THE SUPPLY OF ELECTRICITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13095, 7 February 1906, Page 4

THE SUPPLY OF ELECTRICITY.

The Auckland manager of the Waihi Gold Mining Company, in an interesting interview with a representative of the New Zealand Herald, has given full and definite information concerning a scheme by which the company hopes to be allowed to utilise the Hora Hora Falls in the generation of electrical power for use at the great Waihi mine. As will bo seen from this interview, which appears in another column of this issue, the company asks the Government for permission to erect at the falls a large electrical generator, with a capacity of some 4000 horsepower, fro'n which the electricity will be earned by wire a distance of 50 miles to the mine at Waihi and the batteries at Waikino. As the use of electricity would prejudice the Waihi-Paeroa railway through reducing the amount of coal now hauled, the company proposes to secure the Railway Department against loss by guaranteeing a freight bill for the haulage of 20,000 tons of coal per annum. To avoid any suggestion of attempting a monopoly, the company further proposes that the Government shall have the right to acquire the electrical plant at any time at an advance upon the cost of installation of four per cent, per annum during the period of erection. In other words, if eighteen months were occupied in erecting the plant the Government could acquire it by paying £106 for every £100 expended, which is simply enough to protect the company against loss, and just what the Government itself would have had to pay were the plant erected out of loan money. Further, if the Government acquires the plant, the company undertakes to pay £6000 per annum for 2000 horse-power, which is estimated to pay four per cent, upon the capital cost with working expenses. This proposal must be regarded as an essentially practical one, advantageous to the company because it will enable the mine to be further developed and its output considerably increased, advantageous to the district because it will lead to the employment of hundreds of additional men at high wages, and will otherwise increase the volume of earnings and trade, advantageous to the public revenues because of the large contributions made in the shape of taxes, rates, and general business made by the mining industry, and advantageous to the Government in giving, without cost and without risk of monopoly, a grand demonstration of what can be done in the application of electrical power to industrial purposes. It is very plain that the Waihi Company has carefully considered the question, and has foreseen every possible objection, for it is not easy to see how any opposition can be raised to this generous and enlightened proposition. It is getting on for three years since the Act reserving to the Government the power-generating water rights of the colony was passed, and nothing has been done to supply power from national plants. We do not suggest that very much could have been done in the meanwhile, for State Departments necessarily move slowly and reluctantly, and the Government has got as far as an expert report—where the matter now remains. A practical and actual demonstration, such as the Waihi Company offers to make, would do more to encourage and hasten State enterprise than any theories or any opinions. If the Waihi Company can harness .the Hora Hora Falls and apply the electricity generated by their plants to industrial operations fifty miles away, we shall not only have an ob-ject-lesson more valuable to us than any of the plants in America or Europe—for it will be at our doors, not on the other side of the world—but we shall all know what it aetual'v costs to produce electrical-power in New Zealand. Regarded as an ex-

pcriment alone it would be most:, deserving of encouragement, but as a demonstration of what competent engineers and capable managers knowcan be profitably undertaken it is the very thing we want. There is only one objection which might have been raised—that it is private enterprise. And though even this might have been defended—for why should the State play dog-in-the-manger and prevent private individuals from doing what the State is not yet even attempting to do .'—the company has made any defence quite unnecessary by leaving it open to the Government to acquire their proposed plant at any time for the bare cost. We cannot doubt that the Government will be willing to meet the Waihi Company on the scheme which has been drafted, and may therefore hope to see electricity applied f o industrialism upon a large scale by the New Year of 1908.. And we hope that Mr. Seddon will then be able to travel by an all-rail route from Wellington to Waihi to open an installation that will mark a new era in the industrial history of the colony.