POWER SHORTAGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 280, 26 November 1938, Page 10

POWER SHORTAGE.

SOUTHERN FEARS. OUTLOOK FOR NEXT YEAR. i APPROACH TO GOVERNMENT. CHRISTCHURCH, this day. A power shortage next winter, with increasing gravity in 1340. is still feared by the city power authorities, despite assurances given by Mr. F. T. M. Kissel, chief electrical engineer of the Public Works Department. In a report to the City Council some months ago the general manager of the Municipal Electricity Department (Mr. E. Hitchcork) expressed the view that 1939 would produce a power shortage, and this morning he said that he still held the same opinion. Councillor .T. S. Barnett, chairman of the Electricity Committee of the council, shares the same fear. Councillor Barnett said that Mr. Kissel's reply to Mr. Hitchcock, in which he scouted the risk of a shortage, was not reassuring. Accordingly steps were contemplated to protect the city from the danger of a shortage. After consideration of the matter at a conference of power supply authorities it had been decided to set tip a committee representing the South Island interests to make a complete investigation of the supply sources and facilities for submission to the Government. That meeting would probably be held before the end of the year.