PRICE OF GAS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9778, 29 September 1917, Page 7

PRICE OF GAS

THE WELLINGTON POSITION. TO BE REFERRED TO BOARD OF TRADE. Mr R. Fletcher, M.P., asked the Prim© Minister in Parliament yesterday afternoon what ho proposed to do about,..the high price of gas in Wellington. It was announced in the press,’ he said, that the price was to bo increased by Is 3d per thousand feet.' If the people were getting a good quality gas they would not mind bo much, hut the Gas Company had a monopoly, and did as they pleased. Mr Massey replied that ho would refer the question to the Board of Trade. HIGH PRICE AND LOW QUALITY. Later Mr Fletcher again referred to the announcement that the price of gas is to be raised in Wellington. The price of gas, he said, was a serious item in the cost of living, especially to the working classes. He had called the attention of the Minister for Internal Affairs some time _ ago to the high price and low quality of gas in Wellington, and the Minister had referred the question to the National Efficiency Board, the chairman of which was the managing-director of the Wellington Gas Company 1 They had never had good gas in Wellington. The Government, he held, should standardise the gas throughout the Dominion. A member: “Municipalise it.” Mr Fletcher said that the City Council had taken stops in that direction some years ago, but the Gas Company, which had ho soul above dividends, asked such a high price that it whs impossible to go any further. The Government, therefore, should standardise the gas. and also see to it that the meters were right and that the people were getting what they paid for.’ Many of the meters were very old, ' and, he thought, unreliable. It had been said that it was impossible to standardise gas: but it was done in many places at Home, and surely, therefore, it could be done here. (Hear, hear.)