THE BOROUGH LIGHTING SYSTEM.

Patea Mail, Volume XLV, 21 February 1921, Page 2

THE BOROUGH LIGHTING SYSTEM.

The .stale of affairs in connection with the Borough lighting system is still far from satisfactory, the town having been plunged into a state of darkness far too often of late to be pleasing to the consumers of electric current, and particularly those who are in business in the toAvn. It is high time that the matter of the gas plant Avas gone fully into at a special meeting, not by the Electric Light Committee, but by the Avholo of the Councillors, who are equally responsible to the ratepayers for the efficient Avorking of the municipal undertakings. The failure of the light, particularly on Saturday nights, is intolerable, and steps should be taken fortliAvith to end or mend the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. No private individual or corporation Avould tolerate the state of affairs that has existed in connection Avith the local gas plant of late. We Avonder if the directors of the West Coast Refrigerating Company, for example, or those of the Baton Farmers’ Co-operative Freezing Company would bo satisfied to carry on from day to day not knoAving Avhcn their plant Avas going to fail them? We do not think they Avould tolerate such a position as exists with regard to "the Borough Borough Lighting system for twentyfour hours, but would see to it that they obtained Avhat they required in the way of pOAver Avithout delay. At first, when the local gas plant failed, the bolt avus blamed; later on it was the quality of the coal; and later still the lack of coal, that Avas put forward as an excuse. What the ratepayers Avant, howcA'cr, is not excuses, hut results. The time is more than ripe for an oxhaustiAC report to be obtained from the highest authority in the Dominion on the whole of the lighting system. Ratepayers whose property the plant is, and who arc depending on its efficiency to a great extent for their prosperity, Avould ’then know what they are entitled to knoAV —the exact position of affairs, in place of haA'ing to accept excuses from laymen. At present there is too much darkness and far too little light about the Avholo affair.