SUPPLIES OF PETROL

Waipa Post, Volume 41, Issue 3186, 9 August 1930, Page 5

SUPPLIES OF PETROL

A GOVERNMENT MONOPOLY 1

A suggestion that the Government should enter into an agreement with a British oil firm and monopolise the New Zealand petrol and lubricating oils market was made by Mr J- W. Munro (Labour, Dunedin North) in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. He said he considered that the only way to overcome the control of American trusts. Mr Munro said the petrol tax was a bitter pill to him and to motorists in general. The users of p.etrol had been under the thumb of the oil trusts quite long enough. As a solution he believed it would be quite possible for the Government to get into touch with a British oil firm with the idea of competing with other companies, so establishing a monopoly and giving the public good petrol and oils at a reasonable price. If the Government was in earnest it would undertake to see if an arrangement of the kind could not be made, he said. The only way they could hope to meet the position was to play one company off against another. He had been assured that were the Government courageous enough to take what sounded like a revolutionary step, one reputable British firm would be willing to supply petrol at a reasonable profit to itself and a reasonable price to consumers.