Public Opinion

Southland Times, Issue 23001, 22 September 1936, Page 5

Public Opinion

Letters sent to the Editor for printing must be written in ink on one side of the paper only and writers must send in their names and addresses in full, whether they wish these to be printed or not. Writers must say clearly whether or not their letters are being, or have been, sent to other papers. The Editor cannot return or keep any letter which, for any reason is unsuitable for printing, nor can he acknowledge unsuitable letters, although this will be done where it seems to be needful, or enter into any correspondence about letters sent in. An asterisk attached to the signature to a published letter denotes that some portion has been deleted by the Editor, a right which is exercised in questions of public policy, libel, good taste and fair play. -

To the Editor.

Sir, —I am very pleased that Mr Carswell has studied my figures and to have his assurance that the board will have to rate for from £55,000 to £60,000. This means a loss of Southland money. Now Mr Carswell also admits that we are converting our loan in London at 96. Taken on amount converted, this means another loss of over £50,000. Mr Carswell argues that this only increases the interest charge over the period, which is wrong as should our security have been considered a desirable one, we could still have got the money at 3J per cent, and at par (£100) with no loss of £4 in the hundred. Again we are going to pay £11,500 per annum for 18 years as exchange which amounts to £207,000. Mr Carswell argues that the Labour Party said it would bring down the exchange rate. So it would have, but we know that it now finds this impossible, while Australia continues to keep the rate up. However, to give the scheme the benefit of the doubt, let us halve the exchange and say our loss by this source would be £lOO,OOO. Mr Carswell quotes the £500,000 cash in hand which Mr Nash said was gone. He says the London loan was reduced by £168,000, £50,000 was used to pay off our overdraft in London. (Ratepayers will note that the Retention Committee has kept the quiet pedal on this dead loss); £16,411 is in the hands of the Public Trustee and £90,000 was invested in a separate account in the National Bank, and now Mr Carswell lets us into another secret. He says, “The balance of the £500,000 (£175,000) will pay for the loan conversion expenses, also the exchange on the remittance of any moneys which have been or will have to be remitted to London in connection with the conversion.” Fancy we Southlanders having £500,000 cash in hand and parting with £175,000 of it as exchange and costs of conversion. At the end of 18J years we will have to pay exchange when we remit our loan money, £1,332,000, back to London. Again I will be generous and allow exchange at, say, 15 per cent., not 24) per cent, as at present. This will amount to £199,800.

Summarized, these losses will be:— £ Rates 55,000 Loss by conversion at 96 50,000 Exchange interest over loan period 100,000 Exchange on repayment of loan 199,800 £404,800

Now the Government’s offer to take over the scheme saves us this enormous amount. I don’t think that Mr Carswell will even dispute these figures. If he should, I would like him to place his estimate opposite each heading. Mr Carswell makes a statement refuting figures quoted by me. All I can say is that he is not trying to check them. I quoted the revenue for sale of power taken from Local Authorities’ Hand Book, 1929-1936 issues. Mr Carswell says they are wrong and quotes total revenue, excluding rates, a totally dif - ferent matter. His amount includes deposits on ranges, sale of bulbs, etc. Now I know Mr Carswell likes a sporting offer. If he can show that my figures relating to sale of power and rates collected as referred to in recent letters are wrong, I will pay to the Southland Hospital Board £lO and if I can show that his figures are wrong, he will pay the same amount to the Hospital Board. I invite him to give me his reply. I note that at the beginning of the campaign, Messrs Smith and Farrant made another challenge regarding rates, which the Retention Committee has also not taken up. Messrs Smith and Farrant consider that £200,000 will be rated for in the next five years. The Retention Committee first of all said there would be no more rates after next year. Now we have Mr Carswell’s statement that the board will have to rate for £55,000 to £60,000, but the committee is afraid to take up the challenge at even under £200,000. Surely they have very little confidence in their own judgment. I still maintain that Southland will have to pay over £200,000 in deficiency rates. Mr Carswell states that this does not compare with the estimate by Mr Nash, who said that the least we would have to pay would be £115,000 —quite a different statement. Another question Mr Carswell might answer is, why does the Retention Committee advertise with reference to a probable loss to the City of £15,000 per annum, when Mr Nash told the public that the Government had no intention of taking over the city reticulation? The town ratepayers can take my word for it that we will be on much better terms by buying from the Government in bulk than we ever were buying from the Power Board. Most of us well remember the £3600 per annum which we had to pay the Power Board under a threat that we would be charged a special rate, should we refuse. This referendum is of tremendous importance to Southland and either means making or breaking the district. Remember the £500,000 in rates we have paid away over the past 12 years and don’t take any further risk.—Yours, etc.,

