THE GAS COMPANY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 30, 6 February 1928, Page 6

THE GAS COMPANY.

Attention may be drawn to two particularly interesting points in the speech by the chairman of directors of the Auckland Gas Company at to-day's annual meeting. When the chairman again drew attention to the differentiation in taxation between companies and publicly-owned enterprises, he touched on a subject with which the public should be familiar. The business world is more and more impressed by it as time goes on, and is less disposed to tolerate such unfair treatment. After remarking that the Government has not been moved by the volume of opinion on this subject here and abroad, the chairman asked a question that has been put in these columns more than once: If public ownership of industry is extended, where will taxation come from? The second point is the success of the movement among the company's employees to acquire an interest in the company. As the chairman indicated, the road to profit-sharing and co-partnership in industry has not been easy, but fifteen years after the Provident Association was formed by the company's employees, to acquire a share interest in the concern, considerably more than half the roll number ax*e members of the organisation. The employees manage the association, and the company contributes to its funds. It is an I interesting example of investment by workers i in their own industry.