SIMU Support For Petrol Saving Plans

Northern Advocate, 27 September 1947, Page 4

SIMU Support For Petrol Saving Plans

(P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Support for all reasonable measures to conserve petrol in the Aid for Britain campaign was promised at the annual conference of the South Island Motor Union in Christchurch yesterday.

A proposal was made that should the required saving not be made the allocation to petrol companies should be cut and control exercised through retailers before resorting to the wartime rationing system.

Representatives of the North Island Motor Union said they believed their associations would support this attitude.

When the subject was opened the meeting expressed strong resentment at the remarks of Mr C. H. Williams at a publicity group meeting in Wellington about the campaign, when he was reported to have said that the petrol trade was convinced that there was little morality among motorists. It was decided to forward a protest to the Aid for Britain Council. STATE DEPARTMENTS Reference was then made to reports that three separate Government cars had recently taken four Government representatives from Wellington to Ruatoria and that large buses had travelled empty to Gisborne to pick up passengers from a train for the rest of the journey. There was fairly general criticism that Government departments were guilty of wasting petrol through inefficient organisation. Other delegates said that it was unfair to suggest that the private motorist should carry the whole burden if rationing were introduced. Much could be done to reduce consumption by commercial users.

UNWARRANTED TOURIST TRIPS It was also considered that unwarranted numbers of tourist trips were being run by big buses, considering the need to save petrol. A suggestion was made that district quotas might be published, as during the power shortage, so that consumption could be governed voluntarily. It was finally agreed that if voluntary conservation failed the system in vogue immediately after rationing was lifted, under which control was exercised through wholesalers, should be again introduced in preference to rationing.