POWER BOARDS

Southland Times, Issue 20791, 4 June 1929, Page 9

POWER BOARDS

THE THREE CLASSES. HOW THEY FUNCTION. (Nineteen Twenty-eight Committee.) At the recent annual conferences of the Electric Supply Authorities both Mr H. F. Toogood, of the engineers' section, and Mr H. J. Beeche, a delegate from the Waikato district, took the Nineteen Twenty-eight Committee to task for having criticised the trading'-activities of some of the electric power .boards. Mr Toogood cast his reproaches in a conciliatory vein. Having assured the conference that he was not at all apprehensive of the Government taking any action as the result of the committee’s representations, he reiterated the old, old formula which pronounces that “power boards and other supply authorities have entered into trading because there was a pressing need for them to do so, and because of the inability of ordinary trading concerns to supply the demand in the best interests, of the authority and the consumer.” Having delivered himself of these apologetic phrases, Mr Toogood hastened to explain that “in certain cases in closely settled areas, the trade has been able to cope with the demand,” adding “but jn general

throughout the rural areas the only way to get the load we require is to sell the consumer the equipment to use the current.” Here, of course, is the whole secret of the power boards’ domination. In certain cases in closely settled areas, the “ordinary trading concerns” may be allowed to do business; but in other areas, and particularly in rural areas, the power boards, free from land and income taxes, free, in many cases, from local rates, free from statutory obligations, free from State interference, and free from the payment of current rates of interest, must have the field to themselves. Mr Beeche in his indictment of the Nineteen Twenty-eight Committeee was more discursive than Mr Toogood had been and, if one may say so without giving offence, less coherent. After reciting more or less accurately what the committee had done and said and implied in regard to the trading methods of the power boards, he admitted, according to the newspaper reports of . his words, “that he was not in a position to state whether any boards did specialize as stated and restrict or prohibit the use of other appliances, but certain results .of unfair trading were claimed, and it would be as well to ascertain if these claims were justified.” At the conclusion of Mr Beeche’s indictment the conference very properly decided by resolution to “collect information which would

combat the statements of the Nineteen Twenty-eight Committee.” Meanwhile it surely is passing strange that the members of the Electric Supply Authority Engineers’ Association, assembled in Wellington two months after the publication of the latest of the articles to which they take exception, had not ascertained whether the suggestions offered by the committee were justified or not. At this late stage they are going to “collect information.” Perhaps in the circumstances it would be more convenient to the executive of the association if the discussion of thia matter were deferred for a week or two in order that it might make itself acquainted with the facte. The case is sub judice, so far as the association is concerned, and no doubt both Mr Toogood and Mr Beeche would be glad of a further opportunity to study their briefs. It is essential that they should at least know something about the attitude of the committee. Towards this end it may be helpful to the two gentlemen immediately concerned to quote briefly from the article in which the views of the private traders were expressed. “The boards fall naturally into three classes,” it runs. “Firstly there are boards which confine themselves strictly to their intended function of supplying power; then there are those which, in addition to supplying power, sell a limited variety of

electrical apparatus and fittings, and, finally, there are those which enter into aggressive competition in all branches of electrical trading No exception can be taken by the private trader to the operations of the boards included in the first of these classes. On the contrary, their attitude is greatly to be commended. The boards comprising the second class persuade themselves that they will increase the consumption of electricity by themselves selling certain articles of apparatus. The third class of boards function on a basis which throws their policy into the sharpest contrast with that of the other two classes In a word, they usurp the functions of the private traders without conceding any of the privileges to which they are entitled as a public body.' In addition to accepting sole agencies and absolutely refusing to grant any recognition to competing lines, they maintain show rooms for. all classes of electrical goods and supply their own wiring installations. This is the policy which the Right Hon. J. G. Coates, as Prime Minister, described as ‘intolerable,’ and which the private traders regard as a flagrant breach of every tenet of fairplay and justice.” It will 'be time enough to discuss the grievances of the Electric Supply Authority Engineers’ Association when they are more apparent than they are at the present time.