SHANNON SCHEME TO PRODUCE POWER ADVANCES RAPIDLY

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6889, 20 April 1929, Page 11

SHANNON SCHEME TO PRODUCE POWER ADVANCES RAPIDLY

LONDON. “The greatest industrial undertaking ever attempted in Ireland,” was the description given to the Shannon electricity scheme by George Fletcher in a paper on “The Shannon Scheme and its Economic Cansequences,” read by him before the Royal Society of Arts recently. Mr Fletcher outlined the scheme for utilising the water power of Ireland's longest river to produce electric current Progress, he said, had been so rapid that it was hoped that a supply of electricity my overhead high tension 1 transmission would be available by nest October. The Irish Free State was not an industrial country, and the exploitation of water power was late in coming so that it would be a bold step to try to prove the scheme mathematically successful, but Mr Fletcher himself considered that its economic success was assured. The industrial revolution had driven the agricultural population in England from their farms into the flourishing manufacturing towns, but in Ireland there had been no industrial towns, for them to go to. Coal, Mr Fletcher said, was present in Ireland in considerable quantities, but the seams were small and unecon : omical to work; in fact prices at the pit-head were almost double what they were in England and Wales. Peat, which was used as a substitute for domestic coal, had a promising future. But the difficulty of procuring suitable and sufficient fuel would be overcome by the supply of cheap electric power. Mr Fletcher considered that a vigorous industrial revival was esential in the Irish Free State to prevent further emigration. “To-day,” he said, ''there are as many Irish in America as there are in Ireland.” Electricity, Mr Fletcher maintained, would play an important part in agriculture, provided adequate propaganda was used to illustrate its many uses. In conclusion Mr Fletcher said that the success of the Shannon scheme would encourage further undertakings on other Irish rivers with prospects of a great revival of prosperity in the whole country*