PETROL RATIONING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27386, 11 May 1950, Page 6

PETROL RATIONING

The Government is likely to encounter in the months ahead an increasing demand for the abolition of petrol rationing—unless it makes a decision itself to put an end to this restriction. There is one argument in support of rationing which the Prime Minister has used with some force, and it is a good argument. New Zealand, through no fault of the present Administration, is short of sterling funds, ' and likely to remain so until remedial measures are fully in effect, the result of which cannot provide any quick corrective of the position into which our overseas funds were allowed to drift. If, as now appears to be established, petrol from the sterling area is obtainable, it does not appear that New Zealand’s dollar position would be further affected by the removal of petrol rationing. The main question, therefore, that the Government must consider is whether the lifting of the control would create a material added demand on our sterling resources. To that question there can be no certain answer. It is the belief of the Government, as recently expressed, that petrol consumption in New Zealand would rise sharply if rationing was abandoned. It is the conviction of motorists’ organisations, which may be less accurately informed, that consumption would not show any great increase. And that is the crux of the matter. The Government—or its departmental advisers—should be in the best position to judge, but the consumer also knows a good deal about petrol rationing, and his opinion is that a shortage today is merely the incentive to him to obtain his requirements by unofficial means. During the era of the Socialists in New Zealand the method of determining the effect of unorthodox ideas was to bring them into practise. In readjusting our economy, some similar exploration is unavoidable. It may be that the Government’s best move would be to remove petrol from control and so determine the result. If de-rationing was accompanied by the price rise which seems to be in any event inevitable, the result might be considerably less embarrassing than officialdom seems to think, and a great burden of bookkeeping would be lifted from the shoulders of petrol re-sellers and public servants.