NEW PLYMOUTH GAS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 16876, 25 October 1920, Page 2

NEW PLYMOUTH GAS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Apropos of the recent increase in the price of gas by the local gas company, surely it is a case of adding insult to injury. For a long time now consumers have cheerfully.(?) paid full rates for a large quantity of hot air that passed through their meters, and now with no guarantee of a better article the company raises tlie price by decreasing the discount. T understand that this company’s charter was granted a great many yoats ago, and the treatment that the company gives its consumers is causing many of them to wonder if the charter should not he treated as a scrap of paper. It would be interesting to the public to know the share capital of the company, also the dividends paid and another interesting item would he whether or no the capital has been diluted (watered) as much as the product of the company. According to the report of the annual meeting of the company hold last August the chairman m his address congratulated the shareholders on the fact that the past year’s working had been very satisfactory. I presume that he spoke only of the shareholders’ interests without considering the consumers who furnished the necessary funds to enable a profit of £3553 13s to be shown on the balance-sheet. A fair, day’s work for a fair day’s -pay is reasonable, hut an increase of price for a vastly inferior article and service is neither' reasonable nor just. The consumer. like the heathen Chinee, is exclaiming “Whaffor?”—Yours, etc., F. JULIAN.