PETROL RATIONS COMING?
Page 19
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
By "The Inspector."
" T .. HESE ARE DAYS of rapid money making and . ' of still more rapid money spending, days when,
we are all of us -busy looking for a chance to ...
secure appreciation of our capital, be it large or small, rather than to worry over much about the cliVidends we might make. 'We are speculators, one and all, rather than investors, and we suspect every'one else of speculating accOrdingly. We scent the profiteer from afar. We often discover him to our own satisfaction when he isn't there. It is, of course, immoral to corner supplies and to force their valitt3 Up 'artificially by withholding them from the world's Maikets, and evenif it isn't exactly immoral, it is very 'distinctly uncomfortable for those who have to pay through the nose or to go Without. One would be courting unpopularity in no uncertain way if one dared.; in these days, to -quest-ion, the impropriety of profiteering as distinct from its unmistakeable inconvenienee. And, yet, who is there amongst us who will not gladly take a.s much pro4 as may be on anythinghe may sell or for anything lie may do at any time ? I don't even suspect of altruism that firm of American car manuta.cturert and factors who have just brought down the prices of their cars and -have Offered rebates on past sales to customers. There is a reason for their action far more commercial—and after all, it is very excellent publicity to. rednee your charges when everyone else in the world is inOreasing theirs. Who is there amongst us whc will not take 80 guineas for .a. pianoforte that original1y4-Cost .40 guineas? Wh.o will not be glad to sell a motorcycle for .210 profit alter haling a -year's -hard-riding out of it for nothing? Who is not considering it foolish to rest" content with the old-scale remuneration while the higher may be had for the asking? '110,,n't let us be smug humbugs or pretend that we are mdignant at -other people's high charges for anyrirther reason than that they add to our difficulties of payment.
Worth What it Will Fetch. . An article is worth what it will fetch even in these days, and the onlypossible,-way • to ensure that it won't fete-h too much is to produce more of it. If ten men each wElat a cow and there are only nine COWS to be had, the price of cow, cf course' goes up."-and sooner or later the high price realized starts someone else in as a cattle-breeder. If there are eleven cows for the ten buyers the price Of cow is, at once, a soundly competitive one, and there is no inducement for the man, who has been Coining money, say, by selling shoddy, to -rush in arid try his hand at the
• . unfamiliar job of "cow-breeding, for which he' cares nothing more than what it will fetch. him.
Some on'e of the big petrol Magnates a, little while ' ago said petrol. was worth What it would fetch—and, , after all, Why isn$ it? If, for the time being,' we have allowed ourselves to get into the hands of the petrol "trusts," some-one somewhere is ultimately going to find 'a way of Managing without them. There are actually very few things indeed that we can't do gtithout if we try. There's always something to eat, and generally something to 'drink—it may not be pâté-de-foie gras'ur Heidsieck, but -it will serve its purpose if it-be only a stale him and a glasvotwater, for the time b%ing, at any rate. 'To.my way of -thinking, the fact of the matter is that if we are satisfied that the best we can doin this matter of high fuel costs is to Slang the people who have it to sell,' we don't deserve any relief.is weak in the extreme tfi'i be content with the assumption that " petrol is indispensable—as Such. -It is a. highly convenient form of fuel. So was coal, but coal is by no means so convenient as • oil fuel 'has now proved to be for a
great many purposes. There can be no final and permanent way of controlling prices artificially in-the way that was found Convenient during the temporary war-time paralysis of supplies and manufactures. If petrol will fetch3s. 10d. a gallon the price of petrol will remain at 3s. ind, a gallon. . If the oil companies cannot get their priee here, they can anywhere else in the world. And increasingly will they be able to do so.
A' Shortage at Hand. • But. there isa-far more .important factor in the -situation than that of the supplying companies' ability to get then: own prices for their produCt, and it is a factor that is by no means sexiously recognized. We -refer to the certainty that the world, as a whole, is quite definitely facedwith a great petrol shortage, and that that • shertage is already beginning to be felt, and will -increasingly become really serious as the-year creeps'on. The position of course, be rendered more acute, and, indeed, very disturbing by the-steadilylrowing"demand, for which the reasons are perfectly obviens, • How soften dowe hear that we must "breakethe petrol trusts," "and similarly inviting suggestions to an iinpossible taak?-.
Petrol Companies Anxious for Alterations.
They are threatened,' these international monsters, that if, they don't,give us more of those two-gallon cans for a Bradbury, we will really seriously set to work and make use of something else—after we have discovered, it. . This, as a threat, mark you Wheteas, as a "matter of fact, I amperfectly well aware that the petrol companies would very gladly welcome any and all reasonable development by way of competition from an alternative fuel-. And the reason for this attitude is that they know quite well that, unless Something is-done in this direction, and done right soon, the further development and use of the light internal-combustion 'engine will be. very." seriously jeopardized-,because there most 'certainly will.not be enough petrol to go round—and -before very-long, too. One or two crf the biggest consumers have already been warned that they will have to be rationed before many months are by, and that, surely, is startling enough a development.
We Must Find Another Fuel at Once.
There appears to be little prospect of any alternative fuel being' produced at a profit at any price that will have any effect on that of petrol. Indeed, benzole has not as yet paid well enough to -entice ga,sookan, panics andothers to continue producing. Alcohol, if started now in a big way, could not be .ready or a. year or two. So that it is imperative for us all.to look at this problem from a new standpoint at once. For, the time being we shall have to pay for petrol what we are' asked to paynever mind how many committees or commissions we appoint, or how much we think we desire the. blood of the Samuels and their colleagues. • But, very soon, no matter what the price, we shall not have the petrol -we .wantAnd this is no idle warning.The petrol companies want no .position to develop thAt will encourage the electric, the steamer, and perhaps numberless new methods of mechanical locomotion—and they know they cannot continue to. meet the whole demand. We users are concerned with the prospect of shortage of supplies, which is already near at hand. We must develop alternatives at all costs, not in order to get even with the petrol companies, but to save the whole petrol-vehicle industry from very serious and imminent disability—and there is no time to 1861