The Sun THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 1914. LAKE COLERIDGE POWER.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 24, 5 March 1914, Page 6

The Sun THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 1914. LAKE COLERIDGE POWER.

The City Council and 6ther local bodies that sent representatives to see Mr Fraser yesterday regarding' the sale 1 ofliake Coleridge electricity have little reason to be satisfied with the Minister's reply. If Mif Eraser were a merchant instead of a sheep-farmer and a politician, he would know that there, is a rec'ognisfed custom; in business circles that protects a retailer from being undercut by a wholesaler whose goods the retailer has agreed: to stock. •The retailer is a necessary distributing agent, and if he were frozen out of business owing to the of the wholesaler, the latter wquld find business at a standstill also. As far as the Lake Coleridge scheme is concerned, it Vill never do if Government and the City Council take up the 'attitude of rival business firms, solely concerned "with making a profit regardless of what happens to the other fellow* We can sympathise with Mr Fraser , s : desire to the general taxj>byers^ ; . interests and to see that the Government does not make a loss on the Lake Coleridge enterprise; but the general •taxpayer/'who is also a payer of local rates arid taxes, will not find .much satisfaction in a departmental' profit if it is obtained at the expense of a municipality which, as the result of Government competition, has-to recoup its losses by raising this rates. The chief point the Minister made in defence of his attitude was tjfciat the local authorities ? might not be dbLe to handle the that they wbuld not bq ina position to . act satisfactorily distributing agents. ;We ( .fail .to see they should not be as competent s to do so. as the Government. Some of the smaller local authorities might have difficulties, but there need be «no fear as far as the city is concerned. Nor do we see any good .reason why boroughs like Woolston and Riccarton should not invite the city to put in the necessary reticulation and supply light and poyer vithin their boundaries f It is only a matter of time when th<?se boroughs will be merged in the city, and situations such as the present merely emphasise, the need " foas amalgamation. Whatever is decided", upon, the local authorities concerned should not accept the Minister's reply as final. If the Government wants to-take the best customers for power at a eut rate," the local authorities might very well propose that the Government should take the lot. Mr Fraser's suggestionthat the local bodies are anxious to make a .profit -out of the scheme is quite uncalled for. As Cr Taylor explained,. the Council has fixed a scale of changes that may result in a small profit, but it is problemajticai.. , The Council has no previous experience to go by, and we know very well from the history of municipal undertakings that a public authority is detected ill the'.'act of making a profit, the discovery iV invariably Followed by an agitation for reduced charges. In fact, it often happens tHafc the benefiting by municipal services anticipate .the earning of profits with demands of this description. The Government will do well to go further into the question and see if it cannot 'meet the local authorities in a more reasonable spirit. It should riot be difficult to co-ordinate the interests of the State with those of the locfcl bodies, and unless an attempt is made to do so, friction" and ill-feeling is sure to be generated along with the electricity, and the street lighting will not be any brighter on that account.