CITY COUNCIL’S ELECTRICITY SCHEME

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIV, 13 December 1921, Page 2

CITY COUNCIL’S ELECTRICITY SCHEME

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—lt is indeed plowing to note from your reports of 1.1 o Council meetings that. our City Fathers, including the .Mayor, are taking up tlie question of a municipal scheme of electric light and power with evident growing enthusiasm, If this growth can ho fostered and developed during the next few weeks, they-ought to be aide to inspire and infuse, even the mediaeval and rale bogie obsessed members ot om 1 local l!ai(-payers' Association. who so far appear to be like "fh’or Rabbit "lying low and saying nnflin on Hus absorbing and all important topic ol vital interest- to this city. It is to be hoped that the.flavor and t mined "ill speedily compile in attractive lonu all :he available information oi the work ing of other municipal electric plants hi cities and towns of this dominion, and speedily set before the people, in concise and catchy phrases, the successes achieved. and the many uses arid advaid-ages of electricity in the homes, industries and streets. This can and ..should be done by n well directed and liberal us© of the local press, and by leaflets, and ibe fullest- possible use he made of Councillor SuitpU’s offer-of his-two picture screens, to inform and_ inspire ;he people in favour of thifc enlightened and up to date method oi light and power, and what- it can do for our far famed city. The citizens should ho informed as to the prospective basis and method of charges for lighting, cooking and power. In some places it is charged at different- rates, for each, in others it. is n flat rate per month, use us you please. The citizens should have it impressed upon them, the saving to the rates that- the use of electricity' for drainage, pumping and other Council purposes including street lighting, will bring, and tin- vast improvement- itwould make- in the latter, such as would wipe out the reput,'ition we have, ,as “tho worst- lighted place in N(\w Zealand." Fsiirnates should also be. prepared and set before the people, showingdearly f l lo cost that will lie entailed by rejection of this soli emu, in the great additions, to the gasworks and plant that would he incurred to cope with the present and prospective demand., with far !es« hope of making this department and unsatisfactory method of light pay its own way.. We should also have it clearly impressed, upon the citizens, the worse, than mad folly it would be, to allowing any dividend hurling Company under so-called private enterprise to exploit the people, by providing a- worse service and charging higher rates to assure dividends, and the placing of a millstone handicap on the community and a. future "live” aSounci! who find it necessary, in the interests of the com-munity-to buy out a worn out plant at enormous inflated cost. Councillor Nightingale, our scion of anti-municipal enterprise, recently asserted "that the provision of electricity by private enterprise was linding considerable favour and increasing adpption in the Old Country. The writer has travelled the old land in the north, east, south and western areas, and as a keen advocate of municipal services, I have failed to find any communities that were satistied with their electric supply under private enterprise. Many have allowed such to get a foothold, and have had to pay dearly when it was found necessary to get the system under municipal ownership grid management. It may be true that companies ha.ye been formed 10 generate electricity in immense quantity and supply town and village councils in bulk, over wide areas, which as a method of saving the. cost of separate plants may prove of advantage. As in (he, ease, of Lake Coleridge and other big plants out here. The dale of the local poll for or against the scheme adopted ny our City Council, will, with Christmas and New Year holidays intervening, quickly be upon us, and it behoves the City Council to make haste in securing all possible information, and attractively placing the same before the citizen’s irorn the platform, in the. Mail, and on the picture screen, and thus by a wisely educated and inspired public sentiment secure sanction for (his the greatest. boon chat can he conferred on this city’s present and future ■ citizens, f am etc.. TilK MAX’ A ROUT TOWN.