EXPERT FOR ARAPUNI

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1026, 17 July 1930, Page 1

EXPERT FOR ARAPUNI

SWEDISH ENGINEER TO COME TO N.Z.

HIGHLY QUALIFIED FIRM

THE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Wed.

An eminent Swedish electrical engineer is to be enlisted by the Government in the investigation of Arapuni. He is Professor P. G. Hornell, of Sweden. Today the Prime Minister issued the following statement: “Since the Government had decided to obtain the services of a highlyqualified engineer to inspect and report upon the Arapuni hydro-electric works, inquiries have been made through tho High Commissioner for New Zealand in London and the president of the Institution of Civil Engineers in England with a view to obtaining a suitable man. As a result of theso inquiries the Government has decided to appoint Professor P. G. Hornell, of the eminent firm of Swedish civil consulting engineers, Vattenbyggnadsbyran. This firm has carried out some 400 hydro-electric development schemes, and has reported on some, approximately 2,000, totalling 3,500,000 k.w., with heads up to 3.000 feet. It claims to have had experience in the construction of dams on difficult foundations in Sweden, Finland and Russia, up to 150,000 h.p. The firm was established in 1902 and has a staff of 50 technical experts. Professor Hornell has been a director of the firm for 20 years and adjudicates for it on all serious difficulties. He is a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Scientific and Industrial Research, Swedish Government expert on the League of Nations Transit and Communications Committee, and chairman of the League of Nations Committee on Water Power Development. Professor Hornell is to be accompanied by an experienced assistant, and is arranging to leave Southampton on July 25, arriving in Wellington on August 25.

“NO POLITICAL CAPITAL”

MR. FORBES’S STATEMENT THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter PARLIAMENT BLDGS.. Wed. A contradiction of the suggestion that attempts were being made to make political capital out of the Arapuni power scheme was made by the Prime the Hon. G. W. Forbes, in the House today> when speaking during the Address-in-Reply debate. He characterised the failure of the plant as a national disaster and said that the first essential was to take measures to combat that difficulty. The Leader of the Labour Party, Mr. H. E. Holland, asked if Mr. Forbes would make available to the House all the papers and information on Arapuni. and Mr. Forbes replied that nothing would be held back from the members. A Royal Commission, he said, could settle the question of who had blundered, but the question at present was how to set the plant running again. (Hear, Hear!) Mr. Forbes believed that all concerned had done their best in the way of brains and ability for Arapuni, but that point could be investigated after.