HYDRO-ELECTRICITY

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11162, 18 March 1922, Page 7

HYDRO-ELECTRICITY

PRIME MINISTER VISITS TEKAPO SCHEME CONSIDERED EXCELLENT. PER PRESS ASSOCIATION. TEHARU, March 17. Afr Massey visited Lake Tekapo today, accompanied by the engineers of the Public Works Department. The Prime Minister was met here by about 300 representatives of agricultural and pastoral industrial interests. The object of that invitation was to impress the Prime Minister with the potentialities of Tekapo as a source of electricity, and to convince him that reports of experts were correct; that. Tekapo offers an easy, safe, and cheap,' source of power. After inspection of the river, whioh it is proposed .to harness, the details of the soheme were explained, and' a number of speakers expressed a strong desire that the Government authorise a provisional Power Board to proceed. Mr Massey received the statements and arguments sympathetically. He said the scheme seemed to him, as a layman, an excellent one, particularly as no dam was required. In his opinion there would be no power available for South 'Canterbury from the Lake Coleridge for the next fifteen or twenty years, as North Canterbury would want it all, but .before he could say “Go ahead,’’ he must consult his colleagues. He promised to do this as soon as possible, and he hoped to be ! able, as a result of that consultation, to send a wire conveying a favourable reply., Mr Massey went on to the Hermitage. He .returns to-morrow, and catches the boat for Wellington.