Tokyo, June 3.
The owner of an automobile in Japan today can drive his car only. two or three miles a day on his new gasoline ration.
Restrictions on use of the fuel are being constantly tightened. The new allowance is seven gallons a month, while last month it was ten.
The smaller allotment will propel a car, depending on its make and age, only from 60 to 100 miles each month.
Wealthy car owners in the past have found ways of obtaining more than the regulation number of gaioline tickets. They have purchased tickets from taxicab drivers and others for as much as Yen 2.60 per gallon, which is about three times the retail price of the fuel itself.
However, police are determined to stop that practice. They also are trying to discourage the use of cars io visit amusement centres, which is considered a bad example io the poorer classes.
Taxi-cab drivers suffered a cut of 14 gallons from last month's quotas, giving them 61 gallons per cab per month under the new allotments. On two gallons a day a cab-driver can earn only about ten yen, the larger part of which goes to the association from which he rents his machine. The cars are all of the light type, and are rapidly becoming eligible for the junk heap under drivers' abuses and lack of proper repair.
Drivers attempt to conserve fuel by coasting as much as possible, with a result that clutches are damaged and passengers are continually irritated by the joltings which accompany uneven clutching of the gears.—United Press.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.