ELECTRICITY SUPPLY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 245, 13 September 1935, Page 8

ELECTRICITY SUPPLY

TOWN AND COUNTRY AREAS, NATIONALISATION URGED. (Bv Telegraph—Special to Standard.) ' Y WELLINGTON, Sept. 12. 4 suggestion that the Government should take over the whole business of electric power distribution was made in the House of Representatives by Mr J. Linklater (Manawatu). Hydroelectric development was, he said, done at the national expense and it should all be national, he contended, as this would prevent injustice to country districts surrounding large towns. .. . There was a city of 23,000 residents in the Manawatu, Mr Linklater added, which had built up its business through the people of the surrounding country, but it had persistently refused to come into the Power Board area of which it was a component part ; “It seems to me,” added Mr Linklater, “that the Government should end this intolerable position by taking over the whole of the electrical undertakings in the Dominion and running tliem in the same way as the Post and Telegraph Department.” The member for Manawatu admitted that the suggestion would not be liked by city members, who would strenuously oppose it ill Parliament hecaii6o a great deal of revenue was derived by the cities from the electric undertakings. It was grossly unjust that densely, populated areas should be allowed to work apart from the country districts, for as a result some farmers had to pay power board rates when they could never get the power supply owing to the cost of reticulation. Fie hoped the matter would be- discussed at the Power Boards’ Conference, at which he believed a report of a farreaching nature would be placed before its members. NO SUPPORT. AT AUTHORITIES’ CONFERENCE.

WELLINGTON, Sept. 13. A loud chorus of “noes” came from the majority of delegates to the Electric Power Boards ’and Supply. Authorities’ Association of New Zealand conference in Wellington yesterday when Mr P. G. Guy, of the ManawatuOroua Board, referred to differential treatment between town and country in electrification. He made an appeal for the nationalising of electrical undertakings in the country, but a remit to this effect received very little support. “You all know and see the different factions working against the people's interests in the majority of parts of New Zealand,” he said. “You will understand the situation, in which tho cities are pulling against the country and the country against the cities. . . The system wo have at the present time is no good to either side; Our board thinks the time has come when the Government should nationalise the whole affair. “With that done there will be no divided interests and no particular parts will suffer. You will see by this morning’s paper that the Wellington City Council will spend £175,000 on a stand-by plant extension. The opinion of the majority of people in Nejv Zealand is that in the near future it will be over-capitalised, and then wo will have the trouble we have in other industries where money has been expended and no return can be seen.”