H. RITCHIE. Invercargill, September 21, 1936.

To the Editor. Sir, —We are now well within sight of the closing date of the referendum, and many thousands of votes have already been cast. We feel, however, that a last-minute reminder is necessary for those who have not yet exercised their great privilege, and we wish to urge upon these ratepayers the necessity for action, remembering that if it had not been for the efforts of the Ratepayers’ Committee in circulating the petition throughout the district there would have been no referendum, and the Southland Electric Power Board would have continued on its way, vainly hoping that by some magic wand the Monowai Scheme would be transformed from an expensive liability into a paying asset. We affirm that only by magic art could this be brought about. In the face of stem reality it cannot be denied that the Monowai scheme is an expensive liability for the following reasons:—(a) Over-capitalization; (b) adverse exchange rate; (c) increased sinking fund; (d) creation of renewal and depreciation fund; (e) abnormal mileage of reticulation in proportion to the producing capacity of the headworks and the needs of the province.

During the past six or seven weeks we have placed before ratepayers, through the Press and the platform, statements and figures in explanation of the foregoing facts. None of our statements or figures have been combatted. Therefore we hold that our expressions of the truth are unassailable. , We wish to thank you, sir, for the

unlimited amount of space you have allowed in the correspondence columns of The Southland Times to both parties. You could not possibly have been fairer. We congratulate you, too, for the manner in which you have, in the face of most unwarranted personal attacks, preserved the dignity of your position and the reputation of the paper you serve. We regret that the Retention Committee has published statements from the platform and in the Press that, in our opinion, have tended to mislead the ratepayers and to cloud the issue—such statements as that warning the city ratepayers not to risk losing the profits on electricity. During the debate over the air the Hon Mr Nash made it quite clear that the matter of the city’s handling of current was no concern of the Government and had nothing whatever to do with the issue. It is well known that the Government has no intention of increasing the price of bulk supply to the city. Similarly, the references to the gasworks and the trams have no bearing on the subject. The issue of an alleged referendum paper by the board has perhaps tended to mislead also. We can safely claim that we have fought fairly and squarely, and out in the open. All of our figures and statements were carefully checked by experts before we published them. We have made no gas attacks, neither have we conducted a whispering campaign. It is well for ratepayers to note that when speaking in the debate Mr Nash said that his objective was to give the people of Southland two units of electricity for the price of one. By passing the Monowai scheme over to the State we will be freed immediately from all rates, meter rents, and liabilities, and the price for the supply of current will be immediately reduced, with further reductions to follow. On the other hand if the scheme should be retained we can be sure of substantial rates right away and for all time. Moreover, the price of electricity will remain at the present absurdly high cost with no hope of relief. The issue is not one of sentiment; it is a matter of £.s.d. We conclude this letter with a reference to the costs of the campaign. So far as we are concerned we are depending on voluntary donations. We have asked in vain for the chairman of the board to explain whether or not the expenses of the Retention Committee are being paid by the board out of ratepayers’ money. At the time we asked the question we pointed out that the cost of the circulars and postages would be in the neighbourhood of £212. Added to this amount are further costs of meetings, advertising, travelling, etc., amounting in the aggregate, we should say, to approximately £6OO. In view of the fact that our inquiry has not been answered we can only assume that the ratepayers’ money is being used to fight against what we consider the ratepayers’ interests. Is it not time that such happenings should cease? In our opinion there is but one course open to those who have not yet voted, and that is to declare in favour of the State taking over the Monowai scheme, and to vote at once without further delay. We issue this appeal in the interests of all the ratepayers and consumers of electricity with the full assurance that we are in the right. On behalf of the Ratepayers’ Committee.—Yours etc., H. J. FARRANT J. W. SMITH Invercargill, September 21, 1936.

