The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND MONDAY, JUNE 23, 1930 MORE ABOUT ARAPUNI

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1005, 23 June 1930, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND MONDAY, JUNE 23, 1930 MORE ABOUT ARAPUNI

THERE is greater necessity than ever for an early and a thorough investigation of the serious conditions at the Arapuni hydro-electric works. Rumour is busy with a hundred forked tongues, and wild talk is smothering wisdom. The latest reports about the idle enterprise show that the Government has failed, as usual, to realise its responsibilities and exercise them in the right way. Three Labour members of Parliament have been permitted (it is not clear that they were commissioned) to visit the works and inspect, among other things, an exploratory tunnel for the purpose of determining whether its condition was a menace to the workers employed in it. Apparently, the tunnel, on the authority of Mr. R. Semple, M.P., undoubtedly as good a tunneller as ever blasted a drive into any kind of ground, is not dangerous for workmen. More than that, on the same authority, the work of exploration is to be resumed with confidence. If that process of investigation and method of decision really represent the Government’s mind on the subject, it is clear that the Administration has not complete faith in its own engineers. The advice of practical men, irrespective of their lack of certificates, need not be despised, but when their opinions take the form of political expression, it is long past time for administrators and engineers to assert themselves, and thus avoid humiliation and ridicule. Soon enough, and probably without much advantage to the country, the politicians will be in full cry over the abrupt cessation of electrical service at Arapuni, but surely it is too early yet for any member of Parliament to denounce the whole scheme as “sheer madness from its inception,” and to dismiss the tentative remedial proposals of the engineers as “stupid in the extreme.” If the actual circumstances deserve such comment, then the most responsible engineers should prepare to pack their kits and faro fortli in search of new and less exacting enterprises. A Ministerial statement on the disquieting position is needed without delay or any possible desire to hide anything or to shelter anybody. Neither expert nor inexpert opinion can obscure the pathetic fact that Arapuni lias lost its activity, and will remain in expensive idleness for a long time. It may be proved by eminent investigators that the enterprise from the outset was “ill-starred,” and a “mad mistake.” That question must be left to the future. In the meantime, the withdrawal of Arapuni as a gigantic source of electrical energy for the greater part of this province has created a perplexing problem for the main ElectricPower Board who had been distributing hydro-electric power and were depending too confidently on its supply. They are now called upon to grapple with the necessity of not only overworking their existing stations for generating electricity, blit of installing additional plant at enormous expense. The Government does not appear to be much in sympathy with the harassed boards who, through unforeseen “faults of Nature” at Arapuni, have been betrayed into an extravagant predicament. How far should the boards go in reverting to complete self-reliance and spending more public money on the installation of steam or oil-fuel plant for generating electricity? Has the Government any idea at all as to the prospective duration of Arapuni’s failure? The power boards concerned are outside the widest possible range of blame, if any, for the serious collapse of the Waikato hydro-electric scheme, and now they are compelled to forget about Arapuni for the time being and go ahead on their own resources as though that sorry enterprise had never been in existence. In order to serve current needs and cope with the ever-increasing demand for electricity the boards must take action at once to obtain adequate generating plant. This is an exceptionally serious position for the Auckland Electric-Power Board, and it should press Ihe Government for a plain and an immediate statement of the State’s plight and prospects at Arapuni. So far, requests for a conference have not secured a helpful response. Such an attitude cannot be defended. The Administration should exercise complete frankness and ready co-operation. Arapuni is out for a year, at the least, and an expert inquiry by eminent engineers may extend the period of its inactivity. The tongue-tied Minister of Public Works ought to make an effort at plain speech.