Supply of Power to City Council

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 68, 22 March 1935, Page 6

Supply of Power to City Council

GOVERNMENT’S POLICY QUESTIONED

WELLINGTON, March 20

A series of questions concerning the proposed new agreement, with the Manawatu-Oi'oua Power Board for the supply of electricity bv the Government was asked of lion. J. Kitchener. Minister of Public Works, by Mr J. A. Nash, in the House of Representatives to-day. Mr Nash asked whether the agreement provided that the Lioaid shall take the whole of its supply trom the Public Works Department and shall not permit any local authority, company or person supplied by it to supplv power from any other generating plant for use outside the premises in which it is located. ‘•lt does,’’ replied the Minister. Mr Nash’s second query was as to whether the Minister would inform the House of the contents of a letter sent to December 13 suggesting a penal method of charging the City Council' of Palmerston North for power. “This is apparently a letter directed to tho department which I have not been able to peruse in the time a\ailable,” was the Minister’s reply. The third question was whether the penal method had been suggested in furtherance of a scheme of the Mana-walu-Oroua Power Board to force the city to sell the whole of its electiical undertaking to the board and thciebj compel the citizens of Palmerston North to obtain their individual supplies from the board at a higher piicc than they were required to pay under the existing conditions, being the scheme for the furtherance of which an attempt was made by the board to strike a rate which would have been collected by it. unless an injunction had been issued by the Chief Justice in the case of the Palmerston North City Corporation v. the Maanwatu-Oroua Power Board. The Minister's answer was: “I don’t think so.” Mr Nash, in a final inquiry, asked whether the Government’s policy was to further the board’s scheme and so impose excessive costs for electricity on urban authorities and, particularly, if it were a matter of Government policy, whether that policy was local or general’. The Minister replied that the Government’s policy did not involve the method suggested, but it was in favour of joining the operations of power boards and municipal electrical undertakings.