NATIONALISATION MOVE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19454, 13 October 1937, Page 13

NATIONALISATION MOVE

ELECTRIC POWER SCHEME DOMINION POSSIBILITY SUBJECT FOE CONFERENCE (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. Three power board conferences are sitting, in Wellington this week, those of engineers and secretaries and the main conference of members of power boards and supply authorities of both Islands. The most important question for discussion this year is the possibility of a move towards the nationalisation of power generation and distribution which will be brought before the main conference on a report from a special committee set up by the engineers at their conference last year. No definite statement that nationalisation is intended by the Government has been made, but the matter is considered of sufficient importance to warrant discussion. The secretaries' conference opened yesterday. Mr. J. A. Nash, the president of the main association, said that the year had been a strenuous one as a result of legislation which had made the position difficult for power boards and supply authorities. He was disappointed over the failure to register a power boards employers' union, but the fault lay not with the association, but with those supply authorities which had not shown interest in the proposal. He also regretted that the superannuation bill had not been proceeded with, and hoped it would be passed this session. Among the remits discussed and adopted was one urging that legislative authority should be given for the raising of loans for consumers' work without a poll as far as ordinary reticulation and extensions were concerned.