PUBLIC WORKS DEBATE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 15742, 6 February 1922, Page 5

PUBLIC WORKS DEBATE.

THE MINISTERIAL' REPLY. HDR O - ELECTRIC POWER AND MATN ROADS. Replying at, the conclusion of the debate on the Public Works Statement, the Minister of Public Works (Air. J. G Coates) said the railway policy of the Government had not been abandoned, whatever might be. asserted to the contrarv Cornell l rat ion bad been increasin', ‘ The Government- recognised that mm of the last things it might do was to hinder the prosecution of essential works The votes for certain railways had been criticised, but some of them had been designed to provide relief for unemplovme.nl, and to provide such relief at places where it would be fair to ask men to go. It would hardly be j,m( t( , ask men in the far south to go ii'dil, to the north for work, and the Government, bad taken the responsibility of making arrangements with proper regard to Inis. , , , i Turnin'' to the subject ot hydroelect rie "power. the .Minister said: “The more one studies the reports of Afr. E. Parry and the more criticism one hears in regard to the schemes he lias laid down, the more convinced one becomes of the soundness of the Doliev of that, gentleman. T say unhesitatingly that we in New Zealand cannot go wrong if wo stick to the policy that’ho has laid down. Take the 'North Island; take Mangahao; 1 do not think anyone could ask for better progress than lias been made there "T understand the programme is up'to date,'and that- is the main thing. A r ou have Mangahao, Waiknremoana and Arapuni for the North Island. The advantages of those schemes have been attacked. T think it- was suggested that we should allow local bodies to develop local schemes. Well, it can bo readily understood, if von allow' that the bigger schemes will be delayed many years longer and the advantages' of the bigges schemes are roughly these:. First, there is the ‘diversity factor’: then more power can be * developed for proportionalh a smaller amount of capital, and tin operating costs are smaller, in proportion to the power generated. The big schemes have -the advantage of making powei available for largo, development of industries. , . “W'se foresight was shown when Mr. Parry laid down the. scheme and the Govern pent adopted it. One if told, and will be told many times, that in other countries other systems have been used, but. take a conn try like Sweden: There, they have developed hydro-electric power for many years, h'ul they do not understand, nor have they bad the experience in. high-voltage work. It- lias been. low voltage they have worked, and small schemes. With the 110.00 voltage scheme it if possible to transmit the current, without standby plants with absolute security from one or other of the three big powei stations in the North Island. “Now. with regard to Lake Cole ridge. Plans and specifications' are being prepared for the ultimate development bringing the station tip another 12.000 h.p., but before w'e get to that, we must have the tunnel. That : s a question Hint has to be decided pretty soon. To the gentlemen whe sav we have hung back and not produced power, I wish to say that during this last year we have spent more than two and ’ half times what has beerspent in any previous year on hydroelectric development. ” The Afinister’s final words were on main roads. The Government, had nol drooped the main road project, he 'said, though it had not had time tc deal with the matter this session. If was proposed as soon is the session ended to get into consultation with the executives of the Comities’ Confer enee. the Automobile Association, and the Good Roads Association, and t< endeavor to remove and difficulties that might exist. He noticed that members of Parliament were by nr means unanimous on the main road? question. He had no intention of trying to force through anything that wn r not. acceptable. That would be only r wnste of time. He hoped it would hi possible to hit upon something straightforward on which all concerned would be piactically agreed.