To the Editor. Sir, —At the outset it may be appropriate to say a few words concerning remarks appearing in Saturday's paper over the signature “Anti-Pothole,” Kennington. In It he says: “We may safely assume that if the Government’s offer is rejected it will approach us with a much better offer,, in the near future.” Where is his sound authority for such a statement? We understand that Mr McChesney has had an interview, or, perhaps, a great lecture out there. We do not care one half cent what Mr McChesney said or didn’t say out there, or anywhere else. He is free, to the usual extent, to speak. We are just as free to burn his speeches as they appear, which we do. Little change has been made in the roads, or streets or fences about Kennington for the last 20 years. Perhaps “Anti-Pothole” will stir himself and his neighbours up to some active, beneficial work. Talk alone won’t make good roads or fences. Gradually now ratepayers will perceive why the writer has warned them again and again about being cautious. Don’t all be “potholes.” Vote for the Government’s offer while yet you have time. You have no better offer by a long, long way.—Yours, etc.,

EARNEST JACK.* Invercargill, September 21, 1936.

To the Editor,

Sir, —The Hon. Walter Nash has said and written 'much to prove to us that the Southland power scheme is a very poor business, that the Government does not want it, and that, naturally, he can’t make a very good offer to purchase it. At the same time, it is really astonishing the amount of energy and ability he is expending in running the risk of “acquiring” it. As Mr Nash does not want the scheme, he won’t take it by force (even Southlanders might fight if he tried that) so with the assistance of some loyal Southlanders we have the referendum. To win votes the bait used is the oldest and deadliest known to this sorrowful world —something for nothing: no more rates, no more meter rents, etc., etc. ad lib. Well, I for one will not be surprised if there are votes enough fished up to turn the trick for the smartest member of the present Cabinet. All the same I don’t think there will be too many monetary reformers biting just now!

To those who described the Government’s first (and supposedly final) offer as “wonderful,” “generous,” “amazing” etc. it must have come as a shock when the Government (faced with the board’s refusal to sell on those terms) made a still better offer. Such a “facer” would certainly have sobered and silenced the present writer, but it appears there are people whom nothing will silence as long as they are physically able to talk. Mr Nash says his sole purpose is to help the Southland ratepayer, but surely it is not necessary to take away our power scheme to do that? Suppose he were to reduce the sinking fund to 2 per cent.? That would allow the board to carry on without rates of any kind, so allowing the people of Southland to produce for themselves (at cost) one of the most valuable and most marketable necessities known to our generation. I know the law requires a sinking fund of over 4 per cent, so that the money will be available to repay our loan on due date of maturity, but I also know that if this law did not suit the Government very nicely in the present case they would alter the said law at a moment’s notice.

Would you care to venture the opinion, Mr Editor, that a 2 per cent, sinking fund would not fully meet all the requirements of the Power Board at the time of the maturing of its present loans? I understand that the whole of the board’s liabilities are well inside the £2,000,000 mark, and that we have roughly half a million in the sinking fund to-day. If 2 per cent, were paid into the sinking fund from now on, in 1954 we would have roughly £1,000,000 in liquid cash ready for the day of settlement. In addition to this, if Monowai were extended where necessary, we would have a plant and business worth £3,000,000 on to-day’s values. If then the board is unable to handle a debt of one million pounds it will only be because another world war has broken out and another civilization has become extinct. Some people talk as if they expected to wake up some fine morning and find all our power ; lines down and all our machinery worn

out, but, as a good farmer keeps up his fences and adds to his machinery as the years go by, so will the Power Board add to and improve their lines and plant; and it.is only reasonable to think that in years to come this will be one of the finest assets in the province of Southland. I wonder how many can envisage what it would have meant to Southland if the whole of our frozen meat trade were owned by the producers as a co-operative business —no dry shareholders and all the profits coming back to the people who produced the goods? Well, we have missed that chance (and no blame to those who started the business, and finally saw it pass into other hands). But it will be far otherwise if we miss the chance we have to-day. This electricity business lends itself so naturally to co-operative ownership and is in itself a commodity that is going to be more and more, and still more valuable as the years go by. As to those who would sell the scheme out of hand to save themselves a little rates —I would rather be a dog and bay the moon, than such a Southlander. Yours, etc., . NON-RETICULATED. Otara, R.D., September 21, 1936.