The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-08-20

miles a day for such men and is ob- viously no use for them, while to the joy rider it is ample for couple of weekend trips. On the other hand the owner of big 60-horsepower car, which he-or she-uses solely for drtv- ing in the park, may get enough to keep the car in commission on the 20 per cent basis as applied to previous consumption.
 The chief effect so far noticeable in London is the drastic cutting down of the motor bus and taxicab services. The London General Omnibus company has already withdrawn over 1000 omni- buses, cn which the London public largely depends, from the streets and the taxicab men declare that their all lowance of 1 # gallons a day will make @ 1t impossible for them to give London a night service of cabs A number of the big dry goods stores are digging out their old horse vans and securing the country for horses to take the places of the petrol vans. The price of horses cast from the army has gone up with a jump and some shrewd deal CTS, who saw what was coming, are reported to have made fortunes.
 AMUSING SCENES
 There have been amusing scenes at
 
 weeks. Acting on a hint from the gov ernment, which desired to prevent boarding of petrol in anticipation of the restrictions, the big petrol distrib- uting companies cut down their sup plies to dealers and only delivered the reduced quantities on condition that none was sold except under running contracts and to doctors In some places where motorists stood in with hn eroy Il1. get an occasional tin on the sly, but a request at a strange garage for pe- trol was met with stony stare and a refusal A few days ago a motorist who was going on long trip en- tered his garage and asked the mana ger if he could have a couple of tins of the precious fluid. "No, sir" was the reply in a loud voice. we are not allowed to sell drop" and then in a whisper. "the petrol supply man is in the office, but I'll slip a couple of tins into your car when he is gone"
 The same motorist on the way home from his trip became anxious about his supply bringing him to London, and applied at a garage at Oxford for an- other tin. The reply here was: "No sir, not a drop. We are only allowed to sell petrol now to lords of the ad- miralty and members of the army SouiiSli. <Ao lhc IIlOlOIlSl WdS n61Ln6r, he had to go on with the petrol in his tank and take his chance of reaching London.
 SCANDAL OF HIGH PRICE
 One thing that the government has not done is to deal with the scandal of the price of petrol. Four or five years ago petrol in England was 20 cents a gallon, of which cents repre- scented taxation. Today the price is 70 cents gallon, of which 12 cents represents taxation. The trade is in the hands of two nominally competing companies, the British branch of the Stanard oil company and the Shell Transport and Trading company The competition between these two con- cerns is so keen that they always raise the price on the same day and one can see Pratts (Standard Oil) vans deliv- ering Shell spirit and Shell vans deliv- ering Pratts, and often both vans are to be seen With mixed load. In spite of the war conditions the Shell com pany paid a. dividend this year of 40 per cent on it's common stock
 Americans who think that trusts are a phenomenon peculiar to the United States ought to think this over. The Standard Oil and a British company be- tween them control the life blood of British traffic and raise it's price when ever they like, without the slightest suggestion of interference from the British government. Of course there are petrol substitutes, but the best of them, benzol, which is distillation of coal, is not available now, as the en- tire supply is taken by the govern ment for the manufacture of high ex- plosives. The next best is kerosene, which can be used either mixed with petrol or alone, but kerosene is con- trolled by the Standard Oil and it's friends, and if motorists took to using it they no doubt would feel themselves compelled to bring the price up to the level of, petrol.