21 APRIL 1950, Page 5

As a minor motorist I have, of course, been plunging

into abstruse calculations on the balance of gain and loss when the reduction in income-tax is set against the increase in the petrol tax. The result is reassuring. With my own small car, which claims, a little over- confidently perhaps, to do 30 miles to the gallon, I could do 9,000 miles a year before the loss on petrol exceeded the gain on income- tax. I shall not do 9,000 miles, for obvious reasons. With the basic ration now to give an approximate mileage of 180 a month the maximum a motorist can do in the year is a little under 2,200 miles. Even the 18-miles-to-the-gallon car man will end up well on the