THE Hauraki Plains gazette With which is Incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY “Public Service” WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1950 THE FORGOTTEN FACTOR

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 60, Issue 4306, 19 July 1950, Page 4

THE Hauraki Plains gazette With which is Incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY “Public Service” WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1950 THE FORGOTTEN FACTOR

The saying that we get just the sort of government we deis truer than most of us realise. Many citizens are convinced that the millennium has arrived as a result of the change, of government in 1949. The new Government was pledged to right any economic things in our economy and if those promises are to tfe fulfilled then it is encumbent upon citizens to abandon apathy and piake it their business td see that undertakings are carried opt for unless citizens bestir themlselves th£ Government departments concerned* will follow the eveh tenor of their ways and Ministers will just become the rubber of departmental heads. This is par-

ticularly so with respect to the State Hydro Department whose new Minister, the Hon, W. S. Goosman, together with his. codleagues, undertook to solve the shortage of electricity. Before he became Minister Mr Goosman had ideas, of overcoming tfie Shortage by the, use of every possible method of generating electricity whether by by small' power plants or geothermal plants as auxiliaries .£o Hie large State hydro'Statfons. What has now become clear is that the new Minister is just/foilowing the ideas of the’heads- of the State Hydro Department an 4 is

j list as obstinate as-wasj the hast Minister, the Hom R. in his refusal to depart a hair’s breadth' from the adviee<of -departmental experts. ’ • The all important point which has been by the public is .that is Just precisely because guided, by the are how in a gbt progressively fact -becomes more apparehteach day. It was upon the advice of the experts that so many of ..the numerous small power planteall over the Dominion were pWc bttt of ’action. But for that policy of economic stupidity there ‘\Wrakt now be no lack of Again it was the exerts who committed the actofYarktelism by destroying Horahora kmg before it heed have been put out of action.

We live in an/age where, we imagine , that every problem can only be solved by experts and it does not seem to dawn upon our now standardised minds thftt it is the experts who are getting us into trouble. The electricity shortage will not be overoobie by the hope that some day a State department will generate abup-. dant power by geothermal methods. What of the forgotten teeter ? The supply of electricity is not merely a question of getting electrical engineers to erect generating stations. the economic law whidfe dverrides all other laws in the production of all 1 things?* That is the forgotten factor. Have’ we now learned yet that the inevitable result of attempting to provide the public with any commodity it requires, by the method of one major centralised plan, is to create a shortage? Mr Goosman of all people should know that not by one mjg’or centralised* plan put only by S multiplicity of plans acting independently can the problem of the production of anything be solved. Mr Goosman is now following a policy diametrically opposed to every principle he professes io believe in and contrary to his every utterance before he became in Minister. When and when only the Minister in addition to the activities of his State Department,' tejls the power

boards and local bodies to go ahead and make their own arrangements! for. generating power then and only then will there be a sufficiency of that much needed commodity. If the long suffering publie continue?: its complacent attitude and places' its faith in depart-' mental experts, and the promises of politicians then it well deserves the fate it must meet in the years which lie ahead.