The Hawera Star. SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 1929. POWER BOARD’S LOAN PROPOSAL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 31 August 1929, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 1929. POWER BOARD’S LOAN PROPOSAL.

Delivered every evening by 6 o’clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangat.oki, Kaponga, Alton. Jlurleyville, Patea, -Waverley, Molcoia, Whakamara, Ohangai, Mereinere, Fraser Road and Ararata.

If the interest shown by our readers and correspondents' can be safely taken as an indication, there should be a heavy poll recorded on Thursday next on the South Taranaki Power Board’s £187,500 loan proposal. Usually, in connection with loan questions, ratepayers lay ithemse.lv es open to charges 1 of apathy, both before and after the poll, but public interest in the. proposal to purchase the Haiwera company’s under-1 taking h.ais been sustained for more than a year and has lately been intensified 1 i as the date of the poll has drawn nearer. There are special reasons for] this keen interest, not the least being] the protracted arbitration proceedings! and the evidence adduced' thereat in the effort to arrive at .the puehase figure. Since the promulgation of the price, I the Board has made good its promise to lay all the cards on the table. It has courted the fullest inquiry into its prospects and intentions, and it has impressed observers with its sense of responsibility and with its sincerity in recommending the loan to the favour- [ able consideration of the ratepayers. Such signs of public interest as .those displayed through our correspondence columns, while welcome when so much is at stake, may, over a protracted period, confuse the issue to some extent in the public mind; but there should be no. great confusion on the part of readers who have preserved! their sense of proportion. AA r e arc inclined to the opinion that though every point that has been made may not at this stage stand out sharply, the averagely interested person will 'have noted certain significant differences between the board’s statements' and the statements •of their critics. Most, of the latter have been apprehensive of increased rales, but, t he grounds for their fears I have been general rather than specific. No critic who lias set out to. warn the ratepayers' against, t he dangers of public control of electricity has boon able to carry his argument far after making his generalisations about power boards. The board, on the other hand, Iras quoted purchase price, interest and sinking fund l thereon, allowances for contingencies, known revenue and conservative estimates of .increased revenue, in support of its contention that the ratepayers may safely and success-

I fully exorcise the right of purchase reserved to them bv the law. I® spite of «;11 the columns of our space which have been occupied by the board s • critics —and gladly- made available to | them —there has not been a really impressive attempt to show the public why the board should not be permitted to purchase. There hoivo been, it is true, many tedious repetitions of the assertion that a public body cannot opeij abo so economically a» a private concern; one or two correspondents have j seriously attempted to sway public opinion solely by the use of that argument, forgetting, apparently, that .they are many years late in their opposition to the principle of public ownership of the generation and distribution of hydroelectricity. One correspondent lias concentrated his attack upon the board in respect of its expenditure of a few pounds in having a i circular printed, but gives no reason why, in his opinion, ratepayers should not vote for the loan proposal. Even our correspondent ‘'Spotlight.” who examines critically where several others merely generalise, seizes upon something which is, after all, a side issue. Ho disputes the board’s interpretation, of the company's dividend 1 returns, but he does not deny the known profits returned upon a known total capital. He does not contend, with reasons, that the board cannot expect to receive at least the same amount of revenue as the company has received, and ho fails to show why the board cannot anticipate being able to carry on, with a known (not estimated) revenue and known (not estimated) interest and operating charges without l resorting to rate collection. His examination of the revenue producing capacity of the company’s various classes of shares must appear to the ratepayers, who am not concerned with what the company was twenty-live years ago, as so much straw-splitting. The operation of the concern which .the board proposes to take over will not require a board of super-m'en. The board would have to be grossly extravagant, or worse, to require a rate to help it out. The present board has shown, as well as any men in their present position could show, that their desire is to develop along lines of increasing usefulness a utility which has not yet been fully exploited in the town and one which in the country has so far done only a little of the work awaiting it. The. thoroughness with which the present board has conducted the protracted and difficult task it has experienced in bringing its 'affairs to their present stage has favourably impressed the public; it is for the ratepayers themselves to ensure that a policy of sound development, rather than one of spectacular achievement, is followed by the power board members of the future.