ELECTRICITY ARRIVES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 59, 11 March 1937, Page 4

ELECTRICITY ARRIVES

DARGAVILLE AREA

FUNCTION IN TOWNSHIP

(By Telegraph—Press -Association.)

DARGAVILLE, This .Day,

In the. illumination of a candle, a kerosene lamp, and a gas light, instancing the stages -which have been experienced in the effort to provide light in darkness, representative speakers welcomed the advent of electricity to Dargaville and district, and congratulated the North Auckland Power Board on. the .success which had attended its continued and systematic work over a long period of years at a function in the New Empire Theatre last evening. _. •■ • The final speaker was the' Minister of Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple^ who, after a short speech of congratulation, pressed a switch mounted at the back of the stage, illuminating three ornamental lamps suspended from the tpp of the proscenium and a string of coloured lights, signifying the. arrival of the most modern system of light and power.

Anything 'he had done in assisting to bring electricity into the home and workshop was just.his plain duty, said Mr. Semple. "As a public jman at the head of the Public Works Department at present it is.jmy duty to render service to the people of this country wherever I am, and when a man does that to the full as far as ability, capacity, and' judgment are concerned with the money at his' disposal and has gone all the distance he has played the game.- I would like.to meet the man who says,..' My. father used a candle, so why can't I?'., He makes me stone cold. He was snivelling when he was born and will- be when he dies." .

Other speakers were Mr. J. A. MacJean, chairman of the North Auckland Electric Power Board, the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, Messrs F. A. Jones, Mayor of Dargaville, H. M. Rushworth, M.P. for Bay of Islands, J. G. Barclay, M.P. for Marsden, the Hon. T. Bloodworth, M.L.C. (Auckland Power Board), and Mr. F. T. M. Kissell, Chief Electrical Engineer of the Public .Works Department. • ■ .