The Daily News TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1929. A SOUTH TARANAKI POLL.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 September 1929, Page 8

The Daily News TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1929. A SOUTH TARANAKI POLL.

At a series o£ meetings of ratepayers and by means of newspaper correspondence during the past two or three weeks the South Taranaki Electric Power Board’s proposal to raise a loan of £187,500 has been discussed pretty thoroughly. . On Thursday the ratepayers in the board’s district, comprising the borough of Hawera and the counties of Hawera and Waimate West, will be given the opportunity at a poll of deciding whether the board shall be permitted- to proceed with its scheme. If the result of the poll is favourable the board will have authority to purchase the business of the company which is now supplying electricity to a portion of the district, to extend the lines in the Waimate West area, and in other ways to improve and develop the service that is at present available in South Taranaki. The voters upon- whom lies the respon-

sibility of deciding the issue should be by this time sufficiently well informed to be able to give their verdict. Much has been said and written concerning the ..company’s policy, the service it has given, and the profits it has made, while the board’s plans have been examined just as closely. Every ratepayer who has devoted serious thought to the very substantial mass of information placed before him has probably made up his mind as to whether the business of supplying electricity in South Taranaki, which the company admittedly has carried on efficiently and with profit to itself, can be handled with equal success by a public body representing the people. From this aspect the project has, no doubt, been thoroughly canvassed, and there is no need now to go into its details. Our purpose to-day is to mention the wider significance of the poll. It is only four years since the South Taranaki Electric Power Board came into existence, but its chairman, Mr. J. B. Murdoch, has been pointing out in his addresses that public control of electricity service in the board’s district was contemplated by the Legislature some twenty-seven years ago, when the present company was empowered to operate until certain local authorities might decide to acquire its undertaking. At that time New Zealand knew little of electricity, but in more recent years remarkable developments have taken place, and in every part of the Dominion the control of the great public utility which has been established has been held firmly in the hands of the people. The policy which is now pursued so consistently has not been a haphazard growth. The State has undertaken, the harnessing of the Dominion’s great natural endowment of water-power, which belongs to the whole of the people, and it has decided, with obvious reason, that the distribution of the energy derived from this public property is properly the task of the people themselves. The result is that a very large proportion of the people of New Zealand to-day are enjoying, the benefit of efficient and cheap supplies of electricity. The question for the ratepayers of South Taranaki to decide on Thursday is whether they shall range themselves alongside other communities throughout the country which adhere to a settled public policy. It seems to us that they will follow the course of wisdom if they take a long view of their responsibilities. The point at issue is not whether the company could give good service if it were permitted to carry on, nor even whether the board if it had the opportunity could give better service than the company. The question is whether the people of a populous and important area of South Taranaki should take back into their own hands powers which are properly theirs. Either they must assert their right 1;o handle their own business or they must give a private concern monopolistic, rights over an ever more valuable and extensive public service. Ratepayers who are willing to look ahead and envisage the effects that their decision will have in years to come will not hesitate to cast their votes in favour of the board’s proposal.