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Sir Alexander Maxwell (not the Home Office one), who is chairman of the British Tourist and Holidays Board, seems to me to make a strong point when he argues that the abolition of basic petrol is actually going to lose us more dollars than it saves. The contention is that the Americans, whom we want to attract in as large numbers as possible, will expect to get about the country by car, and may be deterred from coming at all if they can't do that, and also that hotels
won't be able to keep up to the standard Americans expect if they are losing heavily in revenue owing to the drop in their ordinary business resulting from the absence of touring motorists. Whether
all this quite justifies the assumption that more dollars are going to be lost this way than will be gained by abolishing basic I take leave to doubt. But it powerfully fortifies the ex% sting arguments for re- storing basic before next summer.
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