COAST PARSONS’ PETROL RATIONS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22587, 16 March 1948, Page 4

COAST PARSONS’ PETROL RATIONS

Having exhausted already the month’s quota of petrol available to him for parish services, the vicar of Waipiro Bay, the Rev. W. G. Bird, has had to advise parishioners that unless additional fuel is granted on ppeals which have been made directly to the oil-fuel controller and through the diocesan organisation to the Government, the following portions of the normal parish activities will have to be suspended:—

All religious instruction in schools. All confirmation classes All country baptisms. All hospital visiting. All death-bed calls. All funerals. All weddings. It will also be necessary to curtail Divine services until the issue of the new quota for April. Holy Week observances will be seriously dislocated, and Good Friday and Easter Day services will be limited to those centres which the clergyman can reach without expenditure of motor fuel. Wartime Allowance G 5 Gallons

The schedule of quotas for country users of petrol include allowances of 15 gallons per month for union organisers and secretaries of political organisations. Clergymen in country parishes are rated on the same basis as commercial travellers and salesmen, with 25 gallons per month for their professional requirements. Country-electorate members of Parliament receive 30 gallons, and country doctors 50 gallons. The allowance for pleasure launches over 30ft. and including 35ft. is 24 gallons per month; and for pleasure launches over 35ft., 32 gallons per month. During the wartime rationing period country clergymen were given a basic ration of 65 gallons per month, with provision for emergency needs beyond that figure, available on application to local deputycontrollers. Today, appeals based on the inadequacy of quotas must be dealt with the central bureau in Wellington. The Waipiro Bay vicar last week attended two funerals, and had to travel 94 miles between the points at which these were conducted. Some assistance has been received by Mr. Bird from parishioners who have found it possible to spare coupons from their own monthly quota, but it is claimed that mileages run in the more remote parishes should be catered for on a more realistic basis, and that at least the wartime quotas should be available today.