POWER BOARDS' FUNCTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18207, 28 September 1922, Page 6

POWER BOARDS' FUNCTIONS.

A touch of imagination, and an eye to future good no doubt animated the Te Awamutu remit to the Power Boards' Conference asking for authority to acquire land for tree-planting. The need for poles will be constantly recurring. It would be higWy beneficial if the boards had a supply of their own at command. With all this in favour of the idea the advice given by the Minister for Public Works was unquestionably sound. The first function of the Power Boards is to distribute current as speedily, efficiently, and economically as possible. All care should be taken, as the Minister said, to inspire in the public mind complete confidence in the boards as the agents for supplying power on a retail basis. To achieve that end the boards have a sufficiently onerous task in front of them without looking too far ahead for the present If, after expert investigation by the Forestry Department, it is shown that the boards can profitably engage in the task of providing poles for their own use, it will then be time enough to consider ways and means. If the proposal from Te Awamutu had been taken up immediately there might have been a temptation for some boards to diffuse their energies over too wide a field before the more elementary tasks facing them had been grappled with thoroughly. When, in future, the electric supply system is running smoothly, when current has been conveyed to every quarter where it can be used to advantage, then the boards may well consider new enterprises. In the meantime, as the Minister said, their task is to carry on the work of reticulation and to inspire in the public complete confidence in the soundness of the system.