POWER CONFERENCES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 89, 12 October 1937, Page 11

POWER CONFERENCES

THREE SECTIONS NATIONALISATION PROPOSAL ! Three power board conferences are sitting in Wellington this week, the engineers, the secretaries, and the main conference of members of power boards and supply authorities of both islands, which will open on Thursday. The most important question for discussion this year is the possibility of a move towards the nationalisation of power generation and distribution, which will be brought before the main conference by a report from a special committee set up by the engineers at their conference last year. No definite statement that nationalisation is intended by the Government has in fact been made, and the position is quite indefinite, but the question is regarded by power boards and supply authorities as of such vital importance that a full investigation and discussion are justified. In opening the secretaries' conference yesterday, the president of the main association, Mr. J. A. Nash, said that the year had been a strenuous one as the result of legislation which had made the position difficult for power boards and supply authorities. He was disappointed over the failure to register the Power Boards' Em-| ployers' Union, but the fault lay not with the association, but with those supply authorities which had not shown interest in the proposal. Mr. Nash also expressed regret that the Superannuation Bill had not been proceeded with and the hope that it would be passed this session. The president of the Secretaries' Association, Mr. K. W. Eglinton (Mana-watu-Oroua), in welcoming the delegates, spoke of the magnitude and still rapid progress of the electrical industry. The figures for 1936 showed that the capital outlay on electrical undertakings amounted to and of this £13,095,382 represented outlay by the Public Works Department, £14,156,962 by power boards, £5,658,708 by other local authorities, and £270,451 by companies. The total revenue from the sale of electricity amounted to £1,029,760 to the Public Works Department and £4,726,770 to other authorities. During the past year business had increased and when the 1937 figures were produced a further substantial increase would be shown. The president referred with regret to the deaths of Colonel G. F. C. Campbell, late Auditor-General, and of Mr. C. Holdsworth, late chairman of the Auckland Electric Power Board. Among the remits discussed and adopted was one urging that legislative authority should be given for the raising of loans for consumers' work without a poll, as for ordinary reticulation extensions.