Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 25, 1920. THE POWER PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 123, 25 May 1920, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 25, 1920. THE POWER PROBLEM

Mr. Mitchell's letter on the electrical power question, published in The Post last Friday, does not answer the more or less technical questions raised by Messrs. Hay and Vickerman's too brief report on the harnessing of the Highei Hutt. Mr. Mitchell advocates an investigation by engineers, and, that course would be agood one if it were likely to be acted on promptly and thoroughly. But the fact is that the current discussion has widened out from what was originally a narrower, and urgent, question before the City Council. This question was not, in the first place, a matter of steam v. hydroelectric ; it was a matter of steam v. steam. The council was faced with the" question whether, having regard to the known factors (including its urgent need of more power) and to the unknown factors (what power- the Public Works Department will supply, and when?), the old Harris-street power station should be extended at a. cost "of about £180,000, or a new and more economical seaside station should be constructed at a greater cost. Would the greater economy of the new station compensate for the greater capital cost thereof? In order to find an answer to that question,, the City Council tried to discover the earliest date at which the new station could be i-.rought into operation, and the- earliest date at. which the Public Works hydroelectric power from Mangahao would come, to its aid. The difference between the two would have represented a fullworking period for the new. station, which period, might have been long enough, or not long enough, to enable superior economy to neutralise greater capital cost. Unfortunately, the reticence of tho Public Works Department has hitherto prevented any comprehensive calculation being made. Whether the impending deputation to the Government,, to be held this week, will open the official lips concerning Mangahao power, its amount, and date of arrival, we.do not know.

'Of course, it may be that this information, so essential to deciding the question whether a new steam station is better than, a Harris-street steam extension, .is not in the* Department's possession. It. may bo that the Department does not know. But, if so, why does it not say so? To pursue instead a. sphinx-like attitude does not better the case, but merely piles irritation- upon ignorance, and leaves everybody groping in the dark. Here are a local body and a Government Department both serving the public, and engaged in parallel enterprises to, that end, and yet there is none of tho cooperation that one would 1 naturally expect; r.r. if there is, it is particularly

City Council's three experts, after a long period of desultory differences on the -Harris-street v. new station question, eventually compromise on the former as the line of least resistance; and the whole issue'wonld have passed untested by the public and by outside experts had not The Post appealed for a- rehearing. And i7ov/ that the rehearing has revealed the doubtful nature of the compromise decision, and has shown how open a question the steam question is, a new phase of the controversy opens with the renewed advocacy of the harnessing of the Higher Hutt. Certainly such an exhaustive inquiry as that'recommended by Mr. Mitchell would have been the proper course, but it should have been taken months ago. The difficulty now is the urgency. of the' City Council's need—can the council's rehearing, of the steam issue be' widened to include a third matter (the harnessing of the Higher Hutt) in which so much preliminary investigation remains to be done?

Other things being equal, The Post supports hydro-electricity; but its main anxiety is to secure the best service for the city anid the public generally. It agrees that capital expenditure has to be carefully watched, but it would support ths larger expenditure if it was satisfied that greater economy would compensate therefor. Cannot the Government experts and the municipal experts co-operate to decide this question? Why are both sets of experts so chary of stating what they know a-nd of admitting what they do not know? Should not the public be taken' fully into the confidence of thoso whose duty it is to secure the public welfare?