GAS COMPANY'S NEW BILL.

Auckland Star, Volume XX, Issue 95, 23 April 1889, Page 2

GAS COMPANY'S NEW BILL.

(To The Editor.)

Sir,—Tho above Bill proposed to be brought into Parliament ought to be very carefully watched by the ratepayers of this city. A monopoly has been allowed to grow, with privileges and advantages to the Company's own benelit which ought never to have been allowed. Let us see that no continuation of this evil is now permitted. 0"f course there is no reason why tho Gas Company should not, like any other, have power to supply electricity, if the interests of the ratepayers are duly protected; but tho experience of the past does not give us much hope that this would be the case. Ga3 ought to be supplied much more cheaply than it is at present by our .Company. Differential prices for cooking and" lighting purposes granted in Southern cities have been withheld to us, while tho repeated promise made of a reduction in the price of gas has been evaded, and the dividends paid, notwithstanding the bad times, from which others have universally suffered, have been maintained at thoexpense of the consumers and the honorarium to the directors only lately increasod. The Company managed in 1871 to somehow obtain powers which they may rely they will nob get in 1889, while tho clause in reference to the reduction of the price of gas when the profits reached a certain maximum has been quite a dead letter.

J| IThe Company in the past have apparently tfe'en exceeding their powers, for they now ask to be enabled to act as plumbers and gasfitter., also to compel the poor consumer to accept their dictum as to meter consumption recorded, without regard to the condition of the meter or any reference to arbitration, and to hx tho price of gas with a sliding scale (!) as to dividends, whatever that means!! But I think the public have had a pretty considerable test of their ability in this way, and generally the proposals are of an important and extensive character ; indeed, far too much so for any private company. There is no just reason why the Corporation should be debarred from entering into competition with the Company, and it has never been properly explained why a clause was inserted some years since in the Corporations Act at the eleventh hour, making it compulsory when a gas company existed m any corporate town for the corporate body to have to apply to Parliament for a Bill to enable them to supply gas. Christchurch is just now in this position. This was evidently done in the interests of some existing companies, who were well represented in one or both of the Houses of Parliament. The powers granted under the Auckland Gas Company Act, 1871, gave them many more privileges than they could ever again oxpoct to obtain, and to give confidence to the public we should have the price of gas so reduced that two lights might now be soon where one exists, and not as is really the fact, that many private and public consumers are reverting to using kerosene. Something besides solely considering tho interests of the shareholders requires to be considered by the Company if they wish to prosper.—l am, etc., Consumer.