CHARGES FOR ELECTRICITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24607, 15 May 1941, Page 12

CHARGES FOR ELECTRICITY

ro THE EDITOR

Sir, —Your footnote to my letter in Saturday’s Daily Times cannot evade the point that Dr McMillan and all Labour candidates are pledged, if they are returned, to give the domestic consumer a reduction in his price for electricity. Your correspondents cannot controvert the fact that the engineer’s analysis gave the wage costs of electricity as .1423 d per unit and the selling price at .8460 d ner unit. It can therefore be seen that, in spite of the 40 hours week and the increased wage, the wages cost is less than 17 per cent, of the selling price. Or if one takes the production cost as including material, canital charges and wages, then the wage cost was only 21 1-3 ner cent, of the total cost. All Mr Moss’s ingenuity will not disprove the fact that the gradual expansion of the industry is such that wages costs, in spite of increase in rates or reduction in hours, assume a gradually smaller proportion.' Reduction in costs must be looked for not in wages but in capital charges. The interest paid b-r the Electricity Department for '1941 was £46,885. the . Renewal Fund contribution £46,030, the Sinking Fund contribution £43.043, or a total in capital charges of £135,958. Mr Moss should tackle those capital charges which reveal why the citizens no longer proclaim their belief in the day when Dunedin will be a rate-free

city. How could it be when such an annual toll is exacted from one department?—l am, etc., J. E. MacManus. tWe have omitted from the above letter some reflections on the Drainage Board’s and Transport Department’s accounts. Mr MacManus will have the opportunity of developing them in his public addresses. —Ed., O.D.T.]