The Hawera Star. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1929. TO-MORROW’S LOAN POLL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 4 September 1929, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1929. TO-MORROW’S LOAN POLL.

Delivered every evening by 6 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham. Mangatoki, Kaponga, Alton, Hurleyville, Pa,tea, Waverley, Mokoia, Whakamara, Ohangai, Meremere, Fraser Road and Ararata.

To-morrow the ratepayers of that portion of South Taranaki which has been , served by the Haiwera Electric Light Company—and an additional area in the Wu.imnto West and Hawera. counties which is at present not- served by electricity—will be given their first opportunity ito acquire their own power-dis-tributing system. Though there are grounds for believing that the poll will be carried, we believed that an attempt to answer some of the questions which rise to the mind of the thoughtful ratepayer in considering how he should cast, his vote may not be out of place. Doubtless some ratepayers'have found a difficulty at first in squaring their inclination to vote for public ownership !«f rt-oetrii-ity- -supply a.n. ft Tits llro-i wit li [ their dislike of anything savouring of. what, they regard as “socialistic,” or as interference with private enterprise. P.ut that thought should not. trouble anyone for long, for the day has already arrived in New Zealand when the citizen hue* the right to regard such. a. utility as electricity supply as' being on all fours- with waiter supply. Hydro-elec-tricity and its benefits are the birthrights of every citizen and he is as fully entitled to voice his claim to a share in its control as to a share

lin the benefits of water supply. He would dismiss as absurd any suggestion that the rights of distribution of •water, brought from the lakes and ! rivers of his country, should be vested I in a private concern; nor would he listen for one moment to any argument in support of such suggestion founded on the fact that it cost money to bring water from the mountains to his ‘domicile. He would naturally retort that jit wa<s 'the State’s, or the municipallity's. duty to bear the cost of waterI reticulation and render him the service at a charge only sufficient to cover the working costs. A similar view of the subject of hydro-electricity generation and reticulation is similarly sound, if only for the reason that the power is generated from the water ■with which

this country lias been so generously onj (lowed by Nature. But there is an additional reason for such a view, founded on businesslike principles. The widespread distribution of electricity has been made possible only because the Government has shouldered the financial burden of harnessing the power latent in the water. If we had been willing to wait for private enterprise to step in and develop hydro-electricity on a national scale we would have been waiting still and for many years to come, for where could we have reasonably expect. -

1 ed to find private capital, running into many millions sterling, available for such am undertaking? The duty of establishing a chain of generating stations ihia.s naturally fallen upon the State, and the State has evolved a distributing system, through, public power boards, wliiek enables the taxpayer, 1 -who stands behind the Government’s loan commitments for generating costs, to benefit by a. system which, operates to his advantage, using its profits to reduce charges to the consumer and for the extension of the benefits of supply to am ever-growing circle of consumers. Up till now the; Hawera system has been lope.raited on energy generated locally, but in order to extend it will have to avail itself of Government supply, irrespective of whether it is controlled by the existing private company or by the power board. The taxpayers of this district, in common with the

rest of the public of New Zealand, are committed to the financial responsibilities undertaken by the Government in order to provide a national supply of electricity. They are now being urged by the Po;wer Board to seize the first opportunity offered them of sharing with practically the whole oif the remainder of the Dominion the benefits to be derived from the distribution end of this national system of hydro-elec-1 tricity supply.