THAT STEAM PLANT.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18257, 16 August 1921, Page 9

THAT STEAM PLANT.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —An article in the “Chronicle” the other day headed “We’ve got it.” In it the following occurs: “Is it not clear that it would be good business to “cut our losses” now, sell the plant at a sacrifice.” Does the writer realize that there is a slump on, an'di does he realize that business men in all trades are being forced to make big sacrifices now that they are compelled, many of them, to sell their goods for what they can get, goods, too, that are in every day use! But a costly steam plant, I am afraid, will be a serious affair at the present critical time. The writer goes on to explain what a lot of money the steam plant will cost, and also what a small amount hydro will cost. Had I been writing on the subject I should have tried to show, not only the capital cost of the two schemes, but their productive capacity ana their reliability; the cheapest may not be the most reliable . and, on that account, may be the dearest in the end. Is hydro power always the cheapest? In the Homeland steam power is the rule and in Leeds, my native city, they can sell electric power as low as one farthing per unit; what is the lowest cost of hydro anywhere in New Zealand’ I read in your paper a short time since of a gas plant similar to ous that had been running 16 years and was still efficient. At the Atlas Flour Mills, Tiniaru, there ! ts a steam engine and boiler in work to-day which were installed 32 years i ago and both are running at the 1 present time as efficiently as ever and very few stoppages have occurred in all that time and, if needed, would : go 32 years more. In the year 1874 I was driving a steam engine made by Bolton and Watt of Birmingham in the year 1821.—that is 53 years; I was on a visit to Leeds in 1906 and that good old engine was still on the job after 85 years good work and I have reason to believe she is still on the job. Of all prime movers I believe there is none to beat the steam engine especially so as a standby to supplement a hydro scheme. The writer says:—“But if you were negotiating this proposition for your own private business, wouldn’t you make the existing power plant serve that purpose? Of course you would!” But the existing power plant, if some of the experp are to be believed, is unreliable and may be disabled at any moment. “If you had spent £lO,OOO or £12,000 within the past few months In fixing up your existing plant, you would want your engineer to tell you the reason why he couldn’t carry on with it for a few years more, wouldn’t you?" That the present plant has cost so much on repairs In [ a few months is, to me, ample evi- ( deuce of its unreliability. Of the difficulty of raising the money the writer says it is “Simply because the Borough will be financially unable to find the money for hydro." Finance is the great bugbear of every local body and always will be so long as they continue to raise the.r capital by borrowing it, it is impossible to be otherwise. Is there a single business man on any local body, and they, as a rule, are elected because of their good business knowledge, who could prosper entirely on borrowed capital? Borrowing is a ruinous game whether done by an indlI vldual, or a local body, or even by a government. It Is because of the borrowing habit of the people’s representatives that we are suffering this terrible slump. Think of it.—l am, etc., E. WOOD.