fuel controller. He pleaded guilty and was fined £lO on each charge. Sub-inspector Hewitt _ said the offences were committed in Auckland, where Schnell had a license to obtain petrol. He applied for another license for sufficient petrol to take him to Dunedin. He intended to shift his business, and he still had 17 gallons not drawn from his ordinary license when it was cancelled. He then drew the 17 gallons, putting 10 of them in the tank of his car and the other seven in a drum. He misled the oil fuel controller by saying that he had used those 17 gallons in “ cleaning up ” his business in Auckland. Air McCarthy said the charge about making a false statement was, in fact, not so bad as it sounded, and the other offence was a technical one. Both the police and the oil fuel controller knew that Schnell was about to leave Auckland, and that he required the petrol to do so.