Paraffin a "Heavy" Oil
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Vaporizer Vehicles Must Pay Same Taxation as Oilers AFTER a hearing occupying two days, the Stipendiary Magistrate at a court in Wolverhampton gave a ruling, on Friday last, concerning the legality of using paraffin in an engine which is rated for taxation purposes as being designed to run on petrol. The case centred around the actual wording of the green and blue licence forms, the prosecution maintaining that a vehicle having a normal petrol engine should, if a vaporizer be fitted to the manifolding to allow paraffin to be used. as a fuel, pay duty at the higher scale, as applied to oil engines.
The defence relied upon the fact that there is an essential difference between a petrol and an oil engine, and it was for the latter type of power unit that the heavier scale of taxation was instituted. In the case under review the vehicle in question was a Ford, which, since first registered, had had a Godward vaporizer addeo, together with the necessary auxiliary tank and two-way cock to feed the carburetter with petrol with which to start up.
For the defence it was urged that, although an alteration had been made to the vehicle since it was first registered, such alteration did not affect the tax payable. It was argued that, in any case, a vaporizer was merely an intensification of the hot-spot principle, and that, whether running on paraffin or petrol, the engine received a mixture of hydrocarbon vapour and air.
Prosecution Succeeds.
Reviewing the evidence, the Stipeadiary Magistrate, Mr. B. Grimley, expressed the opinion that, as the fuel had been changed from petrol to some other oil, which is not a light oil under the definition laid down, there was no alternative but to say that the prosecution had made out
its case. Following this decision, counsel for the prosecution stated that the Ministry of Transport had issued a new form with slightly modified wording which cleared up any possibility of confusion.
The Stipendiary said that he would not record a conviction, as he understood that many licensing authorities. throughout the country had accepted the lower payment as adequate revenue for a vehicle equipped with a vaporizer, but the defence was ordered to pay £25 towards the costs of £73.