A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
THE petrol muddle is getting hureasingly intolerable. First of all the Prime Minister announces early in August that the basic
ration is to be cut by one-third and the supplementary by one-fifth, the resultant saving being £4,000,000. Next, on August 27th, comes the news that the ration is to disappear altogether, at a resultant saving of £5,000,000, the natural implication being that (since nothing was said this time about a cut in the supplementary), the £5,000,000 was substituted for the £4,000,000. That, however, produced in time an announcement from the Ministry of Fuel and Power, explaining that the £5,000,000 was to be added to the £4,000,000, making a total saving of £9,000,000. The next chapter of the story was an encourag- ing intimation from the Prime Minister that people who had never had a supplementary allowance before could get one now for reason- able domestic purposes—which obviously means that the saving will be by no means £9,000,000 after all. Last of all it has become known, through some unofficial or semi-official or quasi-official channel, that the cut is to remain for nine months and its restoration then to be dependent not on anything whatever to do with motorists or the motor trade, but on the success of other industries in reaching Sir Stafford Cripps' targets. There has been little complaint about most of the austerity decrees ; this one deserves all and more than all the strictures it has evoked.
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